How Pros Build Motivation Into an Effective Financial Plan (SB1659)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show – "How Pros Build Motivation Into an Effective Financial Plan (SB1659)"

Release Date: March 21, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

In episode SB1659 of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG delve into the intricate relationship between motivation and effective financial planning. The episode, featuring expert guests Jesse Kramer and Dana Anspach, explores strategies professionals use to keep clients engaged and motivated towards achieving their financial goals.

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Main Discussion: Motivation in Financial Planning

Challenges in Motivating Clients

The conversation begins with Joe highlighting the prevalent issue of maintaining client motivation within financial planning. The hosts discuss how financial plans can often feel abstract or overwhelming, leading to client disengagement.

Joe Saul-Sehy (03:14):
"I really want to talk today is motivation. Like how do we keep people motivated?"

Dana Anspach shares her experiences with client resistance, noting that many individuals prefer simplistic approaches like "just investing" rather than comprehensive financial planning.

Carrot vs. Stick: Approaches to Motivation

The hosts debate the effectiveness of positive reinforcement ("carrot") versus negative reinforcement ("stick") in motivating clients. Dana expresses a preference for the "stick" approach, using realistic fears to prompt action.

Dana Anspach (19:02):
"Susie Orman's example was like, let me instill a little bit of fear and anxiety into you about the downsides of what could happen if you don't act."

Conversely, the discussion acknowledges that while fear can be a strong motivator, it must be balanced to avoid alienating clients.

Sports Agent Analogy

Jesse Kramer introduces an analogy comparing financial planners to sports agents, emphasizing the importance of building trust and acting as a supportive team member rather than an aggressive salesman.

Jesse Kramer (15:27):
"Just like a sports agent, your goal is to have you succeed. But by the same token, I've got to tell you that if we keep doing the thing we're doing, we're not going to get where you want to go."

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Tracking and Monitoring Financial Plans

Importance of Tracking Income, Expenses, and Net Worth

The conversation shifts to the critical role of tracking financial metrics. Jesse emphasizes the necessity of monitoring income, expenses, assets, and liabilities to maintain control over one's financial health.

Jesse Kramer (48:06):
"You need to have a place where you can track your income and expenses... and you need to track your net worth."

Dana reinforces this point by outlining the essential components of financial tracking, including creating a balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Correlation Between Tracking and Saving

Referencing research from the American College, the hosts discuss the strong correlation between regular financial tracking and higher savings rates. Joe highlights impressive statistics demonstrating that individuals who frequently monitor their finances tend to save more effectively for retirement.

Joe Saul-Sehy (48:50):
"People who track save more for retirement. Yes, quite a bit more."

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Trivia Segment: Junk Fees Percentage

Mid-episode, the hosts engage listeners with a trivia question about the percentage of a ticket's cost attributed to "junk fees." Participants OG, Jesse, and Dana make their guesses, with Jesse correctly estimating the percentage.

Trivia Question (30:10):
"What percentage of your ticket to see Joe Lewis would have been attributed to junk fees today?"

Jesse Kramer (35:12):
"I'm going to go with 25% flat."

OG (37:56):
"Oops, Jesse’s our winner with 27% junk fees."

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Emotional Conversations with Clients

The episode delves into the emotional dynamics between financial planners and their clients. Jesse shares anecdotes highlighting the delicate balance between being passionate about clients' financial well-being and maintaining professional boundaries.

Jesse Kramer (43:12):
"I've had those moments where I was just so adamant and they weren't a super high net worth household, like this was going to make a meaningful difference for them."

Dana adds that delivering hard truths calmly and factually can foster trust while ensuring clients are aware of potential financial pitfalls.

Dana Anspach (25:12):
"Deliver it calmly and you stick to the facts... I have a few clients suffering... I want them to know the truth."

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Keeping Clients Engaged and Responsible

The hosts emphasize the importance of client ownership in financial planning. Jesse discusses strategies for encouraging clients to take responsibility for their financial decisions, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the financial plan.

Jesse Kramer (15:27):
"When you say it, it's propaganda. When they say it, it's gospel."

Joe underscores the significance of open communication and regular check-ins to maintain accountability.

Joe Saul-Sehy (54:18):
"It’s not just about having extra or not having extra, it's being in charge of what you're choosing to spend money on."

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Upcoming Resources and Activities

Towards the end of the episode, guests promote upcoming webinars and books. Jesse Kramer announces his forthcoming book, "Living off Your Acorns," which outlines strategies for the different phases of retirement.

Jesse Kramer (58:42):
"It's going to be called Living off Your Acorns, your guide to the four phases of retirement."

Dana Anspach mentions her webinar on creating a retirement income plan, encouraging listeners to visit SensibleMoney.com for more information.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a lighthearted recap of the discussion, reiterating the key points about motivation, tracking, and maintaining a proactive approach to financial planning. The hosts thank their guests and encourage listeners to engage with their resources for further financial education.

Joe Saul-Sehy (60:29):
"Thanks to Dana Anspach for joining us today. Head to sensiblemoney.com for more on Dana for practice and our upcoming free webinar."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Joe Saul-Sehy (03:14):
  "I really want to talk today is motivation. Like how do we keep people motivated?"

• Dana Anspach (19:02):
  "Susie Orman's example was like, let me instill a little bit of fear and anxiety into you about the downsides of what could happen if you don't act."

• Jesse Kramer (15:27):
  "Just like a sports agent, your goal is to have you succeed. But by the same token, I've got to tell you that if we keep doing the thing we're doing, we're not going to get where you want to go."

• Joe Saul-Sehy (48:50):
  "People who track save more for retirement. Yes, quite a bit more."

• Dana Anspach (25:12):
  "Deliver it calmly and you stick to the facts... I have a few clients suffering... I want them to know the truth."

• Jesse Kramer (58:42):
  "It's going to be called Living off Your Acorns, your guide to the four phases of retirement."

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Note: For more insights and resources, visit StackingBenjamins.com and SensibleMoney.com.

Transcript

[Joe Salciha]

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[Doug]

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[Jesse Kramer]

30 seconds to talk about flowers.

[OG]

These are for the guest for these mics.

[Joe Salciha]

Anyone have the promo for the show?

[Jesse Kramer]

Notes. Wait, where's the Fiji water? Is this. This isn't. Is this tap water?

[Joe Salciha]

15 seconds. I can't drink tap water. Can someone tell Joe's mom to stop vacuuming? It's not hard to find my hair gel.

[Jesse Kramer]

Artesian watered natural quiet on the set.

[Joe Salciha]

Live in 3, 2.

[OG]

Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and this week our focus has been sustainable Dynamic drive. How do you apply that drive to a great financial plan? And how do you create a plan that helps you consistently nail your goals? You'll leave today with a purpose fueled game plan to chase even bigger dreams. But that's not all. At the halfway point in today's show, our contributors will chase down the answer to my incredible trivia question. And now a guy who knows the best investment is friendship. Because it's the only one that doesn't tank in a recession. It's Joe Sal Se. Hi.

[Joe Salciha]

Hey there. Stackers or friends? I'm super happy you're here with me today because we have some friends who are going to hopefully help you with your money and help push you to higher and bigger things. Let's say hello to the man across the table from me right now. Mr. OG is here. How are you man?

[Jesse Kramer]

Great. Just finished my lunch. Pointed out in the chat already that I was eating rather quickly. Someone noticed so I just had to get that yogurt down the hatch and I'm ready to rock and roll.

[Joe Salciha]

He's all fueled and ready to go. You also rode a bike today.

[Jesse Kramer]

Did. Yep.

[Joe Salciha]

Podcast is like riding a bike.

[Jesse Kramer]

Just a bicycle.

[Joe Salciha]

And the guy who finds every podcast like riding a bike, of course. He's the host of the Personal Finance for Long Term Investors show. Jesse Kramer's here. How are you, man?

[Dana Anspach]

Hello.

[Joe Salciha]

Hello.

[Dana Anspach]

Doing well. Everything is good over here. And trying to think what's exciting is going on. I don't know. Just having some normal market conversations. It's lots of fun. Lots of fun.

[Joe Salciha]

Yes. We record these about a week early. It is sad. Jesse, we actually talked about this on the Wednesday show. How much consternation there is about something that if you're working from a machinery point of view. Right. We shouldn't, we shouldn't be talking about taking our money out of the the market. We shouldn't be talking about whether or not it's the time to get rid of our Tesla stock. Right. Is because is Elon done? We shouldn't be talking about gold. What else have I heard? Removing the money from our 401k. It's crazy, Jesse.

[Jesse]

It is.

[Dana Anspach]

There's a lot of, you know, I feel some empathy for people who say what's going on in the world is very concerning. To me, that's fine. Totally get it. It's challenging, but it is. The challenge is to separate those concerns about what's going on in the world against concerns that are going on specifically within the stock market. The world's always had pretty big concerning things. There's that Warren Buffett quote about world wars, pandemics, Great Depression, and yet here we are. And I think that's an important message to keep in mind during times like these.

[Joe Salciha]

I love that Ibbotson chart where it goes up into the right, you know, over the long period of time. But it points out all the reasons why you should get out along the way. Like that is. That is fantastic. And joining us again, I'm super happy she's back and she's walking her way to physical fitness while she's on the podcast. Dana Anspas here. How are you?

[Jesse]

I'm doing great. And I think I was a guest on this podcast about a year and a half ago when I first started this treadmill desk walking thing. I'm still at it. We are actually getting ready for a hike through the Swiss Alps this summer.

[Jesse Kramer]

Scoreboard.

[Jesse]

Yeah. It's going to be crazy. I've got a. Every Weekend I'm doing some serious hiking. And then during the week, here I am going away on my treadmill.

[Joe Salciha]

That is so cool. Why did you decide to do that?

[Jesse]

You know, my family did this trip. I was in my 20s. I had just started as a broker at Merrill lynch. And so I didn't feel comfortable taking time off. And I have regretted it my entire life. I had back problems for years. I couldn't hike, I couldn't pickleball. That's all better. And so I told my husband at the end of last year, like, I've always wanted to do this trip. It's 99 miles over 12 days, right through the Mont Blanc circuit.

[Joe Salciha]

Oh, my goodness.

[Jesse Kramer]

Wow.

[Jesse]

Italy, Switzerland and France. And so we booked it. We've been training every weekend since.

[Joe Salciha]

You're walking around the base of Mount what's the mountain?

[Jesse]

Mont Blanc is the mountain.

[Dana Anspach]

How many cigar breaks are there during your hike, Dana?

[Jesse]

Well, this is really. This isn't camping. So you get, you know, a nice place to sleep at night. Hot tub, tubs, meals, wine. So no cigars for me. But this is the way to do it.

[OG]

And they take your bags from one four star hotel to the next four star hotel for you?

[Jesse]

Yes, they do. You have to carry a day pack and rain gear and things like that, but yes, they take your bags.

[Joe Salciha]

Wow.

[OG]

Well, I hope you survive. I really do.

[Joe Salciha]

For people, for people who want to see more about this, by the way, Rick Steves actually did an episode of his, you know, Europe show where he talked about doing that. He did it for just, I think, three days. He did. But, oh, my goodness, Dana, it looked like so much fun.

[Jesse]

I'm excited.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, I'm excited that we're talking today about getting our financial house in order. At the same time, using this analogy of a sports agent, I love the idea that Molly Fletcher, as a former sports agent, kind of brought to the table yesterday. And I feel like, OG and Dana, you guys are CFPs, you work with clients all the time. Jesse, you're in a financial planning office working with clients all the time. So I really want to talk today not so much about the financial plan itself that we'll often get into on a Friday. What I want to talk about is motivation. Like how do we keep people motivated? How does this active financial planning keep people motivated? So that's the topic today, everybody. Before we get into that, though, we have a couple. We have a couple. I almost had a couple clients. We have a couple sponsors who make this show go so that you don't have to pay anything for all of this goodness. On Friday. Sit back for a couple moments. We'll hear from them. And then Dana, Jesse, Og, Doug and I get to talk about motivation in your financial plan. That can really take a toll on you. I mean, between minimum payments and interest rates, it's really stressful and at times it feels, and I've been here, like you just can't get ahead. Well, Navy Federal Credit Union understands debt's a huge stressor and they're here to help. Navy Federal Credit Union has all the financial tools and resources you need to dominate debt. Right now, Navy Federal Credit Union is offering a 0% intro APR on credit card balance transfers for 12 months. Here's the way. Use that stackers. First of all, you create your debt payoff strategy. You figure out exactly how that's going to help you because a 0% transfer for 12 months can save you a ton. But make that work for you. Plus, you can get $250 when you spend 20 $500 in your first 90 days on a cash rewards or cash rewards plus credit card again needs to be part of the overall plan. Don't let debt drag you down. Visit navy federal.org to start dominating debt today. Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. After the intro rate expires, variable APRs are 14.9% to 18% based on credit worthiness. Rates are subject to change. ATM fees for cash advances are up to $1 at non Navy Federal ATMs. Small business owners State Farms there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one, State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. State Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, let's jump into this. And Dana, we'll start with you. I used to get lots of results resistance to planning way back. I haven't been a financial planner in a long time, but I can't imagine this resistance has gone away. You know, I'd start talking about the financial planning process, about the fact that I want to set up milestones, about the fact that everything dovetails together. And I would have these people that would meet with me that go, let's just invest the money, like, can we just invest? That's what I'm here for, is to get that. I don't want to do all this extra, you know, mumbo jumbo crap. Or, you know, can't we use just rules of thumb? Like, that'd be much better. What's the. What's the resistance? People have to actually putting this down on paper.

[Jesse]

You know, we often can only think in short term increments as humans. It's hard to think beyond five years. And when you look back to your life 10 years ago. Right. It's probably completely different than maybe you would have thought. So I think that can contribute to the resistance as you were describing that. It reminded me of a client friend and CPA that I've worked with for years to try to get him to save more. I tried the hundred thousand dollar challenge, like build up 100,000 in liquid savings. That didn't work. Nothing really worked until now. He is, I think, 66 this year. And that retirement horizon is real. It's suddenly real. And that is changing things. So I think of it as like, you really have to have something you're planning for. Just like my upcoming hike. Like, we are committed to getting in shape and hiking because we have to be ready. And so financial planning for retirement, especially when you're younger, it's like so out.

[Joe Salciha]

There, so far away.

[Jesse]

Yeah. It's hard to make it real. So you just kind of feel like your sentiment you expressed, oh, let's just put the money away and invest it. I don't really know what I'm planning for.

[Joe Salciha]

I feel like it's so much. Jesse, listening to what Dana's talking about is really finding clients. You know, I don't know if it's pain point is the right word or finding really what, the carrot of the stick or whatever. You just came out of a client meeting, I think five minutes before we went live today. How much of that meeting today was about behavior?

[Dana Anspach]

That's a good question. How much was actually about behavior? Not a ton. Just because these particular clients, I think, are as far as we would, you know, those of us speaking here on this podcast, we would say they're pretty well behaved. They're. They're doing a lot of the things well in terms of whether it's saving, investing, staying the course now during, during a challenging market, all. All those kind of things. But in general, I so empathize with everything Dana was saying and just the, the whole idea behind the question, which is one of the hardest parts, whether it's us Working with clients or just the stories that I hear on the. The DIYer forums. And that stuff is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. If there is a magic potion of overcoming that hurdle, I mean, sign me up, because I feel like for each individual person, there's a different type of motivation or a different trigger that gets them to start to drink that water.

[Joe Salciha]

But let's talk about the efficacy og of drinking the water, so to speak, to use Jesse Kramer terminology, if I'm leading them to the water. I mean, clearly, if. If they thought financial planning, the idea of planning everything together, planning for the future was important, they would want to drink that water, Right? So how do you describe to people how drinking the water, so to speak, is going to be better than let's just invest? Or using a rule of thumb, like, what's the thing to get them moving?

[Jesse Kramer]

Since we talk so much about planning, we don't really run into too many folks that just want to focus on one particular thing. I will say, however, that quite often people have a particular issue that's going on. And Joe Duran, who ran United Capital for a long time, he was on a podcast one time and he said, it's amazing to me how many advisors will go into their spiel with a potential client and the client says, I've got this really big issue I want to deal with. And they go, yeah, yeah, cool. Let me tell you about how great we are. Let me tell you about all this stuff we do. And they're like, yeah, but I got this one problem. I really want to help. Help with this one problem. And the advisor's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. But let me tell you about all this other stuff that we're going to do. And it's really, you know, it's kind of this yin and yang or this struggle between advisors trying to show how smart they are and their clients or consumers who are like, no, I just got this one problem. And I think it's our job to recognize and validate that problem, solve it, make sure there's productive tension around it. That's the way we talk about it. So people don't make good decisions when they're stressed, and people don't make good decisions when they're in apathy, but they'll make really good decisions if they're at a level of productive tension around a particular issue. And if they're already there, solve that problem and let them know that there's all these other things that are going to happen because of that. I think the piece that most people don't really recognize in financial planning is that just because, you know, your taxes are all screwed up, you go, I just need. I just need to get my taxes fixed. And then we can do that other stuff. To your point, Joe, of like, I just want this one thing is, it's like, we can address this, but to not pay attention to how this affects your cash flow is silly. And to not. And to think. And to think we can solve your tax problem and not recognize that it's going to affect your estate or your estate planning or it's not going to affect your retirement plan. You know, this is ridiculous. We have to know how these. All these things are interrelated so that we make a good decision for the overall thing. And bringing that to clients, I think, and bringing that recognition of. I understand your concern. I understand what's going on in your world, and I'm totally committed to helping you fix that. Also, we need to know what these other things are going to do, these other areas of financial planning. When you pull this one lever, what are these other dominoes that are going to fall or these other levers that are going to get pulled just because of the one thing you're working on.

[Joe Salciha]

Does that resonate, Dana, is that similar to how you talk to clients?

[Jesse]

Yeah, I mean, that definitely resonates. Everything in financial planning impacts all of the other things. We all work with different demographics, so we work with people who are 55 and older who are near retirement. I wish they would start planning earlier, but they don't. So they often do when they're younger, have that one thing, as Josh was saying, and then, oh, that leads to this, and that leads to this, or I think of my own experience. So I was just at a conference, and I think it was the prudential booth that had they age you 20 years and print out the picture and show you what you might look like. So they've said that it was terrifying.

[Jesse Kramer]

Joe's picture is just skull and crossbones.

[Joe Salciha]

I'm right here, man. I knew that was coming sitting right here.

[Jesse]

But it's supposed to get you thinking about the future you. But for me, I was saving for retirement and doing my own financial plan because I didn't want to be a hypocrite. Right. This is what I do for a living, so by golly, I better do it for myself, too. But I had an experience last fall. My husband and I were in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and it was the first time I Usually I take three days off and I'm bored. I need to get back to work. Right. Like, I'm just itching to go. But we had day 13 and I was like, I'm not ready to go home. Like, this has never happened to me before.

[Joe Salciha]

Wow.

[Jesse]

And it was the first time where I could at least see myself retired one day. Like, have a vision of what retirement life might be like. And it has completely changed my attitude, even toward my own financial planning, because now I have something, a positive, something I am saving for. Whereas before, it just felt like I love work and I still love work, but I just couldn't even see, like, what retirement could be. So that shift for me, I think sometimes that has to happen when it comes specifically to retirement, so that you are actually working toward a positive vision that you're excited about.

[Joe Salciha]

It's funny how, you know, the whole carrot versus the stick thing. Dana, I saw the Susie, the Susie Orban talking about something I really, really liked, and it was much more of the stick. She said, I hear all the time from people, I can't save for retirement, I can't do. She goes, here's what I want you to do. I'd like you to close your eyes and imagine yourself 65 years old and you have done nothing. How do you feel now? And this 35 year old's like, I gotta start saving, like, now. I gotta do it. So to your point, though, sometimes I think it's the carrot, sometimes it is the stick. But Jesse, do you find it hard to. I mean, let's stick with the stick for a second. Do you find it hard to apply one or the other? Like, do you find that with your clients it's mostly people that like the carrot? And so you get to spend all day feeding carrots to people, or are you cracking whips all the time in your office? I don't even know if I'd like that analogy.

[Dana Anspach]

But one of my personal challenges is that on the one hand, I do think the stick works better. I think, you know, that that Susie Orman example was like, let me instill a little bit of fear and anxiety into you about the downsides of what could happen if you don't act. And then that's going to motivate you to act. And so in my experience, just like that tends just more people, I think will respond. They will respond in a way that is in their best interest if you give them a little bit of stick. The problem though is I think of people like, I don't know if I'M allowed to, you know, really like, call people out here. But the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki.

[Joe Salciha]

Oh, let's call out Robert Kiyosaki, please.

[Dana Anspach]

Kind of call him out. Right. If you follow him at all. And kind of, especially over recent years, his social media presence, he is like the fear monger in chief. And his business model is, if I can scare you, then I can sell you my book, sell you my course. And that to me is like a despicable way of going about things. So it's kind of about, to me at least it's about talking about realistic fears, realistic sticks, and then hoping that ends up being a motivating factor to get someone to take action that's in their best interest.

[Joe Salciha]

So let's go to the sports agent analogy then. OG you know, if you have to apply the stick at all, I mean, a. With the client, how do you let them know I'm on your team and my goal is to have you succeed. But by the same token, I've got to tell you that if we keep doing the thing we're doing, we're not going to get where you want to go.

[Jesse Kramer]

I think that there's a couple of things here. Firstly is this all has to come from a position of trust and mutual respect and you earn that over long periods of time. You can talk about it at the beginning of a relationship. And this is true for financial planning advisor relationships. This is true with couples. This is true with your kids. This is true with your business associates. You earn the ability to kind of preach the good news and be straightforward when you demonstrate your level of care for them over long periods of time. If you start a relationship, if you start, if you go to the gym and you're like, okay, so I don't really know what to do. And the trainer's like, you are so fat, it is unbelievable. You are going to die an unhealthy death. And you know, you're like, bro, chill. Like, I got it. You know, like, that is not a good way to start. But if you're working out for a year and there's just no progress and your trainer goes, look, man, something's going on here. You know, you're either not lifting the things you say you're going to do or you're eating unhealthy. Can we unpack that a little bit? Because I'm frustrated for you because we've been working together for this period of time and I, I would have thought you'd had some progress here. And so I think that's true when you're looking at your financial plan too. The other piece is people have to own it. If you say to somebody, hey, I think your plan sucks and it's going to, you know, fail miserably, like, okay, cool, that has very little weight to it. But if they say that their plan sucks or they recognize that it's on the wrong path or going trending in the wrong direction, that has a lot more weight. I don't know who said this, and this sounds like maybe like a zig ziglar thing from like 1987 or something. But when, when you say it, it's propaganda. When they say it, it's gospel. You know, when you own that, when you say, yeah, you're right, I am eating unhealthy and I need to get, you know, I need to rein that in. Like now you have, you have ownership of that, right? That's now your situation, that's not somebody else's. And I think that's how we would approach that is where do you think we might have made a mistake in this calculation? What do you want to see different? To kind of change the trajectory here? And here are my non negotiables. I'm not going to kill you sooner, you know, we're going to make you live to 100. I can't prove. You can't prove to me you're going to die at 80 to make the plan work. What other variables do you want to work on here? Because there's no right answer to it, but let's work together as a team. And I think that's a way better approach than coming in and going, you're super fat and your arteries are clogged and you're going to die soon.

[Joe Salciha]

How much of this Dana is just holding up the mirror?

[Jesse]

It's hard to say. You know, the people who are working with financial planners already clearly want a plan. Right?

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah.

[Jesse]

I like the analogy of builds up trust. And what can you say after a year or two? It's interesting because I have found that oftentimes when people aren't working toward the plan, they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing in terms of hitting their savings targets. There is something else going on. In one case, it was somebody who had. They knew a big inheritance coming one day, but they just never mentioned it. They weren't comfortable mentioning it because it didn't feel like a good thing to mention. Right. And yet it was real. So in their mind, saving for retirement wasn't a priority. In another case, it was a couple.

[Joe Salciha]

But withholding that, hold on a second. But withholding that information is going to change your relationship with them?

[Jesse]

Well, it might change my. Mostly it's going to reduce my anxiety is what it would have done.

[Jesse Kramer]

Right?

[Jesse]

Because I'm over here like, oh my God, like you're going to be, you're not going to make it retirement. So it would have made me feel a lot better to know that. But you know, people are uncomfortable with those kinds of things. Sometimes they don't feel like it's appropriate to talk about, you know, someone passing away. Sometimes it's cultural, you know, their culture just, you know, that's not an okay topic to bring up. In another case, it was a couple who, a few years into working with them announced they were getting divorced. So it made sense, right? They just couldn't get in line on their financial goals. It all became clear like, okay, no wonder we couldn't get them hitting these targets. So you just, you never really know what's going on with someone. I think that can be great for listeners who aren't working with someone to think like, what is it that's holding you back? You know, if you've gone through that exercise, Susie Orman exercise, what's it going to be like at 65 and you got nothing? What is holding you back right now?

[Joe Salciha]

I think that's a great question because I, I mean those open ended questions allow the client to explore. I do feel like, Jesse, before we go to the halfway break here, I feel like people get disappointed in the financial planning industry when they don't act enough like a sports agent, like somebody who's like, listen, I'm trying to get you more money. I'm trying to be on your team. I'm trying to be the guy that gets you more of these contracts, more of this exposure. I'm trying to make your life better and you're not helping me. I feel like a lot of the time the financial planner is worried about coming across as too aggressive and yet I feel like the thirst ever since I've been over here on the media side is. No, no, I want you to be more aggressive with me. Tell me what, what you think.

[Dana Anspach]

You remind me, Joe, of one of our founders here who's now 65 and he started his firm when he was, when he was 30. In your wisdom, you remind me in.

[Joe Salciha]

Terms of any better.

[Jesse Kramer]

Jesse, that is fantastic.

[Dana Anspach]

He's got blue glasses as well. No. Something he told me really early on when it was I kind of asked him because he's a very calm and like, thoughtful individual. And I asked him how he delivered bad news or hard news. And he basically said, you deliver it calmly and you stick to the facts and you tell them if they say on their current trajectory where they'll end up. It can be a very kind of empathetic and factual conversation. At the end of the day, you do have to have that. Whether it's tough love or simply a matter of the example. That just sticks out to me so much because I have a few clients suffering. This is simply withdrawing money too quickly. There are some clients where I've had this conversation many times with them, just factual and just even though, you know, hey, markets have been good and so your portfolio is actually fine. But if you continue to withdraw 15% per year, here's what is almost assuredly going to happen. But at the end of the day, this is your money. And so if you really need this money right now for a new boat, I'm not going to tell you. No. But I am going to tell you every time you ask me for boat money, I am going to remind you I'm mad.

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm just disappointed.

[Dana Anspach]

And it's not even like, I hope I don't come across as disappointed either. Right. It's just a matter of my job is to be the third party truth teller, whether good or bad. I don't want to pass judgment on them, but I do want them to know what will happen. I do want them to know the truth.

[Jesse Kramer]

As I see it, Jesse brings the hammer in meetings. I can, I can just see him be like, can you eat a boat? Are you planning on eating this someday? Because that's what's going to happen. You better like fiberglass. You're worried about microplastics? Wait till you have to eat half a boat for dinner.

[Joe Salciha]

That sounds very effective and motivational. We're going to come back in the second half. Dana, you brought to the tables. We were discussing this topic. A great piece about the value of writing it down. I want to dive into that again. That's not just going to be about financial planning. It's also applies to fitness and everything else in your life. I also have a piece about sports agents that I'm going to use to kick it off. But before that, two things. I want to say hi to everybody hanging out with us on YouTube. We started half an hour early and we still got some nice people here. Dan's here. And a guy who calls himself the man in charge. I always thought that Was OG who was the man in charge. But apparently it is this, this person. The man in charge wants to know, can OG say something nice about Doug? We'd all love that, wouldn't we? Would we?

[OG]

Would we love that Doug and waiting 14 years.

[Jesse Kramer]

I spent four, four or five days with Doug recently and the whole thing was me being nice to Doug. That was quite pleasant.

[Joe Salciha]

If I do people that didn't hear the whole show on Wednesday, you'll have no idea what we're talking about.

[Jesse Kramer]

But I mean, even then I was just like, yo, we're getting beers. What's up? Where are you at?

[OG]

Did you notice how he made it sound like it was a choice he had to make to be nice to me?

[Jesse Kramer]

Conscious effort is definitely a conscious choice. Like I wake up in the morning and rub my earlobes and I'm like, be nice to Doug. Be nice to Doug.

[Joe Salciha]

If you want to hang out with us on YouTube generally around 4pm Eastern on Wednesdays, you will find us maybe a little bit before but reliably almost every week around then if you want to hang out and say hello. But glad you guys are with us. Time for us though to take a little break here because at the halfway point of every Friday show we have this year long competition going on between our three frequent contributors, og, Jesse and the Paula Pant and Dana, as I think most of the time you've been here, you're playing on behalf of Paula. Paula kind of shadows passing in the night. Dana, that brings up some good news and some and some bad news. You want the good news of the bad news?

[Jesse]

Let's take the bad news first.

[Joe Salciha]

Well, the bad news is OG is running away with this thing early on. We have only done our trivia six times. We've had a few special Friday shows so far this year, but OG has five. And the good news is for once Dana Paul is not in last, which does not happen. I, I just don't know what happened. Paula has won because Jesse after, when he first showed up, he was just roaring and scoring all kinds of points. Jesse is zero so far this year, so.

[OG]

Oh geez.

[Joe Salciha]

Could have guessed first. Dana, that means you're going to guess second. And Jesse, you get the power of going last. All right. Will Dana make a move for Paula toward OG's dominance? Will Jesse get on the board? Is OG gonna pull further ahead? We need a trivia question to find out. So Doug, what's on tap today, man?

[OG]

Well, hey there Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And speaking of sports agents, wonder who Joe Louis's agent was. For those of you who don't know boxing, Joe Louis was the man who, on this day, way back in 1941, Ko'd Abe Simon to retain his belt as the heavyweight champion of the world. It was only Joe's third defense of the belt that year, only his third by March.

[Joe Salciha]

Only three fights by March.

[OG]

He worked, what, like a total of 90 minutes in those three fights the first three months of the year. I want that job. But here's my question. If there had been as many junk fees on the tickets to see Lewis fight back then as there are are today, what percentage of your ticket to see the champ would have been attributed to those costs? I'll be back right after I take a jab at Joe's mom's brownies. Get it? Jab. What a right hook that pun was. Oh, seriously, I'm amazing.

[Joe Salciha]

Oh, you're a fire. Just incredible. Ninja. All right. OG junk fees. Man, I hate it when I go to Ticketmaster or wherever else. I'm like, oh, look, these tickets are 47.50. Oh, no, they're not. There are a bunch more than that. What percentage of.

[Jesse Kramer]

Can I get to ask the exact question again? I had it and then it faded away. If there were, it's hotly written.

[Joe Salciha]

If there were the percentage of junk fees then to see Joe Lewis fight that there are now, what percentage of your ticket would have been junk fees?

[Dana Anspach]

So this really isn't a Joe Lewis question, right? This is just about modern fees.

[Jesse]

Wow.

[OG]

Nothing gets past you, does it, Jesse?

[Jesse Kramer]

If the percentage was the same this year as it was 25 years ago, what percent was it? Is that the question?

[OG]

We'll just keep boiling it down. I'm just going to keep on distilling it down because I realized it's late in the day for all.

[Joe Salciha]

Wait a minute, Doug. Doug, before you do that. Jesse, are you accusing us of obfuscating the actual question? We've never done that.

[OG]

We don't do that.

[Joe Salciha]

We don't ever.

[Jesse Kramer]

That's not how I heard it. I heard it like if the percentage if. Anyway, say it again.

[OG]

It's this. What percentage of the average ticket price today to go see pick an event of heavyweight boxing match, a Taylor Swift concert, you name it. What percentage are junk fees?

[Jesse Kramer]

Okay, yeah, you did say it that way. That like, if the percent was the same today as it was 50 years ago, what would be the percent? It's like, it's so. It's this. Today's percent. Got it. Okay.

[Dana Anspach]

All right.

[Jesse Kramer]

Percent. Junk fees. All right, that changes my math a little bit. I'm going to say that a solid, solid 31%.

[Joe Salciha]

Almost a third solid.

[Jesse Kramer]

31% of your ticket is junk fees.

[Joe Salciha]

Oh, Dana, I saw that look on your face. I think. You think that might be high.

[Jesse]

I thought that was high.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah.

[Jesse]

I mean, initially I was thinking around maybe 20 to 25%, but then, you know, I don't know. I'm going to guess like 18.7.

[OG]

Oh, for God's sakes. Oh, we can do decimals.7. I gotta get the calculator out.

[Jesse]

I gotta make you work.

[Joe Salciha]

Doug, it is not Dana's first rodeo. You can tell she's been here before. I'm surprised she didn't say 18.721. Yeah, yeah. Jesse, you've got 18.7 and 31.

[Dana Anspach]

18.7 and 31. Right. That's what I have written down. My initial thought was, like, I was thinking about the wedding industry, which, you know, the wedding industry has a lot of those. Just because fees, which I think are around 22%, usually in that 20 to 22% range. And then because of the guesses, 31 and 18.7, I'm going to split the uprights, but I'm going to round it to make Doug's life a little easier. A little easier. Round it to the nearest hundredth place. That is done. I'm going to go with 25% flat.

[Joe Salciha]

25%. So. All right, we got 31%. 18.7 and 25. We will find out who our winner is in just a minute.

[Doug]

This episode brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there, hoping it all works out well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can get a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill, too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Prices coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Joe Salciha]

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[Jesse Kramer]

Eligible items only.

[Joe Salciha]

Exclusion supply. Oh, gee. You kick this off by saying 31% of your ticket fee is junk fees on average. How you feeling now that everybody thought that was maybe a scotch? Too high? Scoreboard, Dana, 18.7. Jesse came in at 25. You feeling good?

[Jesse]

I probably could have done like 24.3.

[Joe Salciha]

I don't know if Jesse would have stayed with 25. That Jesse, you feel comfortable at 25?

[Dana Anspach]

I couldn't do that math in my head. Yeah, yeah, I. I thought when day when he asked Dana, I thought she was going to say scoreboard too, just to really rub it in my face.

[Joe Salciha]

Well, she could because she's one ahead of you.

[Dana Anspach]

That's good math, Joe.

[Joe Salciha]

Is Dana gonna get team Paula closer? Oh, Gee. Pulling ahead. Or is Jesse on the board? Doug, who's gonna win this thing?

[OG]

Well, hey there, stackers. I'm brownie lover and the guy who just got jabbed by Joe's mom for trying to grab one. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. At a time when our nation and the world was focused focused on racial divisions, the 1940s Joe Louis brought people together even while other sports, like baseball, were still segregated. His son Joe Louis Jr. Said famously, what my father did was enable white America to think of him as an American, not as black. By winning, he became white America's first black hero. Our question today, though, isn't about how amazing the talented boxer from Detroit, May Michigan was. It was about the fees we pay today to see greatness. There had been the types of fees back then as there are today. What percentage of your ticket would have been attributed to water? Oh, Gee's already lost. Like he can't follow any of this. I'm watching his eyes glaze over Ed's nodding. What percentage would have been attributed to what are now commonly called junk fees? Well, I'll say this. 8.3% more than what Dana guessed. 4% less than what OG guessed. Just 2% more than what Jesse guessed because the correct answer is 27, making Jesse's girl our winner.

[Joe Salciha]

Jesse Kramer on the Board. Nice work.

[Dana Anspach]

I'll tell you what. Guessing third has its perks.

[Joe Salciha]

There is power in being last, Jesse. There is power in being last. Nice job.

[Dana Anspach]

Thank you. Can I ask a question? If I say scoreboard now, what's the score? What is it?

[OG]

Five to one? To one.

[Dana Anspach]

Okay.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah. Yeah. We still got some work to do.

[Jesse Kramer]

I'd hold off on the scoreboard talk.

[Joe Salciha]

For a while there, bud, but still. Dana, 25. 27% junk fees. That's horrible.

[Jesse]

That's high. Higher than I would have thought.

[Joe Salciha]

That just sucks. I. I actually read a piece about this and why they got away with so much of it, and it was that Ticketmaster decided to cut in the venue, and the. Instead of going against the venue and against the act, they cut them in on their junk fees going, hey, we're going to charge another X amount, and you guys will get part of it. We'll get part of it. And of course, then the venue was like, heck, yeah, let's do that. That the act was like, heck, yeah. Until what. Who was. Who was the act? That famously was it. Metallica was the first act.

[Jesse Kramer]

That was my gut. My gut said Metallica as soon as you said who. Who kind of raged against the machine. Wasn't them.

[Joe Salciha]

It could have been Rage against the Machine. Who knows?

[Jesse Kramer]

It was one of those. It was that, I think Metallica.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

I think.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah. If only there was a place we could look that up. But we've got. We've got better stuff to do in the second half of the show. I kind of want to kick it off with this. You know, they called Molly Fletcher, the female Jerry Maguire. So I think we got to go to a source clip to kind of introduce the next topic here. This is from that older movie, 1996 with Tom Cruise. This is Jerry Maguire.

[Dana Anspach]

You want more from them?

[Joe Salciha]

So let's give them more. Let's show them your pure joy of the game. Let's bury the attitude a little bit and show. Show them. Wait.

[Jesse Kramer]

You're telling me to dance?

[Joe Salciha]

No, I'm saying to get back to the guy who first started playing this game. Remember way back when, when you were a kid, it wasn't just about the money, was it? Was it?

[Dana Anspach]

Was it?

[Jesse]

Do your job.

[Jesse Kramer]

Don't you tell me to dance.

[Dana Anspach]

Fine.

[Joe Salciha]

Hey, athlete.

[Jesse Kramer]

I am not an entertainer.

[Joe Salciha]

Fine.

[Jesse Kramer]

These are the ABCs of me, baby. I do not dance, and I do.

[Joe Salciha]

Not start preseason without a contract. Fine. Fine.

[Jesse Kramer]

Fine.

[Joe Salciha]

Jerry, talk to me.

[Jesse Kramer]

Breathe.

[Joe Salciha]

Breathe, Jerry. I am out here for you.

[Jesse Kramer]

You don't know what it's like to.

[Joe Salciha]

Be me out here. For you, it is an up at dawn pride swallowing sweet siege that I will never fully tell you about.

[Jesse Kramer]

Okay, just. God, help me, help me, Rod.

[Joe Salciha]

Help me help you, help me help.

[Jesse Kramer]

You, Help me help you.

[Joe Salciha]

And then Cuba Gooding Jr starts laughing at him. Have you ever felt like that, OG Help me help you.

[Jesse Kramer]

I mean, I think in some context, like around being a planner, I don't know, I feel responsible for outcomes for clients. When we create plans and we help make decisions, I feel responsible, immensely responsible for the outcomes of those. But if you're not going to do your part of it, whatever that is, it's not that I don't care. It's just like, what else am I going to do? If we've had discussions about it and you keep on going into credit card debt. I'm not going to take away your credit cards. You're a grown adult. I'm not going to your house and cutting them up. But I will say things like, if you say it's really, gosh, it's really important for me to pay off my house. I want to, you know, I really want to be debt free. That would make that be so great. And I'll go. We'll get out your phone like you. You can make a mortgage payment on your phone. How much is left? 182,000. Well, you got 190,000 in your savings account. Let's make a payment. Let's do it. To get. Let's do it right now. Let's get it. You think so? Yes. Press the button, send it. Well, what if it's bad? Yeah, who cares? You can get another loan.

[OG]

Send it.

[Jesse Kramer]

Let's do it. Yes. You did it. Like, I will push you in the direction you need to go as much as possible, but I don't know that I'm going to drag you. Jerry Maguire had one client, so he had really nothing else to do. So he kind of, you know, singular focus.

[Joe Salciha]

I think that is true, OG But I also think that what America in the world bought about that movie was Jerry's intensity, the fact that he was there. And it wasn't about the money, Dana. It wasn't about the money. It was about more life. And Cuba Gooding Jr. Is all about the money. And only when he realizes that he loves football and football's so damn fun, is he able to then, you know, make his own life better while Jerry's able to get him more money. Have you ever had to have a emotional moment with a client to kind of get them, get them moving in the right direction.

[Jesse]

I've definitely had those moments and there is balance. The one that comes to my mind is a client that I argued vehemently with about delaying their Social Security. His wife was six years younger. We ran the numbers every way possible. It absolutely made sense for him to wait until 70. And we argued every year during. Every year while he was delaying. So from like 62 to 70 every year. And sometimes in between meetings we had to have this argument. Finally he did it and he actually was quoted. I had a reporter reach out to me later and he agreed to be quoted in the story on it and sent me a thank you and said, wow, thank you all those years for just being so passionate, not backing down. And you know, there's definitely times where, I mean, I was just so adamant and they weren't a super high net worth household, like this was going to make a meaningful difference for them. And so it was my passion like that got him to listen to me. Even his CPA was like, everybody claims it's 62. You know, just claim it's 62.

[Jesse Kramer]

Everybody does it. It's my money, I got to get it out of the government.

[Jesse]

Yeah. So, and you know, a few stories like that where, you know, I will allow my passion to show through. Now, at the same time, we have something we talk about here in our firm. Look, at a certain point, if we care more than our clients, we have a problem. How do you find that balance? I mean, when it's something you're sure about and passionate about, we'll often use this analogy of red, yellow, green with our client. Look, if it's red and we say, don't do it, don't do it. If it's green and we say, you should do it, like we're going to argue and convince you you need to do this. But a lot of things fall in the yellow and then there's a little bit more nuance. But if it's something red and we're telling them not to and they do it, or it's green and we're telling them to do it and they won't, at a certain point, like OG said, like, you gotta, you know, you can only do so much.

[Joe Salciha]

Jesse, have you had disagreements with clients like that where you had to get emotional as well?

[Dana Anspach]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the short answer is yes. You know, have you guys seen these action movies? I'm sure you can picture the scene where it's funny.

[Joe Salciha]

This one, she doesn't watch action movies. He's Totally against them. Yeah.

[Dana Anspach]

This one involves a mountain. They're falling off a cliff, or they're. They're falling down the railing, and the protagonist, usually. Or some other main character.

[Jesse Kramer]

Can you just tell us what movie it is?

[Dana Anspach]

I'll just say, like, it's a trope. It's like every. Any movie, generic now, as you guys can kind of picture, and the listeners can picture in their head, if the struggling person is, like, scrambling and the savior gives them that boost, like, everybody's happy. But what if the struggling person was just like, okay, you got me. I'm going limp. Drag me up. Like, okay, that doesn't quite work. Right. And there's something very similar in these conversations where I think all three of us are saying, like, we are more than happy to pull you, and. And maybe even pull you more than we ought. We quote, unquote, could or should. And. And we're. If you're. If you're trying, we're gonna be here and help you and pull you. But if you just go limp and expect us to, like, make magic things happen and just, like, if we're the only one doing any pulling and you're just not really pulling at all, and you're just limp, like, that's not gonna work. Fundamentally, that's not.

[OG]

Are we still talking about money?

[Joe Salciha]

What creates these. Oh, my goodness. Stop. Oh, it was such a nice show.

[Jesse]

You know what crossed my mind is there's also. What about things where I just had a client email come in, and they were somewhat joking that they wished I had talked them out of buying this house? Are there times where we think the client's asking us for permission and what we're really supposed to do is say, no, you shouldn't do that? That's what was going through my mind as you were saying that, Jesse, is like, it's one thing to help them up, but what about the cases where maybe what they're really wanting us to do is say, no, don't do that?

[Joe Salciha]

That's funny, Dana, because I got into the habit of finally saying, what do you want to do? Let's start with what do you want to do? Let's not talk about what's right, because that's always going to end badly. Let's start with what do you want to do? And can that actually happen? And if they were willing to do that, then I was in a much better spot for that very reason, because I totally misinterpret. I want to pivot from that, Dana, to a piece that you shared from the American College with us. This has some interesting points about the power of a plan. Can you walk us through what you sent Jesse and OG and Doug and I?

[Jesse]

Yeah, it was some interesting research on people who track fitness goals and the correlation between how much they save for retirement. And there's a significant correlation that people who are tracking. Now, this part I don't necessarily like, but they may be logging in, looking at their retirement balances daily. They tend to be people who save a much higher percentage of their income for retirement. And there's a correlation with people who use tracking devices. I got this Oura ring for Christmas, you know, I love it. It tracks all kinds of things, or it might be your Apple watch or a Fitbit that you wear. But that correlation between tracking behavior and improving was super high. And I found that fascinating.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah, listen to these stats. Everybody do. People who track save more for retirement. Yes, quite a bit more. The piece says more than half a survey response to check their retirement balance daily. 13% check daily save more than 10% of their income for retirement. Those who check their balances weekly or monthly were about 30% more likely to save 10% of their income for retirement than those who check quarterly or annually. And only 10% of those who never check their balance save more than 10%. Those are some, some amazing numbers. But I gotta think, you know, it comes to tracking og it's not just, it's not just that. I mean, I think this is a reason why you and I like the weekly meeting, right? Just the weekly check in. Maybe it's not checking your 401k balance as much as it's thinking about. Is my plan still healthy once a week?

[Jesse Kramer]

I think when it comes to keeping track of your money, you have to have a couple of different things. The first thing is you need to have a place where you can track your income and expenses. If you don't have any idea how much money is coming in or money that's going out, you're at a severe disadvantage. You might argue, hey, you know, I know I already got extra money and that sort of thing. It's not about having extra or not having extra, any of that sort of. It's being in charge of what you're choosing to spend money on. When you just kind of live your life and don't ever have any reconciliation with that, whether it's a weekly meeting with your spouse or partner or you're using an app. And once a week you check in and categorize your transactions and, you know, just being aware of how Many times you see the word Amazon changes the behavior of how many times you see the word Amazon. You know what I mean? Like, you just go, well, this is ridiculous. Every other freaking word on my statement is Amazon. I just need to do something about that. And you know, life is better. So I think you gotta track your income and expenses. You know, you don't have to put it in the right categories, but you need to know what's going on. The second thing you need to track are balances. And you have to have an idea of who do I owe money to, what is the commitment of capital to that place that I owe money to. If I have a mortgage, how much money do I have to pay to it and am I on track for what I want to have done with that? A lot of times people just willy nilly go, well, my mortgage payment is 1500 bucks a month, so I'm paying 1500. Well, what if you want to pay that off in 20 years? Would you be surprised to learn that if Instead of paying 1,500, you paid 1,750, it'd be done 10 years early? And if you don't know that, then you can't see whether or not you're making progress toward that. Same thing with your retirement accounts and your investment accounts. You got to have a place to track basically your net worth. So you got to track your income expenses, you got to track your net worth worth. And if you review those things on a, I think expenses every other week, because that's pretty contemporary balances every six months. Think of it this way, and we throw this to clients in this manner. If you're 40 and you want to retire when you're 60 and you spend an hour every six months thinking about your retirement plan, you will have spent one work week on your retirement planning over the next 20 years. You have 20 years of six month meetings for an hour. That's 40 hours of thought or conversation, whether it's with an advisor, like one of the three of us, or on your own one. Only one work week for the rest of your life.

[Joe Salciha]

And you know what my next point there will be? You're going to have planned far more than 90% of the people around you. Not that it's a race.

[Jesse Kramer]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Joe Salciha]

But that's a pretty damn low bar.

[Jesse Kramer]

Better outcomes.

[Joe Salciha]

Yeah. Jesse, is there something you like to track that OG did mention?

[Dana Anspach]

Not really, because to me those are the big four. And I think of a spreadsheet that I keep personally. I think of the app that we use. It's E Money, if you're familiar that the app that our clients use, I mean, those are the big four. It's income versus expenses. It's assets versus debts. Create a balance sheet, create a cash flow. I'm not sure what else you really need to be tracking on a weekly, monthly, annual basis.

[Jesse Kramer]

What about performance?

[Dana Anspach]

I mean, performance. Okay, here's what I'll say. It's a good question. OG if someone out there is regularly underperforming benchmarks, or if the conversations that you've either had with your advisor or your own personal investor policy statement and for some reason it's just not lining up, then yeah, I think that's worth definitely looking at. OG but that's going to be like you look at it once a year, and only after three or five years do you maybe have enough data to realize that there's something fundamentally wrong.

[Joe Salciha]

I love benchmarks when it comes to performance because when I think of performance, I don't really care if it's the market or me that created the performance. I like knowing what I got to do to get to this milestone by July. And if I know that the market's not giving me the performance that my head is based on, what do I got to do to make that up? Or if I'm ahead, can I take my foot off the gas? Like, I really like tracking milestones, Dana. Anything. Anything that they didn't mention that you like to track?

[Jesse]

Yeah, actually it's fascinating for me because there's such a difference in the accumulation phase and then what we would call cash flow phase. So I agree with all of those things while you're saving for retirement. But once you're in retirement, the metrics change. So we use a series of metrics to track, like, is your plan still well funded to now meet these cash flow goals? And it's completely different. You know, one of the things we track is what did we project you would withdraw this year from each account relative to what you actually withdrew? So, you know, we have a sense of, okay, you know, are you taking out too much relative to the projection? And another thing we project is, you know, their total financial account values and then are they ahead or behind where we thought their year end balances would be as they get farther and farther ahead, it leaves us some room there to say, okay, you could potentially increase your spending, but if your total account values are falling below the projections that we had laid out when you retired, then maybe we need to make some downward adjustments. So the things you track completely change when you Enter that cash flow phase, boy.

[Joe Salciha]

And that makes those ugly talks that we were talking about earlier so much easier. When you're like, hey, the past five years you've been spending way too much money and now you're screwed. Turns into a, hey, it's been six months. And you know what I mean, Dana, you can have a much smaller conversation early on.

[Jesse]

You can. And in retirement, you know, we know if you have a 30 year time horizon and we can catch problems in the first few years, we have plenty of time to course correct. You know, nobody gets to year 30 and goes, oh, oh my gosh, I ran out of money. Surprise it. You know, it doesn't work that way. You would see it coming in the plan 20 years in advance, which is plenty of time to make a course correction as long as you're monitoring these things on a consistent basis.

[Joe Salciha]

I love this discussion around having people in your corner. I love the discussion around how everything dovetailing keeps you motivated. And I think that's a great way to wind out this fantastic week. Talking about motivation and your financial plan and earlier in the week making more money using that same motivation. Well, let's say one last hello to the people hanging out with us today on YouTube because the man in charge says, as SB's biggest fanboy, I demand we look into neighbor Doug's statistics. So he's Doug. You've already got somebody doubting the trivia already today.

[OG]

Which part is he doubting? The. The Joe Lewis boxing three title defenses by March of 41 or 27%. I mean, come on, man.

[Joe Salciha]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Jesse Kramer]

Google it. Doug ain't wrong.

[Joe Salciha]

But I do know this. He does ask, asks for a friend, should I file taxes early or wait until the deadline? Is there any difference? Anybody want to opine on that?

[Jesse]

I'll opine on. File an extension. So not either of those answers.

[Joe Salciha]

Just put it off.

[Jesse]

I want my tax person now. It depends on if you're doing your own right, but I want my tax person looking at my stuff when they are not busy and up against the deadline. So I always file an extension. That's. That's my personal opinion.

[Joe Salciha]

That's interesting.

[Jesse Kramer]

I put a note in there. I think if you're just kind of W2 doing your thing, there's a significant reduction in tax filing fraud. If you get it done early. So you don't have to pay. Right. If you owe money, you don't have to pay till April 15. Just because you file your taxes February 28, you don't have to write the check yet. Still have to pay by April. And to Dana's point, if you file an extension and owe money, you still owe them money on April 15th. You're just saying, I'll write the check, but do the paperwork some other day.

[Jesse]

Yep.

[Jesse Kramer]

I also filed generally file extensions, although the last couple of years, I am quite proud of myself. I did get all my stuff into the CPA early. I was one of the early birds. But if you've got a fairly simple tax situation, especially if you're doing yourself, I would file that as soon as you're comfortable that you have all of your information and that it's accurate. And it just reduces the opportunity for there to be some tax filing fraud, which is quite pervasive.

[Joe Salciha]

So one answer for business owners more complex and another answer for the straightforward. Let's find out. Speaking of straightforward, let's find all the straightforward stuff you guys got going on. Oh, gee, what are you doing this weekend besides bathing in March Madness?

[Jesse Kramer]

Oh, I'm absolutely not doing that. In fact, when Dana said she was at Beaver Creek of on vacation, that's where we're headed. As a matter of fact, this week, we're spring breaking in our favorite ski location, Beaver Creek, and we've got all the. All the skiing going on. I got all warmed up with family.

[OG]

For like an hour and just go to the bar.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yes, absolutely, I'm gonna do that.

[OG]

See, now that I just. I'm a fan of that. It's your family. Go to the.

[Joe Salciha]

Just speaking hypothetically, Doug. Just speaking hypothetically.

[OG]

He's ever done that before.

[Jesse Kramer]

When my boys text me and go, dad, we're up at the little hot dog stand up there. Where are you? And I'll be like, oh, geez, at the bar.

[Joe Salciha]

And when he talks about himself in the third person, you know how long.

[Jesse Kramer]

He'S at the Ritz Carlton.

[Joe Salciha]

That's right, Dana. Thanks for hanging out with us, my friend. I noticed when I went to sensiblemoney.com that you've got a webinar coming up.

[Jesse]

We do. It's this month. I couldn't even tell you the date, but it's on how to Make a Retirement Income Plan, where we walk through all of the upcoming steps. And I am also working finally on my next book that I'm super excited about. So it's been almost a decade, but I am writing it's going to be called Living off youf Acorns, your guide to the four phases of retirement. So we'd be talking about the pre go phase, the 10 years leading up to retirement and then the go go phase, the slow go phase and the no go phase. So I'm spending a lot of my weekends when I'm not writing right now I'm hiking. Or when I'm not. Wait, I got that backwards. But you're not hiking, you're writing.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah.

[Jesse]

Yes, exactly.

[Joe Salciha]

Yes. You got two big things going on. And by the way, I did just see this on your website. It is March 27th at 1:00pm to 2:30pm Eastern Standard Time.

[Jesse]

Thank you. I would have to go to the website myself because I don't remember the date. It just shows up on my calendar and I know what I'm supposed to do.

[Joe Salciha]

We, we will link to it on the show [e-mail]. jesse, my friend, what's coming up on personal financial planning for long term investors?

[Dana Anspach]

Close. Close.

[Joe Salciha]

Personal.

[Dana Anspach]

Personal finance.

[Joe Salciha]

Finance.

[Dana Anspach]

Long term investors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which as, as we discussed Stacking Benjamin's fans do not like the name change. That's okay, that's okay. We'll give them time. I took a really deep dive. I hadn't really found a resource that explained to me, at least to my satisfaction this whole deal with the national debt and like how we got here and whether it's a really big problem or a small problem or maybe not a problem at all. And so I released an episode last week that just, it's like a 45 minute deep dive on the national debt and how it affects us on a personal basis. And so I'm hoping it can be this cool evergreen resource for people to share around the communities if there's ever that topic ever comes up.

[Joe Salciha]

That sounds like something somebody with an engineering background might, might take on.

[Dana Anspach]

Yeah, slightly. Slightly. It helps a little bit.

[Joe Salciha]

I wouldn't even think to do that. You're like, oh, let's talk about the national debt. And you.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah.

[Dana Anspach]

Yes, well, you know, some of the national debt is from those telescopes that I used to work on. But not, not a lot of it, you know, not a lot of it.

[Joe Salciha]

Well, thanks to all of you for helping our stackers today. Oh gee, thanks to you, Dana. Thanks to you, Jesse. Thanks to you. Thanks to everybody hanging out with us on YouTube. Doug, got a lot to unpack here, but what do you think our top three would be?

[OG]

Well, I'm going to get some help from our contributors today. Here's what's stacked up on our to do list, Joe. First, take some advice from super passionate Dana Anspach. How important is Passion in a financial relationship, Dana.

[Jesse]

Oh, incredibly important. You have to be passionate to get your advice across.

[OG]

Second, take a note from our financial stalker, OG what are some key things you tell your clients to track vehemently? OG.

[Jesse Kramer]

What? What did I say? You need to track income and expenses and also assets and liabilities or debts. I like debts better than liabilities.

[OG]

But the big lesson, don't share stories about the great Joe Louis with Joe's mom. She'll immediately share with you stories about how she'll drop you in the third round if the dishes don't get washed. Don't ask how I know, but I gotta go wash some dishes. So let's just move on to the credits, shall we? Thanks to Dana Anspach for joining us today. Head to sensiblemoney.com for more on Dana for practice and our upcoming free webinar, how to make a Retirement Plan. We'll also include links in our show [e-mail] Dana I would suggest using our link to go to your own website to find out when you have to do your webinar. It's very helpful. Just a little tip there for me. Thanks to the Jesse Kramer for hanging out with us today. You'll find his fabulous podcast Personal Finance for long term investors who like listening to Jesse on podcasts wherever you listen to finer podcasts. Thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning help? Head to stackingbenjamins.comog for his calendar. This show is the property of SB Podcasts LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Josal 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 speaking, 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.

[Jesse Kramer]

What was that? It's called the Medium Sketch. The Medium Sketch.

[Dana Anspach]

Yeah.

[Joe Salciha]

It wasn't rare and it certainly wasn't well done.