Doug (2:08)

No way.

Joe (2:09)

Oh, no, no. Come on. Well, John Oliver, Doug, 2016.

Doug (2:16)

Oh, man, that's like five years ago. Like we said.

Joe (2:20)

I swear, 2016, John Oliver paid off a bunch of debt, and it was medical debt and a lot of this debt. And John kind of dove into this back in 2016. Sadly, a lot of hospitals still make it very difficult for you to navigate the system. Well, if you know somebody that has that issue, we've got a wonderful young woman, Amani Vance, joining us today, Who? Well, I'll let her tell her story. It's going to be quite a story of all of a sudden realizing you owe $45,000 to a hospital and you're 19 years old.

OG (2:50)

Congratulations. Hey, guess what?

Doug (2:53)

Welcome to adulthood.

Joe (2:54)

Yeah. And of course, different OG than buying a car where you know ahead of time the sticker price is 45,000. She finds out after the fact, right. That that's, that's what you owe. So it's a tough system. And if you know somebody who's navigating that well, there's lots of stories of resilience no matter what you're facing. We got Amani Vance coming up next telling her story about how she was able to get out of this medical debt situation with some help from some really cool people. But before that, we got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on going to hear from them. And then Imani Vance joins me to tell us her story about a surprisingly large bill. I've worked in so many different fields. University development, water treatment, financial planning, podcasting. And while there might not be much of a through line between any of those jobs, you know what you always need is the right person for the job. Getting hiring right. That is a skill that you want to master quickly and that you need good partners around you to help you. Do you want to match the right candidate with the right job? With Indeed sponsored jobs? If you're hiring well, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post even seen on other sites you'll match with quality candidates. With Indeed sponsored jobs, get matched with and hire quality candidates that can drive those results you need regardless of the type of business you're in. Target your post to candidates that meet your specific criteria like your skills, certifications, the location, sponsored jobs. Boost your job post for quality candidates so you can reach the people that can help your business thrive. Plus, with Indeed sponsored Jobs, you only pay for results. That is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent. And if you learn anything from Stacking Benjamin's headlines, you know we need data to support our argument. Well, how about this piece of data? Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed. 95% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all the boxes. Less stress, less time and more results. Now with Indeed sponsored jobs and because you're a stacker, you're going to get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Indeed.com podcast just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support Stacking Benjamin's by saying you heard about Indeed right here. Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply Hiring do it the right way with indeed.

OG (5:44)

We heard you. Nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the hot honey snack wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.

Joe (6:06)

And I'm super happy. She's coming down the stairs to mom's basement. Imani Vance is here. How are you?

Imani Vance (6:11)

I'm doing good, Jo. And yourself? I'm happy to be here.

Joe (6:15)

Well, I am super happy that you are going to share your story because you're going to help so many people. And you know what's funny is so many people get embarrassed by things like medical debt when it's just life happens. And to have you tell your story about what happened to you I think is going to help a bunch of people. And sometimes this stuff comes out of the blue. So let's just get into it, if you don't mind. You decided to join the Coast Guard. Tell me why you decided to join the Coast Guard, Joe.

Imani Vance (6:45)

I'll be honest. I was 19 when I joined. I'm 20 now. But literally last year I joined the Coast Guard because I wanted to be able to find community. I was ready to serve, I was ready to learn, ready to be a hero. Then my appendix said actually no thank you. So it tapped out before I did. I didn't get a uniform, I didn't get a boat. Instead I got a $43,000 medical bill. Not exactly the souvenir I had in mind.

Joe (7:11)

No, not the Coast Guard experience you were hoping for. How long had you been in the Coast Guard when this happened?

Imani Vance (7:16)

It was really only two, three months when it happened. It was in the fall and I left like right before Thanksgiving. So holidays were happening. People would probably wonder. I'm surprised. Being a recruit in training, it should have been able to be a thing where they would be able to perform the surgery and everything. But I'll be honest, due to the Coast Guard's resources and the timing of when it all happened, I would have had to go off base and get a medical appointment for that to even happen. And with their limited resources they had on the base, they only had like an X ray to be able to examine me and try to give me some sort of diagnosis. It was pretty vague and the only thing they had was my symptoms of obviously I couldn't march, I couldn't do what I needed to do. That it made it a lot harder for me to perform my duties and my tasks. So given everything that was up against me and really I had sepsis at the time. As soon as I even at the time they gave me an ultimatum, they told me either I could wait on an off base medical appointment which was going to take about two weeks given the holidays and basically the backlog of other people that needed to have their medical surgeries and other diagnosis as well, because people also had knee fractures, even just other injuries beyond what I knew. But given all of those things, all I had to think about was the fact that I'm not feeling good. I was sitting in medical hold and for being in that amount of time, I've met other recruits that have been in there for about six months that they've had to be there a lot longer. Typically it's a month that you would have to take off. But given the resources and even just the intensity of training, because the Coast Guard's basic training is about second to the Marines. So it's a lot more intense that I would have to be able to cultivate, I'd have to be able to rehabilitate and just heal. And with that and just given the holidays and missing my family, for me personally, it just was not worth it at the time. With that happening, I came home, I went to the hospital. They told me that it was great that I came in just in time because I was in severe sepsis. Mind you, I didn't even really notice it being that big of a deal. All I noticed was just the stomach pain. But when they told me that that I had an abscess around my appendix, they basically said, you know, we need to first get the infection down. So that's really what happened. The first thing that had to happen when I was hospitalized in wellstar, they first had to get the infection down because the abscess was around my appendix. You know, even then it was a week in the hospital. It was during Thanksgiving. I was sitting there, Wicked came out at the time and I was devastated because I wanted to first graduate and then immediately go see it. But that didn't go the way that I planned. So basically I got into the hospital, I sat there for a week and then I was discharged from the hospital. Typically a regular Appendix is usually 10 millimeters diameter. Mine was 20. So at that time, immediately my appendix, it got a lot bigger and it was about to burst. The doctor and medical officials gave me another ultimatum as well. They said, you don't have to take it out now, but there is a possibility that there could be some leaks, some other things when other abscess could form. So immediately I knew, you know, with all of that, I'm glad that I did leave. I did the best thing that was for me, 100%. They didn't even know that I had an abscess for them to even have to treat that first. So it would have been a lot more difficult and a lot more invasive than what I was going to be wanting to take on. Given that I was just a recruit. I was an echo one. I was basically a semen recruit. I just starting out and it's like I was a veteran back when I

Joe (11:06)

was a financial planner. I actually worked with a bunch of people in the Coast Guard at Selfridge Air Force Base outside of Detroit. Hello, Coast Guard people in Selfridge. Some fine women and men and just a bunch of badasses. But talk about being a badass. Walking around with sepsis and really not knowing it. Just knowing that you have the hurt and then getting that cleared up and then finding out that you have to get rid of your appendix. Like just all this stuff, like one after another, all these things.

Imani Vance (11:34)

Appendix is so simple. You have the appendicitis, you get the surgery. Even then, Joe, I'll give you a little bit more background to that. The reason I even got appendicitis in the first place was I unfortunately got influenza. As all military people will talk about, you always get some sort of crud. So they usually call it a crud that it's usually just a all known sickness because everybody that comes in from different parts of the world, different parts of the country, usually everyone carries different sicknesses, they carry different immunity factors, just different things.

Joe (12:06)

And every time I go to a convention, it happens.

Imani Vance (12:09)

Absolutely. So when everyone's all packed together, especially with that kind of intense environment, stress that also wears on the body as well. Unfortunately, I caught the flu and I was hospitalized in basic training during that time. And what I didn't know and what the doctors gave me out here as a civilian, they told me that when the flu passed through my body, typically when appendicitis does happen, usually it's due to the basics of waste or even fecal matter that's left over and it travels to your appendix. In my case, it was a virus that got left over. And it may have seemed like it was gone, but no, it still said, no, I'm here. And it went right to my appendix instead.

Joe (12:49)

Do you know what's wild is you talk about this like you are a doctor, which I know ahead of time. You didn't know any of this stuff. And now it's like you have your PhD in appendixes. Take me to the point of your story though. I just want to know where you are when you open this bill and get maybe I would think the surprise of your life, like what went through your mind. Where were you?

Imani Vance (13:14)

Let's think about it. I'm 19 years old. The most debt I ever had was credit cards. Obviously running on my parents credit cards, things like that. I never really had to deal with that kind of thing when it came to dead. And when I heard of those hidden thieves that happen, it was like just a wave of shock, a wave of fear came over me. And typically when it comes to dad, it may not seem like a big deal, but $43,000.

Joe (13:43)

I'm 19 years old and I've got $43,000. And just to be clear, this is not some of the stuff money that we talk about in stacking Benjamins a fair amount. This is not lifestyle creep. This is not overspending or going to the mall because it's almost the holiday. So not buying too many gifts for people. This is life just happening. And bam, here it is.

Imani Vance (14:06)

I never expected this. And this goes nothing against the military in any way, shape or form. Even now. Post me, Joe. I am looking to go into the United States Navy.

Joe (14:16)

Oh, cool.

Imani Vance (14:17)

With everything. I have nothing against the military, but I will admit that, you know, given my short time of service, I did not serve 180 days. The VA unfortunately could not give me the medical assistance that I needed. So it wasn't as easy for me to be able to get discharged, go immediately to a VA hospital and be able to automate. No. And even with Coast Guard, a lot of their records is in paper and it's not even digitized. So I couldn't even get any of my medical records. It's basically like it didn't even exist. Besides the fact that I have my DD214 to indicate that I did serve in the United States military. And two days afterwards I was put into the hospital. So with that it was a lot harder. It wasn't as easy. So with me being in the hospital, I had a preconceived notion that I thought, well, you know, I served a little bit, maybe I'll get some sort of support. And they told me if I wanted to even get that support, I would have had to wait a couple months, you know, paperwork, backlogs. There was a presidential election going on. So even with the change of command, a lot of different things were happening. So it was a lot Harder than I just wanted to take. And my parents, they supported me as much as they could. They were honest with me. They said, imani, medical debt's not a big deal. A lot of people in America have it. And even if they did, a lot of people wouldn't function. They wouldn't be able to have a job or anything. But the kind of responsible person that I am, and even being as young as I am, accumulating that kind of debt, all I automatically thought was, imagine people that have cancer. And it's a lot harder to be able to just be able to look at it and be like, oh, well, that's money. And I feel like just the common working person shouldn't have to deal with that.

Joe (15:54)

I think it's great that your parents tried to reassure you. Hey, a lot of people have medical debt. You're not the only person. You're not alone. This is not Amati being a unicorn. Other people have gotten over this hill. You'll get over this hill too. But you must have also, at the same time, felt like there's a bunch of medical billing stuff now. That surprised you? Surprise number one was my time in the military didn't matter because I wasn't there long enough. It's almost like somebody starting any new job. What else surprised you about medical billing? And what's different about medical billing now that you're probably become a PhD in this as well, like you have about your appendix. What's different about medical billing than credit cards, student loans, or car loans? How is this debt different?

Imani Vance (16:38)

I feel like the debt is just different, Joe, because let's be honest, when you're in a hospital and you're trying to get better, you're not thinking about those kind of things. You're not thinking about the hidden fees. I feel like maybe it's some sort of the adrenaline. It's like when you are buying a new car, when you're getting something from your credit cards, you don't think about those contracts. You don't think about the hidden fees. You don't think about those little things, those little minute details that come up. Especially when you're in a hospital and all you're doing is signing your name. You're constantly being asked, what's your name, your full name, what's your social, etc. Etc.

Joe (17:13)

Well, and that's job number one. That's different than a credit card bill. Not only is it opaque like you're talking about, you got all these little fees. You don't get a bill until after the fact that's right, it isn't like, hey, here's a new sweater and pay for it and you can take it home. It's here is the medical treatment, and then the $43,000 bill shows up later on.

Imani Vance (17:37)

And it's like when you are in a hospital bed trying to get better, it's only just going to bring on more stress to have to think about the financial burdens of that. But it's especially harder when thousands and thousands of Americans, especially right now, with what's going on. A lot of people don't have insurance. It's just what it is. A lot of Americans right now do not have insurance. And the ones that do, or they did, the Medicaid subsidies, all these different things, it's a lot harder to be able to just obtain insurance at a very reasonable cost compared to other countries. So when you're just sitting and then after that you get the bill and automatically they tell you, hey, you owe this amount of money. It was great taking care of you and all, but this is what you owe. It's automatically like, where's the ambulance? Because now I'm going to have to go right back in because you just gave me a heart attack.

Joe (18:24)

We're going to talk about where you got help from here in a little bit, but initially you're on your own. You got this. Bill negotiating isn't intuitive to 90% of people. Did you think to, like, call them and say, hey, can we get a lower number? Is there any negotiation? You tried?

Imani Vance (18:42)

Absolutely, Joe. I mean, even for me, it felt like, I'll be honest, I like to dig deep. So whenever I have a challenge that comes over me, I don't immediately just say, oh, well, and just give up. I immediately start to research. So for me, what I did was I went online. I go onto Reddit and social media platforms. I saw on Reddit of a post that talked about their medical debt, and given their story, they said, try $4. I didn't even know financial assistance existed. Nobody mentioned it. Like, I went online, I filled out a form, I gave them a situation of my income, you know, what I just got out of. And when I told them that, it basically, it's like they wiped out everything. It wiped out all of my debt.

Joe (19:27)

Let me ask you about this, then. This is hospital financial assistance. So that's what $4 is. And in plain English, what is hospital financial assistance? What does that mean?

Imani Vance (19:38)

Hospital financial assistance is like a small program. They're able to help you out when you cannot pay off Your medical bills. Some hospitals had a financial assistance program that told me, hey, if you need help, we got you. We need you to fill out a bunch of these forms. And let's be honest, at my age, I don't really care about forms. I kind of just say, well, this is what happened to me. Can't you guys just believe me? And they're like, well, no, we gotta get all this other things. So for me, I feel like $4 was definitely a tool. They were like a friend, like a just an angel on my shoulder to be able to tap me and be my advocate. They were like my lawyer.

Joe (20:17)

They were like, we got the forms. So what you're saying is the hospital has forms, they have assistance programs. And this is most hospitals around the country, they have a hospital assistance program, but they really give you the stack of stuff to fill out. You freak out. But $4. And groups like this have seen the forms before. Hospitals, of course, don't advertise that they even have help because they want, of course, you to pay if you can. At what point did you find dollar for? Had the hospital sent your bill to collections or was it before collections?

Imani Vance (20:55)

It was slightly before collections. I was really, really close because really what was happening, given my circumstance, I was really trying to look for help from the va. I was really trying to look from help from my employment only because this did happen under their care. So I did want to be able to go directly to the source and be able to find some help as much as I could. But when they finally explained to me after just a while, after searching and searching and waiting, they told me that because of the lack of time that I served the minimum, it made it a lot harder for me to be able to get the assistance that I deserved. So with that, all I did was again, late night scrolling. I literally just looked up and saw that there was something called $400. First I thought scam. These kind of things happen. Usually it's like these ghost advertisements that says, hey, we're gonna help you, but then they really are trying to steal your money. But $4, when I saw these other testimonials and when I really heard how they can be basically that form filler for you, kind of like how TurboTax does it for you, and they help you fill out your forms and help you with your taxes. That's basically what $4 was doing for me. They took all of my information, they took all of my hospital. They saw everything, they saw my income, they saw everything. And they just talked to the Hospital.

Joe (22:11)

For me, it is such a great point you made that there are so many, when people get in trouble, there are so many credit relief programs that are scams. We've had people on talking about that before. There are so many people get into hospital that you get led astray by people that are going to try to make money off of you. Can we talk about how the process went when you started working with $4? Because whether somebody chooses $4 or a similar company, a similar institution, there are some institutions out there that can help you. So contact $4. What happens then? Do you meet with somebody? Do you get on like a zoom type, call with them? Or do you have a chat online? Like, how does this whole thing start?

Imani Vance (22:55)

All I did was go on their website. I believe there was an area where it said you could submit a form. And when I started to fill out that form again, it is some forms that you still have to deal with, but it's a whole lot significantly shorter than what you'd have to deal with with the regular hospital because the hospitals are here. Like, well, we need your W2s, we need your income, we need all these different verifications. A check of a check of a check. I didn't want to do all that, but what $4 did was dead. Here's just a simple form of how much do you make an estimate then just a slight verification of that. It could be a check stub or anything like that. Then the next thing they did was put your story. So basically I told them what happened to me. I gave them my DD214, I gave them my medical notes and everything that happened and I gave them my medical bills. And basically they said, well, clearly they said we'll take care of it. Because after maybe two to three weeks I got a notification from Wellstar that said you were eligible for 100% of financial assistance. Not 20, not 30, not 50, not 70, 100.

Joe (23:59)

And this is, I think, an important lesson, Stackers. And obviously for many of you this might not apply. But if you've got somebody in your family who is dealing with medical debt, I think some takeaways here, Amani are number one. Nonprofit hospitals are legally required to offer assistance. Many for profit hospitals also offer assistance. These income thresholds they have way higher than most people think. Way way higher. More of you are eligible for medical assistance than you think. But the hospital makes the application confusing on purpose because they want you to

Imani Vance (24:37)

pay and they want to make it where you are manipulated. You know, you're basically going to say, I don't want to do this or you put in the wrong thing, you say the wrong thing, just the wrong input, and automatically they'll pass it. Buying and say you're rejected.

Joe (24:52)

Yeah, a hundred percent. So what $4 does is they're a group that exists 100% just to help you navigate. And like you, Imani, when I first heard about $4, which has been a little while now, I was like, oh, just another scam company. And, man, just all of the people that have gotten great help from them.

Imani Vance (25:14)

It's real. And they were real stories. It AI. It's not these fake testimonials. They are real people. Some people that have gone through even worse situations than mine, even ongoing medical problems and medical traumas, and they still were able to get coverage. That was amazing to me.

Joe (25:33)

Yeah, they exist 100% to help people get through medical debt. They will see if you qualify. And then money, like for you, they help you fill out the patient form, they prepare the application and they send it to the hospital. Exactly what they did for you. And then they work with you and the hospital to get you medical relief. So after you found out that you were eligible, did you have more help from them after that?

Imani Vance (25:56)

Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I immediately got the financial assistance, the first thing I did was get a. I had to get a post op just to make sure that I was recovering and rehabilitating well. And of course, I did fine. Thankfully, the appendicitis, there's two types. So I could have gotten the open surgery, basically where they completely cut me open. And they would have had to remove my appendix that way. But then there's been new treatments called the laparoscopic. Tiny little incisions they make in my body. And what they did was just tiny little incisions, little holes. Took about three weeks.

Joe (26:30)

Nothing so powerful. This is the kicker. Stackers. What did you pay for all this help from $4?

Imani Vance (26:38)

Nothing.

Joe (26:38)

She paid nothing. $4 is sponsored by generous donors. For people that really need help, they get it. Which is amazing. And I know this is ending up sounding like a advertisement for $4, but truly what it's an advertisement for is there's help out there if you need it. And there's good help. Man, if we can shine a light and Stackers, if you can help us shine a light on organizations like this, then we can start wiping out medical debt. Because, Imani, now, the medical debt now is gone. How does that change your world? What are you thinking about? What's happening now? That changed the second that you had this $43,000 ogre off your back.

Imani Vance (27:18)

For me, it was amazing. I mean, the first thing that happened, I automatically, like, my stomach dropped. I was in denial. I was like, there's no way. There's no way that they actually cleared it. Because a lot of times I get different stories. I had to do research and look to see. And people usually say, well, maybe just set up a payment plan and everything. But the minimum payment plans that they had set up for me was about three to five hundred dollars a month. And for me to be able to pay that kind of thing off, I was like. Like, I'm paying my car note already that it feels like that's just another bill that I don't need. I would rather pay that on a house or an apartment somewhere I'm living, not over something that was out of my control.

Joe (27:56)

You're gonna be paying for it forever.

Imani Vance (27:57)

Exactly. It was even like, it's out of my control that these kind of things happen, especially just medical debt and just medical situations. A lot of times, it really is out of your control. And when you have to pay, you're basically paying for your punishment. Something that wasn't even your fault. It's sad.

Joe (28:13)

Well, come on. It was your fault. Your damn appendix. If you would have had a talk with your appendix ahead of time.

Imani Vance (28:18)

It's true. If anybody is listening to this, if you've got medical bills haunting you like a bad ex, please check with your hospital's financial assistance policy.

Joe (28:28)

Amen. And if it's a stack, then look at a group like $4. And we'll link to, by the way, $4 on our show notes page at Stacking Benjamin's. Hey, Amani, good luck with the Navy. My dad served in the Navy. I've got two nephews serving in the Navy. Navy Federal has been a long time sponsor of Stacking Benjamin. So thank you for your future service and for trying the first time around. So glad that you're gonna go help keep our country safe. And thank you for telling your story. I really appreciate it.

Imani Vance (28:57)

You're welcome, Joe. I'd like to help in any way I can.

OG (29:01)

We're looking for the answer and correct spelling. Old MacDonald had a what farm?

Imani Vance (29:06)

E, I, E, I, O.

Doug (29:13)

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And wow, these medical bills sound like highway robbery, don't they? $45,000 of work and you don't find out till it's over. That doesn't sit right with me. Something else that doesn't sit Right with me is when I see these neighborhood kids getting into trouble. We need to be better mentors. Stackers. Check out today's trivia question. It was on today's date, back in 1981, that the youngest bank robber of all time stole $118 at gunpoint from a New York bank. How old was he? I'll be back right after I asked Joe's mom for a photo ID before I get her another gin and tonic. This reminds me, you can never be too safe. Mic drop.

Joe (30:01)

You ready? Let's do it.

OG (30:02)

Hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ridland. It's unfiltered.

Joe (30:06)

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

OG (30:09)

It's weird.

Joe (30:09)

I mean, I've had so many near death experiences, it's raw.

OG (30:12)

I love this country.

Doug (30:13)

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

Joe (30:17)

The question, you know, what's the meaning of life? And to me, it just boils down to one single word versus probably purpose.

Doug (30:23)

Mic drop. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Hey there, stackers. I'm basement bartender and guy who just learned what happens when you ask a lady of a certain age how old she is. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. To be clear, I think Joe's mom is wiser and smarter. Much, much more. More than she is older. Okay, can I throw away this paper with that note on it now? Ma, can I just get it? Oh, I wasn't supposed to say that. She wrote it, man. This is very complicated. Well, hopefully I don't mess up the trivia answer, too. Here was the question, which I picked because of Imani's hospital bill. On today's date in history, the youngest bank robber ever took off with 118, but later surrendered to the FBI. How old was he? The youngest bank robber ever was a whopping 9 years old. Not a great way to start your life, kid. And now two guys who help shine a light on those companies stealing from you. Back to Joe and OG.

Joe (31:37)

Oh, gee. How old were you when you were robbed? Your first bank?

OG (31:40)

Bank of Mom.

Joe (31:41)

Bank of Mom.

OG (31:42)

I was like, 13, probably.

Doug (31:44)

Did you ever do that?

OG (31:45)

Yeah, I did.

Doug (31:47)

Did you just reach right into the purse and grab a 20?

OG (31:50)

No. Way worse, actually. I knew my mom's PIN number.

Joe (31:53)

Oh, no. Oh, no.

Doug (31:57)

Does mom listen to the show?

OG (31:58)

Yeah, she knows about this. And she got me. She was like, hey, so something happened with our bank account. And the good news is she just brought it up at dinner. She's like, the good news is the bank has all these security cameras, and it's not gonna take them long at all to figure out who it was. And then they can go arrest the person who stole the money out of our account.

Joe (32:19)

And I was like, she's just staring at you.

Doug (32:21)

Oh, yeah.

OG (32:23)

And then you're sitting there eating dinner going, oh, boy, how do I get out of this one? She was very gracious. I learned my lesson. Don't take money out of mom's purse or bank account for that matter.

Joe (32:36)

No, that's a good lesson.

OG (32:38)

Fair play though, because she has an amex card that's tied to my account and she, she, she has no problem reminding me when she charges on it.

Joe (32:46)

That's an answer for parents right there, Doug. Guilt runs strong. Just go ahead, let your kid steal a couple hundred bucks maybe. Or maybe a hundred bucks early on.

OG (32:54)

And then in her mind it was like an investment.

Joe (32:56)

Exactly.

OG (32:58)

She's like, I could put a hundred in the S and P ivv. I could vts X and chill. Or I could let my kids steal $100.

Joe (33:05)

Hopefully he's successful Ogsax.

OG (33:09)

And then I'm going to get a copy of his amex card. No, don't take money from your folks, kids.

Joe (33:14)

It's such an important story that Amani told and I think it was very brave of her to just admit I didn't know anything about how the system worked. I'm so happy that a young woman like that's serving our country. So I wish her well on her adventure into the Navy, which is, I think going gonna be great. And I'm so happy that we found this organization. $4. And by the way, if you need that link, it'll be in our show notes. It's stacking Benjamins.com if you've got a relative or a friend who really, really needs help navigating. Man, what a cool non profit. Let's take a look at a headline, guys.

OG (33:50)

Hello, darlings.

Imani Vance (33:52)

And now it's time for your favorite

OG (33:54)

part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's headlines.

Joe (33:57)

Doug, you saw this recently in the Wall Street Journal and I wanted to run this by all of our stackers because I really. Interesting.

Doug (34:05)

I did too, actually. When I saw the headline, what grabbed me was the word swinging and it was in the headline in the Wall Street Journal. I'm like, wow, what's, what's the Wall Street Journal going to cover about this? And then I was disappointed. But you were excited about it when you saw the headline. I was. I was crestfallen.

Joe (34:24)

Clickbait hits people different Ways.

Doug (34:26)

Exactly.

Joe (34:28)

I might have seen the rest of the headline, which is, which was the fact that the housing market is swinging toward buyers. This could be good news for people that have been trying to accumulate cash. Oh gee, and maybe buy their first home. This piece was written by Nicole Friedman. Nicole writes, many home shoppers have given up on the depressed housing market where sales are stuck at a 30 year low. But those buying are enjoying discounts at the highest rate in years. About 62% of buyers last year purchased a home below the original listing price. That was the highest proportion since 2019, according to a new analysis by real estate brokerage Redfin. It strikes me og that interest rates go up, right? And people get a locked into their house in the low interest rate. And new buyers with these higher interest rates, you know, if they had done back of the envelope calculations, those monthly payments now may have changed. The amount of money that they needed may have changed for the down payment. Everything starts moving. I mean, the real estate market cyclical. Is this, you think this good news is going to last? Can people finally start planning their next move?

OG (35:41)

I think it's interesting when people say things like, and you said it twice two different ways, like stuck in their house or stuck in their mortgage. You have to remove that from your vernacular. It just is what it is. And now you just have to make the next decision based on the evaluation of the data that you have now. I mean, everybody thinks like two and a half percent mortgages was the new normal. It wasn't. It was a short period of time where if you were lucky enough to get in there, great. But now, like you said, people feel like the luck is actually a bad thing to have because they're comparing the future mortgage payment or the future interest rate to their current one going, well, I can't, quote, unquote, afford to do this thing. Things are going to change whether it's pricing or whether it's the borrowing costs, whether it's the other tax situation that goes on with houses. So that's going to change. I mean, imagine if all of a sudden they said, hey, there's no more property taxes in this community or this county or whatever. Like, what would that do to housing prices? All this to say, there's always going to be changes that are happening. And as you're evaluating, hey, do I take the job and move? Do I buy this house or don't I? You can't look backwards and say, if I would have only done this. Well, yeah, if I'd have only taken all my money and Dumped it in Bitcoin. At 10 cents a thing, I'd be a gazillionaire. Like, I wish I would have done that. I wish I would have taken all of my money on leverage and margin the hell out of my life and bought a bunch of Nvidia stock. But I didn't. And it's like, you can't do. You can't live your life looking backwards, trying to decide what I want to do in the future based on things that happened in the past.

Joe (37:19)

What about this idea of people getting bigger discounts on houses paying less than sticker price? Now, looking at this, there's a chart and I'll link to it in the show notes for people have a Wall Street Journal subscription, but the average person now is paying 8% less than what the price looks like on the house. I mean, should we bone up on our negotiating skills?

OG (37:42)

Well, I mean, you should have probably a realtor to do this, but. But I find this interesting too, that the commentary on we got a discount, it's like, just because you price something incorrectly and you get it for a correct price doesn't make you get got a discount on it.

Joe (37:56)

But I think this is hard for somebody who's just starting out because they see the price of a house. If I'm just starting out, I see that, you know, I go into Target and I see the price of bread. I'm like, okay, that's the price where the house. That ain't the case.

OG (38:09)

Right?

Joe (38:09)

That's our starting negotiating spot. And the fact is, people are now able to negotiate that down further than they were as soon as two years ago.

OG (38:20)

Is that a discount or is it like the sellers are, you know, are they living in fantasy land just like buyers were as it relates to rates? At one point in time, Zillow said, my house is worth a million. I think it's worth a million. It's like, well, no, no one wants to buy it at a million. People will buy it at 875. Therefore, your house is worth 875.

Joe (38:38)

That's another headline, by the way, when you talk about, you know, sellers. And maybe there's something going on with sellers. Og another headline recently was that we're seeing people that make good money. People with good income streams are starting to default on their debt and really get into credit card debt. Like, the numbers are starting to stack up there too. Do you think that these two kind of tie together, that you might have somebody who's a little more distressed because of the fact that they need the cash today.

OG (39:08)

I haven't seen the credit card or auto defaults or mortgage default numbers. I think there's always going to be this ebb and flow of people that get a little overextended and then have to tighten their belts a little bit and then get a little overextended and tighten their belts. And the key for all of this is to not play in this game. Like if, if you can avoid this roller coaster ride of whether it's debt management or cash flow or whatever, always building in enough margin of safety to allow for the ebbs and flows, build

Joe (39:41)

that margin into your plan. Well, look at Amani. We just heard OG Imani story and now there's no way a 19 year old's going to get $45,000 saved, right? But I'm sure for the rest of her life she's going to have that emergency fund. Like she's going, might not be 45 grand. But I do know because I learned very, very quickly that man stuff can go the wrong way in a hurry, right?

OG (40:07)

I mean that's an example of unfortunate luck, right? That's not even like, that's like one of those ones where you're like, God, why me? I'm talking about the self inflicted things. Sure, bad things happen, it's just unfortunately. But if you can avoid some of that, whether it's like having, you know, a little bit of an extra emergency fund or cash flow wise, paying attention to it. And the interesting thing and what I think we want to remind people of is, and I know where people, I know the kind of feedback that we might hear, which is, yeah, it's all easy to say when you make X dollars. But if you're like me and you're making 70 grand and I'm trying to put food on the table, like there isn't any margin. And I get that, I 100% understand that because I know, Joe, you were there. Doug, you were there, I've been there. Like we've all lived through that. The important thing is, is like when the next good news happens, when you get the $5,000 bonus, when you get the 3% pay raise, you know, whatever, and that you're starting to build in a little bit of extra every single time those good news things happen. You can't, you just have to, for a short period of time go, I can't take that. I'm not owed this money. Like, and we hear that, right? It's like, I need a vacation. I'm gonna go, I just got a $5,000 bonus. I'm gonna go spend $6,000 on a vacation because I'm due, right? I'm owed it. You don't understand how hard I've been working. I need the time off. It's like. I do understand how hard you've been working. I know what it's like. We've all been there. If you can build that margin early, then from that point forward you're good, then you can spend all the extra. Right. Like if you say I'm making 70, but until I make, you know, from 70 to 80, that $10,000 gap, I'm saving. And then from 80 to 90, 90 to 100, just spend all that. That's fine. You still have that $10,000 gap, if that makes sense. Give yourself the benefit of being more conservative. And as it specifically relates to houses, it's okay to not buy the million dollar house. And I know. Well, you don't know what it's like to live in Chicago. You have to. I know, I got it. But maybe you just can't do that one. You have to have a little bit smaller one or. I read an article the other day, you just rent. There's an article about somebody in New York that's renting and they figured out the math that they're going to have more money in 20 years by renting versus the down payment and having that money taken out of their brokerage account and the taxes and the maintenance fees and all the stuff that goes into owning a place.

Joe (42:28)

Well, I think a lesson here too is don't forget to negotiate. I mean, they can say no big deal.

OG (42:32)

Well, as it relates to buying stuff, absolutely. You know, you should negotiate almost everything.

Joe (42:38)

Always, always put your negotiation hat on. And if you don't think you're good at that, I mean, that's your next curriculum, right? Build yourself a curriculum. Find people are great at negotiation and dive into that. If I'm selling my house right now, should this data worry me that prices seem to be coming down?

OG (42:56)

I mean, it would worry me if I bought the house a year ago.

Joe (43:00)

Well, this is why, og, we don't buy houses and sell them the next year. Because if you bought it a year ago and you're thinking about selling already, I mean, just the cost, the transaction costs are going to kill you even without all this data that we're looking at. Yeah, but I also think when it's more competitive, man, when we were looking at houses a few years ago, just the staging your house, every statistic you see shows that, that spending Just a little time. And if you can't afford a stager, early on I was moving from one place to another and I hired a stager not to do it OG because I couldn't afford the stager, but I could afford one to pay them for one hour of their time to walk around my house and show me what to do. And that was amazing. That was money so well spent having them just take me around. And because again, thinking about negotiation, I'm like, I don't have any cash. How do I get this done? But I know I need my house staged well, instead of paying all that cash to have somebody else do it, you know, for me at the time, paying them for an hour was good stuff.

OG (44:03)

Use AI, take a picture of your living room and say, what should I do in here to make this ready to sell it?

Joe (44:11)

And you know the first thing I ask, your house already looks great, but let's make it look even better. Yeah, it's going to be like our best friend. Wow. You live in an amazing place.

Doug (44:22)

Mine told me to hang pictures to hide the water stains on the walls.

Joe (44:26)

There it is.

Doug (44:27)

Which I never would have thought of

Joe (44:29)

from all the crying Doug does when the open doesn't go the way that he wants. Creates water stains all over the walls. We'll link to this on our show notes page@stackingbenjamins.com before we say goodbye, Doug, we have to go out on the back porch for a second because we've got a meet up in Southern Minnesota if you're in the Mankato area. Why, what else are you doing?

OG (44:52)

It's so cold there.

Joe (44:55)

Yeah, move away and come back when it's warm or I think you need to huddle with some other stackers because we're having a cool meetup tonight. Tonight at 6:30 at Maverick Innovation Gateway. That's of course on the the other MSU campus. Minnesota State University campus.

OG (45:16)

Minnesota State or Mankato State?

Joe (45:18)

Minnesota State. Minnesota State University. The Mavericks. Oh, gee, the Mavericks. So Maverick Innovation Center. Come join Tim and Rob and the gang. And we had a great, great first meet up a month ago, so hope to continue that tonight. I know they've got a fantastic agenda for the meeting.

Doug (45:36)

Also in the back porch, I want to make sure we talk about a great note we received from Marcia who lives at the end of the earth. Like if you're a flat earther like me, you wonder where's the edge? It's where Marsha lives in New Brunswick, Canada. Like it's a real place. Yeah, who knew?

OG (45:55)

Isn't Brunswick the name of the like the bowling company?

Doug (45:59)

Yeah, that's where all the bowling equipment must come from. I just thought it was a fictitious place. But it's where they make all the

OG (46:05)

best bowling capital of North America, right?

Doug (46:09)

Marcia is a 61 year old Canadian woman who loves the podcast, although I feel old with each post at Joe about his age. Love the dynamic between Joe, OG and Doug. Been listening for a few years now. This isn't even a review. This is just she put this out there for the world to see on Facebook. She wears noise canceling headphones with AirPods inside so I can listen while riding the mower and have snow blown that way as well. I'm like that sentence structure Marcia makes me think you're snow blowing and riding the mower inside. I don't know what happens in New Brunswick. It's a magical place. Bowling in New Brunswick. And Americans always say where is that? You're right. We do. They share a border with Maine. We're not even sure Maine is real. Marcia. So awesome. Thanks for writing in Marcia. Appreciate that.

OG (47:01)

All right, Doug, what should we have learned today?

Doug (47:05)

Wow, just not even letting Joe talk. I like it. I like this new format we've got. So what's stacked up on our to do list for today? Take some advice from Imani Vance. Having work done? Get the bill ASAP and hopefully before you get the procedure completed. Second, that emergency fund. It comes in handy when bad things happen, huh? But you might ask, what's the big lesson? If you're gonna card Joe's mom, you might as well just begin washing windows ahead of time because that's what you'll end up doing anyways. You've been warned. Thanks to Imani Vance for joining us today and sharing her story. And good luck in the Navy, Amani. You're gonna serve our country well, I'm sure. Also, if you or someone you know needs help navigating the hospital relief system, introduce them to $for.org that's $for.org we'll include a link to them in our show notes so you can get busy wiping out that debt. This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, copyright 2026 and is created by Josal Sehai. You'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take Advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show. This is the after show, the part of the show that nobody's allowed to talk about under a penalty of social embarrassment.

OG (49:50)

I think public flogging.

Doug (49:52)

Public flogging, which we got to bring that back, right?

OG (49:55)

There's a few people I got in mind that would be.

Doug (49:59)

So many of our social ills would just disappear if that came back like the stockade in the town square. Anyway, you had a skiing adventure that may have topped our skiing adventure. You teased me with this. I want to know the rest of the story.

OG (50:17)

Well, I had scheduled this ski trip with my son, but then kind of last minute school kind of got in the way. Stupid thing called college. No, he life. And rightfully so. He was like, dad, it's Christmas break. I don't know that I want to travel. And it was a good thing because the ski season out west is absolute garbage as it relates to the amount of snow.

Doug (50:40)

Dog poopoo.

OG (50:42)

It is wild how little snow there was when we were there. Not just like, oh, it hasn't snowed much. More like, that's grass, right? You know how, like when you're on a chairlift, you go, wow, that looks like a pretty intense run. But if you see it with what is just grass and field, you're like, oh, I should be able to do that.

Doug (50:59)

That's just right.

OG (51:00)

You know, I could damn near walk down that thing in any event. So I went with my brother. He was able to take some time off and it was his first time skiing in a long time. So he was having a rough go of it. He was not very trusting of his abilities. Compounded with the fact that the snow wasn't particularly fantastic. A little warm, so you get that kind of slushy.

Doug (51:21)

The snow wasn't particularly there.

OG (51:24)

It was hard to ski over the mud. The rocks were kind of in the way. But we had a good time and it was good brother brother time. So I was talking to my mom this weekend and she's like, hey, I haven't talked to your brother yet. I hope he got home safely. Just how moms would say. And I said, because this is a perfect opportunity to say this, I said, well, I've been sworn to secrecy about what happened. And if you know my mom, which I think you do a little bit, her Mind immediately goes to the most obscure, insane outcome that possibly could have happened. Like, he's not dead, but he's close to it. And so she's like, oh, my God, did he break his collarbone again? Because he did that in seventh grade and he went skiing. And I was like, well, you know

Doug (52:13)

your brother has weak collarbones.

OG (52:15)

I'm like, I've been told not to say anything. And she's like, God dang it, you got to tell me what's going on. He doesn't have friend find me on there. And I'm like, well, Sarah's involved. That's his wife's name. I'm like, it's okay. Like, I think she's with him. She's like, she's with him. Like. Like, what did they do with the kids? And I'm like, I don't know. They wanted to be together for Valentine's Day. Like, all of that is true. They wanted to be together on Valentine's Day. She is with him. They are with him at home.

Doug (52:39)

Such a jerk.

Joe (52:40)

You're such a jerk.

OG (52:42)

She says, well, I gotta go. I'm gonna call your brother. So she calls my brother, leaves a voicemail. My brother texts me the voicemail transcription. Hey, Josh said you might have got hurt. Hope you're okay. Let me know what's going on. He texts this back to me, giggle, giggle, giggle, and takes a picture of himself sitting in a chair with his arm kind of like this. And then screenshots back to me loading that picture into ChatGPT that says, Put me in a cast in a hospital room in the mountains.

Imani Vance (53:12)

Oh, boy.

OG (53:14)

So it's this ongoing thread of me and my brother changing all these pictures, you know, like, okay, that's good, but try this picture instead, you know? So he ends up with this picture. Here you go.

Doug (53:27)

Oh, he's got a head wrapped as well. Nice.

OG (53:29)

He's got his head wrapped nice. With a cast on his arm. And then he's had this picture of himself in a boot. All of his kids toys are in the background. I'm like, well, that looks stupid. Put yourself in a hospital room. So ChatGPT puts him on the hospital

Joe (53:45)

floor

Doug (53:48)

as far as I could make it, ma. I crawled into the hospital.

OG (53:51)

So he sends those pictures to my mom and says, here you go. And she loses her mind. And so then I text her back

Doug (53:58)

last, you guys are the worst sons of all time.

OG (54:02)

I know.

Doug (54:03)

You just terrorize your mother.

OG (54:06)

So then I text her last night, and I said, how's Jordan doing? And I said, I hope he's recovering. And she's like, not a nice thing to do to an old lady. And so then I text a picture of myself with an eye patch and a. I said I was also injured, also with the head wrap in the. In the hospital room.

Doug (54:30)

And she's like, Civil War veterans.

OG (54:34)

That's what it looked like. And so, anyways, this will be way better of a visual podcast than an audio to kind of see the whole transcription of it. But if you know anything about me, I like, I love to pull all these little. These little funny, funny pranks. My brother's injured and my mom doesn't know.

Doug (54:55)

ChatGPT put my brother in a tree, like, skiing.

OG (55:01)

Oh, that would be a good one. I've got one of him falling. I bet I can take the video, like, take it to Sora and just be like, make this video. Like, instead of him just sliding and falling on his butt, like, make him tumble down the mountain. I might do that one. That one would be funny, too.

Doug (55:15)

Yeah, I think she'll enjoy that.