The Boring Plan That Built $2 Million SB1804

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Boring Plan That Built $2 Million"

The Stacking Benjamins Show – Episode SB1804
Date: February 16, 2026
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Doug
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Episode Overview

In this motivating, lighthearted episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe, OG, and Doug dig into the story of a Wisconsin couple who built a $2-million nest egg by following a simple, consistent investment plan using workplace retirement accounts—no flashy investments or risky moves required. The team discusses the power of boring, steady saving, tackles the value of financial advice (especially regarding advisor fees), and reflects on the meaning of “enough” via a memorable TikTok story. Listeners come away with actionable insight—and plenty of laughs—about how ordinary choices can lead to extraordinary financial outcomes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building Wealth the “Boring” Way (10:50–27:15)

• Case Study Inspiration
  The team references a Kiplinger piece profiling a couple—a retired nuclear power plant supervisor and his wife—who saved $2M over 22 years, starting at age 32 with zero in retirement savings.

  • “We used a 401k, SEP IRAs and Roth IRAs to accumulate our first million dollars...mostly using the 401k at my place of employment and a SEP IRA at my wife's place of employment.” —Joe, quoting the case (11:49)
  • No flashy investments, just “boring” workplace retirement plans.

• Dispelling Myths About Fancy Investing (12:14–13:05)
  OG and Joe debunk the idea that you need access to angel funds, private equity, or gold to get wealthy. Regular 401k and IRA contributions remain the main driver for most millionaires.

• How Fast Can You Get to $1 Million? (14:05–16:10)
  OG does the math:

  • $150k/year income, 3% match, maxing 401k ($24,500/year), 8% returns: 199 months (~16.5 years) to $1M.
  • With two earners, same assumptions: 130 months (~11 years) to $1M.
  • “When you put it in months, 130 doesn’t seem as daunting as saying 10 years.” —OG (17:12)

• Dealing with the "Boring Middle" (17:22–18:51)
  Staying patient is critical. The couple took 22 years to hit $1M, starting from scratch at 32.

  • They celebrated milestones, stayed consistent (“gamifying” the experience), and incrementally increased contributions by 1% per year.

• It’s Not Too Late to Start (18:26–19:19)
  “At age 32, they had zero. Nothing...How often do we think, well, it's too late now, like there's no point in even starting?” —Doug (18:51)

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2. Practical Strategies for Building Wealth (19:37–27:28)

• Stop Letting Fees Paralyze You (19:40–21:06)

  • Don’t let “high fees” keep you from contributing to workplace plans—the match and tax deferral often outweigh costs.
  • “If you’re getting a match, your fee is negative 100%. That's a pretty good number!” —OG (21:06)

• Start Small, Increase Over Time (22:31–23:42)

  • The couple started by just getting the match (~4%), then raised contributions 1% per year, barely noticing the change.
  • “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”—Joe (23:26)

• Gamification and Behavioral Benefits

  • They “gamified” their Roth IRA savings—shifting Social Security withholding toward Roth once hitting the tax limit, so they never felt the pinch.
  • “If you can do anything to trick yourself into doing more—great. It takes a little bit over a long period of time.” —OG (25:09)

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3. Lessons from Retirement: What Would They Do Differently? (27:28–30:03)

• More Focus on Post-tax Investments for Flexibility

  • The retiree wished for more in taxable accounts for easier access, instead of tying up too much in tax-advantaged accounts.
  • “We think about tax ramifications...but not about getting at our money.” —Joe (27:51)

• Planning for Long-Term Care

  • Spouses’ Roth IRAs are earmarked for long-term care. He bought affordable insurance for himself, but found it too expensive for his wife, so plans to use Roth resources instead.
  • OG draws parallels between long-term care insurance and risk management choices like car insurance.

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4. The Psychology of 'Enough' (41:17–44:10)

• Highlight: TikTok Minute – “We Have Enough” (41:42–42:58)

  • “The pie chart that is how much I love you—and the piece that is how much money you make—is full. Anything you get beyond this is not for me, it's for your ego...John, we have enough.”
    —Dr. John Maloney’s wife (42:31)

• Reflection on Enough vs. More

  • Many people never recognize they have “enough,” perpetually chasing more wealth when the family’s needs are already full.

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5. Listener Mail: Should I Fire My Advisor? (44:37–61:17)

• MJ’s Dilemma (44:37–54:32)

  • Been with the same advisor for 15 years, paying a 1% fee (previously 1.5%) on $3M managed. Gets two reviews/year, full transparency, investment help, advice on un-managed 401k, planning, trades, etc.
  • Concern: Am I overpaying as my assets grow, even as time spent by the advisor stays the same?

• OG’s Framework for Value (47:41–54:32)

  1. Did they make you money you couldn’t have made alone?
  2. Did they prevent a mistake?
  3. Did they save you time or free you up for other things?
  4. Are they vital for generational/family continuity? - “In almost every couple, there’s one person who leads the money...but if they’re gone, does the survivor or the next generation have someone to turn to?” —OG (52:16)

• Industry Standard on Fees (54:55–57:34)

  • 1% is common for the first $2M; next dollars drop to ~0.75%, and above $5M or $10M it can go lower.
  • “Everybody says, ‘I'll pay a flat fee,’ but flat fee folks use the same calculations in reverse.” —Joe (55:47)

• Key Takeaway:

  • If you value the relationship and services, discuss your concerns openly—advisors expect it, and it deepens understanding on both sides. “You—the client—get to decide the value, not the advisor.” —OG (58:19)

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6. Community Highlights & Closer (61:31–66:22)

• Stacker Wins:

  • Shane’s proud of his new minivan.
  • Kim is building her own cabinets for a house flip.
  • Rob started a “Benjamins After Dark” group in southern Minnesota.

• Meetups & Events:

  • Joe plugs upcoming Stacking Benjamins meetups (Omaha, Seattle, Boston, Tucson).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We need none of those [fancy] ridiculous ways to save money… that simple step was very much the key to success — the company 401k.” —Joe (12:30)
• "If you get a 3% match on your 3% contribution, you're getting 100% return of your money...your fee is negative 100%!" —OG (21:06)
• “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” —Joe (23:26)
• “Anything you go get beyond [what you make now] is not for me, and it's not for the kids. It’s for your ego.” —Dr. John Maloney's wife (42:31)
• "You—the client—get to decide the value, not the advisor." —OG (58:19)

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Important Timestamps

• Kiplinger inspiration & couple’s background: 10:50–12:20
• Math of hitting $1M via 401k: 14:05–16:10
• When to start saving—“zero at 32”: 18:26–19:19
• Fee conversation, matches, why to participate: 19:40–22:31
• Incremental increases & gamification: 22:31–25:09
• Retirement hindsight—post-tax, long-term care: 27:28–30:03
• TikTok Minute—"enough": 41:17–43:10
• Listener mail—advisor fees & value: 44:37–61:17

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains Stacking Benjamins’ signature: casual, friendly banter mixed with practical advice and motivational storytelling. The hosts use humor and personal anecdotes to make money talk accessible and enjoyable for all.

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Summary Takeaways

• Steady, “boring” investing in workplace retirement plans works—even for late starters.
• Start small if you have to; the key is to get started and increase over time.
• Don’t let perfect or fear of fees prevent action; focus on the big wins (matches, tax deferral).
• Define your ‘enough’ and recognize when you’ve reached it—don’t let ego drive perpetual striving.
• Financial advisors provide value beyond investment returns—they offer behavioral coaching, save time, and serve as a continuity bridge for families.

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For further reading:
Link to the original Kiplinger case study, meetup info, and more, as promised in the show notes at stackingbenjamins.com.

Transcript

[Joe]

5:00Am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live fit. Go grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate [e-mail].

[OG]

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

[Joe Salsihai]

You know, it's a big day in the basement today.

[Doug]

Yeah, I do.

[Joe Salsihai]

Huge day.

[Doug]

Why? Why is it a big day?

[Joe Salsihai]

Because we're saluting our armed forces like we do every Monday, Doug. So raise your mug. Gentlemen and ladies stackers, get those mugs up. Because if you're new here, we pay tribute to the people that kept us safe all weekend while we were playing around.

[OG]

Ended weekend. I don't even know why we're working today. What if we have a word with HR? Like in military parlance, this should have been a 70 tour, right? Like we have 72 hours off or 96er where we have four days off. Like, what are we doing?

[Joe Salsihai]

Well, Doug's got important work today. He's got to go buy a mattress because Isn't that what you do on President?

[Doug]

Because I wore it out over the weekend.

[OG]

Oh.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, I just threw up in my mouth. All right. On behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom's basement and the Stackers out there trying to do their best, here is the salute to our troops. Thank you for keeping us safe all weekend and on this extended 70 tour. Here's to you. Let's go stack some Benjamins together now, shall we?

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody. We get the warhead, and we hold.

[Joe Salsihai]

The world ransom for.

[Doug]

$1 million.

[Joe Salsihai]

Well, don't you think we should maybe ask for more than a million dollars?

[Doug]

A million dollars isn't exactly a lot.

[OG]

Of money these days.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjam. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and tell me a story. How'd you make your first million? Today we'll dive into the tale of a couple who saved more than a million dollars. And we'll show you how to do it, too. Plus, we'll answer a letter from one stacker who thought, you know, I'd better call Saul, Seehi and Og should they fire their long term advisor, we'll weigh in. And you already know that's not all. Of course, if you're worried about not saving enough, I'll also share a TikTok minute on about the definition of enough. And then I'll share some heartwarming trivia. Not because it's warm and fuzzy trivia, more like it's trivia in the middle of February. So it's a great distraction from this crappy weather. And now two guys who show up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday whether or not mom locked the door. How do they do that? It's Jo and O. Ja ja ja, ja G.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's right, Stackers. We're busy working on the extended weekend so you don't have to put your feet up. Relax. Welcome to the greatest money show on earth. The show that's won four Plutus awards, Kiplinger and Bankrate called the best personal finance show on Earth. And you're here. And we're here.

[Doug]

Didn't we get an award from like the UN or something too? I'm pretty sure we did not.

[Joe Salsihai]

I'm sure it's on the way. It's gotta, gotta be on the way.

[Doug]

Keeping some kind.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, especially Doug. After today's show, we're going to be chatting about, as you so eloquently said, a couple who made a million dollars. So be prepared to be motivated. Time to get your motivation on the guy who is motivated enough to wear pants to this particular episode. Mr. OG's here. How are you?

[OG]

Man is 84 degrees. We are wearing shorts. Wow.

[Joe Salsihai]

It is incredible. You talk about the crappy weather, Doug, and we're like, what are you talking about?

[Doug]

I'm looking at at least 2ft of snow on the ground out my window.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's weird how his side of the.

[OG]

Basement is always exaggerates. I know. It's like, Trust me, it's two feet.

[Doug]

It's like, okay, dude, we've had 135 inches of snow at my house.

[OG]

How many times have you heard that? Am I right, Joe?

[Joe Salsihai]

Yes.

[OG]

Trust me, this is like 135 inches.

[Joe Salsihai]

I swear to God. Yes. I got the manly man ruler out. Oh man, the fish was this big. Which only works in audio podcast.

[OG]

Did you not get a ticket for having too small a fish, sir? No, I held it out in front of me in the picture, made it look bigger.

[Joe Salsihai]

Don't you love motivational stories, by the way? Oh, gee. When people tell you about all the exotic ways they did something and then you realize they truly were special because they were just like you and me. And they went and did something a lot of people think of as extraordinary. They saved a million dollars.

[OG]

I mean, that's pretty, pretty awesome. I have a funny story about a fitness YouTube event that I saw that kind of dovetails on this. Maybe we'll talk about it later.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, I can't wait to hear about that. I've got a similar story about something unbelievable I saw that. I may share later too. Right now I want to share with you guys though, about our guides which come out every month. They are updated every month to stay current with what's going on. You know, if you have middle school age students, I don't know if you know, but those next few years come fast. Doug, you know, gee, you've been through this. Remember when your kids were in middle school like it was yesterday, like it.

[OG]

Was to be in three days, three years.

[Joe Salsihai]

Like it's about to happen.

[OG]

Just like it was about to happen in two years from now.

[Joe Salsihai]

All of a sudden they're graduating. These next few years go quickly. Time to begin planning.

[Doug]

That's when stuff really accelerates. I felt like grade school to middle school, that took about 28 years, I feel like. But once they got to middle school to, to graduating, that was, yeah, a few weeks. That was wild how fast it got.

[Joe Salsihai]

We built our college planning guide with the help of the team at the College Investor. So we begin with a simple checklist. All you need to do is take 10 minutes, fill out the checklist, know exactly what part of the guide applies to you, and then we update it every month to make sure it always stays current. StackingBenjamins.com guides to get to that, our HR guide and our tax guide and more tax season now too. We're going to talk about that on Wednesday, but today we're talking about making you millionaires. So get the paper ready or whatever you used to take notes because we're going to dive in. Before that we got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them and then OG Doug and I going to dive into helping you save millions. Well, if you live a busy life like my spouse, Cheryl and I, you may find yourself juggling 15 things in a day and often not because it's just hectic. Sometimes it's because you like to be be a busy person. But regardless, if you've got cold days, big goals, no time to cook. Whatever factor makes healthy eating easy. With fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. So eat well without the planning and the cooking. What I really found different about Factor so here's the deal. It shows up at my house and it looks like any other pre prepared meal, but then you eat it and it's so delicious. In fact, when we first got Factor, I had it all set aside for me. Cheryl asked if she could try one. Next thing you know I have to get my own because Cheryl decided that that was all for her. There are quality functional ingredients like lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food nutrients, healthy fats. I can have a meal on the go and I don't have to worry that I'm eating something that I shouldn't be. I also love that it's not the same thing all the time. 100 rotating weekly meals to keep things fresh and delicious through winter. Options include High Protein Calorie, smart Mediterranean diet, GLP1 support and ready to Eat Salads. Plus their new Muscle Pro Collection supports strength and recovery. Always fresh, never frozen. Ready in seriously about two minutes. No prep, no stress. I'm a huge fan of Factor. I think you're going to be a fan as well. So here's the deal that Factor has for all of our Stackers. If you go to FactorMeals.com sb50off that's FactorMeals.com sb 50off use code sb50OFF to get 50 off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor New subscribers only. Varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while the subscription is active. Stackers I've been running a business my entire life and I could tell you running a small business is tough. I love it, but it is tough. And when it's time to get a loan, it can feel impossible to find a lender that you actually trust. Big banks say no. The Internet? Well, full of sketchy offers with sky high rates and fine print that you can barely read. Whether you need help covering payroll, managing cash flow, or investing in growth, you deserve better. And that's why I recommend the Small Business Marketplace Fundera. Powered by Nerd Wallet, it's a free, easy to use platform. It lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders. And here's the thing. Because your time is valuable, it's all in one place. What I like is that you don't need perfect credit to get started. There's no spam, no bait and switch, just personalize options that fit your business needs. There have been so many times when over the years my business has had a cash flow crunch and we needed a little duct tape. Either the people, the companies that I'm working with are making me wait 90 days before they pay me, or of course something always comes up right at the wrong time. It can be very frustrating, but it doesn't have to be. So here's the best part. For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.comsb and fill out the no obligation form, you're going to get VIP treatment. Talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com sb to learn more and find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID number 1240038.

[Joe]

Hello darlings. And now it's time for your favorite.

[OG]

Part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's Headlines.

[Joe Salsihai]

Inspiration for today came from a Kiplinger piece, which is my first million. They have this cool case study that we'll link to in our show Notes where they dive into how a person saved and it really is a good look into people that are much like you and I. Let's talk about this couple. The Gentleman is a 60 year old married retiree in Wisconsin, retired as a senior reactor operator control room supervisor at a nuclear power plant.

[OG]

Oof.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wow. Talk about some responsibility there.

[OG]

It's a business card.

[Doug]

Don't tick him off.

[Joe Salsihai]

He and his wife, both born and raised suburban Chicago, have been married for 48 years. The first question Kiplinger asked, the best one, how did you do it? What did you use? And the gentleman says, we used a 401k, SEP IRAs and Roth IRAs to accumulate our first million dollars. And most of our net worth we saved mostly using the 401k at my place of employment and a SEP IRA at my wife's place of employment. I want to dive into that first OG because how often do we hear from people trying to stack Benjamin's who look at all these cool Wall street tools, these nifty looking ways to save money. And they think, you know what, here's a new esoteric thing I gotta have. And yet this couple makes it using largely their 401k and SEP IRAs. Like nothing extraordinary when it came to building their net worth.

[OG]

What about angel funds? Private equity?

[Joe Salsihai]

I know, right?

[OG]

Credit and real estate and gold? What about all that?

[Joe Salsihai]

It's so crazy that people think we need all of these ridiculous ways to save money and yet we need none of it. In fact, if you remember a few years ago we talked to the people at Ramsey Solutions, we did an interview. They had just done a survey. Eight out of ten millionaires invested in their company's 401k as their primary way to get wealthy. It was their company's 401k. That simple step was very much the key to success. And yet, oh, gee, you and I meet people every year who go, I don't know that I want to save into my company 401k. I don't really trust those people. I don't trust my employee. I don't like my boss.

[OG]

Well, and obviously those things are completely not related to one another. Your benefits package, 401k is completely separate from your company. It's not their money. It's not. I mean, it can be invested in the company. You have the choice to do that in some cases, but you also have the option to not do that. But the money's not controlled by the company. It's controlled by a third party. There's a third party administrator who makes sure that your payroll stuff all is all synced up and what you take out of your paycheck goes into this account. Your boss doesn't get to know how much is in the account. In some circumstances, some higher ups of HR will get a report of like, who's contributing and that sort of thing. But generally speaking, you know, your mainline, you know, unless you're, unless your boss is the boss, your mainline boss probably doesn't have visibility into that and you have full control over. Here's, here's an interesting question for you guys. So I said, can, you know, just contribute to the 401k. And I'm going to take some big leaps here. And I understand this isn't true for the. Not everybody can do this, but I just want to give you guys an opportunity. The answer is going to be in numbers of months.

[Joe Salsihai]

Okay.

[OG]

Okay. So that's the answer. You have to come up with the answer. I'm giving it to you. I'm telling you what the criteria is. So if you made 150k a year and you got a 3% match in your 401k, and you contributed the maximum that you can, which is 24,500 this.

[Joe Salsihai]

Year, $150,000 a year I made.

[OG]

Yep. You make 150 and you got a 3% match, 3% match, and you get 8% in your investment account, how many months does it take for you to.

[Joe Salsihai]

Hit a million in months? So hold on.

[Doug]

Seven.

[OG]

Okay. Doug's answer is seven. He's like the doc G of guessing trivia questions.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wait, about one year is going to take you to almost 30,000. So going to take you close to 30. So let's. So that means 10 years would be 300. Now we got to think about compounding, right? Are you putting compounding in hero G?

[OG]

Yeah, I'm saying, like, hey, you know, if you just, you're making 150 grand, you're starting at zero, you get a 3% match, you are able to. And I get. People are going to say, well, I can't put a max in. Like I only make. I understand.

[Joe Salsihai]

So you can. I'm going to say if 10 years of just straight contributions is around 300,000 bucks, then I'm going to say. So that would be 120 months. So I'm going to say 150 months.

[OG]

It's a really great guess. The answer is 199 months, right? Yeah. So 199 months. Build yourself a little thing to check off. You know, you get to have a little candy every month or something like that. You know, it's under 200 months now. What happens if you have two people, you got a dual income household, you're fortunate enough to be in that situation. He works really hard and Both people make 150k. People get a 3% match and both people can do it. How long does it take to get to a million as a family?

[Joe Salsihai]

Well, be half that. Right.

[OG]

Because the compounding is not going to work as long.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, it's. Oh, quicker. So instead of 100 months, then let's go to 70.

[OG]

No, it's not double or it's not half of because you don't have the compounding as long. So.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, gotcha.

[OG]

It's actually 130 months. So just over, just over 10 years.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's funny. I sent it the wrong way. I sent it 31 way.

[OG]

Yeah, you were thinking it and you said it the exact opposite. But what's interesting about this, and I think it's really powerful to do things in different terms than you're used to because it reframes the way we think about stuff. If I told you it was going to take you 10 years to finish a project, you know, like, hey, Doug, you're remodeling a house. We should have it done somewhere in the next 10 years. Like, you'd be like, oh, my God, I don't even want to do this right. Like, that's not even a, you know, hey, you're training for a marathon, Joe. We think your training should be done in about 10 years. Like, that's an insane amount of time. But if you change that to months for whatever reason, it changes the optics. It's still 10 years. 120 months is still 10 years. Right. But when you think about it in terms of opportunity, like I, we live our lives in 30 day increments. You know, our budget's based on 30 days. You know, the lunar cycle is 20 some change days. Like, you know, this is how we think about our lives. Right.

[Doug]

28 lunar cycle and some change.

[OG]

Okay, but my point is, is that when you put it in those contexts, you go, oh, 130 of those doesn't seem like as, as much as saying it's going to take you 10 years.

[Joe Salsihai]

I still think though, if you go in with the expectation it's going to take you 10 years. How many times do we see people use these exotic investments. Oh, gee. Because they just get tired of the boring middle. You know, they're like, oh, this is never going to happen. I got to go faster. I got it. I got to go faster. I got to go faster. You know how long it took this couple, by this couple, how long it took them to get to a million dollars?

[OG]

What did they say it took them?

[Joe Salsihai]

22 years.

[OG]

That sounds very close to 20 months or 200 months.

[Joe Salsihai]

200 months.

[OG]

A little more than. But they had different contribution limits.

[Joe Salsihai]

But if you started off knowing that it's going to take me 22 years, then I think you get more comfortable with the boring middle. You're like, oh, yeah, I'm on pace. This is why I like the milestones along the way. I really like celebrating those milestones and kind of look back and go, look at how far have we come versus oh my God, I got so far to go. Like once, you know, those milestones along the way and you're celebrating those and you know it's going to take you 22 years to get to a million. I think that becomes a powerful thing. This gets even more powerful, though. At age 32, guess how much money they had saved for retirement?

[OG]

Zero.

[Joe Salsihai]

Zero. Nothing. They had done nothing by the time they were 32. And how often do we think, you know, I got to speed up, I got to, I got to hurry up. They just trusted that from 32 on they'd be able to. And by the way, when he began working for a public utility at age 32, he had to wait a year to start investing in a 401k. So we just started putting some money away on the side. He might have started at 33 had he not been a little bit more.

[Doug]

Proactive and good on them for even starting. Because how many people do you guys know? I know I can think of three or four right now who, who get about to that point in their lives. Maybe it's 40, 35, 40 and haven't saved anything and think, well, it's too late now, like there's no point in even starting because I'm never going to make it. So I'm just going to. I guess I'll just work until, you know, the day of my funeral. I know a lot of people have just given up because they feel like they missed the beginning.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, I'll save a minimal amount instead. Party today. Yeah, just live my life, spend every dollar and realize I'm just going to work until I die. One other thing I want to point out here too, because this is for people that aren't savers and think that they're behind. I think that's powerful stuff. But there's something in here too. OG for the uber nerd, I think.

[OG]

You have to stay like that.

[Doug]

And now is the time we dance.

[Joe Salsihai]

And it is that. Fees, fees, fees, fee, fee, fees, fees, right. We talk about fees when we look at what he used. He used 401k Roth IRA, SEP IRA. The 401k. If he's with a big company and he certainly is running a nuclear power plant, that's going to be a big company. Probably the company takes on a lot of the fees. In a Roth ira you've control over the fees. And this term SEP ira. A lot of people don't know what that means, but that means that his wife works for a small employer. And you and I have seen some small employer, 401ks.og and if somebody is an uber nerd and they know what to look for, they're going to go in and they're going to look at the fees on some of these small business plans and they're going to go, oh, wait a minute, they paired up with an insurance company, right. Where it's an annuity based plan. Meaning, and I know that might lose some people. So let me just cut to the chase. That means that the employer, to save money passed on some of these fees to the employee. So I could have seen Mr. Nuclear Engineer going, oh, you know what, that's a little pricey. So we're just not going to save, we're just not going to save there and doing nothing instead of saving. And certainly you want to control your fees. But I think the bigger thing is, is Getting the money saved and I still think getting it saved at work, even into some of these high fee plans, better than the alternative.

[OG]

Yeah, I mean, I would say higher fees, not even high fees. It doesn't even, it's all relative. There's a cost to have plan, there's a cost to have the record keeping and all that sort of stuff. And in a small company, we're a small company, Joe, you and I have a small company. It's like we want to absorb some of those costs for our employees. We can't take them all on. Some of that's just going to get passed on to the employee. Not because we're vicious or money grubbing capitalists. It's just like, well then we don't have money to run the business, you know, and then we don't have a business. If you look at it from the perspective of, you know, what are we getting out of this? I mean, just purely the tax deferral is worth a bunch of money in the near term. And if you're getting a match, I think, I think a lot of people missed the mark on this. If you're getting a 3% match on your 3% contribution, you're getting 100% return of your money. And if I told you your fee was negative 100%, that's a pretty good number, right? Like you're getting, you're getting all of your money and then some money, you know what I mean? And so the net effect of that is, well, I only get 75 cents on the dollar because there's some kind of cost that I'm incurring. I'm still ahead in this game. To your point, don't arbitrarily just go pay high cost just because it's fun to pay high costs. But if that's a limiting belief that you have, I'd reexamine that a little bit.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's funny that you bring up the match because that's the next place that this piece goes. When he started vesting in his 401k, he made sure OG to just get the match. He didn't think he could do it. He's 32 years old, probably has a young family and he is juggling a lot of expenses, didn't think he could do much. So he just saved 4% of his income to get the match. That's all he started at and he still got to a million dollars. But here's, here's the deal. He then increased his contribution 1% per year so that he could slowly not really feel the effects with his family on saving more and more and more money. And sure, had he saved more early on, he would have gotten there quicker. Yeah, but he still made it in 22 years just doing what he could. I think we. What's that phrase mom always uses?

[OG]

Don't let out of the cookie jar?

[Doug]

That to stop farting in the kitchen?

[Joe Salsihai]

That too.

[OG]

Where are my meds? Those are grandma's happy pills.

[Joe Salsihai]

I can't deal with you people today. Not any of those.

[Doug]

Thank God they made it legal.

[OG]

Just bury me in the backyard, she says.

[Joe Salsihai]

All those. Every single one of those. But the one that I wanted to point to was, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And here's a guy that could barely save, so he saves 4% and then he notches it up every year. I thought that was really cool. He said he made sure that he monitored and adjusted his contributions carefully so he didn't hit the maximum limit until the last pay period of the year to make sure he got the match whenever he could. Right. And then starting in 2000, he started putting money into Roth IRAs as well. So in 22 years, they made it. But there's. There's a little bit OG of gamification there, you know, going, okay, I'm going to save 4%, then I'm going to challenge myself to save 1% more. He actually took the gamification a little bit further than that, though. He said initially he invested whenever his earnings reached the Social Security maximum into his Roth. This is how he did the Roth once his Social Security hit the top line. And for those of you that make enough, you could play this game as well. He calculated what he would have paid in Social Security taxes, and he split that amount between the Ross depositing it every pay period so that he felt the same amount of money OG coming out, but he was putting more money away, so he never felt a change. That's kind of nerdy gamification. But this idea of turning it into something that is a little bit more fun and a little bit more strategic, I thought was a really cool part of their plan as well.

[OG]

Yeah, I mean, anything that you can do to trick yourself into doing more is. Is a great idea if you know that you're going to get a pay raise in a couple of pay cycles. Sitting down and calculating what that's going to be, recognizing that, hey, some of that needs to go for the rising costs of everything that's going on, and maybe a lot of it goes to that. But if you can just take a piece of whatever your extra income is going to be and allocate that to the future. It doesn't take a lot. It takes a little bit over a long period of time. And when you're 20, 30, 40 years old, you have 40, 30, 20 years to go at least to have this work. And I think the other piece to recognize is you guys both brought up what happens if you say, well, I didn't get it done. I'm 30 years old, I'm 40 years old, whatever. And you guys know this because of your significant age gap, difference between you and me.

[Doug]

And there it is.

[OG]

There's a period of time where you're in that high peak spending years of your life. Right? It just is how it is. Where it's like, okay, things are a little tighter right now. And recognize that just because it's how it is today isn't how it's going to necessarily always be in the future. And you just make a plan for this year. Just worry about this year. You don't have to worry about like, well, what happens? Well, tomorrow will worry enough about itself. Let's just do today. But be true to it and recognize that, hey, there are, there's. There's likely to be some time. And I think you guys would agree with this, where it's like, oh, I know, Joe, you've talked about this immensely. When, when Nick left for school, college, or when he was done full time from the house. It's like you go grocery shopping once every two weeks and that food's still in the fridge. You're like, what is. We notice that when Alex is gone, you know, and then when he comes home, we're like, how do we go through 6 gallons of milk this week? Like, who's drinking milk? All of a sudden, what is happening? Yeah, dad, Rod of waffles. But we just bought them yesterday. What do you mean we're out? It's like, Well, I had eight of them and William had eight of them. There's only 16 in a pack. It's like you had eight Lego waffles for breakfast. Well, I mean, I had eight and then like four eggs. But yeah, you know, that stuff's gonna happen and your life is gonna go through different cycles. So wherever you are right now, it is what it is. Right? You know, make do with where you are and recognize that there's different seasons coming.

[Joe Salsihai]

I get excited about this next part, which is, what would he have done differently? I always love this question when you talk to people in retirement, because this is where I feel like, OG you find some of the real answers. And we have said countless times on this show that we often over optimize. This gentleman says I would have invested more diligently and deliberately in our post tax investments because of the fact that too much of it was in tech shelters and he didn't feel like he could be as flexible as he wanted to be. We think a lot about the tax ramifications. We don't think about getting at our money. That is a huge, huge, huge point. And finally he's really thinking about long term care. He said he's intentionally not withdrawn from the Roth IRA account since they retired. Those are designed for future long term care expenses for my wife. If needed, I'm covered by a long term care policy we bought when I retired. So I like this. You know, there's this big issue in financial planning about affordability of long term care and you can't just have no plan because you look at the statistics around long term care. There's going to be a plan. No, but even if you don't have a plan, the statistics don't change that. There's a high probability that this is going to hit your family. But how you solve it I think has to be different for everybody. So you and iog, we know how expensive these policies can be. So listen to what he did. I'm covered by a long term care policy we bought when I retired. Purchasing a similar one for my wife proved to be cost prohibitive. What I like about this plan is that he recognizes this is not the perfect plan. You can hear between the lines that he knows what his Achilles heel is, that there may not be enough money there. And yet he's covered a lot of the probability that hey, if it's me first, we got that covered. It's more likely to be me than we have that covered. We then are going to protect ourselves. We're going to do some self insurance by leaving the Roth IRA money and we're not going to think about it in terms of our future outside of long term care. Maybe not OG Maybe not the perfect plan because I think the Roth IRA can be used to minimize tax brackets along the way. But I love the fact that he's thought about this and he's thought about what's coming down the road for them. When you're meeting with people OG and they're in retirement, how much thought have they given to something as big as long term care? Before you bring it up, have many people thought about it already or Are you the guy who's the grim reaper going, hey, there's this Achilles heel coming.

[OG]

Long term care? No, that's a pretty uncommon self thought, if that's how you'd say that. Yeah, just like any risk management, it just boils down to probability of it happening, which is pretty high. And when you say long term care, people think like, oh, I'm not going to go in a nursing home, but it's really just any sort of assisted care in the spectrum of somebody comes to the house and makes sure I'm okay every so often to full on 24, 7, 365 memory care. There's a wide range of service that happens between those two. Those two extremes.

[Joe Salsihai]

I like, by the way, how you widen that issue because it truly isn't. Because I remember when I was an advisor, nobody wanted to talk about facility, but when I said, okay, let's not talk facility, let's talk about the probability that there will be a catastrophic event, that you're going to need some help in the future because that's what we're really protecting against.

[OG]

Yeah, what's the likelihood of needing some help? And then what's the financial impact if we do need it? How does that work? And you just lay it out and if there's a gap, and frankly, even if there's not a gap, you can sit there and say, all right, well how much of this risk do I want to have on my own? I mean, you do the same thing every single day with car insurance and homeowner's insurance and your property and casualty stuff is you say, okay, I've got a car. I don't think I'm going to get in a car accident. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty safe driver, but there's a chance that somebody rear ends me. There's a chance I get distracted and you know, squirrel runs out or whatever. And if I'm in a wreck, I'm willing to pay the first 2,500 bucks of whatever the expense is. If it's just a little fender bender, cool, I'll just write the check for it. Or I'll let it be like I'm okay with a small ding in the bumper, like that's fine with me. But if I destroy this thing, I want to be made whole and I'm going to need a car. So I'm going to pass the risk of that risk on to, you know, onto Geico. And you can kind of do the same thing when it comes to long term care insurance. You can say, I pretty safe, I'm healthy, I exercise. I don't think any of this stuff is going to happen to me or my spouse. And, you know, but if it does, I want to, you know, I'm going to cover the first little bit. You know, if it's like that kind of end of life care and it's just like, literally three months, okay, cool. That's what I'm going to cover. But if I'm unlucky and I get in this major wreck, so to speak, with my health, I want to kind of transfer that risk to a third party, or at least a large amount of that backside risk, tail risk, I guess, is what maybe they call it. And then some people have enough resources to not have to worry about that. And then it's just boiling down to what's a better use of your resources. You're marking it for this or having somebody else pay for it. So you've got your own, you know, kind of prepaying it. Basically.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's what surprised me was when I started meeting people for the first time who were truly wealthy. And during my advisory journey was when I started running up against these people that thought about life differently than I did. The majority of my clients did. But when I started running up against people that had generational wealth, the number of those people that bought insurance, when I advised them not to blew me away. They were just worried OG about freedom from worry. They're like, no, I want to cut that check. Why? Why would you cut that check? Because I don't want to ever, Ever. One guy even looked at me and goes, because I never want to talk about this again.

[OG]

That's why it's worth. I'd rather pay Geico than listen to Joe talk. That's the telling, telling sentiment. I think you've kind of summed up a lot of the podcast episodes, honestly.

[Doug]

Wow. Things just became really clear to me.

[OG]

I was like, wow. Took 17 years for me to. To hear that in a way that really cut to my soul and really expressed in words how I felt on today of all days, two decades. Thank you. What's today?

[Joe Salsihai]

I appreciate it.

[Doug]

What's today?

[Joe Salsihai]

It's President's Day.

[OG]

Exactly.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's President's Day. Oh.

[Doug]

And he's acting like he's our president, and so we should be more respectful. That's what he's getting at.

[OG]

I got you. Sorry.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's a big day.

[Doug]

Delusion is deep.

[OG]

President Sal Sehi. Your majesty. Why do you prefer your majesty, your highness?

[Joe Salsihai]

I think it's Time to wrap up the second. I'll link to this at our Show Notes page@stacking benjamin.com why do I feel like I just got to shut up all of a sudden? Let's pivot. Pivot. Doug, you've got today's it is a great day. And Doug, you've got some trivia today, I think.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and here on February, there's a huge birthday down in the basement.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yes.

[Doug]

Can't believe this guy's this old. So old. And we're all big fans. Of course, I'm talking about the John McEnroe. John has not only earned tons of Benjamins, he and Joe have a lot in common. Because the two of them, they have four US Open titles, three Wimbledon titles, and 10 Grand Slam doubles titles. And a really short fuse. They both have all that in common. Wow. The Grand Slam is a little different in tennis than it is in baseball, though. Here's today's question. In tennis, winning the Grand Slam means you win each of the four major tournaments on the tennis schedule. So what are the names of those tournaments? I'll be back right after I go put another shrimp on the barbie.

[OG]

Foreign.

[Joe Salsihai]

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[Joe]

Hey, want a cookie? Oh, I know you just ate, so you're craving something a little sweet. Besides, one cookie isn't going to kill you. How about half?

[Joe Salsihai]

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[OG]

Bite it.

[Joe Salsihai]

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[Aura Representative]

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[Doug]

Hey there stackers. I'm kangaroo lover. That sounds weird. And guy who's been a champ eating a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast. I mean, look, four in one sitting is not that hard. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug There's a huge birthday in the basement today, and Joe's mom couldn't be prouder. That's right, it's her favorite tennis star John McEnroe's birthday. Nowadays, John's not only a star tennis commentator, but he's also voiced a hit Netflix series that Guy's done a ton. But today's question is about his tennis history. He won 10 Grand Slam doubles titles.

[Joe Salsihai]

So what?

[Doug]

Four tournaments in tennis make up the Grand Slam. It would be the aforementioned Wimbledon in England, the US Open, the French Open. And look, I tried to give you some hints. The Australian Open in Melbourne. Get it right. Nori, you're. You're part way towards winning the Stacking Benjamin's Grand Slam of Trivia. Nice. Answer this one. The one on Wednesday, the one on Friday, and you'll win a firm handshake from me right after you buy my plane ticket to your hometown. I know, it's incredible, right? And now here come two grand guys who slam the microphone whenever they say something witty. Joe and Og.

[Joe Salsihai]

Which might be why you rarely hear the microphones.

[Doug]

Usually you're slamming it like this. Hello, Is this thing on?

[Joe Salsihai]

Is it going to. Wait a minute. That was. John McEnroe had a fan that would not give up at the Australian Open. I don't know if you guys saw that video. Some dude just following him all the way through the airport. And finally, McEnroe is just like, please, just. Just leave. Please. Please leave me alone. Like, how many times do you got to tell somebody to leave you alone?

[OG]

I actually, generally, I think 1800.

[Doug]

I think I'm like, no.

[Joe Salsihai]

We got a podcast again. Oh, geez. Like, leave me alone. I told you last week. Time for our tick tock minute. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a TikTok creator who's either giving us something brilliant or air quotes. Brilliance. Doug, what do we got this week, you think?

[Doug]

Brilliance.

[Joe Salsihai]

This was sent in by Stacker Wanda. She said that we often talk about how this isn't a show about more money. Even though it's called Stacking Benjamins, it clearly is stacking life. Much more like Benjamin Franklin had. And this is Dr. John Maloney, who some of you may know on another podcast, talking about just having enough.

[Dr. John Maloney]

It's the first time I've talked about this publicly.

[Aura Representative]

My.

[Dr. John Maloney]

My wife. One day I was down in the gym. This is over Christmas, and we have a little gym in our basement, and I'm exercising down there. And she heard me cheering, and I'd gotten a text message. This was over the holiday break that I'd landed a speaking gig that I really wanted. The guy who runs all that for me, he had texted and said, hey, and I think we got you another one. And I was cheering. So she comes down and says, what are you so excited about? And I was like, I got this, and then I got this. And as she retells this, she said, I literally was watching my husband die in front of me. And then I hear him cheering that he got more work. And her normal. She withdraws. Right. So when she gets upset or gets anxious, her normal move is to just pull back. And then we reconvene. And this time she didn't. And she stepped forward in a way that kind of caught me off guard.

[Joe Salsihai]

And.

[Dr. John Maloney]

And I'll never forget this as long as I live, because it was unmooring. She said, the pie chart, that is how much I love you. And the pie piece, that is how much money you make is full. Anything that you go get beyond this is not for me, and it's not for the kids. It's for your ego. And she said, so from this point forward, go do whatever you want to do, but do not make the mistake of thinking it's for us. And then she said this, John, we have enough. And then she walked out.

[Joe Salsihai]

Whoa. How about that? We have enough. The piece that's I love you, and the piece that's for the family that is full.

[Doug]

So he basically just won Trivial Pursuit. That's what I heard.

[Joe Salsihai]

He got all the pie pieces.

[Doug]

Got all the little pie pieces.

[Joe Salsihai]

But how many people have the pie pieces and they don't. They don't recognize it? I mean, the one year syndrome, people, I just need a little more. Just need to keep working.

[Doug]

That's an incredible partner for him to have, to have somebody who helps them realize we're where we want to be. We've got all the love, and we've got all the stuff that we. We need to have. That's. That's rare because so many people and couples and families just can't get off the. We need more.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's like this rat race to wear.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Joe Salsihai]

And you look at the end of some of these races. I feel like sometimes. Doug, I'm glad you brought that up, because I feel like sometimes people don't even look at where does this lead.

[Aura Representative]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It's like those people who run those marathons just to get the medals that have Goofy on them or Dumbo or whatever.

[Joe Salsihai]

Where does this lie? I'll tell you where it leads, at least to being in a boot, getting an mri.

[Doug]

It's where it leads nearly getting arrested and accused of cheating.

[Joe Salsihai]

Who cheats at the Disney Marathon? OG and I talking about that again earlier today. Like, why do you cheat at a mar. I don't know. But this idea of Enough. It's a great question. I think some of our overstackers need to ask themselves. Got some more good news, guys. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. Wonder who it's from. I got this note from MJ and.

[OG]

MJ asking me, hold on, the MJ?

[Joe Salsihai]

I don't know, it was just MJ.

[Doug]

Was there a 23 in the address?

[OG]

XXII just checking.

[Joe Salsihai]

MJ asking me if they should fire their advisor. And OG's like, I know a good advisor. MJ. Yeah, I know, I know a good one. And he's been paying his advisor a 1% management fee and asked me, is that too much? Should I keep them? Should I get rid of them? And I wrote a long answer that said this question is much more nuanced because the first question to ask isn't what I pay, it's what am I getting? Because 1%, when you get a ton, could be a huge, huge discount and 1% could be highway robbery. So the, the, my first answer to MJ was I don't know, I need much more context and so do you. So then he wrote me his context and oh gee, I want to run this by you because there may be people thinking, do I fire my advisor? He says, thanks Joe. Sorry. I guess I really knew it'd be more nuanced. I should have provided more info. We use a local branch of a national firm. We've been with him for 15 years and we've only had two lead advisors during that span. So we like the stability and consistency we've gotten. They meet with us twice a year for in depth meetings with an agenda. They openly share all their software spreadsheets with us. Of course they also answer questions when needed. They don't push. And I always made it clear, clear that I'm not going to be buying any insurance or annuity products that they would get a commission on. They do make trades for us, they rebalance, they run Monte Carlo models with my various ever changing variables, etc, they offer me general 401k advice also even though they don't manage that money. We used to pay them one and a half percent but I negotiated down to one percent after we passed a million dollars and now they manage 3 million for us. I'm very happy with them, but I sometimes think, quote, I'm paying them more each passing year, but I'm receiving basically the same services and I don't think they're increasing number of hours spent on our file every year, they're ready to help us start planning for retirement in the next year or two. Once retired, I know I'm going to want some more level of help. But other typical services in retirement when we're just withdrawing worth the same amount we pay now as investors in pre and post tax investment accounts, private equity investments, tax filing advice, debating the use of annuities in retirement, et cetera. He said all that said, what's the best way to approach the topic with them? And should I make a proposal that's not offensive yet instead respectful yet assertive industry, Stanford, yet favorable to do so? In other words, do we negotiate with them to change the fee? Do we have the same fee? You know what, Og? I thought this is a good question because one thing that people get from this show that they don't get from other shows is you're the guy on the other side of the table of this when a client brings you, hey, I want to talk about the fee. What are the things going on in your head when you hear a question like this that we see debated on social media 24 7, it feels like.

[OG]

Well, I think that ultimately it boils down to value received. And there's only one person that gets to make that decision. Right. And that person is the consumer or in this case, the writer of this question. And only they can decide whether or not it's valuable because it's not a product. Right. It's a ever ongoing amount of service. And I think the thing that's really difficult to continually reconcile is that there are seasons of time where there's not a lot of stuff going on. And then there's like one particular thing that has a profound impact on the next period of time, whether it's something as simple as like, which retirement package do I take? I shouldn't say that simple, but which retirement package do I take? Which pension option do I choose? Which Social Security timeline is best?

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, there's a lot coming up right now for them.

[OG]

Well, sure, I'm saying there's that over your lifetime there can be RSU vesting or tax law changes. And these things happen at very random times. And so you get in this rhythm of, you know, hey, I see my advisor every six months and he or she is every year we're going through planning and rebalancing and all that's great. But I'm not, I'm not blown away by some wildly cool piece of advice that showed up in my life in the last two years. So why the heck should I keep on doing this. And it's like. Because we don't know when the one thing is going to be, and it's very difficult. I think there's three different categories here. One category is, is your team of people, do they have the opportunity to make you money that you wouldn't have made on your own? That can be through a lot of ways, right? Asset allocation or tax loss, harvesting or rebalancing at appropriate times, or investing in asset classes that you don't currently have. It could be that. It could be choosing a Social Security option. I mean, there's countless ways that you can make money. That's a factor. I think one of the factors is, can they prevent me from making a mistake, or did they prevent me from making a mistake that I would have made without any counsel? This one is particularly challenging to reconcile because it's trying to prove a negative. Unless you literally are about to buy the vacation house and the advisor goes, this will blow up your financial plan. Stop signing. And you go, oh, okay. Like, literally, it's hard to kind of tie, you know, decisions that you were gonna make because you're just kind of bouncing, hey, I was thinking about this. Or I was, you know, what about this? Or what about that? Or I, you know, my friend's investing in this company. Or, you know, there's these little things that pop up. So how do we know which one of those was this catastrophic error? Sometimes you can point to one. Hey, I want, you know, the market's down 30%. I think we should sell. No, don't do that. And you just hit pause for a day. And then that happens to be the bottom of COVID on Monday, whatever it was March of 2020, and that happened to be just all you needed was that one day to get the recovery. And now you see the recovery, and you're like, okay, it was down 11 yesterday. It's up 10 today. Maybe. Was that good enough? I don't know. It's very hard to track that. And then I think the third area is, are you saving time and energy that you can allocate to other things that either produce more upside for you, revenue, whatever you want to call it, or more joy that you don't have to think about this stuff? I think we could arguably say that a lot of us can do our taxes on TurboTax. It walks you through most of the questions. And a lot of people do TurboTax. A lot of people still use CPAs to the point where they're overworked, by the way. There's not enough CPAs in the universe to account for all the people that need to do taxes and that want help. But why don't we just use TurboTax? Well, because I kind of want to make sure I get it right and it's okay that I'm paying a little bit of money to account for the fact that it saves me some time from doing something and they're going to prevent a mistake potentially, and maybe they're going to make me some money with some ideas or strategy. The other thing that I would add, and I think those are three really broad ones, there's a fourth one that I think is increasingly more important as we look at generational planning. That is that almost universally, in my experience, there is a lead person who's in charge of the money. In a relationship, for good or for bad, there's always both. People on calls and they've got. The husband has some input, but the wife is the one making all the decisions. That's just the dynamic of relationship. You have a thing that you do.

[Joe Salsihai]

Divide and conquer.

[OG]

Yeah, it is what it is. This is coming up more and more in conversations as we think about the impact of wealth beyond our needs. So it's like, hey, my plan is good. You do the thing. So in this guy's case, he's like, I looked at all the Monte Carlo things. I'm good. I can't screw this up. If I tried, I could leave it all in cash for the next 30 years and I'd still have money when I died. Right. That's a really good spot to be. But as you think about the generational impact of that and what if the person who is in charge of the money is no longer around? Now you have no relationship with no person who knows anything about your family and you just handed over the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, to somebody who's never been involved in this and has no guidance or direction. And where we see issues and these are the things we report on, on the show you read about in the Wall Street Journal, where do we see fraud and abuse and people being taken advantage of? It's people that are like, I haven't done this before. I don't know what to do. I don't know who to call or who to talk to. This person seems super nice. So I want to talk. I mean, what do I know? Maybe an annuity is the right thing for me. Safety and security. I mean, that sounds really great. And that's how you end up with the 20 year annuity with the 80 year old widow who didn't know anything about anything is because there was no continuity there. Sometimes, I'm not saying in all the cases, but sometimes. And then when you extend that to children and grandchildren and planning and stuff like that, most of the time people who are successful just want their people around them to be successful. And I know you say this a lot of times too, Joe. It's like people who are really successful with money don't want to spend time in their money. They want to be successful in the things that they're successful in. I'm a really good software developer. I don't need to also be a really good tax strategist or estate planning specialist. You know, I'm willing to pay to delegate that so that I can spend my time in these areas that I care about. So I think it's a lot of those things altogether. And in this I'll just say guy. I don't know if it's a guy or a gal, but in this guy's particular case, he rattled off like 40 things. Right? Like we do this and this and this and this. Like that's a lot of stuff.

[Joe Salsihai]

Sure. You know, I think he's more worried about the fact that he's paying more and more and more money. But the service is good. It just is the same service. And the fee is this is the.

[OG]

Entirety of, of everyone's life. My electric bill costs three times as much today as it did five years ago. I still get the same. My, the AC in my house is the same.

[Joe Salsihai]

Right.

[OG]

Like some of it is inflation, some of it is opportunity, some of it is, hey, I want to make sure that I can still provide additional things that you don't even know exist yet that we're building out on the backstage of. How do we integrate these services? And we have to continually invest and grow, you know, an organization. Cars cost three times as much as they did 15 years ago too. It's the same thing, right? It's incredibles in an engine.

[Joe Salsihai]

I just bought one. I'm like, really?

[OG]

Yeah. Oh, mind blowing, huh? Grapes are the same. That costs way more. I do think that there is some reason to assume the marginal dollar of cost should go down. If you look at the averages across the industry, for good or for bad, and it's all priced this way, by the way, everybody says, well, I don't want to pay you fees, I'll pay a flat fee. Well, guess how the flat fee people figure out their prices.

[Joe Salsihai]

By the way, it is so funny how when you look at the Average pricing across the spectrum, it's all ends up being about the same.

[OG]

It's literally all the same. The first million is always a percent. A lot of times it's the second million too. Maybe 90, I think average would tell you 95. Like 0.95% on the second million. But just roughly, say the first 2 million is roughly a percent. Yeah, roughly. Dollars from 2 to 5 are roughly 75 or 3/4 of a percent. Roughly industry wide. Once you get north of 5, I think you have a little bit of negotiating power. I think above five is probably half, is a fairly reasonable half to three quarters. Somewhere in there above 10 or 15 or 20, that's where you start seeing some really low percentage numbers, like 0.3. Because to his point, as the dollars go up, does it cost more?

[Joe Salsihai]

What can they do?

[OG]

Not necessarily. There are some benchmarks of service that, you know would go up. There's certainly more responsibility, certainly more liability. Yeah.

[Joe Salsihai]

And you start moving into family office territory where the team of people that are looking at you to save you money in different areas begins to expand.

[OG]

What's really interesting, I was talking to a family office provider. They were about 2 billion for one family. Okay. The cost to run that family office. So family office is basically, we've got your CPA and your accounting doing everything, tax and your investments. Like, literally, it's an office of people who are just in charge of your money. Do you know what the cost was for that family at 2 billion 1%. It cost them 20 million to run it.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, $20 million.

[OG]

It cost him 20 million to run it. You go, that's ridiculous. $20 million. They had a lot of people, do you want the fresh accountant out of college making 55 grand? You can have that. Or do you want the person who's special? You know what I mean? So there's a little bit of a balance there. I think he's got some negotiating power if he's trying to get a little bit less of a cost structure. But I think if you look into the future, he's already kind of pointed out a bunch of stuff that's coming up on the horizon. Sounds pretty big decision making, right? We want to get that right. And then like I said before, only the customer, only the client gets to decide on value. I can say, hey, Joe, this is super valuable. Right. It's no different than the podcast we put out content. We're like, hey, we think this is a really good show. You know who gets to decide if it was a really good show?

[Joe Salsihai]

Not us.

[OG]

That's it. It's like, whoever listens, if they go, yeah, that was dog. You go, no, man, it was really awesome. They go, no, it's not. It sucked. You guys suck.

[Joe Salsihai]

Okay, this is such a hard question to answer because even when I took the question from mj, I started thinking about, you know, my whole point of view here is that you have this board of advisors. Right. And so my first question to MJ would be how important it is. Is it that you have these particular people. It clearly looks to me the fact that you've had the same advisor for a long period has been really helpful in your corner, and you value that. That's my first question. Because if it's interchangeable parts, OG Then it's a whole different discussion. But then I also think is a great relationship with advisors. If I'm the leader of my board, if I truly am a leader, is a great leaderboard or made. And are these relationships born or made? And I think to a large degree, they're made. So I think that if he wants to talk about pricing, I think the number one people to bring it up with are these advisors. Yeah. I would go into this nuance that he wrote in this beautiful note to me and go, you know, here's all of my thoughts. What do you think about this? Where. Where do we stand? Because just laying this out for the advisory team, you're going to learn a lot by the way they respond to this. Even if they respond, no, I'm in the middle of a negotiation right now with somebody, and I brought up something thinking that, hey, they would respond to this in a positive way and maybe throw this on the table. And, you know, it was wild. OG the guy actually made a ton of sense. He goes. He goes, you know what? I can see why you want that. Let me tell you why you don't. Because I was sitting where you were in the past, and here's the ugly underbelly of what you're asking for the piece that people don't see that I've seen, because I've sat where you are and I've seen the other side of this. And he brought new information to the table that I had no idea even existed.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe Salsihai]

And didn't make me back away from the table, by the way, that he said, no, you don't really want this. Now, could he have been yanking my chain and just going, yeah, let me come up with a clever way to say no. Yes.

[OG]

But the fact that knows an answer to Honestly, yeah, 100%. The great thing about all of this is that you're in control as the client and the advisory team is in control as the advisory team. What you're trying to decide is can we come up to an agreement where you're going to deliver value that I think is valuable at an investment level that I think is reasonable and am I going to be able to deliver the value that you want at an investment level that you want to pay? That's all it is. And if they go, no, look, this is how our structure is. This is how our team is built. This is the resources that we bring to the table. And to do that, we charge this price and you go, well, I don't want all that. I want this instead. Well, then you have your answer.

[Joe Salsihai]

I mean, it's not the fit you want. Then you know. Then you know. Great question, mj. Thank you so much for the question. By the way, Stackers. We have another full episode of your questions coming up. The Amazing Anna Alum's going to join us again for your questions.

[OG]

So amazing.

[Joe Salsihai]

Bring those on stacking. Benjamins.com voicemail. Bring us your questions as we prep for that incredible episode. All right, time for a quick trip out to the back porch. Doug, we have had some stackers doing some amazing things lately that we should probably shine a light on.

[Doug]

Yeah, Joe, one of the things I want to highlight actually are a whole bunch of responses we got about a week ago when Gertrude asked just put the standard question out there. Show and tell time in the basement. Right. We do this nearly every week. For whatever reason, it blew up last week.

[Joe Salsihai]

I mean, just like crazy comments. The last time I looked at it.

[Doug]

Just tons of comments. Everybody's doing some incredible stuff. I want to point out a couple that caught my eye. Stacker Shane, he's pretty happy about his new minivan.

[Joe Salsihai]

I mean, look, I would be happy with a minivan.

[Doug]

Yeah, those things just make you look cool when you're driving them.

[Joe Salsihai]

Right?

[Doug]

Like nothing says if the van is a rocking, please come knocking like a blacked out Honda Odyssey. Like, you are just the man.

[Joe Salsihai]

I used to do this well when I had a minivan and my kids were young and it would crack up. My kids, it didn't crack them up as much. You know, there's some things that are funny to 5 year olds and funny to adults and that is I would pull up on Woodward Avenue in Detroit alongside another car that's all souped up, you know, at the light and I would put it in neutral, my foot on the brake and I would rev the engine while you're waving your pink slip. Well, well, I'm next to this, like, Ferrari and I'm, I'm, I'm revving the engine on my minivan. My kids thought it was hilarious. And generally the person, the Ferrari thought it was pretty funny too.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Raising your eyebrows a little bit, like, pointing your finger, like, you want to.

[Joe Salsihai]

You want to.

[Doug]

You want to do this, man.

[Joe Salsihai]

You want a piece of us. You want to go me with the twin baby seats in the back. We gotcha.

[Doug]

Yeah. I also want to point out Kim, who is flipping a house and she's building her own. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. More impressive, she's building her own cabinet to save some money. I'm just waiting for my call, Kim, to which cabinet chair you're going to appoint me to.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, I see what you did with that. Yeah. Nice job, Kim. Kim. Bringing home some extra income. That's always fantastic.

[Doug]

And saving in the process, building her own. I mean, that is ambitious, right? It's impressive. I also lastly want to point out stacker Rob, who wrote to say that he was very excited about the successful launch of the Benjamins After Dark group in southern Minnesota. He said, successful launch of Benjamin's After Dark in southern Minnesota with some wonderful people, which caught my eye when he said some wonderful people like Rob's like, look, yeah, some of them sucked, but some of them were wonderful. I hear you, Rob. I hear you.

[Joe Salsihai]

I'm so proud of that group and of all of our bad groups, our Benjamin After Dark groups. Speaking of our group in Boston getting ready to go live, that's going to be next month. So if you're a New England area stacker, you want to be on the Lookout because on March 11, we have our first bad meeting happening. And to get more on that or any of our groups, whether it's southern Minnesota, the Twin Cities, Seattle, heck, there's a group launching in Tucson. Doug, you asked for it and they are delivering in Tucson.

[Doug]

Be there soon, guys.

[Joe Salsihai]

Just hang on.com/bad or stacky benjamin's.com meetup give you all of the stuff that you want to know about our meetups around the country. We have another one happening this week. On Friday, I will be in Omaha, Nebraska. We'll have all the [e-mail] meetup. And I know there's still a few tickets left for the 1% better conference that I'll be helping headline in Omaha. So come visit David and the amazing. He's got nine amazing speakers. Nine amazing speakers and one Bad one. How I got on that list and to keynote it is beyond me, but it's going to be great in Omaha. That's on this Saturday And Sunday, the 21st and 22nd, if you're anywhere near that. And our meetup's on the 20th. So Omaha coming to see you two weeks later. I'll be in Seattle. Thursday night, March 5th, I will be at Elysian Brewing in Capitol Hill. That's the the first time I went to Seattle. We had a meet up there. My spouse Cheryl came, my son Nick came and we had two tables of stackers. And that was the first of many great meetup groups. Of course, now we've got the bad meetup group that meets every month there, but I'll be joining them on March 5th. Again, stackingbenjamins.com bad to join the meetup group, which you totally should do. And stackingbenjamins.com meetup if you want to sign up for that particular one. But I would join the group and get the link through there so that you find your peeps in Seattle. What's coming up next to end this very special President's Day episode is this. Doug, what should be on our to do list after listening to today's show?

[Doug]

So what should we have learned today? First, take some advice from the couple who retired with more than a million dollars. There's no need to get fancy. Start with your workplace retirement plan and challenge yourself to do a little more. Second, why are you focused on getting more? Is that what you need more or is that your ego talking? There's a big difference between the two, and sometimes it's about saving more and later it's about actually living. But the big lesson, you gotta have a strategy before you sit down for a Denny's Grand Slam competition. My latest Use the pancakes like slices of bread. You just make a giant, like, breakfast sandwich out of everything. That way you just stuff the whole thing in your mouth. It's like a single bite. Move on to the next plate. This show is the property of SB Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Salsihai. 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 and oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real Financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[OG]

Sa.

[Joe Salsihai]

I wanted to ask a general question about society, which I know opens. I know opens this up a lot, but I got to tell you, you guys. And by the way, welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. We don't generally talk money anymore, although this is a money decision, but also I think a time management decision. I saw new product development at the store in Albertsons yesterday while I was there, and this was incredible. You no longer need to change your toilet paper roll as often because Charmin has now released what they call the forever roll. Have you seen this? It can go for up to one month, and it comes with its own little stainless steel holder.

[Doug]

Oh, you bought it.

[Joe Salsihai]

I did not buy it.

[Doug]

No, that was your phone. I thought you were actually holding up the.

[OG]

No, that's a lot of. A lot of visits to the numero dose.

[Joe Salsihai]

This thing is so huge.

[OG]

How huge is it?

[Joe Salsihai]

Well, it won't even go on its own roll. It comes with its own roll because.

[Doug]

It'S its own dispenser.

[Joe Salsihai]

Here was my question, and Cheryl's like, why are you taking a picture of that? I'm like, because I just have a basic question, which is how lazy am I?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe Salsihai]

Like, in the big scheme of things that I'm now sitting there and product development is charming. I'm like, oh, you know how we save somebody some time? You know, all that time changing the toilet paper roll or doing the awkward bunny hop over to make.

[Doug]

That's disgusting, Joe. Why do you have to be that, right?

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, tell me you've never done the bunny hop before.

[Doug]

It's been a long time.

[Joe Salsihai]

But seriously, how. How lazy are we when I need a forever roll of toilet paper?

[Doug]

And do you mount this thing to the wall like you're a truck stop in Nebraska? Like, how does this thing.

[Joe Salsihai]

We should see how big this is. It's so. I don't know. I found that awkward. Just really, I'm like, what the thing.

[OG]

I never bringing it up here.

[Doug]

Because.

[Joe Salsihai]

We never bring up anything awkward here. You had a story OG we were.

[OG]

Talking about, like, doing simple things, you know, with the millionaire guy. There's a YouTube series, YouTube channel, whatever, where this guy had, like a 90 day fitness challenge, right? It was a personal trainer and, you know, created fitness plans for these for people that entered. And if you won the contest, which was measured as, you know, Whatever, weight loss or fat loss or something. Then you got a gift certificate for two first class airline tickets anywhere in the United States, including wire Alaska. So the winner, of course, does this big interview at the end, right, for the channel, like, what did you do? And you know, how much weight did you lose? And da, da, da, da. And so they start out with the guy and they're like, it was a guy that won. And he says, okay, so let's just start out. Let's talk about three components. Let's talk about walking. Did you focus on steps? Did you jog? What kind of cardio, like, lay it out for us. And he says, well, it was a 90 day challenge. And I thought if I walked 11,000, 111 steps a day on average, I would walk 1 million steps. So I decided to do 22,000 as an average to walk 2 million. And so every day I walked an average of 22,000 steps.

[Joe Salsihai]

22,000 steps.

[OG]

And they talked a little bit about that and the timing and whatever he says, I think I finished maybe closer to about 25,000 on average, but my goal was always 22,000. Okay, wow. Okay, cool. So you walked basically 2 1/2x what the standard advice was and okay, well, let's talk about weightlifting now. Did you do any weightlifting? Did you go to the gym? Did you have a home gym? Did you? He says, yeah, yeah, no, I went to the gym every day. I took Sundays off, except Sunday. I didn't take Sundays off from walking, but I took Sundays off from the gym. I worked out six times a week. Alternated upper, lower, whatever hits, you know, just very nonchalantly. Okay, so how often did you go to the gym? Well, I went every day. How long were you there for? Probably about two, two and a half hours every day. Oh, okay, so you walked 22,000 steps and you lifted weights for two and a half hours every day. Okay, tell us about your meal plan. Like, how did you eat? What did you do? And he said, well, I sat down. I figured out how many calories I needed to consume based on my weightlifting and my exercise, but also being a calorie reduction. And I figured out how much that was for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And then I ate the same thing every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 90 days. So basically they go through this whole thing and the big aha moment is, so basically just do all the things that everybody's told you to do, never miss a day ever, and just do it consistently for 90. I mean, this dude lost like 60 pounds. I mean, he went from, I would think, being very overwhelmed.

[Joe Salsihai]

He's spending, like, five hours a day.

[Doug]

Right, right.

[OG]

100%. He is. But it's like, the thing that I thought that was really funny about this was like. It's like, they, like, really, like, oh, so you must have had a really amazing weight, you know, like, exercise plan. Like, he's like, well, I picked heavy things. This guy was, like, interviewing like, a box of soap, you know, or your, like, massive roll of toilet paper. It was just, you know, he was just so matter of fact, like. Yeah. I mean, I said to go to the gym, so I went to the gym every day. Like, that's what it's like.

[Joe Salsihai]

These people earlier. Well, I use my 401k.

[OG]

Yeah. I use my 401k. Like, what else is there to do?

[Joe Salsihai]

You got the match.

[OG]

What I thought was very interesting about that was we all know if you're working on whatever project, right? You're like, I need to. You know, I need to get in better shape. I need to. It's like, we all know what the math is. Here are the calories to eat. Here's what not to eat. Here's the exercise you're supposed to do. It's pretty well laid out at this point. And then you read the Internet, and it's like, Well, I did 11,000 steps, and it's like, okay, cool. But basically, I got to do some amount of cardio. Check. I need to lift a lot of heavy things for a period of time. Check. And I have to be really somewhat conscious of what I put into my body every single day. Could you lose weight if you ate Twinkies? Probably. There's some debate about how that works with insulin resistance, but generally speaking, a calorie. Whatever. But nobody loses weight eating Twinkies. You lose weight eating frigging apples and bananas and salad and chicken breast and rice. But this guy. What I thought was really interesting was in 90 days, which in the future seems like a lifetime away, we're recording this on. Did we ever say what today is?

[Joe Salsihai]

It's President's Day, right?

[OG]

As in El Presidente's day. Yeah. He's like the Godfather. It's kind of like his big day.

[Joe Salsihai]

John McEnroe's big day.

[OG]

Yes, indeed. It's somebody's big day.

[Joe Salsihai]

Gonna go have some birthday cake to celebrate after. After your great story about the next three months and doing everything right.

[OG]

You're going to. You know that blowtorch thing? You got me. Is that what. Is that what you're using to light Mac and rose cake with, because, my God, the amount of candles that have to be on your guys's cakes when you get there, it's just profound. Do you have to get, like, a burn permit? Would you call, like, the city of Texarkana? You're like, hey, I'm having a birthday. Like, oh, hell. Oh, yeah, this is Joe. Okay, so you got to file the 6847 in triplicate, make sure that you're.

[Joe Salsihai]

Out in your concrete driveway.

[Doug]

Yeah, we haven't had rain in a month. I'm sorry you can't celebrate.

[OG]

No celebration for you, sir.

[Doug]

You know what I think is interesting is he keeps on with this whole you guys are old shtick, and yet he's at the age now where we were when he first started giving us crap about this.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's right.

[Doug]

And we were old then, but he's not old now.

[OG]

I mean, it's relatively speaking, and you guys are relatively speaking, a heck of a lot older than me. Like 25% older than me. Or 12. Somewhere between 12 and 20. My point with all of this was looking into the future. 90 days, looking into the future. 10 years is forever, right? Like, today is the middle of February, March, April, May. Like, if I was like, hey, what are you doing May 15? You'd be like, dall. If I know that's may, right? But if I asked you how long ago was Thanksgiving, what would you think?

[Joe Salsihai]

Right?

[Doug]

Three years.

[OG]

It was kind of just right around the corner. You guys were talking about it with middle schoolers and high schoolers, right?

[Joe Salsihai]

Just happened.

[OG]

I have a fourth grader, and the time between her being in fourth grade and her graduating high school is in eternity. When I look at Alex, who is already done basically, with his freshman year of college, and I look back to some of the things that I remember doing with him when he was 10, I'm like, oh, my God, that was kind of like yesterday. So when you think into the future, you think you don't have all this time when it comes to money or when it comes to health, but it's going to be here before you know it. All it takes is 90 days to get your together. Just walk to only 2,000 steps, eat chicken and rice every day, three meals a day and lift weights for three hours, and you'll be jacked, bruh.