How To Use Our #1 Key To Money Management Success (SB1641)

Summary

Episode Summary: How To Use Our #1 Key To Money Management Success (SB1641)

Release Date: February 7, 2025
Podcast: The Stacking Benjamins Show
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy and OG
Award: Named 2023 Best Personal Finance Podcast by Bankrate.com

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1. Introduction to Financial Automation

The episode delves into the pivotal role of automation in personal finance management. Hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG are joined by esteemed guests Paula Pant, Jesse Kramer, and Doc G (Jordan Grummet) to explore how automating financial tasks can lead to significant money management success.

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2. Panel Introduction and Light Banter

Timestamp: [01:38] - [05:03]

The hosts introduce Bruce Dickerson as the new producer for the show, setting a lighthearted tone. The panel engages in friendly banter, discussing personal anecdotes about childhood camps, highlighting the show’s engaging and relatable atmosphere.

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3. The Importance of Automation in Financial Management

Timestamp: [05:03] - [14:01]

Joe Saul-Sehy emphasizes that automating finances is the "number one way to get ahead with your money." Paula Pant adds that in our busy lives, automation prevents financial tasks from slipping through the cracks, such as bill payments and investments. Jesse Kramer echoes this sentiment, linking automation to reducing decision fatigue and ensuring critical financial actions are not forgotten.

Notable Quote:
Paula Pant at [09:14]:
"Frankly, it's because we're all busy. There are a million things that we have to do. And there are certain tasks in our life that simply can't be automated, like doing the laundry."

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4. Strategies to Automate Finances

Timestamp: [14:01] - [25:28]

The discussion transitions to practical strategies for automating various financial aspects:

• Automating Bill Payments:
  Paula advocates for automating credit card payments to avoid penalties and maintain credit scores. However, she stresses the importance of setting up alerts for unusual spending to catch discrepancies early.

  Notable Quote:
  Paula Pant at [43:55]:
  "I have two thoughts on that. The way that I've done it on one of my credit cards, on my business card, is I know, ballpark what our monthly bill should be. And so I just have an alert that says, if we spend over this much money, then send us an alert."

• Automating Savings and Investments:
  Joe shares his experience of automating his paycheck distribution to manage savings effectively, smoothing out the irregular income typical of entrepreneurial ventures.

• Using Tools and Apps for Automation:
  Jesse highlights the importance of calendar and to-do list apps like Todoist for setting recurring financial tasks, ensuring consistency without manual intervention.

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5. Prioritizing What to Automate Using ROI and Risk Management

Timestamp: [25:28] - [35:53]

Jesse Kramer introduces Charlie Munger’s principle of inversion as a method to prioritize automation based on potential catastrophic failures. By identifying tasks that could lead to significant financial trouble if neglected, individuals can prioritize automating these critical actions.

Notable Quote:
Jesse Kramer at [16:41]:
"If I wanted to implode my life, financial or otherwise, what are the things that I would forget to do? And those can be the things where you might want to first think about automating it."

Doc G adds a complementary perspective, suggesting that high-risk tasks should have additional human oversight even when automated to ensure they function correctly.

Notable Quote:
Doc G at [18:58]:
"But we both got busy and no one checked it for a month or two. And when we went back, we actually found spurious charges. Some company had been charging us five or six hundred dollars a pop multiple weeks in a row over a few months."

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6. Balancing Automation with Human Oversight

Timestamp: [35:53] - [45:28]

The panel discusses the delicate balance between automating financial tasks and maintaining active oversight to prevent errors or fraudulent activities. Paula emphasizes setting up alerts for unusual account activities, while Jesse and Doc G highlight the necessity of regular reviews despite automation.

Notable Quote:
Paula Pant at [44:59]:
"What am I willing to pay in order to not think about this? If that's ballpark the amount of money that I'm bleeding in little charges here and there, then it all shakes out."

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7. Personal Automation Hacks and Tools

Timestamp: [45:28] - [51:41]

Each panelist shares their favorite automation tools and hacks:

• Jesse Kramer: Utilizes calendar apps and Todoist for recurring financial tasks and maintaining organization.

  Notable Quote:
  Jesse Kramer at [47:46]:
  "If it's not on the calendar then it's not happening."

• Doc G: Employs tools like Calendly and Descript to streamline scheduling and content creation, reducing manual workload.

  Notable Quote:
  Doc G at [50:15]:
  "I send them directly to my Calendly to sign up for an appointment. And then my Calendly sends them directly to PayPal to pay for that first appointment."

• Paula Pant: Uses alert systems for credit card spending and evaluates the cost-benefit of potentially hiring assistance to manage finances.

Notable Quote:
Paula Pant at [43:55]:
"...if I were to hire an assistant to manually do it, and I paid that assistant $30 an hour, how much would it cost me to pay an assistant to manually do it?"

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8. Automations to Avoid

Timestamp: [51:41] - [57:00]

The panel explores what not to automate in personal finances, cautioning against over-reliance on automation that removes essential human checks:

• Breakup Texts and Personalized Communications: Automating sensitive personal interactions can lead to impersonal and potentially harmful outcomes.

• Subscription Management: While automating subscriptions can prevent missed payments, it may also lead to unnoticed renewals and unnecessary expenses. The panel suggests regular reviews of automated subscriptions to ensure they remain relevant and necessary.

Notable Quote:
Joe Saul-Sehy at [32:09]:
"Should we automate all our expenses... I just want to have, you know, those things automatically because I don't have to think about it."

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9. Trivia Segment Highlights

Timestamp: [21:43] - [60:47]

The episode features a lively trivia segment, engaging both guests and listeners in financial-themed questions. This interactive portion reinforces key concepts discussed, such as identity theft reports handled by the FTC.

Notable Quote:
Paula Pant at [32:23]:
"Or do I use a totally different analogy? Because you would never kick off to the side of a field goal. But do I do one of those two either?"

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10. Key Takeaways

Timestamp: [60:47] - [67:11]

As the episode winds down, the hosts summarize the essential lessons on financial automation:

1. Automate Critical Financial Tasks: Ensure that essential payments and investments are automated to prevent oversight and penalties.

   Doc G at [59:38]:
   "Automate, but check twice if it's important."

2. Prioritize Based on Risk: Focus on automating tasks that, if forgotten, could lead to significant financial distress.

   Jesse Kramer at [59:48]:
   "Prioritize the things that could potentially cause you the most damage."

3. Maintain Human Oversight: Regularly review automated processes to catch and rectify any errors or fraudulent activities.

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11. Conclusion and Next Episode Teasers

The episode concludes with teasers for upcoming episodes and additional content from the hosts' affiliated podcasts. Listeners are encouraged to apply the automation strategies discussed and leverage the recommended tools to enhance their financial management.

Notable Quote:
Joe Saul-Sehy at [63:36]:
"Thanks to Paula Pant for joining us today... 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."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show offers a comprehensive exploration of financial automation, blending expert insights with practical advice. By prioritizing automation in critical areas while maintaining essential human oversight, listeners can achieve greater financial stability and success.

Transcript

[Joe Saul Sehy]

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[Paula Pant]

So faced with a question, where did they go next?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

With this podcast, the guys were recently joined by legendary musical genius Bruce Dickerson, who's agreed to be the new producer.

[Paula Pant]

Of the Stack and Benjamin Show. They were all excited to meet him.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Hey fellas, I'm Bruce Dickerson.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yes, the Bruce Dickerson. You have a dynamite sound. Fantastic sound. I have only one suggestion. More cowbell.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and let's get your money factory cranking. What did we learn from the automobile that applies to your money automation? Today we're sharing what to automate, what to put on hold, and where the biggest ROI gains can be with your money if you nail this. But that's not all. Today our panel will try and regroup to ensure that OG doesn't run away with our year long trivia challenge. Then now a guy who's here to help you parse the trivial from the important parts of financial planning. It's Joe Saul Sehi.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Hey, everybody, and happy Friday to you. We're super happy you're here to talk automation with us. And the people that are with us are not automated. They're animated, but not automated. Starting with a woman who's coming to us, not from Manhattan, but I believe from her old bedroom in Georgia, Paula Panta is here.

[Paula Pant]

I am here. I am automatically smiling by virtue of being in your presence.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Oh, yes.

[Paula Pant]

Every day is a good day that I'm on the Stacking Benjamins podcast.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

That is fabulous. You just wanted to have a sofa in your background too, like me, didn't you?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, you know, it's nice. I'm sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, which is technically not how sofas are supposed to be used, but I've discovered that the sofa makes for a really nice background, good depth of field, nice bright pop of color.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

So, yeah, so you got your legs folded like you're third grade camp.

[Paula Pant]

Oh, I could. All right, now I do. There we go.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Perfect.

[Paula Pant]

There we go.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yes. And the guy who always loves being in third grade camp. That's so bad. Jesse Kramer, for the best interest podcast is here. How are you, man?

[Jesse Kramer]

That is pretty bad. That is pretty bad. I was going to make a joke and say, like, you know, the whole like, leg crossing thing, I don't bend that way personally. But yeah, after that, Joe, I don't know, I might have to rescind my participation in this podcast.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

He's like, yeah. Did you go to. We didn't have third grade camp. We had fourth grade camp.

[Jesse Kramer]

I grew up really rural and so, like, the idea of going away to camp, I live in the woods. Like, why do I need to go to camp? So, yeah, I never went to.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

We can camp right out behind the house.

[Jesse Kramer]

I went to a baseball camp once because I played baseball growing up. So it was at one of the local colleges in Syracuse. And, you know, you spend like three days there doing drills and you sleep overnight in the dorms. That's the closest I ever got to camp.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It. Was it fun?

[Jesse Kramer]

It was. I remember that was the first time where I remember thinking, whoa, there are a lot of really good baseball players my age. And I'm. I was from a really small pond. The place where I grew up is kind of like living in a pond. As I said, it was pretty rural. But yeah, it was an eye opening experience at how big and talented the world is.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It made me laugh, Jesse, when I would talk to parents and like, oh, my kid, seven, he's a phenomenal swimmer. Like, he's going to like win the Olympics or something, right? Your kid doesn't even hit puberty yet. You've no idea what's going to happen. Everything's going to change.

[Jesse Kramer]

Code for my son hasn't drowned yet. So he's a phenomenal swimmer. Right?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

That was coded our family, actually, that's the reason why our family did do swimming was they were failing out of YMCA swim camp. And one of our friends for her kids, she's like, I just had to join the swim team for one year. I didn't care how they did. I just wanted to join the swim team. And they learned how to swim fast. And it was, it was, it was great. I'd recommend swim team for everybody at least one time. And the guy who's going to swim through this topic of automation is here, Doc G. Jordan Grummet joins us. How are you, man?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I'm doing well. You know, my mom used to automate childcare in the summer. She'd send us all to sleepaway camp and just get rid of us. So that was, that was the best automation. I don't know if I can top that.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

So you went to camp all the time. Like you're the opposite of Jesse. You were.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

We did day camps when we were little and then when we got old enough, we all did sleep away camp. So I'd be a month or two away from home.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Well, I definitely don't want you guys to sleep on this topic because I've been on record as saying that this topic is really, for me, the number one way to get ahead with your money is to automate, make saving easy. And if you nail this, if you get this right, man, the rest of it just goes so, so, so much easier. If you're brand new to our Friday episodes, I want to welcome you especially because what we do with our team of contributors, we take a topic at the news, we discuss it. I will tell you this. Our Friday shows are never super hard hitting. It's much more like sitting around with a group of friends and you're at lunch and they're super smart with money so you can be too. Something we always do each week too is thank our sponsors right at the top of the show. We've got a couple here that make sure this is free and we can keep on keeping on so we're hear from them. And then these brilliant people are going to help you get better at automating your money. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal. Our mission is to help Members of the military, veterans and their families achieve their financial goals. That's why we offer great savings and investing options like our certificates. Certificates come with sky high rates and some even have the flexibility to have money anytime during your term. Whether you're saving for a home, new car, your future, our options could help you get there. Certificates are just the beginning. Navy Federal also provides financial advisors to help you manage your investment portfolio, along with online tools to guide your savings plan. With our support, you'll have everything you need to take charge of your finances. So don't wait. The sooner you start building your financial future with Navy Federal savings and investing options, the better off you could be in the long run. Sign up@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union. Our members are the mission savings products insured by NCUA. Investment products are not insured, not obligations of Navy Federal and may lose value.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

How high is the interest rate for the new Laurel Road High Yield Savings account?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

This high.

[Jesse Kramer]

The air is really, really thin up here.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

The Laurel Road Very High Yield Savings.

[Jesse Kramer]

Account Variable annual percentage yield APY is subject to change at any time. No minimum balance required. Fees may reduce earnings on the account. For full terms and conditions, see laurelroad.com savings.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Laurel Road is a brand of KeyBank Member FDIC. This idea of automating your money. I said, Paula in my intro that I thought this was the number one thing to do to get ahead. Let's really expand on why. Why should we care about making sure we nail automation?

[Paula Pant]

Frankly, it's because we're all busy. There are a million things that we have to do. And there are certain tasks in our life that simply can't be automated, like doing the laundry. Our cognitive capacity is limited. We're juggling a million different things every day. We're going to work, we're making food, we're trying to maintain our lives. And it's so easy for financial tasks to slip through the cracks. Even bill paying, which incurs penalties, it's easy for that with something relatively short term, with a penalty, it's easy to forget to do that. So you can imagine how much easier it is to forget to do the things that don't have penalties and that are long term. Like investing.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, Jesse, back when I was a financial planner, to Paula's point, I had a client who made the equivalent today of about half a million dollars a year. This is back in the late 90s, she had a horrible, horrible credit because she kept forgetting to pay her bills. I mean, she, she was just so busy with her career. At the television station that all the other stuff went in the trash. Why else should we care about automation besides that?

[Jesse Kramer]

The one thing that came to mind for me is that automation allows you to make sure that you're doing all the important stuff. And I guess what I'm saying is that if you don't automate, a lot of times it's going to be like, the squeakiest wheel is going to get your grease. And just like Paula said, a lot of times that squeakiest wheel is going to be like, oh, shoot, I just got a letter in the mail from the utility company that I'm late. Or like, oh, shoot, I just realized I'm a couple days late on my mortgage payment. And so you're going to. You're going to do things like you're going to make sure you're paying your bills, but the things you're going to forget is. Is like, oh, right, I didn't max out my Roth IRA contribution last year and I have till the tax deadline to do that. But that is just going to completely go past your mind if you don't automate it. So to me, automation, right. It's that we can come back to this term later. The idea of decision fatigue. And, you know, you can just opt to make one decision one time, which is to set up an automation and then save yourself from ever having to make a hard decision or any decision again.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Doc, you're not in your head.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, I mean, decision fatigue is exactly what I was thinking. And so put aside the ease that we just talked about, because that's really, really true. But you guys already mentioned it. When it comes to making money decisions, they're deeply emotional. Like, do I max out the 401k? Do I put money in the Roth IRA? Do I put money aside for juniors college? All of these are really big decisions, and if you find yourself having to make them every month, it's just painful. So I love this idea of kind of making the decision once and then letting automation take over so you don't have to keep on relitigating the case. And I think that's really important, like, if you can automate some simple stuff, like, this is my fun account, this is the college account, this is my 401k account. And all that gets automated. You don't have to keep on making those decisions about how much and when.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, I love this idea of opening yourself up to focus on what's important versus what's urgent. Jesse. I mean, completely to your point. Like, we get caught in these Urgent forest fires all day. If we don't automate the. Well, regardless. Right, Regardless. To some degree, part of our day changes as the day goes on based on outside stimuli. And if I haven't automated the super important stuff, well, then I'm going to run into. Run into a bunch of trouble. I think that's huge.

[Jesse Kramer]

I think this is a weird analogy to make, but if you follow me, I hope it makes sense. Which is if you're the kind of person who is chronically late, even when there's something like, oh, I have a hair appointment and I'm running 15 minutes late and I'm super stressed.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

This happens to Jordan and I all the time.

[Jesse Kramer]

Sorry, I picked on the wrong topic. But, you know, you'll be super stressed because you're like, I'm late and the barber's gonna be frustrated at me. And it's. It's adding in this level of stress to your life that doesn't need to be there at all.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Right.

[Jesse Kramer]

If you are, in this particular case, if maybe you were able to keep track of your time a little better or. I don't have to go down that rabbit hole. I know there are various reasons why people are late, but the corollary is by not automating, you are just simply introducing a certain level of stress in your life that we have solutions for. It's called automation. It's completely avoidable, and I just think it's going to lead to. On net, it just has to lead to better outcomes for people.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, I think there's a ton at stake here, Paul. If we don't automate, we just get caught up in this grime of, what do I have to do today?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, exactly. The more that you can just set it and forget it, the less friction there is. Right. And the more that frees up your time and energy to focus on other things. So you can focus on elements of your financial life that are not automatable, such as decision making. You can focus on. Heck, you can just focus on your family life or having fun with your friends and the people around you. You can do literally anything else at that time. Like, why would you not. You know what. What reason is there not to.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

And you know what's cool, Paula? Something that goes along, really, I think, with the focus, even with your podcast, and you think about your thinking. Like, and I learned this at Strategic Coach, which is that you're really good at one thing. Like, you have a thing that you're super good at that maybe a smaller percentage of the world is really good at. And the biggest problem most of us have is we don't spend enough time on that unique talent.

[Paula Pant]

Right.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

One thing that I love about automation is, listen, if I'm not great at it, automate it versus, you know, a lot of us spend a ton of time trying to make up for the things that we're not good at by turning that 2 into a good solid 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 versus making the 9 a 10. I think there's a huge benefit there to just focusing on that one thing.

[Paula Pant]

Right, exactly. Well, you know, you were talking earlier about summer camps and being on this, the swim team and whatever. Like, if you're an amazing swimmer, don't try to play tennis. And if you're an amazing tennis player, don't try to be a runner. I mean, you can do those things every now and again for fun, but you're only going to excel at very few things. I'm just echoing what you said. The more that we can lean into the. The really unique value that we bring, the unique talents that keep us in the. For which we are the top percentile, the more value that brings not only to our lives, but to the lives of everyone around us.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Absolutely. We don't think about that about, man, if we can make an impact on other people, it's going to be with that thing. I want to go, Jesse, to your. I love what you said earlier. I've kind of a weird analogy. I'm like Jesse Kramer with a weird analogy. That's never happened.

[Jesse Kramer]

No way.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

That doesn't happen. But I want to dive into that engineering brain of yours because, you know, when we're automating stuff, what we should all be doing is thinking in terms of ROI. Like, there's 50 million things that I could choose to try to automate. How do I begin calculating what the biggest ROI is going to be? So I can kind of rank. This is the first thing I should automate, second, third, fourth. And this is something I should not have, which, by the way, I want to get into that even separately later. What shouldn't we automate? But for now, how do I calculate roi?

[Jesse Kramer]

I have two answers to this question. And at first I was going to say, well, you can think about the things that you do most often. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad answer, but I actually think the better answer is I'm channeling Charlie Munger and his famous principle of inversion. And I think the way we can think of this potentially, and this is the engineer in Me is the, you know, what's the thing that's going to lead to the most catastrophic failure? If I wanted to implode my life, financial or otherwise, what are the things that I would forget to do? And those can be the things where you might want to first think about automating.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

You take like a real risk management approach.

[Jesse Kramer]

100%. Yeah. And I think that is, I don't know if it's the engineer, if it's where I was raised, if it's my investing approach or what, but I do very much take a risk management approach and I think about the idea of, yeah, you know, what is the worst that could happen? And let me try to band aid that first. I mean, do you know this famous story? Can I, can I tell a one minute anecdote about Charlie Munger?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I think you have to now because if I say no, everybody's going to be screaming at their device. No, you can't, Jesse.

[Jesse Kramer]

So Charlie Munger, he was a math major at University of Michigan before he got his law degree. And I don't even think he finished his math major because he got drafted into what would eventually become the Air Force, but at the time was just like the U.S. army Air Corps. And this was during World War II. And because he was a smart mathematician, he was basically trained to be a meteorologist, like look at all this weather data and help us predict the weather for these flights. And so his job was to keep pilots safe on their, their flying missions. And using this principle of inversion, he basically said, if I wanted to kill these pilots, what would I do to kill them? And the two answers were, I would send them up in weather that got their wings so laden with ice that the planes would drop because of the extra weight or I would send them into winds that would carry them so far away that they'd run out of fuel and not be able to come back. Well, if those are the two ways that, in which he could kill pilots, those became the two things that he was most concerned about and that he would spend all his time trying to prevent those two outcomes. So anyway, it's, that's the same kind of risk mitigation principle that we might be able to apply here.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

You know, it's funny because, Jesse, I look at it the exact opposite. I think of high risk things, I'm going to be double checking them anyway. I'm going to have some fail safes above automation because I don't trust automation because God forbid something goes wrong, I'm going to automate low risk Low stakes, highly repetitive things, things where there's a lot of friction, but they're low risk. Like, that's where I'm thinking. Whereas kind of the bigger, more important stuff, even if I automate it, I'm still going to end up going back and doing the work because I'm going to check on that automation and make sure it's going through because I'm anxious that it's something high risk. That doesn't mean you don't automate the high risk stuff, but it means that maybe automation isn't enough. Like maybe you automate it, but then you still have to check back in on it. So it's funny because I think of risk a lot, but I think about it almost in the opposite way that you're talking about it.

[Jesse Kramer]

In your defense, my mortgage payment is automated, but at the same time, at the end of every month, when I look at my budget software, which is also automated and connected my bank accounts, I do make sure that my mortgage payment is in there.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Right.

[Jesse Kramer]

So I think I pick up your drift. What were you going to say, Paula?

[Paula Pant]

Sorry, I was actually going to say that the best approach then can be a hybrid of the two because where what I was thinking about was along the lines of the mortgage payment, but a little bit different. When you have an active mortgage payment, you are necessarily automatically paying property tax because that gets taken out by the bank. Like every time that mortgage payment is made. What happens when you pay off a home and you hold it free and clear is suddenly that property tax payment, which used to be automated, is now no longer automated. And the stakes of not sending in that payment are really high because you.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Don'T have to pay that.

[Paula Pant]

The county can seize, literally seize and sell your home. So you can lose a fully paid off home just for not paying like a $5,000 property tax bill or a $10,000 property tax bill. Right. So the stakes are incredibly high. And yet here's this thing that, that a lot of people are not in the habit of doing because it is automated up until it's not. So everyone's been taught the habit of never paying attention to it. And then suddenly that changes. So that's where I think a blend of, you know, I'm not aware of programs that allow you to continue to automate that property tax payment after the home is fully paid off. If those exist, I would love to know about it. I'm just not aware of any. But that's where that, like, paranoia has to come in.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It's funny, Paula, I Had I had an automation gone wrong? Automation run wild Back last summer I pay my car insurance annually and over the last year I changed banks, but I didn't think about my car insurance. And I have this great software attached to my email called sanebox which makes it so I don't see like 90% of my email. So sanebox decided that the notices that I hadn't made my car payment to my insurance policy, I didn't need to see those and I didn't see them. And so it's funny because like just, just, I don't know, December rolls around and Cheryl and I are having one of our weekly meetings and all of a sudden we just go, you know what? I haven't seen the car insurance yet. Wasn't that due like August, September? And we look back and it turned out that I had had three and a half months where I had no car insurance and luckily nothing had happened and I saved the money. So if you want to save money in the dumbest way ever, just change banks and don't.

[Jesse Kramer]

Is this a failed advertisement for State Farm? Didn't we already do that in this episode?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I think you need insurance. Insurance. You need insurance in case your insurance lapses. It's called insurance.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

On our. We then added that to our list. What we automated then was the check right on these big things, things twice a year. I added it to my calendar that in our weekly meeting we're going to check on. Did this thing get paid? Did this big thing get paid? Because Paula, to your point, you know, it's automated till it's not and then there could be big, big problems if it doesn't hit right, you know, do you guys look at though the which one will make me most wealthy if I automate it? Do any of you look at it? Jesse, do you look at it that way?

[Jesse Kramer]

I don't necessarily. I lump all of my financial automations kind of into one big group and I suppose on the whole, I mean I certainly hope they make me wealthier than if I didn't have those things automated. But it's not like I've parsed them out into 10 different automations in my mind's eye and thought to myself, ooh, which one of these is going to lead to the best, the highest long term net worth? I don't think that way.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, Paula, do you look at it that way? Like which one's going to give me the biggest bang for my buck, my bottom line?

[Paula Pant]

No, typically I don't. I mean generally I see automating contributions towards a retirement account as just sort of maintenance, the routine maintenance of your financial life. And in terms of, I think, generating real big wealth, I see that largely as coming from entrepreneurial activities. And that requires a huge level of active effort.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

One thing with being an entrepreneur, for anybody who's an entrepreneur out there or people that are in commission sales, I liked automating my paychecks and giving myself a paycheck every couple weeks versus the boom bust cycle of entrepreneurship. And I found that by evening out those payments, so it felt like I was working for somebody else. The rest of my budget fell in line versus, you know, ramen noodle, ramen noodle, ramen noodle, bam. I get paid big steak dinner and I blow a bunch of money. And then ramen noodle, ramen noodle, ramen noodle. It wasn't working out. Plus my savings wasn't happening the way that I wanted it to. Because, Jesse, I love the idea and I want to go through this. Some obvious stuff that we should automate that obvious stuff in your life that you automate. One thing is, and you pointed out this earlier, Jesse, was, you know, making that Roth IRA contribution or the IRA contribution, the 401k contribution. Doc, you've got something.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Well, I was just going to say, I think we should mention the fact this is my belief. I don't know if you'll agree with it or not. When we move from defined benefit to defined contribution programs, we're talking about, what Was it, the 80s or the 90s? Gen X was right where we went from pensions to the 401k where you decided on your contribution. There was no automation. And we are now seeing that Gen X is struggling with retirement savings. On the other hand, millennials and Gen Z are looking much more wealthy now. You could say they're smarter, they learn better, et cetera. But one of the things that has changed since then is that contributions have been opt out, right? So you're opted in automatically. And then those contributions often are going directly into funds without you having to do anything. So automation may have changed the wealth of these generations. And I think that speaks to what you were saying you were asking us personally, But I think generationally, automation has.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Changed the game and that's a huge one, automating your retirement. And I remember, I don't know how many people are still like this, but I remember back in the day when I was an advisor, people didn't trust their company. They didn't like the fact their 401k had high fees. I still see that online all the time. Right. Dulling my 401k has I fee, so I'm not contributing. Don't, don't, don't not contribute to your 401k. Because the ease makes it totally worth it. Paula, what's something else you automate? That's an everyday thing. Maybe not a genius, Paula, pant hack, but just something that you've got on the automation line.

[Paula Pant]

I mean, bill pay is the main thing. All my credit card payments, the entire amount in full. What do I really do? I pay bills and I save for retirement. I can't really think of anything else. I don't have a car.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

What about social media? Do you automate social media? So a lot of us content producers actually automate social media by having it. I use buffer. You put it in a few days before and it'll drop it at different times.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, you know, I used to. I have one in particular. I don't even know if I can even tell the story. There was one thing that I had scheduled as a tweet that came out on a day in which that particular line was read based on what was happening in the news that day. That particular line sounded as though it had very different context and was very misunderstood. I'm sorry, I'm being vague. That's how bad it was. It was.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I've seen this happen a lot with automations in your social media life.

[Paula Pant]

And so that to me was sort of a wake up call in terms of like, okay, I'm not going to automate my social media anymore. Because sometimes you write a tweet thinking that it's evergreen because you're. Your brain sees it in a particular context and then something happens in the news and everybody else's brain reads it in a different context and then you have a cleanup to do.

[Jesse Kramer]

It was January 6, 2021, and the podcast was called 14 Ways to Crash the Party. Is that, Is that what happened, Paula? I think I remember that.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It is funny how when you go see a movie and you take like the current political climate of any time, not even today, but just whatever's going on politically, you're like, oh, they were talking right now. And then you find out the movie was written, you know, 15 years earlier and it's an adaptation of some other thing. We just had that with Wicked this, this last. This last week. Cheryl and I saw Wicked at the theater finally. And we're like, wow, it feels like they're really talking about, like right now. Just completely feels like it. And we're like, no, this is a book from the what 94 I think was our trivia last week. Speaking of trivia, I want to get back to this because I want to ask more questions about what you automate. I want to find out what Jesse and Jordan automate. I also want to ask if there's anything we should avoid automating. And, and Paula, there's something that you said about automation that I'm going to ask you about because I'm wondering if we should automate all that or not. But at the midway part of every Friday show we have this amazing amazing might be in air quotes but amazing trivia competition. I'm not talking about your direct involvement, Doug. I'm just talking about how it might be a little ridiculous this year long trivia competition that we have because the questions are usually questions that it's very hard to know what the answer is. We have our our three contributors, Paula, Jesse and OG today doc G playing for OG so we're keeping the GS together to find out how close they can get either throwing a dart or using tons of, I don't know, logic. Is logic a word that we use with our trivia?

[Jesse Kramer]

Google's based on logic.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, you have based on Google. That's exactly the way Jesse nails it. The score so far, our defending champion OG has two. Paula has zero. And Jesse in his rookie season also has zero. Jesse wants to get on the board. Paula wants to see if she can climb into second place. Can it happen today or will Doc G do what he did a couple weeks ago and put the evil empire further into the lead? We shall find out. Doug, you've got the trivia today. What's on tap on this fine Friday?

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Well, hey there stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and all this talk about automation inspired me to automate this trivia segment. ChatGPT. It's so 2023 nowadays, the Chinese and Deep Sea. Because clearly at the forefront of that tech, Deep Seek isn't even available yet. But I found this new Chinese program called Kami GPT. It's like communication, right? Communication GPT, Commie G. I don't know. See I just, I give it some non crucial details like my Social Security number, mom's maiden name. Take a quick snapshot of my face and my thumbprint and bam. It just gives you everything you need. Listen to this trivia. It helped me with. How many remote reports of identity theft did the FTC receive last year? I'll be back right after I verify this Answer that commie GPT gave me the answer can't really be zero, can it? I mean.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Oh, shoot.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Did I just give it away?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Well, we'll find out if he gave it away or not, Doug, because the FTC might have received more than one complaint. Doc, you're going first. The Federal Trade Commission. How many reports of identity theft did they receive in 2024?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I feel like this is a trick question because I don't know, like, what percentage of people who like. So I've had someone steal my, you know, parts of my identity and I called the police and filed a report and that was it. Does that go to the ftc? I don't know if that's the same question of how many people had this happen to them or how many people reported the police. But I have no idea how much of that actually goes to the FTC or not. So I'm going to assume that whenever you call the police and file a report, that maybe it gets also sent to the FTC. I don't know what. There are about 350 million people in the United States. Bunch of them are kids and probably don't have credit yet or not any credit to report. I'm just going to take a guess. Around 10 million.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

10 million people.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

10 million.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse, what do you want to do with that answer?

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm also going to. I was thinking along the same lines as you, Doc, that it's. Yeah, I'm just going to assume that everyone that happens gets reported. Ish. But what do I think of Doc's answer? I'm going to go lower and I'm going to say 4 million.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

4.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

That was an audible.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Paula did not like that.

[Paula Pant]

That is rough. That is so rough. Because it's such a reasonably sized field goal that, you know, do I kick in the. In the middle of it?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paula Pant]

Or do I use a totally different analogy? Because you would never kick off to the side of a field goal. But do I do one of those two either?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Paula, my best chance is if you go right in the middle.

[Paula Pant]

Ooh. I'm going to assume that the local police do not relay the reports to the FTC and that a person would have to actually go to ftc.gov in order to file a complaint, which means that that would depress the number of people who actually do it. So I will take the under and guess. 3.9999-9999 million.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Paul goes with her gut. And you know what? 10 years of futility doing that.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

She could be right. This time. It's a very reasonable assumption. This could be right. I'm not so sure she's wrong.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It could be. Could be. So we've got 10 million, 4 million. 3.9999-9999 million. Who's right? We're going to find out. Just a second. 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. This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. With your guardrails in place with Greenlight you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk [e-mail] partner. Still getting around to that fix on your car?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

You got this on ebay, you'll find millions of parts guaranteed to fit.

[Jesse Kramer]

Doesn't matter if it's a major engine.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Ebay has that part you need ready.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

To click perfectly into place for changes big and small, loud or quiet.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Find all the parts you need at prices you'll love.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Guaranteed to fit every time. But you already know that.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Ebay things people love.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Eligible items only.

[Jesse Kramer]

Export exclusion supply.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jordan, you kicked off with 10 million people reported identity theft last year. Apparently Paula and Jesse both think you were a little bit, a little bit above on that number. How you feeling?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, it's quite possible, I don't know that, you know, the question of how much gets reported. The FTC really is a big question because it changes everything. Even so, I still might be a little heavy. But you know, you never know. All I know is it's happening a lot. But what percentage of the United States who knows?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse, how you feeling at 4 million now that Paula stole the under?

[Jesse Kramer]

I was feeling better. I'm curious though, Paula, like what was your gut instinct before you heard other numbers?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, we anchored you.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, I was thinking it was a single digit Million. I was really hoping that you were gonna guess like 8 million or something because then I could very comfortably take the under. The hard part about your guess, 4 million is like the under versus over is hard there. If my assumption is that it's a single digit million.

[Jesse Kramer]

Got it.

[Paula Pant]

Because you're pretty much equidistant on both sides.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, right.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Does it matter what Paula's gut thinking was? Jesse, this is curious.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

If we've learned anything. Paula's gut sucks.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

We do want to know what's going on. We do want to know what's going on.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Credit. She does get it right more often than I do. So you can't make too much fun unless you're going to make fun of me too.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

That is true. Well, we're going to see if one of you two gets it right or if Jesse maybe nails it. See if we get 4 million on the nose. Doug, who's right on this one?

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Hey there stackers. I'm fraud avoider and white hat trivia hacker Joe. Mom's neighbor Doug. Good thing I verified the trivia answer that commiegpt gave me for today's question, which was how many reports of fraud did the FTC receive last year? The answer Kami GPT gave me was zero. And when I asked why it gave me that answer, it replied because there is no fraud. And what's Doug's actually belongs to the people. Huh. I guess that's not wrong. I am a man of the people. When I went to AARP and asked them, they actually said a different number which was 8.9 million less than what Doc G said, 2.9 less than what Jesse said and just 2.8 less than what Paula said because the correct answer is 1.1 million.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Wow.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Not only making Paula our winner, most importantly, OG doesn't get another point. Paula is our winner.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Nice job, Paula.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Good. Amazing. I was only off by a factor of 10. That's not too bad for me.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

But which also Doc might answer your question and we did not. Neither Doug nor I looked into whether it has to be reported directly. But that would seem to answer it, wouldn't it guys? Only 1.1 million. It would have to be reported directly to the ftc, I think for the number to be that low.

[Paula Pant]

Right?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

I just did the post Google, which I think is fair better than the pre Google and apparently the Consumer Sentinel network, the CSN receives the most reports and they received 5.39 million.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Wow.

[Jesse Kramer]

In 2023. I'm kind of lobbying for half a point Here.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I'll be honest with you guys.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Well, I think if you take the one point whatever million for the FTC and then throw in another million for good measure, you're getting closer to me.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I feel like now with Jesse here, we've got two thirds of our usual panel who always lobbies that the stuff is rigged because that's OG territory, the fact that he's not here this week. Jesse, you're filling in nicely.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I was thinking I was going to automate my answer for the next Paula's.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Big win from her. You can't take half a point from Paula. Payet, Joe.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I think I'm going to automate my answer for the rest of the year. It's going to be 374.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Just plug it in automatically, no matter what. Yes. All of a sudden it's your turn to guess. And we see your feet up and your arms back behind your head. Take it away. Commie GPT. What a great new innovation there, Doug. Sounds, sounds like a winner.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Communication GPT. It's just nice.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah. Let's go to the second half of this discussion. Speaking of automation, what is some stuff that we shouldn't automate? And the first thing I'd like to question, Paula, because I ended the first half of this conversation by saying I'm going to question one of the things that you said, the idea of automating the bill payment. I mean, I told my story of the fact that I missed my car. Right. I missed my car insurance because of that. But I also think about things like subscriptions like Netflix or other subscriptions where they raise the price over and over and over. And because I'm not really paying attention, it just automatically comes out of my bank account because it's opt out versus opt in. Should I really be automating my expenses?

[Paula Pant]

I think so. Yes. I would argue automate your expenses because on a month by month basis, you're going to be busy, you're likely to forget and you don't want to have that ding on your credit report by virtue of paying a bill late. But then set a couple of calendar reminders maybe twice a year, three times a year to just review all of your subscriptions and see what you're using, what you're not, what you can cut somebody.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse gave me this analogy too. They're like, I don't automate my expenses because I want to feel the hurt of every single bill, which makes me keep my bills minimal. I do not want to have 50 million different bills. And if I automate them well, then, you know, then I'm just letting my expenses run amok. What do you say to that?

[Jesse Kramer]

I think that person also wants to feel the pain of logging into like 28 different accounts every single month. I seriously, like, when I was listening to Paula's answer, I agreed with what Paula said because when I think about, right, whether it's streaming my mortgage, utilities, all the little things here or there that I have automated, it's like, right, it's probably Saving me, right? 20, 25, 30 logins on a monthly basis or paper bills in the mail that I have to respond to or whatever. And I just. Maybe what you're getting at, Joe, as far as feeling the pain is do I log in at the end of the month to my financial aggregation software and look at line item by line item and just make sure that I understand where my money went to. I do that. So I mean, that's something where it's very hands on and it takes me, you know, whatever, 15 minutes to do. But the actual paying of the bills, like, I don't need to feel the pain in the moment by logging into, you know, peacock.com to pay the 6 99. To me, at least I'm past that in my own personal finances.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It's funny that you say that because for the last two months on my to do list has been to get rid of peacock dot com.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

I was going to say, who pays for Peacock?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I do.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

What?

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Which is absolutely horrible. And it's because there were a couple sporting events on that I really wanted to watch that I could only get there and I was only going to do the trial. Then I was. Then Cheryl goes, well, they've got a couple series that I want to watch. We watched those within a couple of weeks. And then I was going to cancel it. I still haven't canceled it. Which brings up Doc, I'm going to keep pressing this, which is should we automate our expenses because of the fact that one banker told me once he goes, you know why we always want to get somebody's direct deposit? Because direct deposit is sticky. Because it's hard as crap to move that direct deposit, case in point, me with my car insurance, right. It's hard as hell. And so our brain does not want to move it. Well, now that I have Peacock, there's something inside my brain that is keeping it there.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Let me give you some of the nuance here. So we automate our credit card. And the reason why is there's once or twice we forgot it and you have to worry about penalties and fees and your credit rating and all that kind of stuff.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Stuff.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

But we both got busy and no one checked it for a month or two. And when we went back, we actually found spurious charges. Some company had been charging us five or six hundred dollars a pop multiple weeks in a row over a few months. And so literally, there were thousands of dollars of spurious charges there. So, yes, we could go back and we could talk to the credit card company and they removed them and we didn't have to pay them in the end. But if you are not paying attention on some of these bigger things, you can find yourself in trouble. So automate, certainly you want to make sure you don't miss the payment, but you're still going to have to go check it every month. And I think there are a few things like this, and maybe that's the issue, is that maybe automation for some of the smaller things keeps you from checking it every month and you check it every quarter. But for things like credit cards, if you're going to automate that, you should still be checking it every month and make sure that everything's copacetic.

[Paula Pant]

Hmm. I have two thoughts on that. The way that I've done it on one of my credit cards, on my business card, is I know, ballpark what our monthly bill should be. And so I just have an alert that says, if we spend over this much money, then send us an alert. So that way, if there's, you know, if the bill is unusually large for that particular month, I'll get an alert so I can check it and make sure that everything looks good.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Like tripwires.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But if it's a month in which the spending is kind of normal, then it just hums along. So that. That's one kind of element to it. The other element, because I've thought about this too, in terms of, you know, I'm sure that there are things that I've missed that have added up to hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of charges. But as I see it, what am I willing to pay in order to not think about this? Or another way of looking at this is if I were to hire an assistant to manually do it, and I paid that assistant $30 an hour, how much would it cost me to pay an assistant to manually do it? If that's ballpark the amount of money that I'm bleeding in little charges here and there, then it all shakes out.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

$30 an hour for an assistant. Tell me you're in New York City without telling me you're in New York City.

[Paula Pant]

Oh, in New York. It's 50 an hour. I was using.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paula Pant]

I paid my assistant 50 an hour.

[Jesse Kramer]

Being blown away by $30 an hour. Tell me you're in Northern Michigan without telling me you're in Northern Michigan.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Let's see. For $50 an hour, what did that assistant do exactly?

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

I think I'm moving.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse or Doc, do you guys have anything that you think we should avoid automating? Is there anything that we truly shouldn't be automating?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, I like Paula's guiding principle. Right. Because then what we're really talking about is what could or could not be catastrophic. Right. And so I guess it's just another version of what Jesse was talking about before is risk, mit, any possibility for catastrophe. You've really got to kind of think about whether you want to do that or not.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse, do you have anything that you think we shouldn't automate?

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, I mean, because I just think to myself, if you truly want to think of yourself as the highest utilizer of automation in your financial life, I think that necessitates that you're also not adding enough of the human element in there. Right. Like, as an example, I probably could choose to not log in. I'm now mentioning it for, like, the fourth time. I could choose to not log into my aggregation software on a monthly basis and check. But I kind of want to. And this maybe goes back to what Doc G was saying about, like, I need to catch mistakes. I just want to make sure everything's copacetic. So to that end, I would say you definitely want to keep some level of human element involved in your personal finances. Just so it's. It's literally keeping your finger on the pulse of your financial heartbeat.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It is so funny because Cheryl and I have this system, this weekly system where we go in and we check our Monarch money, which is the one that I use. There's lots of great ones people can use besides that. I mean, I like Tiller, I like Cube, I like what's Jesse. Mecham's. Yeah, ynab. Love me some ynab as well. So there's lots of different software out there that you can use. But what's funny was, oh, gee. And I both said during December, when both of us were spending money like drunken sailors, I. I did not log in to my Monarch just because even a guy that's done it this long, I'm like, if I don't look, maybe it's not happening as bad as it's happening his money's just going out of my wallet. And Paula, I'm getting these notification tripwires all the time and I'm like, I'm just not going to log in. Which is never a good strategy. Never ever a good strategy.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

That's. That reminds me of my, my favorite advice when it comes to the stock market, especially if you're a long term investor, is only look on the days when things are up and completely ignore it on the days where things are down. So I can go months without looking at stock market but if there's a good day, I'm logging on and I'm seeing how things look. I only check on the things are good. Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

When it's stock market reaches all time high, that's when you look.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Because I'm looking every day. Every day I'm looking.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah, that's great. Biggest automation hack that you have. Is there something that you have some cool thing that you've automated and this doesn't have to just be with your money. This could be something that helps improve your productivity. Guys, is there some cool automation hack that you do? Jesse, let's start with you, the couple.

[Jesse Kramer]

That came to mind. And I don't know if this is okay. Is this an automation or is it just a system? I'm not sure. But for me my calendar is gospel.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Oh, you beat me to it.

[Jesse Kramer]

If it's not on the calendar then it's not happening. And so I've really adopted that over the last three years where.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Not Jesse, for me, for me, for me it's the recurring message on the calendar every three months. I want this to appear on my calendar.

[Jesse Kramer]

Right.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

So that I get to this day, I don't have to remember it. I just know that once a quarter it's going to appear and I go, oh yeah. And then I schedule it for the appropriate time.

[Jesse Kramer]

Correct, correct. As far as the automation goes. Exactly. It's the recurring events, whether it's a quarterly, a monthly or whatever. So that's a big one. And then the other one is I use this app called Todoist which is a to do list app. There are a bunch of different to do list apps out there. It syncs between my phone and my web app. So like my work Chrome. So I really like that in that todoist app I also have recurring automations where it could be, you know, every quarter there's something comes up that says check the furnace filter or you can type in there and just. Anyway, it's just another way of maybe it's Not a calendar based automation. And that's why I have it on my to do list app. But anyway, it's another way of staying organized. A lot of this automation is like, how do you stay organized? And those two systems really help me stay organized.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

A guy who's very productive and very creative, Aaron Manke, who's created some fantastic podcasts, including Lore, which has been a big time podcast. I had a great conversation with him and he said part of the way that he stays organized and makes sure he doesn't miss these great ideas is the Todoist app. Yeah. And what's funny is, so I immediately downloaded the Todoist app and I have barely used it because it isn't just about the tool. Right. It's about using it correctly. And I did not do that at all. But it is funny to hear that recurring phrase. The Todoist app is great. Doc, how about you? Something that you use for either more productivity or automation. Some system.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

I can think of two systems that I've been using actually and I've found to be very helpful. One is I do a decent amount of coaching. So people want to do things like purpose coaching. And so the first thing I do is I send them a disclaimer through DocuSign. But the disclaimer sends them directly to my calendly to sign up for an appointment. And then my calendly sends them directly to PayPal to pay for that first appointment. And then after they've done all this, the money goes directly into my bank account and the appointment goes directly onto my calendar.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

And so you're saying the appointment goes right in the trash and the appointment.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Goes right in the gate. So it's really easy because I'm pretty much sending someone one email and then it's up to them to drive the rest of the process. And it doesn't need any other touch points from me, which is really nice. And so that's an automation I really like. And the other one is I do a lot of writing and I've talked to you about this recently. Instead of sitting down at the computer and typing away, which takes hours and hours, I now actually dictate, like I'm doing a podcast and take that and put it into a program called Descript, which gives me the transcript and then use AI to modify it and organize it. And I found that I can do a lot of my writing in a tenth of the time.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I have a really hard time with the. I've had multiple people tell me that I should dictate. I Don't know if it's my stutter or just the way that I grew up writing. And so for me, the tactile feel, the keyboard really gets my creative energy going.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

You have to pretend you're doing a podcast.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Ah, that's it.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Because you light up in front of the mic when you're doing a podcast. So imagine when you're creating content that you're just sitting there explaining it to your podcast audience.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I light up when I'm on the keyboard too, though. I really enjoy the process of the keyboard. But what's funny is, like, that's a good thing. Like, think about these points in your life where you want a better solution, right? Yeah.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

It's friction, right?

[Paula Pant]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

If you trip over it all the time, sure. Paula, what's something that you either have a system for of automated that might help our Stacker community out?

[Paula Pant]

This is actually something that Paulette perhaps does that I have observed and I have been wanting to incorporate in my life because I think it's brilliant, but I haven't done it yet. But she does it, and I think it's brilliant.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

And this, by the way, is a great hack. If you want to do it, say it out loud in front of a community of people.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, I know, right? So one of the things that she does is she has one particular tab or page. I don't know what it is, but it's something that has. I think it's maybe a notion document where everything that she needs to manually check, all of the tabs are all on there. And she can, like, click a button, and in a Chrome browser, every tab will open like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so then one by one, she will go through and check on the thing and close out the tab and go, you know, check on the next thing and close the tab. So basically, in one click, she opens every tab that she needs. And then just one by one, like, knock it down, knock it down, knock it down, knock it down. She can close each one out as she has done the thing. So it's just. It's a good way to organize everything that she needs to manually do. It's like an automated way to handle the things that must be manually done, basically.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

That's fabulous. Well, and two for Paulette, and I'm not talking out of turn here, because she says this openly. She and I both struggle with ADD and having this thing that's in front of me, so I don't have to think, because, man, if I have to think when I'm Having a big time add day, I get lost. Instead I just look at the thing, do the thing, shut my brain down, then the next thing automatically opens. That's pretty damn cool. And you know what? Brian Feroldi, who I think of as a high achiever, he's a guy who is in our community as well, has a fantastic Twitter following or X following if you go follow Brian Feroldi on Twitter or X also has a great newsletter that I can recommend. He also uses Notion very well and has lots of processes set up in Notion. Because of Brian, I went and downloaded Notion and mine looks like a forest fire because I got like a third of the way through setting it up. And apparently my ADD hit because because I'm not using it like either Paulette or Brian, I think that's a fantastic place to leave this. I hope that for all of you stackers out there, you thought about during this incredible show just about not just the value of automation, but things that you should be automating that you haven't. And I've thought about how I'm going to go pick Peacock and get rid of it the second that I that we're done with this show. But before we leave, let's find out what's happening where all these brilliant people work. Paula, what's going on at the Afford Anything podcast and community?

[Paula Pant]

Oh, on the Afford Anything podcast, we have an interview with Dr. Margie Warrell. She is an expert in courage. Finding the courage to do the things that you know that you need to do, whether that's a career change, whether that's investing, whether that's buying, you know, a rental property or allowing yourself to splurge after having denied, I mean, whatever it is in your life that requires courage. She is the person who can help you get that. She's an academic who's researched this topic for a few decades. And so we have her on the show to talk about how to live more bravely.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

So get the courage to listen to that episode of the Afford Anything podcast.

[Paula Pant]

Absolutely.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It. It truly takes no courage. Like you can do that one.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Jesse, what's going on at the Best Interest Podcast, my friend?

[Jesse Kramer]

So last week we released a cool AMA episode, episode 99, that included a interesting question from a listener that I was forced to learn a lot more about, which is the buy borrow die strategy that is purportedly used by the ultra rich to avoid capital gains taxes. Anyway, it was very interesting. I learned a lot and shared some answers on that with my listeners. And then next week, episode 100 comes out the big 100. So we're looking forward to that. Along with a potential. I shouldn't say potential. A definite name change, which is going to be exciting to share with the.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Audience to the Better Interest podcast that.

[Jesse Kramer]

Is still on the table. That's an option. That's an option. Yep.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

As he's shaking his head no, it's clearly an option. Yeah. Doc, what's going on at the Earn and Invest podcast?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

If I have my dates right, Monday was my 600th episode.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Holy cow.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

6 00. And on Thursday I'm having Amy Minkley on. We are talking about what happens when your finances are all in order and yet life gets difficult. Anyway, so we talk about her 2024. My 2024. A little bit. And how it. It didn't necessarily shake out the way either of us planned. We also talk about the 5 Freedom Retreat, which is going to be in Bali. The first one sold out in eight minutes. But guess what? There's going to be a second one at the end of September. And so it's still possible for you to sign up.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Every year that thing sells out more quickly.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Very quickly.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I think it was because the amazing keynote speaker she had the first year that really kicked it out.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

It must have been. There was this guy. I heard such great things about him.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Had to have been. Yeah. I heard the keynote speakers the next year were good, but, you know, can't, can't match the first year speakers.

[Paula Pant]

I heard the ones from this year are going to suck.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Who would that be?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Great.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

And just a couple notes too. I mean, that conference is so amazing and transformative and Amy is such an incredible person and very vulnerable and. But still so strong being able to do the things that she's done. And Jesse, one thing I forgot to mention about some things that rich people do. Like I never knew until just a few years ago why super ultra wealthy people buy art. Like it's less of an appreciation of art as it is a way to store huge amounts of money from taxation. Like just completely eliminate taxation on a bunch of cash. I had no idea about that. Doug, what's the name of that? That there is a. I'm sabotaging with this.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

No.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

It's about the lost Da Vinci.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah. A documentary that really goes into this.

[Jesse Kramer]

And it blew me.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

The Lost Leonardo. Is that Leonardo?

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

That might have been it.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah, I saw that. That was pretty good.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yeah.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Yeah. The thing I learned from that was there are these storage facilities that are duty free in certain ports where it's like no man's land because they're not technically in any country yet. So the super wealthy will buy these really expensive pieces of art, store them in these really luxurious storage facilities that have like cigar rooms and, you know, and fully decorated rooms that they can go enjoy their art in. But it never really happened because it's, it doesn't. No country knows which to tax.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

The world doesn't see some of this phenomenal art because it's just people trying to avoid taxation.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah. So you don't have to automate paying your taxes. If you don't pay them, there's automation.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I just buy art flex with my bajillions. All right, that's going to do it for today. Thanks a ton for hanging out, everybody. And on Monday, we're back kicking off Valentine's Day week with certified financial planner Shauna Game asking, would you date your wallet? If you ever ask yourself that, would you actually date your wallet? Do you talk nicely to it? Does it talk nicely back to you? Or are you on a more of a bad terms with your wallet? We're going to find out about that to kick off Valentine's Day week. But for now, Doug, what are maybe the three things that should be our big takeaways from today's episode?

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Well, Joe, here's what's stacked up on our to do list today. First, take some advice from Doc G. He totally blew my mind when he said that thing about how automation can get you into trouble. Doc, it sounds so much better coming from you. Can you just summarize that for us?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Automate, but check twice if it's important.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Awesome. Second, Jesse had some great thoughts on how to prioritize what you automate. Say it again, Jesse. Say it again.

[Jesse Kramer]

Prioritize the things that could potentially cause you the most damage.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

But the big lesson, if you download Kami GPT, don't ask for its best joke. Check this one out here. Let's just see. Let's do a little experiment here. Tell me a short joke. Okay, here we go. Your personal data. Oh, wait, that's not a joke. You have no personal data. It's already been uploaded to the cloud for the good of the people. I take it back, it does have a sense of humor. Oh, call me GPT. You kill me. Thanks to Paula Pant for joining us today. You'll find the amazing Afford Anything show wherever you're listening to us now. Hey, Commie GPT, how do you like the Afford Anything podcast? Okay, here it's giving me an answer back. It's a great podcast, but under My regime, we'd rename it Afford exactly what the Central Committee deems necessary. Huh.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

What a great. What a great title.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

It kind of just rolls off the tongue there. Here, let's see what. Okay, let's try another one. Thanks to Jesse Kramer for hanging out with us today. You'll find his fabulous Best Interest podcast wherever you listen to Finer podcasts. Hey, Commie GPT, he's going to do a whole rebrand. What do you think of the best Interest podcast? It says, jesse says time in the market beats timing the market. I say time in the breadline builds character. Okay, and finally here. Thanks also to Doc G for joining us today. You'll find find the bingeable Earn and Invest podcast wherever you're listening to us now. Hey, Commiegpt, how do you like the Earn and Invest podcast? Oh, it's thinking. Oh, okay, here we go. I wanted to recommend this podcast, but I've already confiscated all recommendations and made a five year plan for state approved financial content instead. Oh, wow. Okay, I got a. I gotta get off this thing before both our Chinese listeners can't tune anymore. Hey, you know what? I'll include links to everyone's show on our show notes page, assuming that hasn't been accidentally compromised. My bad, Joe. Sorry, man. Probably took that too far. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find 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.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Oh yeah.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Douglas, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. What happens in the after show stays in the after show. We haven't done one of these on a Friday in a long time, guys. And. And I thought since Doug has been looking up stuff on Commie GPT, I thought we'd ask Chat GPT about what are the worst things you could automate? Like what are the horrible things to automate? I'd love to hear your like you don't want to automate these, number one it put was breakup texts. We regret to inform you that your relationship has been terminated. Press 1 for an explanation, 2 for a list of your ex's grievances, or 3 to be automatched with someone else based on your previous mistakes. I love that one. Stop me if you guys have one that you shouldn't automate. But number two on the list, Grandma's birthday calls. Hello, nana. This is RoboLove 3000. Your presence brings us joy. Please confirm or see to the sentiment with yes or no.

[Doug (Joe's Mom's Neighbor)]

Nana's had Robo Love 3000 for years. Don't act like that.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

That's something different. That's a little bit different than what you're describing.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

See, and I would actually argue with this one because I think this list, they have a top 10. We'll put the rest of the top 10 list in our Facebook group, the Basement. But I do like this one. It says stand up comedy. Don't automate stand up comedy. Which is totally what we just did. And ChatGPT said this is what AI would say if you asked it to automate stand up comedy. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because my algorithm detected an 87% probability of humor. Laughter not required. Like, which is exactly what it's doing, isn't it? 87% chance that. That you'd like this. What else should we automate?

[Jesse Kramer]

Do you guys have any recurring, like, Amazon prime deliveries that you kind of regret setting up after the fact or they all. Are they all good?

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Oh, yeah.

[Paula Pant]

I have subscribe and Save, but I am in there constantly. Like, I'm always messing with my subscribe and Save settings.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I totally made the mistake with subscribe and Save of not doing that. Paula and I had craploads of cat food.

[Paula Pant]

Yes.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

So much cat food. And I forgot to cancel it the third time.

[Paula Pant]

Cooper must have been happy.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

It's just horrible. I did that with quip too. I have the Quip toothbrush, you know, with the subscription. And I have like four extra toothbrushes, like, sitting in there.

[Paula Pant]

Okay. You know, element, lmnt, the salt. Oh, actually, I have some. I have so much. I literally, I have some right here. Assuming I have one of these packets a day, I have over a year supply.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

From forgetting to turn it off.

[Paula Pant]

Yep, exactly. From forgetting to turn it off. And, you know, and every time a box shows up, I'm like, I gotta turn that off. And then a month later, another three month supply shows.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

I gotta tell you a cool thing that I like. I do have one subscription It's a coffee subscription, but whenever they send it, they're like, hey, your coffee subscription's coming next week. Are you okay with it coming next week? Or would you like to change it? And I can literally, on my phone, just using my thumbs, change the date. Which is fantastic. It's amazing. I wish more companies would do that, versus me having 16 toothbrushes or Paula having a year's worth of salt.

[Paula Pant]

Literally. Salt.

[Joe Saul Sehy]

Yes. I've got one more here from ChatGPT, which is we shouldn't automate Taco Bell orders at 2am based on previous late night decisions, we pre ordered you 14 tacos. Regret and a questionable life choice and.

[Doc G (Jordan Grummet)]

A little time in the toilet, apparently.