Retirement Roadblocks & Resilient Planning: The Squirrels Gone Wild Edition (SB1676)

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show Episode SB1676: "Retirement Roadblocks & Resilient Planning: The Squirrels Gone Wild Edition"

Release Date: April 30, 2025

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Overview

In this engaging episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG delve into the potential pitfalls that can derail retirement plans. Titled "Retirement Roadblocks & Resilient Planning: The Squirrels Gone Wild Edition," the discussion centers around four primary culprits threatening smooth retirements and strategies to mitigate these risks. The conversation is enriched with humor, personal anecdotes, expert insights, and practical financial advice, making complex topics accessible and enjoyable for listeners.

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1. Healthy Longevity: The Unseen Risk

One of the foremost roadblocks discussed is the concept of healthy longevity—living longer while maintaining good health. According to the Wealthy Accountant blog, the average age for healthy longevity in the U.S. is around 66 years old. This metric highlights the risk of not being healthy enough to enjoy retirement as planned.

Notable Quote:
OG (09:56): "If you're going to have a ton of money but be wildly unhealthy, none of that's going to matter."

Key Insights:

• Interconnectedness of Health and Finances: Financial security is meaningless without good health. The ability to enjoy retirement activities hinges on maintaining physical and mental well-being.
• Healthcare Spending Transition: Retirement spending shifts from leisure (like travel) to necessities (such as healthcare and charitable donations).

Example:
Len shares a personal story about contemplating long-term healthcare insurance after witnessing his mother-in-law's battle with cancer, emphasizing the high costs and emotional toll of inadequate planning.

Notable Quote:
Len Pzo (10:09): "One of the toughest decisions I ever made was to not get long-term care insurance."

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2. Job Loss: An Unexpected Horizon Change

Job loss represents a significant threat to retirement plans, not just because of the immediate loss of income but also due to the cessation of retirement contributions and loss of employer benefits.

Notable Quote:
Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug (24:28): "If you're 52 and you're like, I got 10 years to go and you get your walking papers at 59 and a half, you know, it's..."

Key Insights:

• Horizon Risk: Changes in career trajectory can abruptly alter retirement timelines and financial stability.
• Age Discrimination: Older workers may face challenges re-entering the workforce, especially in industries favoring younger talent.

Strategies Discussed:

• Enhanced Savings: Increasing retirement contributions as a buffer against unexpected job loss.
• Emergency Funds: Maintaining robust savings to cover expenses during periods of unemployment.

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3. Supporting Adult Children: Balancing Generosity and Security

The third roadblock involves the financial strain of assisting adult children, often referred to as "failure to launch." While helping kids can be rewarding, it can significantly impact one's ability to save for retirement.

Notable Quote:
OG (35:08): "It's very difficult. It's family, you know. How is it any different than helping out mom or grandma?"

Key Insights:

• Generational Financial Pressure: Modern economic challenges make it harder for younger generations to achieve financial independence, increasing reliance on parental support.
• Setting Boundaries: The importance of defining clear financial support limits to protect one's retirement goals.

Example:
Len describes his parents allowing him to live at home post-college to save for a house, contrasting it with the current struggles faced by younger generations in affording independent living.

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4. Loss of a Spouse or Partner: Navigating Personal Tragedy

The final roadblock addresses the profound impact of losing a spouse or partner during retirement. This loss can lead to emotional distress and significant financial upheaval.

Notable Quote:
OG (44:38): "Having a separate financial plan in the corner in a red binder that says, if he leaves me, this is what I do. No, no, no."

Key Insights:

• Emotional and Financial Duality: The intertwining of personal grief with financial instability requires sensitive and strategic planning.
• Flexibility in Planning: Developing adaptable financial strategies to accommodate unexpected personal losses.

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Resilient Planning Strategies

To combat these roadblocks, the hosts emphasize resilient planning through various strategies:

1. What-If Planning: Proactively considering potential adverse scenarios to prepare appropriate responses.

   Notable Quote:
   OG (17:16): "These are all the decisions that you can work on making early on."

2. Risk Management: Assessing and mitigating financial risks through insurance and diversified investments.

   Notable Quote:
   Len Pzo (21:04): "This is risk management. Do I take the risk myself or do I hand it over to a third party?"

3. Long-Term Care Insurance: Evaluating the necessity and affordability of insurance products to cover healthcare costs in retirement.

   Notable Quote:
   OG (18:26): "If you want to retire with someone, it's not just about living expenses; it's about managing healthcare costs as well."

4. Flexible Financial Plans: Designing retirement plans that can adapt to changes in health, employment, and family dynamics.

   Notable Quote:
   Len Pzo (18:35): "You have to think through that exercise while you're of relatively sound mind."

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Real-Life Examples and Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, personal stories illustrate the complexities of retirement planning:

• Len's Mother's Illness: Highlighting the exorbitant costs of long-term care and the difficult decisions faced by families.
• Job Loss Scenario: Discussing the challenges of re-entering the workforce at an older age and the importance of having a financial cushion.
• Supporting Adult Children: Contrasting generational approaches to housing and financial independence.
• Grandparents as Caregivers: Exploring the strain on older adults who become primary caregivers for grandchildren, affecting their retirement plans.

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Notable Quotes

1. OG (09:56):
   "If you're going to have a ton of money but be wildly unhealthy, none of that's going to matter."

2. Len Pzo (10:09):
   "One of the toughest decisions I ever made was to not get long-term care insurance."

3. Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug (24:28):
   "If you're 52 and you're like, I got 10 years to go and you get your walking papers at 59 and a half, you know, it's..."

4. OG (35:08):
   "It's very difficult. It's family, you know. How is it any different than helping out mom or grandma?"

5. OG (17:16):
   "These are all the decisions that you can work on making early on."

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Conclusion

The Stacking Benjamins Show Episode SB1676 offers a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted challenges that can impede a secure retirement. By identifying key roadblocks such as healthy longevity, job loss, supporting adult children, and the loss of a spouse or partner, the hosts provide listeners with actionable strategies to build resilient retirement plans. Emphasizing the importance of proactive planning, risk management, and flexibility, Joe and OG empower their audience to navigate the uncertainties of retirement with confidence and foresight.

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Additional Resources

• Featured Article: Four Things That Can Derail Your Retirement Plan
• Atlantic Piece: "Grandparents Are Reaching Their Limit" by Faith Hill
• Visit StackingBenjamins.com for show notes, links, and resources discussed in the episode.

Transcript

[Joe Saul Sehi]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you can save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know that feeling when someone shows up for you just when you need it most? That's what Uber is all about. Not just a ride or dinner at your door. It's how Uber helps you show up for the moments that matter. Because showing up can turn a tough day around or make a good one even better. Whatever it is, big or small, Uber is on the way. So you can be on yours.

[OG]

Uber on our way.

[Doug]

Hey, this is Joe sister Nikki. I think I might be the only girl in the world who has a brother who spends his entire day in.

[Len Penzo]

The basement pretending he has an Internet radio show.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And what could possibly derail your retirement plans? Today we'll present four culprits and how you can protect against them. But that's not all. Are you thinking about that side hustle you've always wanted to do but don't have the courage to pull the trigger? We have a TikTok minute that'll hopefully get you moving now. And of course, I'll be sure to give you a heaping helping of my delectable trivia. And now, three guys who are taking a break from filming the next season of Squirrels Gone Wild. It's Joe OG and Len Pzo.

[Len Penzo]

Hey there, Stackers. And Happy Wednesday. You're right, it was. We were just getting to the part where, I don't know, what are we calling them, Len, Squirrel A and Squirrel B. Squirrel A is having a really a conniption, his mom calls it.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, and Squirrel B is about doing the same thing, so you should see Squirrel C. Just wait till you see.

[Len Penzo]

Squirrel C when Squirrel cc, Squirrel A and B together. I can't. Well, that's good.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

You get them to sign the releases this time, get them into the back of the RV and get them to sign the releases before you're filming them.

[Len Pzo]

You should see the contract language. Dag, they sign anything.

[Len Penzo]

People are brand new to the show going, what the hell is This a money show. Welcome back to Stacky, Benjamin. Sit back and relax because we've got an hour of fun. And man, some super helpful conversation today. If you've ever dreamt about retirement, what could make it go the wrong way? Well, one guy is going to make sure it goes the right way. He's also here today. Mr. OG is here. Tear yourself away from Squirrels Gone Wild, man.

[Len Pzo]

And.

[Len Penzo]

And let's get this thing going.

[OG]

How do you know it's my flushed appearance?

[Len Penzo]

Must see tv. What's your Nielsen rating on that, Len?

[Len Pzo]

You know, it's actually pretty good. I'm getting more comments, though, for the squirrel Cam After Dark. I keep getting encore requests for the possum that keeps going into the. Gets getting into the video, which Doug thought was a dinosaur. I remember one time.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Tell me a possum's not a dinosaur.

[Len Penzo]

That hood. That. That weird, I don't know, facial structure that they have.

[Len Pzo]

You know, the possum just. I got another video of the possum the other night, and what was cool is he turned around. I'm gonna. I'm gonna post it in a couple weeks here. He turned around and he gave a nice little butt shake, a little shimmy for the. For the camera before he sauntered off.

[Len Penzo]

I think he calls that the money maker.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Shake that ass.

[Len Pzo]

Talk about an animal getting too big for its britches now. So we may have to renegotiate his contract.

[Len Penzo]

That's a big old booty on that. That possum.

[OG]

Let me know when you guys want to transition back to money stuff.

[Len Penzo]

Why don't we do that in just a second? Because we got a couple sponsors that make sure today's show is free. You don't have to pay for any of this. The Squirrels After Dark, I think you're supposed to whisper.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

People are like, you're kidding. This isn't paid content. Tell me it ain't so. It is.

[Len Penzo]

Well, by the way, if you want to see any of that, that's the exciting stuff happening [e-mail] and anyway, we got a couple sponsors to make sure this is free. We're going to hear from them and then we're going to dive into things that can derail your retirement, like spending all day watching Squirrels After Dark. This message is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. May is Military Appreciation Month, and we're celebrating the military community that goes above and beyond every day with Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal was created for the military community. It is dedicated to ensuring that its members feel celebrated and honored every single day. For over 90 years, Navy Federal's mission has been to support and uplift the military community. And this May is no different. It's not just a credit union, it's also a partner dedicated to helping its members achieve their financial goals. All active duty veterans and members of the military families are eligible to join. Navy Federal is excited to celebrate Military Appreciation Month as a special time to recognize our troops and the profound contributions that that they make. Learn more@navy federal.org Celebrate Navy Federal Credit Union. Our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situation.

[Len Penzo]

Hello, darlings.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

And now it's time for your favorite.

[Len Penzo]

Part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's Headlines. Our headline today comes to us from a website that I had never heard before, eggstack.com. doug, I think you just ate the entire egg stack in front of us before we started recording today. Like, what's going on there, Man, I'm.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Into my egg sandwiches.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah. How did you make that? How did you make that sandwich?

[Len Penzo]

Oh, man.

[Len Pzo]

How did you make that?

[Len Penzo]

This is.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Don't.

[Len Pzo]

This is because Doug was bragging about it while he was eating in front of us.

[Len Penzo]

I know. But, Len, this is going to turn into an episode of Chef's Table before we're done.

[OG]

Basically, it involves a microwave and Costco bread. So let's, let's not quite elevate the.

[Len Pzo]

Well, I just wanted to brag. I wanted to brag to Doug about my sandwich because after the show he made me hungry and I've. And I was working on a sandwich as well. It's a pureed nut spread with a strawberry reduction and I'm pairing it with a brioche bun. So it sounds. It should be really good.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

That's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, you could call it that. Yeah. That's another thing. That's another thing.

[Len Penzo]

You could call it. That took me a minute. I was like, oh, wow, that's. Wait a minute. Hold on. The author here, Mike Ballou, writes, life is unpredictable and even the best laid plans can go astray. If you want to prove the odds of a successful retirement, you need to consider the risks along the way. Here are four things that can derail your retirement plans. Number one, here is pretty interesting, OG because we saw this statistic just last fall, this idea of a healthy retirement. Not longevity, but healthy longevity. And in the United States, according to the Wealthy Accountant blog, that age is 66. In the United States, 66 years old, until your plans might get derailed because of the fact that you aren't healthy enough to do the things that you thought. Do you consider OG in a financial plan this idea of healthy retirement, when somebody's planning out their golden years, I.

[OG]

Mean, you have to, right? I mean, you have to think about when, when you're going to be able to do the things that you want, want to do. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about last, last episode too, about being healthy and, you know, that sort of stuff with Angelo. It's like all of this stuff is interrelated. If you're going to have a ton of money but be wildly unhealthy, none of that's going to matter. There's not enough money in the world to make you healthy. If you're not going to take care of yourself and you can have all the money in the world, but if you get flattened by a heart attack at 66, that ain't going to matter either. So I think all of those things go together, but you also have to recognize that. And I think this is why some people kind of come to this conclusion in their 50s and maybe even why the whole fire thing exists, right? It's like it's one thing to have 10 million bucks in the bank when you're 65 and then not be able to use it versus having 5 million in the bank when you're 52 and you go, well, now I can do the stuff that I want to do. I can travel, I can hike, I can bike, I can do whatever it is that excites me. I'm not just sitting around. But I think it also matters from a planning standpoint, as you think about your spend and how that's going to transition. I don't think anybody's spend is going to go down. I think it's going to transition. You're going to go from spending on travel and gifts to family and that sort of thing to healthcare and charitable donations.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Metamucil.

[OG]

Who doesn't take fiber pills? Everybody does, right? No, just me.

[Len Penzo]

Mine are Gummies though lended health influence your retirement date. Like when you decided that you were going to retire.

[Len Pzo]

Well, in the fact that I was in good health and I'd seen people I know, people who retired and then they got sick, they got something sick the year after they retired and then, you know, they passed away a year after that. So that might have influenced me to retire a little earlier in that regard because right now, you know, knock on wood, my health is very good. I put a lot of thought into long term health care insurance, you know, in case you get something catastrophic like Alzheimer's or something like that and you can't take care of yourself. Boy, it was really. I struggled with that thing, man. I thought about it for a long time and I ultimately decided not to get it myself. I think I have enough. Even if something that bad happens, I think I can get away without getting it. But let me tell you that that was something I put a lot of thought into before I retired. One of the toughest decisions I ever made was to when I finally made it, not to not get it.

[Len Penzo]

Well, and you can tell just by the price tag on that, Len. I mean these insurance companies, they're regulated by the various states and when people see the price tag they're like oh my God, this is gouging us. It isn't gouging you, it's that so many people use it that you really gotta consider it.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, my mother in law who was very ill and she had cancer in there for a while there. At the very end we were looking into getting her some long term healthcare and it was very expensive and she did not have the money really for it. You know, it was four or $5,000 a month. And that's just not, that's just you know, her being in a bed and being taken care of daily. I mean there's no benefits to that other than, you know, you just need nurses there to care for her. That's where end of life care stuff and that was very expensive. So we ultimately decided to just. We kept her here at our house and we took care of her until she passed. But you know, you might have to do that if you don't plan properly. You might be in that kind of a position. So you really need to think about it.

[Len Penzo]

We decided the same thing. We said there's a shelter and we know it's horrible. We just sent them out on the street and refrigerator box because we couldn't afford all that. No, that it is super expensive. In fact, I saw a TikTok video just this morning about a couple she I believe was seven or eight years younger than him and at age 57, I'm 57 right now. At age 57 he was having difficulty figuring out like finding the right word and I thought well I do that all the time. But he was having a lot of difficulty and then it got worse and worse and they ended up almost a year later going into the doctor they found out he had early onset Alzheimer's at 57 years old, diagnosed at 58 and then at 60 when they did this video he was clearly struggling to come up with the word to say in the sentence. And man, I mean I think, oh gee, people think of some of these things are, I get quote old and gray but as you know, 50 becomes the new 40 and 60 becomes the new 50 and people are living longer and longer. These medical issues appearing out of nowhere like I think that's a big part of your got to be a part of your financial plan.

[OG]

Well Len, just to pour more gasoline on your, on your thoughts around long term care costs, it's not even for whether or not you can afford it, it's whether or not you can afford it and your spouse can afford to also live their life the way they need because you basically end up with two living expenses. Then you have the person who needs the care burning 4 grands a bargain probably closer to 8 to 10 in today's pricing a month for the stuff and then you've got the other spouse who's not doing that still at home paying the water bill and the property taxes and food on the table and that sort of thing. So it definitely is a tough decision.

[Len Penzo]

Well and we also have the wear and tear on the caregiver which this has been well documented scientifically. The guy living across the street from us was taking care of his spouse at home, Len, like you were talking about, he pre deceased her.

[Len Pzo]

Oh wow.

[Len Penzo]

When we first moved in across the street from them he was great. But taking care of her as often as they did and they had a woman also came in for at home care that I think on bill it really took its toll.

[OG]

OG yeah, there's a lot of unseen calculations that go beyond just the simple like I got a 50% chance of using this and here's the premium and here's the benefit and that sort of thing. I would bet that there in this example that you're talking about with the person with Alzheimer's that was a little young, a lot young. I would bet that there were some, I don't want to say negligent. That sounds bad, but I basically, there's some healthcare things that happened in the 30 years prior to that that maybe were unaddressed leading into that.

[Len Penzo]

Maybe some flags, some signals they might.

[OG]

Have missed, you know, I mean, how was his blood sugar in his 40s?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I don't know.

[OG]

I'm just making stuff up. I don't, I'm not, I'm not saying that's correlated. I'm just saying, like, could there have been other things that domino that into or maybe it wasn't. There's always going to be the one off thing, right? Sure.

[Len Penzo]

I didn't mean to scare people.

[OG]

What happens to the 37 year old that you go, I don't get it. The guy was in great health and ran marathons. What's the deal? You know, so that's going to be weird stuff. But I think when you're thinking about retirement and the requisite kind of planning that goes with that in terms of costs, we add, as we build plans, we add healthcare costs prior to 65 and a healthcare cost post 65. 65 is where Medicare kicks in. So everybody is eligible for that. And you pay for it based on your income.

[Len Penzo]

You build that into the financial plan.

[OG]

We build it in the plan. So if you want to have, if you want to retire with when you're 55, it's not just like, well, my living expenses are 8000amonth. So it's 8000. It's 8000amonth plus a healthcare cost. Because you're buying your own health insurance now with this period of time. Or you're more likely to spend higher numbers on healthcare because you're a little bit older and stuff comes up. And I think, I don't know that the number that we use is right or wrong. I think it's good to just think through that exercise. I know, Len, that's something that you did too. You kind of thought about all the contingencies, not just. You didn't just sit down and go, well, the spreadsheet says I spent eight grand a month, so penciled it out, 4% Bango, let's go. It's like, well, what if I need this? Or what if? You know how the whole idea about what if planning, the way that I think about it is you're going to make really terrible decisions in the moment. When you combine high emotional stress and important money decisions. You know, you hear people say, hey, if you inherit money, just sit on it for six months. There's a reason for that. Because how did you inherit the money? You won the lottery or grandpa died or your folks passed away, or you got the lawsuit money? All this stuff has been going on in your life and somebody goes, here's the check for 4 million, you know, high emotional state. And then you're going to go, I'm going to make really good money decisions now. Probably not. So the idea with kind of what if planning is while you're of relatively sound mind, you can do that. You can game that out and say, well, if I did need assisted care, what would I do? Like, how would I. How much would that cost? And who would be in charge of making that decision? And you know what I mean? Like, you can kind of play with it a little bit. It's still not fun to think about these things, right?

[Len Pzo]

Yeah. And OG and that's something that, at least for me, that's not something that I came to my decision, you know, should I get insurance or should I not that kind of thought process. I didn't do that in a day or a week or even a month. I mean, I spent a couple years wrestling with which path am I going to take there. You have to really think long and hard and carefully before you. It's a.

[OG]

Well, the interesting thing too is for you, Len in particular, and for any of us, you still have that choice until you get to a spot where you have some debilitating medical issues. You didn't say no forever, you just said, no, not right now.

[Len Pzo]

Correct.

[OG]

You know what I mean? Like, there may be some other thing that changes your opinion on this or some financial decision or something that goes, oh, well, now there's a different fact pattern, different time to make a decision. You tried to give yourself the opportunity, and I believe in this a lot, too, make the decision that gives you the most decisions in the future.

[Len Pzo]

Yes. There's a lot of things in the calculus. I mean, there's things like your age, too. It's like, well, when are you going to take the. If you want the insurance, are you going to take it now? It's cheaper if you take it now. If you wait 10 years, you're going to be paying a lot more. So you have to figure you have to put all that in for 10.

[OG]

Years when you're healthy.

[Len Pzo]

Of course, that's all in the calculus. There's the truth. But if you have a family history, say of early onset Alzheimer's or something like that, then you might want to do it. Yeah, right.

[Len Penzo]

Well, the bad part about all this is that's what you're hoping for, right? I mean, you're hoping you waste a ton of money. That is, that is your goal. If you go with the insurance, if you don't, that could be much, much more catastrophic. Or you hit the lottery and it doesn't happen to you. One or the other kind of makes your outcomes more known. But this is this what if Planning, by the way, is maybe, was maybe my favorite part of financial planning. In fact, I had to stop myself og because I would, I would just keep what if planning my client scenario over and over. What if we did this? What if we did this? And I would model like 50 of those and I. Then I had to back off and go, we don't have 10 hours for this meeting. For me to show them all these different. Plus people get analysis paralysis when you show them 85 different things. But I do know, Len, when you, when you're in engineering, I mean, I gotta believe a ton of what you guys did was these what if. I don't know if you called them what if scenarios, but you must have had what if this happens? What if that happens before you go build stuff.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, no, it's risk analysis. And you set up a grid and you have consequences versus the actual outcome or the risk of that consequence happening. You can look it up, you give a score for consequence, give a score for the actual risk of it or the odds of it happening. Is it likely or is it moderately likely or is it not likely at all? And you can, it kind of helps you figure out which path you want to take. But that's what engineers do all the time. I mean, that's how they decide how things are designed. Yeah, it's cost risk analysis, basically.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah. And when I hear people say things like, I'm going to think about, you know, long term care, and I think we even talked about that earlier. I'm going to think about it. I'm like, what are you actually going to do? Like, let's not think about it. Because I could walk down the street and go, yeah, that sounds expensive. No, no, I don't think so.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, no, like I said, you take the consequence or the thing that you're worried about and then you, you know, what's the odds of that happening? If there's something that's really, could be really catastrophic that might happen to you, but the risk of it happening to you is very low. It's probably not worth spending the money on, you know, the insurance for that. But if there's something, for example, if you have a family history of early onset Alzheimer's, you know, that's a pretty bad outcome and the risk is probably pretty high. So the odds are you probably do want to commit some money to that in terms of insurance.

[Len Penzo]

Well, the thing that I like that you did was you widened the discussion though. It wasn't just insurance, it was risk management. Right? Correct. Because then you thought with your portfolio, you're like, I think I can handle this without it. And then you're putting your portfolio at risk. But you already know that ahead of time. I mean, this is risk management. Do I take the risk myself or do I hand it over to a third party? Yeah.

[Len Pzo]

The other variable in there then for something like that as well. Okay. I mean, if you're worried about handing over money, you know, wanting to leave your kids with a chunk of change when you're passed on, you know that's going to come into effect too. It's like, well, I want to make sure my kids have some money left over. Then maybe you do. You're more likely to take the insurance as well otherwise. Or if not, then you say, well, you know, that's, that's on them and my retirement is my retirement and I have the money to spend that if.

[Len Penzo]

We get ill. People are wondering, by the way, OG how to know what Len was talking about the odds. I mean, a great place to start is with the premium. I think the premium on this thing is gigantic. There's a reason it's gigantic. There's some actuary behind those numbers. This isn't just an insurance company taking it to you.

[OG]

Well, there's a number of. I know you're. If you're talking specifically about long term care insurance.

[Len Penzo]

I'm just talking about any type of insurance. Right. Just look at the different types of insurance at the premium's high. I need to maybe worry about that one.

[OG]

If the premium's low, I mean, yes and no. But you can get the idea of what is a higher probability of happening as you think through logically what probability and the cost of it happen and the magnitude of if it does happen by looking at the comparison of different things. Right. So you look at your accidental death and dismemberment policy, that's 100k and it's 11 cents a paycheck versus your $100,000 20 year term and it's $11 a month and you go, why would one be 10x or 100x the thing? Or you look at your car insurance and you go, yeah, my car insurance is really high. It's like $2,000 every six months, 4,000 buc. Why is my house insurance 2,500 like, but my house costs way more. Well, there's only two factors in here. The factors are probability of something happening and the magnitude of the event if it were to happen. And so if you go, well, my house costs a lot more, but the premium's less. That must tell you that the likelihood of you wrecking your car is that much more higher, you know, or your 16 year old wrecking your car, you know, is that much higher than then something bad happened to your house. Same thing with long term care coverage. It should tell you a little bit about at least conceptually how that's priced out.

[Len Penzo]

There's another facet of this for people that are thinking about retire. Even if you're in your 20s, 30s, whatever, you might think I'm going to work during my retirement years. This piece also says a recent study found that 30% of Americans say they're going to work beyond age 65, whether. Because they have to, they want to. Well, building that into your financial plan is difficult because you have to consider the possibility you might not be able to do that. With that healthy age, that healthy lifespan, being 66 years old, the chances might not be as good as you think during your planning year. So I think it's one thing to do it, I think it's actually great to do it right. This idea of joining something, being a part of a group, having a purpose, all these reasons to have a job, those are great. But the math of I'm going to keep saving during those years is probably that could go wrong. Number two on this list is job loss. Another life event that could derail your retirement plans is a job loss. Besides the obvious loss of income, you could also stop contributing your 401k, lose any employer match. Of course, you see people do this during their career, right? If they have a baby, they might take time off, they might get fired, they might get downsized. We talked about this risk a couple of weeks ago. Oh gee, this is horizon risk, where all of a sudden the horizon changes on you for reasons beyond your control that can really affect your financial plan.

[OG]

I mean, if you're 52 and you're like, I got 10 years to go and you get your walking papers at 59 and a half, you know, it's.

[Len Penzo]

Are you going back?

[OG]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's tough, right? I mean, it's a thing, there is a thing about hiring people with gray hair. It's, you know, you're smart Joe, you just went no hair. So he knows what color it would be.

[Len Penzo]

When this big money podcasting thing doesn't work out, when you finally have to.

[OG]

Go get a real job, you're going to be safe. But, you know, so that's a real thing, right? In terms of the age discrimination and you know, if you're interviewing two candidates and they're both really great and once on the doorstep of what you think would be retirement, well, you know, I mean, people are going to make biased decisions.

[Len Penzo]

Well, Len, you worked in corporate America. How often did you see people over 50 get hired into your company?

[Len Pzo]

Probably a little more than I probably in the rest of America. Just because, well, just because there's skilled, it's a really skilled profession. So sometimes you need people who are older for certain jobs. That. But, but still, you're right. I mean, if there's a choice between the younger person and the older person and they both can do the job, the younger person who's making less money is going to, who has, will have a lower salary is going to get the job. There's just, there's no reason to hire the older person who wants a higher salary.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

You know, Len, another place where that happened is in technology, because we, what often happens is companies get themselves entrenched in specific tech platforms and then, you know, the rest of the tech world moves on to the next coding language, to the next platform, and you're still needing to support a legacy system. You got to go find those older people who were highly trained in that 20 years ago because you, you haven't migrated yet off of that old legacy platform.

[Len Penzo]

You need the 50 year old who remembers Fortran. Is that what you're saying?

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, that's.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Well, they're now 90, but. Yes.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, that's right. At least in the engineering where I work, there's jobs that a younger person, you need an older person, you need somebody with experience to do the, a particular job. The younger person out of school just doesn't have that experience. So there's a lot of times that have. But still, I get it. It's true. There's age discrimination out there and it's, there's a reason behind it. Like I said, it's if you've got the younger person who's going to make a lower salary and an older person who wants more money, you're going to. Plus and the older person might retire in a few years, you want, you want to hire the younger person. So I mean, that's just life.

[Len Penzo]

How do you build that Into a financial plan, though, oh, gee, that I might, you know, I want to retire at 16, at 57, I might forced out.

[OG]

Well, again, that's back to that what if thing. These are all the decisions that you can work on making early on, right? Because you solve this problem by saying, I need the flexibility to account for this, that it might happen. And so how do I get the flexibility? You don't wait till the last minute to go, oh, crap, I need flexibility. You say, well, I need to plan for being a year ahead, you know, so that I can soften that blow if possible.

[Len Pzo]

It's that cost risk analysis again, Joe. So what I would do if I was in that position, say I was 52, and I said, well, I'm planning to retire at 62, but I could get, you know, there's odds are very good I may be laid off in the next five years. If I could afford it at 52, I would say, well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to up my savings, my contribution level, my contributions. I'm going to up that. So in case that happens, I'm good at 50, 58 or 59, just because the risk is so high that I can't afford. And hey, if I make it to the 59, I'm still working, hey, then it's great.

[Len Penzo]

Extra money.

[Len Pzo]

It's extra money. But that, that's how I would handle it.

[Len Penzo]

I like they have a couple, the author has a couple in here as well, having that emergency fund, which a lot of people avoid. They think, well, I got credit. Emergency fund comes in great here. Second is, remember that you're still going to need a social network. So making sure that your resume is updated, that you have, you know, people at other companies who might be. Want you for a project or two afterwards, maybe in a consulting basis. I know quite a few people, when I was a planner, they would. I'm thinking of one person in particular where this happened to them. They actually got a consulting gig that tided them over and it was because they had a phenomenal social network, Just amazing network of people who were like, yeah, hey, I need somebody for. I think it was just a little more than 18 months, which fit the bill pretty perfectly. After a break, we're going to do number three and number four. These are, these are some good. I can't wait to hear about what you guys think about the third one on this list. But before we do that, we're going to pause here because, Doug, you've got today's trivia question. Is something big going on in this day in history?

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Sure is, Joe. Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. It's always so much fun having Len Penzo here. I especially love hearing stories about his childhood growing up with all that nature, sitting by the fire, finger painting on the cave walls. Did you guys have toys back then? Or did you just like, play with mastodon tusks and pterodactyl feathers, arranging them in the mud so they look like a face? That must have been a hoot. Ah, of course we're just kidding, Len.

[Len Penzo]

We know he's older than that.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Yeah, but maybe. Maybe. I mean, we don't know. Maybe Len knows the answer to this one. What was the first toy ever advertised on television? I'll be right back after I go see what vegetable Joe's mom's brought in from the garden.

[Doug]

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[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Hey there stackers. I'm food from the garden lover and guy who's apparently four months early, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. She's not the first woman to tell me that I'm early. Weird. I don't know why that keeps happening. Anywho, today's question we're hoping Len knows the answer to and he can arrange a big smiley face when he gets this right. What was the first toy advertised on TV? That would be Mr. Potato Head.

[Len Penzo]

Oh yeah, all those clues.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

We were arranging things like faces. Mom's garden. Come on, Len, keep up.

[Len Pzo]

I had one.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

It was now, you know, the original version of this. You had to use your own potato.

[Len Pzo]

I did. That's what mine was. I remember opening a crack Christmas Day. It was a rusted potato and there was a whole bunch of my, my mom's false eyelashes and bunch of stuff.

[Len Penzo]

And it didn't even have a package.

[Len Pzo]

And what was great was already had, the eyes were already on the potato so I didn't have to.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Oh yeah, that's. You got the deluxe model. You know. Mr. Potato Head was also the first TV advertisement targeted for children. And Len apparently, yeah, the ad campaign was successful with over 1 million sets sold in the first year. There's an interesting corollary. If you look at the bar graph of the Idaho potato industry, it's exactly parallel with Mr. Potato Head. And because a guy can't be left to have fun alone because mom says she'll go blind. And because a guy can't be left to have fun on his own because mom says, says you'll go blind, Mrs. Potato Head was added the following year. And now back to the three potato heads on this show, Joe, Og and Len.

[Len Penzo]

Nice. Could you imagine those kids, like at the holidays they open up their gift to Mr. Potato Head and they didn't get the deluxe edition like lented. And mom didn't know you had to go down to the store and stores are closed that you can't even play with the thing. Gotta have your own potato.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Mom, mom, it's a raw potato. Figure it out.

[Len Penzo]

So, so, so good. Speaking of good, let's go over the third and fourth reason this wonderful piece says that you might have issues in retirement. And number three, failure to launch adult children might interfere with your retirement. The biggest reasons Americans fail to adequately save for retirement is failure to launch adult children, apparently. Oh, gee, we see this all the time. We're so busy helping out the kids, we don't have enough time for us or money for us.

[OG]

It was funny. We were, you know, we've got Alex going to college here pretty quickly and, and we've talked about different things around that and budgets around non school essential things. This is just. Listen, I, we were talking about a friend whose kid came home after they graduated. And I just said, oh. She goes, oh, no. Like, I would be okay with the kids coming home for a little bit. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, ma'am. Like, our. Our financial responsibility ends after. I mean, it ends technically, according to Alex, this weekend, as he's a man now, but we're going to help him out with college. And I'm like, that is it, man. There is no coming home. We're selling the house. We're moving to a small condo on the golf course. Our financial support ends at college. Like, when you're done, you're doing your thing, and I'm talking tough right now. We'll see. Call me back in four years or six or 17 whenever Caroline's done and ask me how it's going. But, yeah, right now, I'm very much on team. You out.

[Len Penzo]

My dad was adamant about that. I mean, it was just. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is not an option. Yeah, failure is an option, but you're going to figure it out. I don't know. What was it like in the Penzo house growing up, Lynn?

[Len Pzo]

You know, growing up, they took me back in after college. It was so I could save money to buy a house. So they didn't care. They whether. And I could have lived off. Obviously, when I graduated, I could have had my own place, but they let me save money and I was out. I was out within 18 months. And my mom was just thrilled to have me. You know, I was. I was the good kid. I was mama's favorite. I guess so she loved having me back. Anyways. You know what, though? Life happens. And today's kids, they have it tougher. It's a lot harder for Gen Z and the Millennials than it was for Gen X and the boomers. It's just things are different, especially where you live.

[Len Penzo]

Len, I couldn't imagine trying to buy your first quote, starter home.

[Len Pzo]

Oh, it's terrible. My daughter's still living at home. She works as a registered vet tech. I mean, she makes pretty good money for. And it's. It's ridiculous. It would her just rent around here in Southern California would eat up in a decent place, would eat up almost her whole paycheck. I feel for her, and like I said, I really am sympathetic to this. The younger generations, it's just something's got to give here.

[Len Penzo]

But if you've been in a spotlight where you didn't have enough money to retire when you wanted to, and you had a kid struggling after High school. Where would you have drawn that line then? Because clearly you've. You did the saving, so you have the means to be able to help them.

[Len Pzo]

You can't kick them out. You have to take them in. But I would either had to get a second job or force them to get another job or something. I mean, something's got to give. But I think the bottom line is your retirement. You are number one. It's kind of like in the airplane, you know, put your mask on first and then your child's mask on second. In the end, you've got to ultimately look out for number one yourself. So I guess push comes to shove, your retirement, because once you're 70 and 80, you can't work. You can't work and you're running out of years. So it really. You have to put yourself first in that position.

[Len Penzo]

How do you see clients handle this?

[OG]

OG well, like Len said, it's very difficult. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, it's family, you know, so how is it any different than helping out mom or helping out grandma versus helping out your kids? I don't know. Except for a time standpoint, you know, I feel like my kids have to. Your point, Joe? Like, you guys are going to probably make mistakes and off you go and Godspeed. And I hope it works out. You know, mom may not have that flexibility to start over at 75, so maybe I want to help her and not again. Like I said, I'm talking tough right now. So call me in four years.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah, well. And I think that's what my dad was doing when he's like, that's not an option. I think he was putting in my head that it wasn't an option. Had it been an option, I know my parents well enough, they would have totally let me podcast for 15 years from their basement. Hypothetically.

[OG]

Hypothetically speaking.

[Len Pzo]

I think back then, though, Joe, you could push them out of the nest with a little more confidence because. Yeah. Just because things were different then.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah, Much, much, much easier.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah. I could have two crappy jobs and still have an apartment that I could pay for. You know, my. Some family members have done this, I think pretty well. They have a child that they're helping out after college. They have him pay some rent which covers his groceries. So it's less than a quarter of what his rent would normally be. But he's still helping out with the cost of the house. A piece of the cost of the house. I don't know if that's a solution that resonates with, with people. But I like that there's another piece of this, by the way, talking about struggling during your retirement years. Oh gee, you forwarded this one to me. And this is the perfect place to put this. This is not children with failure to launch. This is just children that are doing okay, but they're on the edge. This is from the Atlantic, written by a writer named Faith Hill. I don't think it's that Faith Hill. I think this is a different Faith Hill. Listen to this piece. I'm not going to tell you the title, but Elena and her husband had plans for their retirement. They wanted to move to Wyoming to meet new people, volunteer, hike the snowy perfect Tetons. And they did move there for about eight months. Then they got a call from their daughter who was due to have a baby within weeks. She and her husband were on five or so different weight list for daycares. And now she could see that they would still be waiting by the time she had to go back to work. Six weeks after giving birth, she needed help. Her parents dropped everything, packed up a U haul, moved to the Pacific Northwest. They were going back to work too, as full time grandparents. In this piece, og goes on to say grandparents because life is so, so, so difficult for a young parent. You look at how expensive kids are, a lot of grandparents og going back to work. But this piece talks about just how tapped out grandma and grandpa are. That might not be the option that it has been in the past.

[OG]

Yeah, it's really hard to, to be that third generation support system, you know, I mean, financially I think also from an energy standpoint, it's. I've known people, I've known clients who've done it, I've known family members who have done it. And I don't know, it seems like just as much as Len, you were saying, it's rather difficult for young people to kind of get started and do the house thing and all that sort of stuff and rent's expensive and whatever. How much of it is also, like it's not my job anymore, you know what I mean? Like you decided to have a kid and now grandma and grandpa gotta take care of it because you just found out daycare is expensive. You know, like that should have been part of the whole discussion, planning into this. And I'm, I don't know that there's a right answer for that. I'm not saying that. Well, then when nobody would have kids. I understand that there's a lot of financial issues there and it's not as simple as just black and white. But I wonder, wonder if that's more of an afterthought in some cases. Right. Where it's like, oh, you know, it'll be okay, my mom will help or dad will help.

[Len Penzo]

I think being flippant with that is the problem.

[OG]

Yeah, maybe. Or, or if somebody is overestimate, maybe grandma and grandpa are overestimating their ability to help and their energy level. Like raising kids is tough.

[Len Penzo]

I think that's the problem right there is Grandma, grandpa saying I'm gonna help and then they want to have grandkids.

[OG]

Maybe that's it. Like, when are you guys gonna pop out a grandkid for us? Because you know, we're ready and it's like, well, we can't do it. It's well, we'll help. And then they realize pretty quickly that being a full time caregiver for an infant is pretty tough.

[Len Pzo]

I will say this with our kids, we've had that pre discussion already and we've made, I've made it clear, it's like we're not going to be a full time daycare for our grandkids. We're not going to do that. I mean you're going to have to cover the. If you're going to both choose to work, which my daughter does. My daughter wants to be a stay at home mom, but if she had to work, I, you know, I said, hey, we're happy to take them, you know, day here and a day there for whatever, obviously. But don't count on us being a full time every day, Monday through Friday daycare center just because that's just not how you do it.

[Len Penzo]

Neighbors of mine, Len, do once a week with their grandson.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah, that's reasonable. And as grandparents, I would think you would love that once a week, but not where it turns into a job. And now you're tied down. It's like, and you can't even make your own plans to go travel or do whatever because all I've got to, you know, that's not fair to the parents. I don't.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah, they get their day with Leo, which is fantastic. But I will tell you this, at the end of that day, to your point, Og about overestimating, you're taking naps for three days. Oh, oh, they're both exhausted. I've gone over to their house at the end of the day and they are exhausted after one day with Leo. Yeah. Imagine five days a week helping out. And I know families want to, but, but this piece is all about, it's called Grandparents are reaching their limit. Older Americans are doing more childcare than ever before. Because.

[OG]

And I'm not suggesting it's not difficult. Right. I think people who are in the throes of it right now are going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Money bags. You think it's all easy. You know, it's different than it was when you had kids. And it is. Right. I mean, my oldest is 18, my youngest is 8, so I've got a couple of examples. But I also. We were also fortunate enough that for Caroline, Lissa was able to stay at home. Not without its own struggles, of course, but, you know, she was able to be a stay at home mom for Caroline. So that was a different scenario for us. But I think we're also maybe overestimating or underappreciating the wear and tear that it. That it has on 65 year olds and robbing them maybe a little bit too. Right. I don't know.

[Len Penzo]

I think everybody just has to be. Again, I love this idea of the, of the what if scenario. What if grandma and grandpa can't do it five days? And that makes you also ask the question ahead of time, which, Len, you've already addressed in your family. Yeah. Hard pass. Cannot not. It don't have the energy to do that five days a week. The last one on this list, number four. This is a difficult one. And we all know people in. In this situation, and that is if we're retiring with someone, which isn't our whole audience, but if you are retiring with someone, loss of a spouse or a partner, if you've got that person you've been planning on retiring with and they're not there anymore, sometimes they say that it is a death, other time it's. And we've seen this before, too, right? Kids leave, you're all of a sudden together, just the two of you, and you realize we're not the same people we were before we became parents.

[OG]

I liked you better when we were not around one another.

[Len Penzo]

Yeah. Yeah. You see, studies show there's a ton of divorce after the last kid leaves the house. But I think modeling a divorce with your spouse or your partner would be difficult for your planning. But it's always got to be og a specter that this is going to land differently.

[OG]

I suggest having a separate financial plan in the corner in a red binder that says, if he leaves me, this is what I do. No, no, no, no. Don't do that.

[Len Penzo]

Don't do that. Only open if.

[Len Pzo]

No, they have life insurance. Do they have divorce insurance? So you could insure Somehow I think.

[OG]

There probably is some sort of system for that in the para mutual world.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Sounds like key employee insurance.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

What happens if you lose your CEO? So this is easily solved. You just incorporate your marriage and then get key employee insurance.

[Len Penzo]

Key marriage insurance. That is a difficult one, though, thinking about that. And we all know people, or you might be the person that this has happened to and it changes everything, everything, everything. And I guess that's the thing. Og the only thing I think to wrap this up, the only thing that is the constant is we know it's not going to work the way we planned. It's not going to work. It's not a static plan. And if you have a static plan, I think that's a ridiculous way to get this planning done. I will link to this piece from Eggstack News. Really like this, guys. Four things that can derail your retirement plan and the piece from the Atlantic about grandparents maybe being tapped out on our show notes page at stackybenjamins.com Doug, egg stack plan.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

That's like my sandwich.

[Len Penzo]

It is. I thought eggstack News was created by you, but apparently there's. I gotta check it out. Mike Ballou, that actually wrote this great piece. All right, one more segment here. And we call this the TikTok minute. This is the part. I don't know, Len, if you've been here, We've done a TikTok. Have you been here, we've done a TikTok minute. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a TikTok creator who's either doing something brilliant or air quotes. Brilliant. As we often see on TikTok. So you think we're about to listen to brilliance or air quotes? Brilliance.

[Len Pzo]

Do I have to guess?

[Len Penzo]

That's the way this game works.

[Len Pzo]

Oh, okay.

[Len Penzo]

Is before we play the clip, we're. We're about to play a TikTok clip. Audio clip. Is this brilliance or air quotes? Brilliance.

[Len Pzo]

Okay. And I have to answer before the clip or after the clip?

[Len Penzo]

You gotta answer right. My head hurts, Doug. Usually Doug makes my head hurt and I'm. I'm turning to Doug to tell him my head hurts.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Welcome to short attention span theater, everyone.

[Len Penzo]

Welcome to the guy with early onset. So, Len, you think it's brilliant or air quotes brilliant?

[Len Pzo]

I'm going to say air quotes. Brilliant.

[Len Penzo]

This is a spot, guys, that we see a lot of stackers end up in. And it's, It's. It's a difficult place to be where you really want to make a change. But it Takes a lot of courage. This is a guy that many of you have heard before. This is Gary Vaynerchuk.

[H]

We're scared to take a financial step backwards for their happiness. It is almost unacceptable in almost all societies around the world to downsize your home, sell your home or apartment and get a smaller one. That is like, no, no. People are worried about what people perceive. You had Alexis, now you have a Toyota. That's a problem. Whereas for me, if we can ever eliminate that stigma in society, we'll have a much happier world because then people will do that, save dollars to be able to go after their dream. I can't be a singer and do open mics and not make money. I've got to keep being this corporate executive. Well, you don't have to if you can downsize. But then imagine people with families. I have incredible empathy. You're a mother or father and you're the breadweter. And then you come home and now that your kids have to share, who wants to come home and see their 7 and 4 year old go from their own rooms and a nice backyard and we're going to move to a neighborhood that might be not as nice. No backyard and you're sharing a room. That is very challenging. The problem is, I think if someone is living unhappy, much bigger challenges are in front. Resentment, unhappiness, alcoholism, escapism in all sorts of different ways that tend to lead to problems.

[Len Penzo]

It's a very difficult place to be. And we all know people then that have, that have been there. You want to make a change, you're pretty unhappy. But if I'm going to make a change, I got to start in a new career. I got to do something different. And to do that might. To go from the Lexus to the Toyota, I like that from the kids might have to share rooms. Like this idea of going backwards is huge. Hang up.

[Len Pzo]

Well, you gotta. If you have to, you have to, right? I think the smart idea is to, you know, hopefully you thought about it before you. Right when your life got started and you moved out of the nest and you started your own thing and you thought about this ahead of time. That's where it's important. If you don't have to downsize and you start small to begin with. And that's, that's what I did. And, and I've always told my kids, it's like we live well below our means. We've, we've lived well below our means for a long time, not to the detriment of the kids. We still went on our vacations and we did our things, but we lived in a house. We still live in the house. It's much smaller than what I could have afforded. We drove modest cars my whole career. I didn't have a brand new car until I was 50. I drove, you know, old cars and that allowed me to save money and retire when I retired at 58. So I mean, I think the key is just hopefully parents out there instill in your kids to try and live below your means and they'll be much happier. You won't have to worry about downsizing. I think that's the key. But if you have to downsize, you have to downsize. And for kids going from your own room to sharing a room, I think stuff like that when you're kids, I don't think kids, kids really care. I think kids make their, you know, kids have fun being kids rooming with their siblings.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Listening to that clip was like an episode of Scared Straight. I mean you downsize you then you go to resentment and exits, alcoholism. Like are those the steps that's true.

[Len Penzo]

No man, no, no, no. I think you missed what he was talking about there at the end. He's talking about when you don't change, when you don't make the change, it's going to light you up. It comes out in other ways. If you stay in that dead end job that you hate, it comes out as resentment, it comes out as alcoholism. It comes out as, you know, a bunch of self care stuff that's really not great. So you, at some point you've got to make the change. Is I think what he's, I see what he's saying.

[Len Pzo]

I don't know. There's one thing I didn't agree with him and he was saying, well, you leave the corporate job to become a, you know, you know, spend your time working as a singer, you know, unpaid. I think that's ridiculous. That's not downsizing. That's, that's, that's reckless in my opinion.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

I did it successfully.

[Len Pzo]

Well, if you, it's a risk. I mean you can do it but boy, you're roll, that's rolling the dice to me. That's not downsizing. That's, you know, for your own happiness.

[Len Penzo]

We heard from comedian Jimmy Carr a couple weeks ago about that. Remember though, Jimmy Carr was like, I went through, I think he called it Yoho a pirates lifes for me. Like he's like, I had a good job and I just let it go because I needed to do the thing I had to do the thing. And that's when, you know, I think that it's how important it is to use when you're willing to give it up. You know, I was, when I was way in debt, I lived in a rental house. Doug, you came over my house in my rental house. And I lived in this beat up house. I had this chance to rent a house that was much, much, much nicer. And I asked my career coach at the time, I said, hey, I'm going to do this. And I think it was going to be $500 a month, which in today's dollars would be closer to like another twelve hundred dollars a month. And I remember what she said. She said, would you rather come home every day to a place that you know you want to get out of or go to a place that you can barely afford that looks right but you know, is not at all where you. Where you want to be? Like, do you want to put window dressing on this, you know, for a while? Or do you want to fix this the right way? And fixing it the right way was the answer. So we stayed in that house until they kicked us out and immediately bulldozed it. Salsy High family is disgusting. We got a bulldoze. Nobody could live here after them. Actually, that neighborhood was getting all these bigfoot houses. And my goodness, the house that's there now where my old little house used to be is, is pretty incredible. But that is difficult. OG but sometimes, you know, you get to the. I love hearing the success stories, people going, you know what? I used to drive the thing. I realized I couldn't afford it and so I dropped down. I think in our community that's kind of a flex.

[OG]

For whatever reason, there's a bunch of things in the budget or in your lifestyle that, that when you're struggling or when you are trying to make this radical change, a lot of people go, well, I can't touch that. I can't touch my kids private school. Like, we have to do that. And that's the phraseology that we use. Well, we have to, whatever. And when you use the language, and this is why verbiage really matters, you are pigeonholing your psyche into not being able to solve that problem. When you're faced with any sort of problem that you're trying to deal with, the reality is that the more you give your brain the ability to solve it, the more likely you are to come up with a solution. And you do that by having everything be on the table. And to, you know, Gary Vee's Point here, it's like everything has to count. There are no sacred cows in money when it comes to, you know, and there was. That was a book. Who wrote that book? I can't even remember who wrote it.

[Len Penzo]

Now everything counts.

[OG]

No, something about there. There's no sacred cows. That was the name of the book or something like that. And basically the whole point of this is when you're dealing with these things, everything has to be on the table. It's like, well, I've got a car payment, I need a car. Do you, do you need one for the next. I mean, is there a solution that's not a car for this problem for the next short period of time back lend to your long term care discussion. You're not saying I'm never buying long term care insurance. You're saying I'm not buying it right now. I've done the evaluation. For me, that's not a solution that makes sense right now. In 10 years from now, you might go, you know what? I've done the planning on this and now it's something I want to do. That's the thing when it comes to all of these plans, whether it's. I just think about them like austerity plans, right? You get fed, sick and tired, right? I'm just, I'm fed up with where I am and I need to make this change. This is not a life sentence. You know, if you go on the. The one thing that I do appreciate from Dave Ramsey is the whole like rice and beans thing, you know, and he's. It's a metaphor, right? A little bit. But he's basically saying, like, you just have to be okay with being uncomfortable for you're not going to starve to death if you eat rice and beans. It's not going to be the greatest meal plan in the universe.

[Len Penzo]

You can do it.

[OG]

It's not a life sentence either. Like, this is just like, you know, it just has to suck for a while. And there's two ways that you can go through it. You can be miserable in debt for the next 15 flipping years or it can just suck for the next 24 months.

[Len Penzo]

It's really bad.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

It's weird that that this is the area where we. If you do these sorts of things, it's considered failure. But in every other aspect of your life, it's just getting smart and getting on the right path. If you're not healthy, maybe you're overweight, you've got to go on an austerity plan to get on the right path. Right?

[OG]

Interesting. Observation.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

If your company, if your company isn't doing well, sales aren't where they need to be. You go on austerity plan, you change your budget. That's just de rigueur standard operating stuff. So why is it any different with your own personal life? It's not.

[OG]

Doug. I was thinking when you were talking about that it media popped in my head about working out. It's like that sucks. There's people who say, oh, I love working out. They're full of crap out sucks. Like it requires energy and commitment and discipline and being uncomfortable and being sore and all those things. It's not that they love it, it's they love the of it. I know what I'm getting by doing this over and over and over again. It's not allegedly.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

There are these endorphins that get released.

[OG]

Supposedly that's on the back end. It takes discipline and accountability to like go to the gym at 5am or 6am or 7pm or whatever. You know what I mean? Like you have to love the process to want to do those things. Not, not like I've never met anybody who's like, dude, my arms are so sore I can't lift him. And it's awesome. Like, okay, cool. You might say that for you know what I mean? But nobody really feels that way.

[Len Penzo]

Like I think this is where so much of this is mindset. Like I know for me, when I decided to take control and I knew that I was the one driving that bus and we were cutting stuff and I was making sure that we were living an all cash lifestyle. Like it was pretty fricking exciting. It was actually exciting. Not because of the stuff that we were doing. The rice and beans. To your point, OG that wasn't exciting. What was exciting was I chose to do that. That was really, really cool.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Empowering.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Len Penzo]

Super, super fun going. You know what? I could go out to a restaurant tonight on a credit card. We are not doing that. And that was a whole new place to be. And once I realized that I was 100 in charge of that, it was pretty kick ass. That's a great place to leave it. We will link to that as well. And thanks to Stacker Leslie for sending that to us. That was a good one, Leslie. I saw that go. Gary Vee. Nice job, Doug.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Yeah, no, by the way, no Sacred Cows. Garrett Gunderson. That's the book you were thinking of.

[OG]

Okay, There you go.

[Len Penzo]

Garrett. Garrett Gunderson, by the way, is I think we're gonna have on the show this summer. So awesome. Yeah, it could be super cool. Garrett's a great guy. All right, let's dive into one last thing. Doug, we talked about this on Monday. We actually had some fun reviews of this podcast. Len, we actually, from time to time get a review of this podcast.

[Len Pzo]

How many of them are five star?

[Len Penzo]

Well, I think we've had a bazillion of them lately. I think we mean three. We're three for three.

[Len Pzo]

Very good.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

I don't know. I mean, I'm looking at the graph here. It's a ton. That. That purple line on the bar chart that represents five stars.

[Len Penzo]

People are very nice. Yeah.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Vastly outnumbers anything below it. But here's my favorite recent review, partly because it was written by beginning investor Mark with a C. I always like marks with a C. They're just. They're going their own way. They're not. They're not like K. Anybody can do Mark with a K. This is Mark with a C. He's forging.

[Len Penzo]

That's how we get negative reviews from the Marks with a K immediately.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

If you've got a K at the end of your name, we don't want to hear from you. All right, so Mark with a C said, great for DIY investors. Through a variety of headlines that they cover in addition to relevant interviews, this show has struck the perfect balance of humor and investing advice. There was no funnier episode than the PI Day episode on March 14th. I still don't understand why that was called the PI Day. Joe is a master interviewer. OG can analogize any investing situation to make it easy to understand. And this is in all caps. And he typed it like 17 times, so I'll just say it once. Doug is awesome.

[Len Penzo]

Oh, my God.

[Len Pzo]

By the way, Doug, I still haven't got my check for that review. When are you paying me?

[Len Penzo]

And Len thought it was clever to put the C on the end of the name too.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

And he says he never. Mark with a C never misses an episode.

[Len Penzo]

Thanks, Mark.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Thanks, Mark.

[Len Penzo]

Thank you very much. Let's do one more, and then we'll save the third one for later.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Okay, here we have JL Betton. I'm betting JL Gave us a five star review because he said, great show, very helpful. I got into financial advice shows during COVID and this along with the Ramsey show were my go to shows. I feel that Stacking Benjamin does a great job of talking about finances with lots of comedy mixed in. Sometimes you forget it's a finance show. Thank you to Joe, OG and most of all, especially can't emphasize this enough, Doug on a great show.

[Len Penzo]

At the end of every review, we have to put up with this. Every single one doesn't change.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

I just. I'm just reading. It's what I do. I'm a professional reader and I mean, I just. They put it out there. I say it.

[Len Penzo]

Thank you for the reviews, and it's great chatting with some of you. And by the way, if you want to hang out, I will be in Boston. How do you pronounce that, Doug?

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Boston.

[Len Penzo]

Yes. On May 20th. Let me get the date here. I should have had it ready, and I don't. May 20th.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

It's the 20th.

[Len Penzo]

Tuesday, May 20th. As of right now, not sure where we're gonna be. Probably gonna. By the time this comes out, though. You'll see it. Stackybenjamins.com meetup to tell us that you're coming. And we will. We're going to have a lot of fun.

[Len Pzo]

I love Boston. That's my favorite big city in America. It is great.

[Len Penzo]

So awesome going back to Fenway there again, Len. I'll be my second time at Fenway.

[Len Pzo]

Great stadium. I love it.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

You know what, though? I don't. I disagree. Oh, yeah, I disagree with that. I've been to Boston. Excuse me, Fenway. I've been to Boston countless times. I've been to Fenway maybe three or four times, I think. And I am a crazy baseball fan. I love the game of baseball. I really do. And I think that the reason Fenway gets so much love is because of the history. But as a ballpark, if you take away the history, it's kind of a dump. I mean, it really is. Not when you're in the stands, when you're underneath the stands, when you're in the. In the. What do they call it? Not the. The concourse. It's dark, it's damp, it's. It's kind of a dump. Now, don't get me wrong, I will go there as often as I can because. Phenomenal, because most of baseball, for me, a solid 50% is the history of the game.

[Len Penzo]

I love hanging out about it. Street outside, that's a fun area. The shop across that street, a big, big shop vibe.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

But I think there's other places, like Camden Yards. Like, is it Petco in San Diego?

[Len Penzo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

I mean, those places are. You still get that sense of history, but they're bright, they're fresh. They're just a really comfortable place to be.

[Len Penzo]

And we sat in the lower deck, back row, the very last row at the lower deck, and had water Drip on us the whole time. Which was romantic.

[Len Pzo]

That's part of the charm, right?

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Yeah.

[Len Penzo]

It was probably a spilled beer from the deck above us. Yeah, it was spilling on me.

[Len Pzo]

I remember sitting at an old. The old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and I was right behind a beam.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

I went to Municipal.

[Len Pzo]

Yeah. But my chair was blocked. My view was blocked by a beam. You know, this is back when they had beams.

[Len Penzo]

I thought you were going to say your. Your view was blocked by the other fan who was there.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

They used to call. Remember on the ticket, Len, it would say obs vu obsvu.

[Len Penzo]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

What's an obs vu?

[Len Pzo]

Oh, I thought that was French. I thought that was French for have a good time.

[Len Penzo]

They had those at old Tiger Stadium, Doug.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Oh, they had them, too. Yeah. Obstructed view. You sit there with a giant I beam between your legs while you were trying to watch the game.

[Len Penzo]

Doug loved every minute of that. All right, time for us to go. Let's say goodbye. Doug, what are the three things that should be on our to do list today?

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

First, take some advice from our headline. Lots of things can ruin your financial plans, so make them flexible and spend some time thinking through what if scenarios. That way, when disaster strikes, you'll know your next move. Second, grandparents. Maybe they're already overworked. Time to tweak your babysitter. Arrangements. Arrangements. Mom and dad. Get creative. But the big lesson, don't refer to Len as Mr. Potato Head. He's a super big fan of that nickname. How was I supposed to know that's what the honeybee calls him? No, Len. God, we're not snuggling right now. Get off me, Len. Thanks to the Len Penzo for joining us today. You'll find Squirrels After Dark, Len's sandwich survey, and his Friday Black Coffee posts, and [e-mail] we'll also include links in our show notes@stacking benjamin.com. this show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamin along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.

[Len Penzo]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. And we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. But maybe Len knows the answer to this one. What was the first toy ever advertised on television? I'll be right back after I go see what vegetable Joe's mom's brought in from the garden.

[Len Penzo]

Anybody got a guess?

[Len Pzo]

I'm going to say Tinker Toys.

[Len Penzo]

That totally sounds like an engineer answer, doesn't it?

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Yeah. Really? An erector set?

[Len Pzo]

Well, I had all this stuff.

[Len Penzo]

It's probably a chemistry set.

[Joe's Mom's Neighbor Doug]

Was it. Was it an actuarial table?

[Len Penzo]

Maybe. Those are hilarious.