← The Stacking Benjamins Show
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- [00:00]
Joe
An all new season of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. Mom talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy.
- [00:12]
OG
Like that is huge.
- [00:13]
Anna
But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart.
- [00:16]
Joe
It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.
- [00:18]
Doug
My whole world is falling apart right now.
- [00:21]
OG
It's chaos.
- [00:22]
Doug
Watch the Hulu original series the Secret
- [00:24]
Joe
Lives of Mormon Wives now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers.
- [00:29]
Doug
Terms apply. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system,
- [00:36]
OG
they matter even more.
- [00:37]
Doug
Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [01:00]
Joe
It is Monday. The coffee's hot. Headlines are hot. This show is in fuego. Guys, ready to do this?
- [01:10]
Doug
Where's the kaboom?
- [01:12]
Joe
There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom.
- [01:21]
Doug
Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and this week we're practicing good money habits. New data shows that record numbers of people are borrowing from their retirement funds. How do you make sure you aren't one of them? We'll tackle setting up your foundation on today's show. But that's not all. After my amazing trivia segment will roll out a new segment, Financial basics for Noobs. What are the components of a well rounded financial plan? OG and cfp. Anna Allum will dive in. Cfp? I never knew that was her first name. Must be a family name. And now two guys who are diving into another great week of money podcasting. It's Joe and O. Ja, ja, ja, ja.
- [02:26]
Joe
Hey there, stackers. And Happy Monday to you. And while it's not a happy Monday for some people, if they've taken money out of their 401k to pay off
- [02:36]
OG
depends on what they spent it on.
- [02:37]
Joe
Maybe it was a super fun weekend, but you know, OG that goes nowhere. How are you this morning, man?
- [02:43]
OG
I'm good. How are you?
- [02:48]
Joe
I'm absolutely great because we're gonna help a lot of people today because apparently more people getting in trouble than and we've had in the, in the not so distant future, not so distant past, not so distant future.
- [02:59]
OG
Well, I mean, if you're a time
- [03:00]
Joe
traveler, and maybe I am. Maybe that's what's going on here. Doug, you doing well this fine Monday?
- [03:05]
Doug
I am. Weather's finally turning. Got a couple of birds chirping. The crazy ones who showed up too early, but yeah, everything's going well. Had a great weekend.
- [03:15]
Joe
They're calling this, what, the false spring? Because there's another arctic blast on the way.
- [03:20]
Doug
Absolutely false.
- [03:22]
Joe
Don't get fooled. Don't get fooled. One thing that we're not fooling about is helping you with your money today. So sit back, relax, maybe grab wherever you're going to take notes because we're going to help you. Especially if you're somebody who has lately felt the pinch in your budget. We're going to help you get rid of that pinch on today's show. But before we do that, we're going to have a couple of sponsors who help us keep on keeping on so you don't pay a dime for any of this. Goodness. We're going to hear from them. And then OG Doug and I, we're going to dive into this recent headline, New Vanguard Report out and the results aren't good. Before they reached out to me to partner, I had no idea what granola was. And for me, this has become in doing my due diligence about this tool, before we actually decided to partner with them on these Stacky Benjamin's reeds, I had no idea that this was going to be a tool that I would use over and over and over. In fact, what's funny is not only that, now I share the work output with people that are in meetings with me and it is incredible. It's called granola. And if you've been in back to back meetings all day, you already know the struggle that granola helps you with. You're not along, you're contributing, you're trying to stay present, but in the back of your mind, you're secretly stress strolling your memory for what was just said. Who's supposed to follow up on what? What are you gonna say next? I was in a meeting just last week and all I was thinking about was, okay, when they finished speaking. I think we need to talk about this. And I missed two big things that granola caught that were hugely important to the success of the meeting. Granola fixes your ability to be in the meeting and to make sure that you catch every point. What is granola then? Well, it's an A powered notepad built for the way real people actually meet. You take rough notes like you normally would in the background. Granola securely transcribes the meeting and then it turns everything into clean, structured, actually useful notes. It's funny, when the meeting ends and I send out the notes, everybody says, how does it know that those were the most important things? I have no idea. It's like magic. Granola works through your device's audio, which means integrates seamlessly into the video conferencing tools you already use. You don't have to set it up. There's no awkward bots. It's just your normal meeting with superpowers. And you get to actually listen instead of frantically typing out every word. And you still know exactly what happened, who's doing what, and what comes next. Before granola, I was missing half of it. And now even the pieces that I miss, granola catches, which is amazing. We had a meeting last week that oh gee, just couldn't make it to. I sent out, I sent out the notes and OG was telling me about how it was like he was actually there. All right, enough.
- [06:15]
Doug
Ooh.
- [06:16]
Joe
And on over this. But if meetings are eating up your day, granola's a no brainer. You can try it totally free. Just head to Granola AI sb. Go to Granola AI SB to tell them that we're the reason why you're trying it out. You're going to be telling all your friends, have them go to granola AI/sb as well. Get your time back. Once again, try for free Granola AI sb. I had a breakfast mentoring meeting yesterday with a young woman who was just amazing. She is graduating from college with a degree in wealth management and she reached out hoping for some pointers. And listen, if somebody's in Texarkana and wants to go into this beautiful field of personal finance and helping people get their money together, that is incredible. But even more incredible is how she reached out, how she was trying to network and I was having a discussion that finding the right person and avoiding the wrong person for a role, that's what can make or break an organization. And we just don't see that many qualified people. So how do you find them? Well, indeed sponsored jobs is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent. If you're hiring indeed is all you need. You can stop struggling to get your job post even seen on other sites. You'll match with quality candidates with indeed sponsored jobs get matched with and higher quality candidates who can drive the results you need reach candidates who meet your specific criteria. Like skills, certifications or location. Drives me crazy when I'm matched with all kinds of people who aren't a fit. I don't have that kind of time. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now in the minute I've been talking to you. Companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed. According to Indeed data worldwide, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all the boxes. Less stress, less time, more results when you need the right person to cut through the chaos. This is a job for Indeed. Sponsored job and here's what's cool. Stackers. You're going to get $75 in sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Indeed.com podcast just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support Stacking Benjamin by saying you heard about Indeed right here at stacking benjamin indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the Right Way with Indeed.
- [09:06]
OG
Hello darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's headlines.
- [09:13]
Joe
This piece comes to us from Fast Company. More Americans than ever OG tap in their 401ks for emergency cash. This is written by Sarah Bregel. Sarah writes, Americans are seeking financial relief and in some cases are even desperate enough to go against conventional financial wisdom. A record number of Americans are turning to their retirement funds to cover emergency expenses. So number one, Row Rorge yeah, I know the number of people putting money into their 401k continued to go up last year. But the number of people taking Money out in 2024, 4.8% of people reported that they had to take money out, by the way, and that is up. Before the pandemic, the number was 2% of people said they were tapping their 401k. 4.8% in 2024. That was worrying. Now we're all the way up to 6% of people taking hardship withdrawals from their 401k. So these aren't even people borrowing from the 401k or just ripping the money out and paying the penalty. OG these are people using those hardship withdrawal rules to say I'm able to access my cash.
- [10:17]
Doug
I feel like they missed an opportunity with the title of this article. Shouldn't it have been called I tap that 401k?
- [10:24]
Joe
I tap that? That sounds like a Stacking Benjamin segment right there.
- [10:28]
OG
Come on.
- [10:31]
Joe
Maybe we need to make that the title. The title of today's show 401ks. Oh, gee, let's talk about this. First of all, taking money out of your 401k. Sarah describes this in this piece as going against conventional wisdom. Why is the con for people that have never lazy writing for people that have never heard this, though? Because in some places people go, oh, you know what 401k loans. You can take out a 401k loan, you pay yourself back. That's good. Why do we not want to borrow? Why is this conventional wisdom that this is the last place that you want to go to for money when you have a hardship?
- [11:10]
OG
Well, I'm not entirely sure that it's like literally the last place, but it's down there a little ways.
- [11:16]
Joe
Why?
- [11:16]
OG
But why is it because there's some
- [11:18]
Joe
people going, well, yeah, there's some people going, well, wait a minute.
- [11:20]
OG
This not a good enough answer.
- [11:22]
Doug
And there it is. We've been waiting 14 years to hear that. And it's always the subtext with him all the time. But he finally came out with it.
- [11:31]
OG
I said the quiet part out loud.
- [11:32]
Doug
Yes, he did.
- [11:34]
OG
Just because. Because I said, why don't you want to take money out of your 401k? Well, I mean, there's a number of reasons. While it is true that air quotes you pay interest to yourself, basically from a mechanic standpoint, what happens is you're borrowing money from your 401k provider who secures your loan with the proceeds from your retirement plan. You say, okay, I'm going to do this as a 401 loan. I'm going to take 50k. They say, all right, we're going to hold on to this 50 and kind of segregate it so that we can keep track of this. Then they charge you interest, but then they also pay you interest based on the money sitting in the account because it's not going to be invested anymore. Now it's got to be safe and secure because if you default on your loan, the brokerage company can't risk you trading it into, you know, Nvidia stock or something. So a couple of things that are not so great about it. Number one is you lose the potential return with that money. You're basically taking the money out of your asset allocation, whatever that looks like, and you're putting it into a secure fixed income type of product to cash type of thing. The second thing that happens, it's a little bit more creative destruction in terms of behind the scenes is you pay the money back out of your paycheck, which sounds convenient, but you Pay it back with after tax money. So if you borrow 50k, you're paying yourself back, which is true, but at a relatively marketable interest rate, which is also true, but you're doing it with after tax dollars, which makes it a little bit more expensive than how the money probably went in there to begin with, which probably was pre tax contribution.
- [13:09]
Joe
Yeah, in the end it's all going to wash out. It still makes it harder to pay off. It makes it a longer bridge to pay off the loan because of the fact that you're using after tax dollars to pay back. Yeah.
- [13:23]
OG
And again for a lot of people, and I guess maybe, arguably, generally for the people who are borrowing money from their 401, they may not be in the highest tax bracket anyway. And so you might be saying, well, geez, you know, it's still a lower cost than using Visa, which may be true. That's kind of what I was saying at the beginning here when you said, well, why would I want this to be the last place? I don't know that I want it to be the last place, but it's not the first. I think we have to separate this too into. You brought up hardship withdrawals and I'm kind of talking about 401k loans and those are kind of two different things. Really good point. One might argue that a 401 loan is more discretionary. I gotta pay off some credit cards and I think this is an efficient way of doing it. Or I want to purchase a piece of property and this is a way for me to get the down payment, you know, kind of on the cheap type of thing. People might say like that's not the world's greatest use of money, but hey, it's my money and I can use it how I want. Hardship withdrawals, on the other hand, have a very specific use case when you are selecting a hardship withdrawal. What you're saying is if I don't take money from this locked up account, then something even more catastrophic is going to happen. I might lose my house, I might not be able to pay my medical bills, I've got tuition that's due for my kids, you know, kind of imminent financial danger, so to speak, if I don't take that money out. And in a hardship withdrawal, the money is going to be taxable to you? I should say if it's pre tax contributions, it's going to be taxable. They're just eliminating the 10% penalty for the early withdrawal because you're claiming this, this exemption of, you know, catastrophic financial harm. So so even in that case, with a hardship withdrawal, you're not even putting the money back ever. Like that's just, you're just gone. I need to consume this money to, you know, get my lips above water, basically.
- [15:13]
Joe
And I've been in this spot before where I thought the present is so bad that I think I need to touch this money. And I'm so glad that I didn't because I found another way. It didn't make it so that I had to mortgage my present and my future. You know what I mean? The thing I worry about og is the present sucks a ton. But when you get rid of your ability to ever get financial independence but by borrowing from future you, then the situation stays bad. So I, I'm really not a fan for that reason. And with the 401k loan. Let's talk about the 401k loan before we get to the hardship. With a 401k loan, if you lose your job for any reason and for, for whatever reason, you can't pay it back. Now you do have the 10% penalty that you were talking about on the 401k loan. So you know, that can get ugly in a hurry if life goes the wrong way and bigger hardships happen. We' about the hardship withdrawal in just a second but Doug.
- [16:13]
Doug
Well, I have a question about that because og gave a couple of specific examples and I wanted to ask a question about that. But I can hold. I can hold it, dad.
- [16:21]
Joe
Well, let's dive into that because, you know, so the hardship withdrawals, generally known as these immediate pretty heavy financial needs, but those have become bigger in the last few years. Og medical expenses. We will link to a show where we talked about medical expenses. If you guys remember, we had the awesome young lady Imani on who is 19 years old, had over $40,000. And hospitals have programs themselves so you don't have to borrow from your future. Hospitals have programs to help you with medical expenses. Potentially it doesn't work with everybody, but could help you there. Eviction protection. Oh gee, I think if you're going to get evicted from your house, probably, probably a good reason to take the hardship withdrawal.
- [17:07]
OG
Well, I mean, on the medical side, yeah, you should Never use your 401k for medical expenses because to your point, every, just about anyway, every medical institution has a whole department associated with how to help people financially. And if it's like emergency care, you know, they can't prevent you from getting emergency care because you can't pay now they. You may not be able to have the elective surgery you desire or something like that, there's, you know, a lot of nuance there for sure. But with hospitals, especially as people start unpackaging all the different ways to pay for hospital or pay for medical expenses, there's a big thread I was reading a couple of weeks ago about how people are paying for medical expenses in retirement. And that's obviously a big topic, right? Like, if I want to retire, I got any health insurance, whatever. And the argument that the person had was, you just really need some catastrophic insurance if you can find it, because everything else, if you pay cash for, is profoundly less expensive. And I've had that experience myself, and maybe a lot of people have where, you know, you go, I need the MRI for, you know, my busted knee or something like that, and you. You run it through insurance, and you've got to have a $2,000 copay. You pay cash. It's 325 bucks. And they're. They can do tomorrow. You know, it's like, what are we doing? I mean, that's a whole different state of affairs. But I think if you're looking at medical expenses as a reason for a hardship withdrawal, I think you have to dig a lot deeper than. And don't let them bully you into using your phone. Their job is to get you to pay the money. They're like, hey, you got a 401k, just take a loan, you know, take a hardship withdrawal on the house front. While it's super important to have shelter, obviously, if you're close to an eviction on your house, if you own the house and maybe you've got some equity, I think you also want to explore some other opportunities there too, like, can you short sell it? Can you? You know, I mean, if you're at the eviction stage, you have been dealing with this for a long time. It's not like you miss a payment and all of a sudden they come on the 31st and, you know, you've
- [19:06]
Joe
been missing a lot of payments.
- [19:07]
OG
There's a lot of snowball and that's going on here. So. So maybe you've explored all these other options and you haven't been able to. To solve it. But, you know, instead of paying for this, you know, getting caught up and now you're still in the problem. That's my concern with. My concern with 401k loans or hardship withdrawals out of retirement plans is unless it completely makes the problem go away, all you did was delay the inevitable,
- [19:31]
Joe
kick the can down the road.
- [19:32]
OG
Yeah. And sometimes that's good enough, right? You're like, I just need to get through this rough patch because as soon as I get working again, you know, whatever. And I get that. But, but if you haven't really eliminated the issue, it always has a chance of coming back up again. And I know maybe in a little bit we're going to talk about some mitigating strategies when it comes to, you know, not having to deal with this in the future. If you're, if you're thinking like, how do I prevent this from happening to me? But using the housing as an example, if I can take 50k out of my 401k as a hardship withdrawal and pay my mortgage off, the eviction stuff's gone and now I own the house outright and my total out of pocket is going to be my insurance, my taxes. I like that a lot better than I'm renting a house and I'm going to take this money out and I'm just going to get back to even money. And now month, next month, I still owe rent again. What did you do? You bought yourself 30 days or 60 days to start the process over again. If you're in the situation that there's all this chaos going on, then you have to recognize that everything counts, everything's on the table. Maybe you need to bounce from that living arrangement and go find something more affordable. And maybe that's in a different, different part of the city or different part of the county or a different part of the state or different part of the country.
- [20:49]
Joe
Yeah, a lot of these. I mean, it's a time when it's tough to be creative because you can just feel the pinch every day. What am I going to do next? But a little creativity goes a long way. Funeral costs are another one. Obviously I think that's going to be a one time event. Disaster related loss. Yes.
- [21:04]
OG
Funeral cross seems like a thing you have to do. Do you, I mean, I'm just playing devil's advocate, like. No, you don't, you know, like, or what, you know, I mean, I don't want to be a complete jack wagon here, but it's true, you know. No, you don't understand. Grandma died. It's like. I know, right? Well, I gotta come out of pocket for that. For.
- [21:26]
Doug
Because of a fairly recent social convention in the last 120 years, you're forced to have to pay for the huge coffin that's all mahogany and all the flowers.
- [21:36]
OG
No, I'm not throwing shade on the industry, but.
- [21:40]
Doug
Oh no, that's not what I'm saying.
- [21:42]
OG
It's a pretty tough spot to be in from a selling slash buying perspective. Like, this is why when we do financial planning, why we have a whole section dedicated to stress testing the plan because. And people go, oh, that's kind of, you know, normal.
- [21:55]
Joe
Right?
- [21:56]
OG
You stress test it. It's like, yeah, but we want to stress test against like emotional events because you're never going to make really good financial decisions in the same moment that you're stressed emotionally. Right. Look at the good side. I won the lottery. Like, all right. Woohoo. Like, who makes really good decisions the day after they cash their check from the Powerball? No one. Who makes really good decisions the day after they got laid off and the market's down 30% and they got their third eviction notice. And you know, I mean, like, that's not a good day to make financial. Oh, and grandma died. Right now you're in the funeral director's office and they're just going, well, you know, grandma, she was really important to you.
- [22:33]
Joe
Right.
- [22:33]
OG
And I'm not saying they're slimy, I'm just saying like, like this isn't the time to be writing $15,000 checks. Like it's just, just be like.
- [22:39]
Joe
Or what?
- [22:40]
OG
Like what happens if I do nothing here? Can we just.
- [22:43]
Joe
We had, we had a fantastic discussion with industry insider Scott Mueller about this.
- [22:49]
OG
Yeah.
- [22:49]
Joe
Last summer. I'll link to that for people that heard that. I got more emails about this than any show around that time because he just opened up on what the industry does. He's a guy that sold his. Like many people in the funeral industry, OG he sold his funeral home, his whole operation to private equity and he saw what they did with it and some of it was pretty slimy. And he bought it back because of the sliminess that was happening. So he just opens up about the industry and some of the things just
- [23:19]
OG
be like, yeah, put grandma on ice. We'll come back in six months when things are a little better.
- [23:22]
Joe
Well, you know, we'll link to that in the show notes because Scott was an awesome industry insider, but also when it comes to this issue, this is why I like some of the prepayment ideas for people that are on the other side of this. They're not people going to take a 401k loan, but they're like, why would I prepay for this? Because I think that during these emotional times, OG Is when you make some really dumb decisions. No, I want the Detroit Lions logo all over the coffin and I'm going to pay extra.
- [23:50]
OG
You don't understand. Grandpa loved the lions.
- [23:52]
Joe
That's right.
- [23:52]
OG
Yeah. Could you imagine, by the way, sitting down, being like, okay, so we've got the mahogany. And I mean, you do have a 401k, right? I mean, dude, this is a hardship. This qualifies. Like, what the heck?
- [24:06]
Joe
During the prepayment meeting. You're not going to do that now. It doesn't mean you're not going to make all the right decisions.
- [24:10]
OG
I'm opposed against the prepayment idea, too, only because I can't guarantee those people are still in business, you know, and secondarily, like, now they're holding onto my money.
- [24:20]
Joe
I'm actually talking the other side of this because we did this with my mom. And I thought because of the fact that you're not emotional before beforehand, you're not going to do the Detroit Lions logo. Like, my dad would look them in the eye and go, yeah, we're not doing that. Nobody needs that. I don't. I'm dead. Who cares if I like the Lions? They also, by the way, just. Just so you know, they had contingency plans against if. Here's what happens. If something happens to us. This is what happens with this arrangement. Now, it doesn't mean that what they tell you is actually going to happen, but I'll tell you, when my sister and I walked in with my mom the day after my dad died, and it was all taken care of, and she had done it when she was not emotional, my dad was not emotional. Versus them selling us the day when my mom's crying.
- [25:04]
OG
Yeah. Yeah.
- [25:05]
Joe
That was incredible. I thought that that was amazing.
- [25:08]
OG
You got to time it out so you're like, 85. So there's not, like, a lot of market growth still left on your 15 grand. That you're like. You're like. Like 48. You're like, I don't know that I want to prepay this, because if I put this in the market for the next 30 years, this turns into, like,
- [25:21]
Joe
you know, I don't know. I thought it was a decent insurance policy. I thought. I thought my parents did the right thing by having that done. I remember when my mom looked at this woman who was a badass and said, well, what do I have to do today? And the woman said, nothing. I just want to tell you what you already did remind you of what you already did. You did this. You did this, you did this, you did this. You don't have to do anything today.
- [25:42]
Doug
Yeah. So you're saying they not only made choices, but they prepaid yes. Yeah, you don't even have to go that far. You can clarify with your parents or make your wishes known to your kids about what you want to do just so it's written out. And you could potentially reduce costs that way, 100% spouse or for your kids and just say, look, this is all I want. Like when my dad passed, we knew exactly what he wanted and it was cardboard box. I'm not joking like that. Sorry to be morbid, but that really did make things a lot easier and eliminated a whole conversation at the time in that horrible moment. It eliminated the whole conversation.
- [26:19]
OG
I'm smiling because it sounds like my dad and your dad might know each other because I'm pretty sure my dad has an old refrigerator box in his garage somewhere that he's like got earmarked. Like just use this one. We don't even have to go find one. Like I've saved this one for 25 years.
- [26:33]
Doug
Right.
- [26:34]
Joe
If you've got the right. And this gets down a whole different topic which is estate planning a hundred percent. If you've got the right person as your executor of your will or the person in charge of your trust work like this person. Having that right person is great. But I'll tell you that my, my mother in law had a person that would still be emotional with the funeral director. My grandmother had somebody, my aunt who is wonderful woman but still did not follow a bunch of the stuff in the will because of the emotional ties that were in there. The prepayment avoided all of that. So you can clearly go either way on that. And I get not prepaying. And if you've got the right person in charge, I think that that's because as an example for one family member, I'm the person who's in charge and I'm going to do exactly what it says. And that by the way makes it not emotional for me because I'm just going to look at whoever it is and go, no, this is what it says. It says this exactly here. So we're doing that, which is great. But sadly you and I both see people.
- [27:35]
OG
I was gonna say back to 401k loans. Yeah, yeah. We spun this for like seven minutes into.
- [27:40]
Joe
I know, right?
- [27:41]
OG
Funeral planning.
- [27:42]
Joe
We have talked though about funeral cost and other options. Eviction protection and other options. You know, in these last disaster related is what it is. You know, you might have to take a 401k hardship withdrawal for that. But the other two that they loosened recently drive me crazy. OG home purchase and tuition are two that I, if you're raiding your 401k for a home purchase are for tuition, I think I can use the word that you and I don't like to use very often. I think the never word comes up.
- [28:18]
OG
Yeah, I mean, on the tuition front, I, I would generally agree with that. I'm trying to think of a scenario where, where it would make sense. I mean, just, just arguably the loan cost of education loan, a student loan or a parent loan is likely to be lower than the 401k cost. Because you know, earlier I said sometimes you can avoid a 10% penalty, which is kind of a kick in the teeth on top of the kick in the teeth. Because when you take money out of the, out of your 401k, it's taxable to you, assuming that it's a pre tax 401k. So if you take that 50k out, it's like you made another $50,000. And the people who are taking 50k out aren't saying, oh, by the way, I should withhold 25% for taxes. They're going, I need every dollar and I'll deal with the tax problem later. So now you've got a $12,000 tax problem, you know, six months from now or a year from now that you got to come up with the money for. And if it doesn't qualify of one of the limited circumstances for not the penalty, and you also have another 10% penalty on top of that, another 5,000 bucks. Either way you're going to pay taxes on it, which is another big number on top of that, that withdrawal. I guess I would just say this is a time to tell your kid no or just let them solve it. You know, if like you're adamant that kid has to go to such and such a school and it's going to be, you know, x dollars, you know, like, okay, if you really want to go, then you have to figure it out. I will help you pack. We want to do stuff for our kids, but we also have to like kind of do it within reason.
- [29:49]
Joe
Right.
- [29:49]
OG
And then the other one you said was the home purchase. I'm less for certain on this one, but I'm still pretty certain that I don't want to do that. That's all I can say about that one. I can see reasons why people would want to and not, but you know, yeah, I see more reasons not to, than to let me put it that way. I think what you're doing, Joe, and what I would encourage everybody else to do here with this Also is you have to think in future dollars with this because it's not about the immediacy of. You don't understand, my rent sucks, I can totally get into this house. The only place I have money is. You know, we can rationalize all those reasons and a lot of times all those reasons make a lot of sense. Like you don't understand. Junior's really smart. Like I promised I was going to help him with college. You know, this is a little tighter than I thought. If I just take this little bit, instead of thinking of it in terms of this finite dollars today, think about the outcome in retirement down the line. You know, if you're 45 years old or if you're 40 years old and you're saying, hey, I'm going to take this 50k out because I can move school districts and you know, you got all this rationalization as to why it makes sense to buy a house and move and the only place you got is your 401k. Take that $50,000 and grow it for the next 25 years and then maybe the next 20 years after that. Let's just assume this was the last 50k that you were going to use in retirement and just kind of Rule A72 at saying hey, how often is this going to double? Well, if I'm 40 years old and I got 25 years before I retire and then maybe I got another 20 years after that until I'm dead and then some. I got a 45 year time horizon. You know, if it doubles every seven years, you're talking about six doubles. You know that 50 is 100, it's 200, it's 400, it's 800, it's a million six, it's $3 million. So think about it and say is buying a house right now worth losing $3 million or a million dollars? A million and a half dollars of retirement assets.
- [31:51]
Joe
That is what I'm doing by the way. And I did. I'm glad you.
- [31:54]
OG
Yeah, you're doing it in your brain. You're not, you're thinking of it going, oh that's stupid, that's like a million dollar decision.
- [32:00]
Joe
But you shown a light on that. I'm glad you did because we don't think that way naturally we don't go, what is 60 year old me going to think of this move 40 year old me is making right now? 60 year old me is going to look back and go, oh my God, if I'd had that money and I found a different way, this would be so Much easier.
- [32:14]
OG
I mean, I started in this business. You started a little before me, but I started right as the Roth IRA started. That'll come as a shock to people that it hasn't been around the entire, you know, entirety of time. There was a beginning.
- [32:27]
Doug
I just think you're a lot older than you make out to be.
- [32:30]
OG
Yeah. There was a day that it started, and I distinctly remember early in my career, to max out a Roth was $166.67 a month. It's 2,000 bucks a year. And that was in the early, late 90s, early 2000s. As I look back today, I did not do any Roth contributions for a very long time in my life. And as I look back today, I think, like, what the heck was going on in my life that I didn't have $50, I didn't have 75, I didn't have $100 a month. Come on. I'm sure I did. I'm sure I. I mean, it was tight. Like I was a newlywed, you know, just getting the business off the ground, you know. You know, I was broke. College, you know, just out of college, kid. Like, I didn't have 50 bucks. I didn't have a hundred dollars. Like, come on, come on, man.
- [33:15]
Doug
Skip a golf round once in a while.
- [33:16]
OG
OG I know it was probably that or it was all the clubs that I had to replace because they got misplaced on the golf course. You know, all the beers at the party, it was like, like, seriously, like 50 bucks, man. Like, you know how much money I'd have in my Roth right now if I just done that for 25 years? Yep.
- [33:34]
Joe
Could have done it over and over and over and over and over.
- [33:36]
OG
Yeah, yeah, I could. I wouldn't have to hang out with you idiots anymore. I'd be listening to you guys not doing it.
- [33:43]
Joe
On the second half of today's show, we identified the problem and really what the stakes are. And as you can see, stackers, the stakes are pretty high. In the second half of this show, I want to talk about how do we circumvent all this so we don't have to take these hardship or draws in the future. We learn from the past, we learn from the present. We're going to go over some systems you can use in your life to make sure that you're not looking at these as a potential place to take money. But at halfway point of every show, we turn the spotlight over to Mr. Doug, who's got a little. This moment in history going on today, I think,
- [34:23]
Doug
Hey, there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And today's event, big day in the history of literature in America. The Scarlet Letter was first published way back in 1850. That's the book about the woman who was forced to wear a red letter on her clothes because she committed adultery. What do you think is the financial equivalent of the Scarlet Letter? I bet it's something like when a CPA says, look, this doesn't have to be exact, guys, just round it to the nearest thousand. Whatever it is, I feel like Joe's mom deserves a scarlet letter after I saw her asking the fireworks guy in the Walmart parking lot for a hot stock tip. Whatever it is, I feel like Joe's mom deserves a scarlet letter after I saw her asking the fireworks guy in the Walmart parking lot for hot stock tips. I can't speak too loudly though, because it's. It's true that I did get talked into buying the premium air to put in my tires this time around. Of course, right after he rotated the air so the old El Camino rides, right? Know what I mean? Here's today's question. When accountants see something financially that's not going well for the company, what's their equivalent to the Scarlet Letter that they use to show their negativity? I'll give you a hint. This answer's easier than you think. And hey, Drew in mom's basement. Facebook group, do not get triggered because we're talking about accountants, man. The last time we brought up account accountants, I thought Drew was going to throw an HP12C at me. I'll be back right after I see if I can get my receipts sent to me as NFTs. That's how modern I am. Stackers.
- [35:59]
Joe
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- [39:18]
Doug
Hey there, stackers. I'm NFT lover and guy who's never once let the air go stale in his tires. You know how bad that can be for your automobile? Joe's mom's neighbor Doug to commemorate the initial publishing of the Scarlet Letter way back in 1850, we asked the question, if we're thinking about accounting instead of literature, what would an accountant's equivalent be when they're looking at a company's performance? The real answer? Accountants use numbers as their love language. I know, right? And to denote a company going the wrong way, they began using the color red. So a scarlet number for accountants would be red ink on that company's balance sheet. See, I told you you were overthinking it. And no need to throw that HP calculator at me, Drew. Although if your calculator didn't work the way you wanted, you may want to throw it because you know you can't count on it anymore. I'll. I'll just show my. Myself out.
- [40:16]
Joe
So. Good. Well, you could end with the dad joke. It's like, even the East German judge gives you a 10.
- [40:24]
Doug
Is there ever a time that we haven't figured out a way to end in a dad joke? We're pretty damn good at it.
- [40:30]
OG
And.
- [40:30]
Joe
And I could imagine drew with that 12C aimed at the screen. And then put it back down. Put it back.
- [40:36]
Doug
And the great thing about that joke is only accountants get it. Or maybe like everybody else is, like, is that some kind of document? Like an IRS form? 12C.
- [40:46]
Joe
They're hitting. They're hitting replay. They're like, wait, what? What? Man, did you have one of those calculators?
- [40:52]
Doug
I was a writing major, Joe.
- [40:54]
Joe
So you didn't have a 12C, I think.
- [40:56]
Doug
No need for a 12C.
- [40:58]
Joe
They called it the backwards polish notation where you put things in backwards to your. You literally put the numbers in and then times.
- [41:05]
Doug
I had the calculator that you could spell boobs on if you held it upside down.
- [41:10]
Joe
You laughed with everybo. And everybody. Everybody else in the room is like, number one, you're in church, and number two, you're 47 years old.
- [41:18]
Doug
Get over it. But still, I mean, it's a great word.
- [41:24]
Joe
Not the place, Doug, on this topic, by the way, you had a couple questions that you said you were going to wait on. Is now a good time maybe to bring those up?
- [41:32]
Doug
Well, I think so. You'll tell me. But it was something OG said towards the beginning about hardship and not paying hardship reasons and not having to pay a 10% penalty. Like, he was saying that as though there are a specific list, but he didn't, like, rattle them. Is there a specific list of hardship issues that would. I mean, if it came to this, and clearly we're not advocating for it, but if it came to this, you wouldn't have to pay the 10%. And is it the same list across any 401k administrator, or is it different by whoever's running your 401k?
- [42:06]
OG
It is.
- [42:06]
Joe
Those are great. Questions number one is.
- [42:09]
Doug
I know. Yeah, that's why I asked, dude.
- [42:14]
Joe
Well, I love them because they're questions I think that everybody has. This is an IRS list. So the IRS has these specific reasons. 401k plans can have their own rules. Beyond those, your employer can determine what qualifies as, quote, an immediate and heavy financial need to use the nerd language. And your own plan might actually make you do some extra stuff to get it. But the IRS has a list on their end of exactly what meets the criteria. So the answer is it can be specific to your 401k for these additional things that you need to take money out. And that's a good question to ask, by the way, as you're getting your HR documents when you first start out the job. Like, if something goes wrong, what are the reasons I can get money out? Although, as we demonstrated, I think earlier, you don't want to. They might have their own rules. The number one is the top of the funnel is the IRS has a checklist. And then your provider can narrow those slightly. But from the IRS perspective, there's a bunch of reasons why you can take money out of your plan.
- [43:24]
Doug
So hold on, you said that the provider can narrow those so they can trump the federal government and say, yeah, and they have a list of 10, but we're only going to allow six.
- [43:32]
Joe
They can. As an example, they might tell you, you have to demonstrate that you don't have money in savings to pay for this before you take money out. They can do that. I. I don't know. Stackers. I'd love to hear if you've got one of those 401ks that actually do that. I've, in real life never seen a 401k administrator that. That's that big a.
- [43:56]
Doug
I don't think you're trying hard enough, Joe, to put
- [43:59]
Joe
it kind of bluntly. Like, I would just think, man, why, why, why would you do that? But yes, they are able to do that. And also some of these hardship withdrawals, the 10% penalty is not applied equally to all these things. In other words, some say, yes, you can take the money out and not return it, but there will still be the 10 early withdrawal penalty. So they will still let you rip the money out, but you might have the 10 early withdrawal penalty. So you want to make sure that you specify that if you're taking out the money, am I going to have the early withdrawal penalty? Or is this exempt from the early withdrawal penalty? And that can also change from employer to employer. So that might Be specific.
- [44:45]
Doug
But it's not. You say employer, but I don't think it's your employer who's setting that. It's the administrator of the employer's 401k fund.
- [44:51]
Joe
It'll be whoever the.
- [44:53]
Doug
Yeah, right. I mean, we all have enough reasons to hate our employer. We don't need to give them another reason. Like I'm not putting my money in a 401k. My management team sucks.
- [45:01]
Joe
Now we can hate other people besides our employer.
- [45:04]
Doug
Yeah, that's right. We're giving you hateful options.
- [45:06]
Joe
You know how in improv they say, you know, everybody wants to begin with with, but no, but, but in improv you go yes and yes, and I hate my employer. Yes, and you can hate your administrator too. Bonus points. In just a moment, we're going to jump back into our topic and tell you how to get out of the potential of needing to take a 401k loan. Make sure that that never happens to you. Set up things, set up your money with the end of mind. But before that, we got a brand new segment on the show. Steve, we need the Herald Horns brand new segment. Here's Og and Anna talking financial tips for noobs.
- [45:50]
Doug
We know this whole money thing can be complicated sometimes. So let's break down the financial planning basics with Og and Anna.
- [46:01]
OG
Talk about our new. Our new thing that we're doing. Like we don't even have a name for it yet. We're calling it the Anna no G show.
- [46:09]
Anna
I'm not sure that doesn't really roll off the tongue.
- [46:11]
OG
It doesn't.
- [46:11]
Joe
Yeah.
- [46:12]
OG
We gotta do something better. So the first thing that I want you to do before we get to naming it, before we get to talking about it, is you gotta get a piece of paper out. We're gonna write down the six carries of financial planning. And before we start anything over this next series, we are going to rate ourselves in these categories. Cash flow, retirement planning, investments, insurance, estate planning and taxes. I think I got them all. Is that good? Yep, that's all six. So give yourself a A through an F, a 1 through a 10, 10 through a hundred, like whatever scale you feel like using. And what can we expect over the next seven weeks? Right, so we're going to kind of roll through this. What's on the agenda?
- [46:51]
Anna
We'll take little subcategories of all the categories you just listed and dive into them and talk through what does that mean in a really easy, digestible way.
- [47:02]
OG
Each one individually. So maybe next week, for example, maybe
- [47:06]
Anna
touch on some cash Flow, a little bit of expenses. Some stuff we typically avoid. But let's get clear on it.
- [47:13]
OG
I'm a big time avoider of having to deal with cash flow and expenses.
- [47:17]
Anna
Yeah. Let's address it at the very beginning.
- [47:21]
OG
Should we do an OG intervention? Financial planning intervention?
- [47:25]
Anna
Yeah. We're just going to actually look at your expense, going to do mine, and make everyone else feel better.
- [47:30]
OG
Everyone else would feel way better, I suspect, in a hurry. Like, well, at least I'm not that guy over there. So all six areas of planning. But what if you go, hey, man, I. I don't need to deal with this one area. I don't really care about estate planning. I don't really care about taxes. What does it matter to kind of consider all of them all at the same time?
- [47:51]
Anna
I think we can have a financial plan in our heads that's super basic. Like, we know, okay, we're just going to save a percentage of our salary.
- [48:02]
OG
Yeah. Somebody says, hey, save 15% and you're good.
- [48:05]
Anna
And that could be the start. That's great. But eventually we got to take it one step further because all of those things interconnect. We take the example. You're saving 15% of your salary. Where are you saving that? How is that affecting your taxes today? How does it affect your taxes in the future? Where are you putting it? What are you investing it in? There's so many pieces to that that interconnect with all the different categories that you mentioned.
- [48:30]
OG
Yeah. And the secondary effects. Right. It's like you make a decision here and you're solving for whatever this problem is that you think is the major problem. And now maybe you created another problem down the line. Right. The easy one is I just put a bunch of money in my pre tax account. I save a whole bunch of taxes. It's like, well, now you have a $3 million IRA when you're 75, which sounds awesome, until you realize Uncle Sam's a beneficiary of a third of that. And also they're going to determine for you how you take that money out. They're going to give you a schedule. Yeah.
- [49:05]
Anna
I think it's kind of like we start by using these rules of thumb and what we hear is the best thing to do. But what we're going to do is interconnect all of those so that it's specialized to your plan and your financial plan and making it so that they all work together as one big.
- [49:26]
OG
One big happy family.
- [49:27]
Anna
One big happy family.
- [49:29]
OG
Happy family. It's like they're like the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie.
- [49:35]
Anna
The Brady Bunch.
- [49:37]
OG
Anyways, this week, homework. We already talked about it. You got to rate yourself. The only way that you can measure progress is, is to measure it backwards. It's impossible to project into the future what things are going to look like in terms of measuring yourself because you never feel like you're making any progress. The only way you can make progress is if you measure yourself first and then look backwards at how you've grown. So make sure you sit down. Take these six areas. Cash flow, retirement estate planning, insurance, taxes and investments. And give yourself a letter. Grade where you are today, how you feel today about your. Your success or failure, you know, whatever you want to say in each one of those. And then in seven weeks from now, we're going to go back and circle back to each one of those. You're going to grade yourself again. And hopefully that confidence is increased. So next week is. What are we doing next week?
- [50:26]
Anna
Next week we're going to look at expenses. Exciting. Nothing to do yet about it. We'll walk through the easiest way to figure that out for you because I know that can be really overwhelming sometimes for people. So we just want to break it down, make it as easy as possible.
- [50:43]
OG
All right, see you next week, Joe. Have fun with the rest of the episode. See ya.
- [50:48]
Anna
Toodles.
- [50:51]
Joe
Oh, gee. Nice job. Good work, my friend.
- [50:54]
Doug
I think. And I kind of carried that, didn't you?
- [50:57]
OG
As always.
- [50:58]
Joe
Let's jump into your budget. What the long term fix is here. OG so people don't need to take the 401k loan. I mean, this, this process really starts off with setting your money up in the right place. I think that in this case, because of these hardship numbers going up. I think it begins with expenses started going up a few years ago. You didn't really notice they went up. You know, you did colloquially, but you kept living the same lifestyle OG that you used to.
- [51:25]
Doug
Right.
- [51:25]
Joe
You're living the same way that you used to. Okay, price is a little higher, but I can stand it. And I think it might be because you don't track expenses. You don't have a handle on what your expenses are, that you don't see the warning flags coming, that maybe my dollar's not going as far as it used to do.
- [51:43]
OG
I think that most people don't track their expenses. Yes, I agree that most people don't track their expenses. Correct.
- [51:48]
Joe
And that's how you don't see the potential damage coming, especially if it's close
- [51:51]
OG
for you well, it's easy to see if you start with zero, right? If you use your credit card as a living expense vehicle, say that you have uneven income. You know, you have your normal salary, but maybe you get a bonus or quarterly top up or something that like kind of makes it so your cash flow is your cash flow, but it's uneven. So maybe you end up carrying some debt for a period of time, but you always pay it off with the quarterly bonus or you always, you know, that's when you fund all your goals or, you know, whatever. If you are off by just one of those, that's where it starts to spiral. You know, if like one quarter's performance wasn't as good or the commission wasn't as great, or it happens in like little teeny tiny, you know, death by a thousand paper cuts type of spending. And I think that's maybe what you're talking about here is especially if you haven't looked at it in a period of time to go back and say, I don't even know how much I spend on groceries. I just did this. You know, AI is a great use case for a lot of things. But we use Monarch. I think you use Monarch too, Joe.
- [53:01]
Joe
Yeah, I use Monarch.
- [53:02]
OG
Now you can go on Monarch on the desktop login and download all your transactions. And some people are like super, super, super analytic. They got all the categories correct, you know, and there's a problem with being too correct with categories, by the way. Not too correct, but like too detailed, you know, like shopping is shopping. Groceries are groceries. But it's like, yes. And somebody was talking about this. It's like, yes, but I've over exceeded my paper products budget for the quarter, you know, because I bought paper towels this quarter instead of last. It's like, okay, let's just call that groceries, all right? But anyways, I took all the transactions and they give it to you in like a CSV file that's like, like whatever. I said, okay, take this and separate it into individual tabs by, by account. So I can like look at my Amex statement, I can look at my Visa statement, I can look at the Costco card. I can, you know, like I want to break it down like that. And then I put it in there and I said, okay, here's this file. Analyze this, tell me what you see, like what jumps out at you. And mine goes, it appears that you forgot to cancel a wine subscription. I know that I have a little bit of a habit, maybe not entirely healthy habit of acquiring wine. And it was pretty Hard to see that number like kind of in my face, like an aggregate 20, 25 spend. But again, AI doesn't have a emotion. It just like, hey, you told me to analyze this spreadsheet. Here's what I know, here it is. And then I kept on channeling. I said, well, I want to, I want to help my spending a little bit. I think we spend a little too much going out to eat. I think we spend a little too much on groceries. It's like, well, you have a family of five, you know, you're definitely maybe on the higher end of dining. That's not your problem. This is the problem in spending.
- [54:51]
Joe
It can push back on you.
- [54:52]
OG
Yeah, I was like, no, no, I think maybe we should shop a little less frequently at the grocery store and maybe use coupons or something. It's like, coupons don't get you out of this problem. This is your problem. These are your major expenses. Here's where the spending goes. It's not this. And I think if you don't every so often go back and say, what are the big categories that our money is going into? I think you're doing yourself a disservice for a number of reasons. Number one, obviously is going to be, you know, if your spending is increasing and your income's not, you're going to start noticing that, or at least you should, ergo, your credit card balances go up, whatever, or, or something worse like home equity line or something. But the other piece is, is that as you're working on your financial planning for the future, like how are you going to figure out what number to use if you're saying, oh well, you know, we spend 7,000amonth, that's our spending. Okay, great, what if you're really spending 9? Because a lot of times people, when they look at their expenses, they think about like, what's the Visa bill every month? It's roughly six to seven. Well, that's roughly six to seven, eight out of 12 months. Because the other four months you have a vacation in there. You have your car insurance that you're charged every six months. That bumps it up. You have your property taxes that come out of your account once a year that you don't really consider. So your real spending maybe is 9 or $10,000 a month, but your daily day to day spending is 7. But you have those kind of one off things. So if you don't get that in your face. And again, AI is a good use tool for this because you know, it can organize the data in any way you want. You don't have to like try to like be an Excel expert. Just download the file and go organize this for me. And it will give you some pretty neat insight.
- [56:36]
Joe
I like that. That's cool.
- [56:37]
OG
Because if you're not paying attention to it, back to your original point here, Joe. This is where that slippage starts. And then that's how you wake up in six years and go, how the heck do I have $80,000 in credit card debt?
- [56:48]
Joe
Right. A thirty dollar restaurant visit. Going back to the restaurant for a minute. Even though that wasn't your issue, yours was different.
- [56:55]
OG
Allegedly.
- [56:55]
Joe
Allegedly. So, so called. This is where I think AI is way wrong. Right? Is it's misidentified that the $30 oute becomes 50 bucks or the nice night out that was 85 is now 120. And it's those things where you're like, okay, wow, that's up a little bit. But you still go out to eat once a week, twice a week, whatever the number is. And now you've got this much bigger number than you had just five years ago. It can be a real shock to the budget if you're not on top of it. Cheryl and I, that's why we have the weekly meeting, is because we can then look and we can see it coming. And the cool thing is for us, we're used to having a set buffer in the checking account. I remember almost immediately og seeing that buffer get hit. Like the tripwire number get hit. Yeah, like what happened?
- [57:39]
OG
And to be clear, your buffer isn't zero. The tripwire is not set at zero.
- [57:42]
Joe
It's not set at zero. Back when I was really bad at money, it was set at 0.
- [57:47]
OG
$10. You're like, I always have 10 extra dollars in my account.
- [57:49]
Joe
That was not good. And the cool thing is, by the way, most banks and credit unions will do this for you where they have balance and then you can put in spendable balance, which I have is two numbers right on our bank statement, which is incredibly helpful. So that's our tripwire number. But when we started hitting that tripwire all the time, that's when for me, I woke up right away. Tracking your expenses, whether it's the weekly meeting, I love the, you know, I haven't done the big AI thing though, saying, hey, look for opportunities using this big one year number. I'm looking at it weekly, you're looking at it on the annual level. I think do both. It would be super fun.
- [58:24]
OG
Well, and you can, I mean there's a bunch of Stuff that I didn't do that you could do, right? You could say, hey, we're getting to the end of the first quarter based on my spending for 20, 25. What's coming on the horizon that I don't even. That I haven't even thought about in terms of those one off type of things. Because again, it's not the. And this is where I do agree with the assessment from Claude or whoever did it was. It's not the daily driver of gasoline and groceries I like. You know, gas is up to $3 a gallon. That's a real bust in the budget. I mean, if you're driving a lot, that adds up. No doubt. The thing that busts the budget is that you didn't plan for the car insurance bill that's $1,100.
- [59:00]
Joe
That's when it kills you and you're like, oh, crap.
- [59:02]
OG
Or the tuition bill that's due, or the tax payment that's due April 15th, and the estimate that's due April 15th. And another estimate that's due June 15th. Because in the IRS's infinite wisdom, that's a quarterly payment. When you pay April 15th and June 15th, that's this quarter right on two months apart. That's 60 days apart. Like, yeah, but that's your quarterly payment. You know, it's like those things that just kind of pop up as a surprise where you're just like, oh, no, I feel good, I feel good, I feel good. And then all of a sudden it's like, crap, I owe this 1500 bucks or whatever. Use it for that as well. Like, what's coming up? How am I doing this year versus last? That's where you can identify the inflation number.
- [59:45]
Joe
And this is where the next circuit breaker comes in. So you set the trip wire, you use AI, you have the weekly meeting. But the next layer, I think, is this is where the emergency fund really comes in, right? Because the emergency fund, when you forget those things the first, second time, you can get away with it. Where a lot of people don't get away with it because they don't have the emergency fund. And then they have to go into this credit card debt spiral hell. Because the other thing that we also, in our head, we don't think about is, you know, that 27% interest rate in your credit card's a real number. Like, you're like, okay, I, I borrowed 500 bucks. I just got to pay 500 bucks.
- [60:21]
OG
Listen, I'm telling you, you put that stuff in Monarch, it will point that out to you. Hey, your number one spend isn't groceries. It's not wine. It's $42,000 to credit card interest, you know, or whatever.
- [60:34]
Doug
Bank fees.
- [60:34]
OG
Bank fees or however you have it listed. You know, like, you just like somebody punching you right in the face, like, and then, and then, and then it'll be nice enough to even give you like some parenthetical to it. Like, that's $3,500 a month. That provides you no economic benefit whatsoever.
- [60:50]
Joe
It's a wonderful kick in the ass.
- [60:51]
OG
You're like, thank you.
- [60:52]
Joe
Yes.
- [60:53]
OG
That's got to be the piece that is the aha moment for you. And if you're working on the other side of that. So it's easy. I want to say it's easy. It's noticeable. If you have one credit card, you always pay it off. And this month you don't. That ought to be red flag number one. If you're somebody that has already consumer debt. You've.
- [61:12]
Joe
You're.
- [61:12]
OG
You're working to pay this stuff down and you don't track it. You know, you just get used to like, well, I always have a Visa balance. And, and that Visa balance does that little, you know, slow ramp up that you kind of insidious. You don't really feel. If you're not tracking it, then you don't really know that it's doing that. So something a little bit more frequently than once a year would be a good idea just to see, you know, am I making progress on this and using the tool. Use these tools that are available. Like, why wouldn't you?
- [61:39]
Joe
On Wednesday's show, we're gonna nerd out with Amy Minkley about the fire movement, financial independence, retire early. And. And what has changed in her mind as she's gone from somebody who first attended an event several years ago and then decided to put on her own event. Now she sees large numbers of people nerding out. But we're also going to nerd out about the emergency fund. How do you get the emergency fund interest rate higher? How do you make your emergency fund work better for you? So we got part two of this on Wednesday's show. Now we're going to transition just briefly into the back porch. And Doug, it was great. Last. I want to do a shout out. Wasn't able to do this on the show last week just because of our recording schedule. I was just in Seattle and it was so cool. I got to see the fintern while I was in Seattle at our bad meetup group. And it was good.
- [62:28]
Doug
How long has it Been since you saw him.
- [62:30]
Joe
My, how he's grown quite a bit, huh?
- [62:35]
Doug
My mind how he's grown in the photo that got posted on the Facebook basement group and also in the Seattle Bad group. It's a great group photo of everybody. And then there's this one tall skinny guy in the back just towering over everybody. So yeah, he's. He's grown a little bit.
- [62:53]
Joe
We actually had a couple tall skinny guys. Nick Loper, who's been on the show several times from side Hustle Nation, has a fantastic podcast about running side Hustles. Nick hung out with us. It was good to see him. We had just some fantastic stackers and I don't want to forget somebody, but we had people that work for Amazon, that work for Microsoft in the area, people that are have retired and have done some really interesting things. We shared some retirement fears since I was there because of retirement. Gave away a couple books.
- [63:23]
Doug
It also looks like you had a player from the Seattle Sounders who made Time to Come.
- [63:28]
Joe
It did look like it, didn't it? That was funny. And a guy who looked like he was on the Canadian Olympic team and it was actually cool. He found the official Canadian jacket at a thrift store. These. This is the jacket I believe that the athletes used.
- [63:41]
Doug
What?
- [63:42]
Joe
It was so cool. It had the logo and said Canada on the back. Maybe somebody bought it, you know, to get the cool red coat.
- [63:48]
Doug
I see.
- [63:49]
Joe
Yeah, the cool red coat. If you have the ability to get together with like minded people wherever you are, I know that Boston had their first meeting. We had a national online meeting with the members of all of our groups around the country. Go join a meeting. We call it the bad meeting. Benjamin's After Dark. Just go meet like minded people. Whether it's our meeting or another meetup, it's super fun to get together. Had a lot of laughs and. And I would say we learned a lot from each other.
- [64:17]
Doug
Yeah, I think that's. That's the case in all of the groups. The fintern has just moved to Seattle like days before that meeting. It turned out that the Elysian Brewing, which is evil by the way. Elysian Space dust. That stuff will mess you up.
- [64:33]
Joe
Is it Elysian or Elysian? I've always caught a lesion.
- [64:36]
Doug
I don't know. Tomato, tomato. Yeah, but yeah, I think a lesion maybe is also correct. But nonetheless, I, you know, afterwards I'm like, well, how was it? And he goes, there are a lot cooler than I thought they were going to be.
- [64:50]
Joe
In fact, I told everybody there because I have this when I go do have a meetup. And we did this also when I was in Omaha. I began the meeting by saying, I got this thing I want to do. You're going to cringe when I tell you what I want to do. Just stick with me. Because I think by halfway through. And I had so many people at that meeting, Doug, that went. I did cringe when you said what you wanted to do, which was I wanted everybody to go around sharing and they were like, oh, God, no.
- [65:12]
Doug
And by one of those meetings.
- [65:13]
Joe
Yeah, by the middle. Everybody sharing with each other. And it was so. It was so fun. I think the finters said the same thing.
- [65:19]
Doug
How'd the group hug go? Did it go better this time than it did other times?
- [65:25]
Joe
We. We did. I promise. Please come to our Benchmade's after Dark feeding. No group hug. Group hug optional. Stacky benjamin.com bad if you want to see where they're at. Getting ready to go in Tucson. I talked to Kevin in Tucson just yesterday, actually, about the Tucson group and people asking about Cordelane. Now John asking about, is there enough people in Spokane? It'd be cool to have a Spokane group. But even. You know what. And this is what Kevin and I talked about. Even if it's. Even if it's just a small group of stackers, having a group of five or six people, I think is every bit as fun as having a group of 40, because you can really get to know each other really well and have a good time. Doug, you and I had a stock portfolio group together. Had a. How many people were in that? We had what?
- [66:10]
Doug
Invest. The investment club.
- [66:11]
Joe
Investment club. We had like six of us.
- [66:13]
Doug
I would say at our peak, we were probably closer to 8. But not everybody showed up for every meeting. We were in that range.
- [66:20]
Joe
That's right. When I was there, I think it was six because Randy had already left. I think when I was. No, Randy was still there.
- [66:26]
Doug
Yeah, Randy was there because he brought you in to the group like a idiot.
- [66:30]
Joe
Even though you voted against me.
- [66:32]
Doug
Yes.
- [66:33]
Joe
Super. Super fun.
- [66:34]
Doug
I don't know who this guy is, but he's got a hyphenated last name and that's just weird.
- [66:38]
Joe
Well, and I always vote against ending these episodes, but at some point, you got to say goodbye. So to do that. Doug, what are the things that we learned from today's show?
- [66:46]
Doug
That was pretty smooth, actually. I'm impressed with that one. Well, Joe, here's what we should have learned today. First, take some advice from Joe and OG that emergency fund. It truly is the best way to stay out of debt. But a great budget system when you're first starting out is a great way to grab a hold of your spending. Second, how are you doing in the different areas of financial planning? Dig into the ones where you think you scored yourself low. But the big lesson, don't threaten Joe's mom with accountant jokes. She'll tell her own. Get this. What does an accountant say when they're getting on a train? Mind the gap. I don't know why she spells it funny. This is weird that it's spelled with two A's. She thought that was pretty good. And then she made me listen to another. I shouldn't have chuckled at the first one. She said, how did the 1040 get its name? Because whenever you get 50 bucks, you keep 10 and they keep 40. Oh, you're killing me, Ma. It's an accrual world.
- [67:49]
Joe
It's an accrual.
- [67:51]
Doug
Yeah, I said it.
- [67:52]
Joe
I see what you did there.
- [67:55]
Doug
This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026, and is created by Josal Sehai. You'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube, 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.
- [68:35]
OG
Sa.
- [69:26]
Joe
Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. OG had to, unfortunately, take what looks like a pretty important phone call. We can see him on the other side of the card table based on
- [69:37]
Doug
the consternation on his face.
- [69:38]
Joe
Yes. Yeah, it's an important one.
- [69:41]
Doug
Hand motions. Oh, yeah.
- [69:42]
Joe
Maybe he'll be back. But for those of you that are new to the after show, this is the part of the show where we no longer talk about. Sometimes we talk about money, but not often. Usually we're talking about movies, about video games, about whatever's going on, trips that
- [69:54]
Doug
we took, stuff that cost us money.
- [69:56]
Joe
Yeah, that's right. Well, the thing we're going to talk about now, though, is there's a new show that apparently OG told you about. That, that. That you're. I. I'd never even heard of this show.
- [70:07]
Doug
Well, that's the thing is a. Og's kind of here with us in spirit because Og did talk about this like a year or two ago. This is not a new show. It's new to me. Yeah, I have a feeling a lot of people listening are going to be like, duh. I just finally, you know, we were out of things to watch and I'm like, oh, I remember Og saying something about Lioness on Paramount. Holy cow. Is that a. Just a fun, but also I'll say intelligent show, but it's a fun ride.
- [70:37]
Joe
This is Tyler Sheridan, who's Tyler Sheridan, who's the Yellowstone Taylor. Taylor Sheridan, yes.
- [70:44]
Doug
Yeah. And honestly, I think this is arguably the best of his TV that I've seen.
- [70:50]
Joe
But he's got all these shows that tie into the Yellowstone universe. This is not a piece of the Yellowstone universe at all.
- [70:55]
Doug
No, not at all. In fact, if th. This was probably closest to Sicario, which was an early movie that he did. He did.
- [71:03]
Joe
Did he do Sicario?
- [71:04]
Doug
He did.
- [71:05]
Joe
This is the second Sicario conversation I've had in, in 24 hours.
- [71:09]
Doug
Oh, really? So, I mean, early days when he started doing movies, he kind of did a triumvirate of modern westerns or what were being billed as modern Western. I mean, look, people call Star Wars a modern Western. Not that, but in spirit.
- [71:24]
Joe
Firefly.
- [71:26]
Doug
Yeah, but he did Wind river, he did Hell or High Water and he did Sicario. And this lioness is probably closest to Sicario in the subject matter. But yeah, it's. It's a fun CIA operative, lots of action, shoot em up kind of stuff. But the plot is complex enough, makes it intelligent. And there aren't that many times. Maybe because I've never been a CIA operative. As far as you know, That's how I make my cover. But there aren't that many times you're like, oh, come on, that's ridiculous. They would never say that. Or they would never do that. It's engaging. I'm sure there's a hundred of those if you're in that world, but if you're not, that's how I know when a show sucks, is when it's not anything I'm familiar with. And you can be like, come on, that's ridiculous. Like Marshalls. By the way, we watched the first episode of Marshalls, another Taylor Sheridan thing, and it blows. But Lioness is tight the whole way through. It's good all the way through. Both the kind of the political aspect of it and the action side of it is really good. I was not a Zoe Saldana Am I saying her name right? I was not a fan of hers before that. Not because I had any reason not to be. I just didn't really know or work enough. But she's very good. I still don't like Nicole Kidman. She. But luckily, she doesn't get a lot of screen time, at least not yet. But overall, man, og, this is probably one of the best recommendations that you've given me, and it took, like, a year and a half for me to come to my senses on it.
- [72:56]
Joe
That's right. Why did she. Well, we can get into it another time, but I don't know why you don't like Nicole Kidman. Cheryl's the same with Charlize Theron. She's always like this, and I'm like, wow, she's. She's a very good actress.
- [73:06]
Doug
And she's like, yeah, I disagree on Charlize. But Nicole Kidman, mostly because now her face is frozen.
- [73:13]
OG
Doug's all about looks, Joe.
- [73:15]
Joe
Yes.
- [73:16]
Doug
Well, it's. I mean, I'm not saying she's a bad. She was or is a very, very good actress. No question about it. But, yeah, look, you're on screen. I have to look at you when you're on screen. It's weird when the area between the bridge of your nose and your upper lip does not move for any reason whatsoever. It's just weird.
- [73:35]
OG
It's like that. You guys ever see the Santa Clauses?
- [73:39]
Joe
Well, before we get to that, Doug, there is times in our life, or I wish the spot between the bottom of your nose and the top of your chin didn't move you.
- [73:47]
Doug
You just changed the zone that you didn't want to move. Is now. Is now one of those times, Joe?
- [73:53]
Joe
No, we're good. Oh, gee.
- [73:56]
OG
What?
- [73:56]
Joe
This is the Santa Claus.
- [73:57]
OG
I was gonna say.
- [73:58]
Joe
Who else.
- [73:58]
OG
Who else was in the Lioness? That was. He was. He was the number two guy in House of Cards. It's like, Michael.
- [74:06]
Joe
Oh, he is.
- [74:07]
Doug
Good guy.
- [74:08]
OG
And he's the presidential assistant or whatever.
- [74:10]
Doug
He, like, plays that deputy CIA director.
- [74:12]
OG
Yeah, he. He plays that role very well.
- [74:15]
Joe
And, yeah, he was also in the Jack Ryan reboot.
- [74:18]
OG
Same, same role. Basically, he's been typecast deputy assistant to the assistant manager or something. You know what I mean? Like the in between. Morgan Freeman's in. In the Lioness also. I think he's the vice president. Right. Does that sound about right?
- [74:32]
Joe
I can't.
- [74:33]
Doug
He might be Secretary of State. I think he's secretary. It's tough to tell. I might have looked away at that moment. When he made his first entrance. But yeah, he's pretty high up there somehow. And actually I forgot about him. He's fine, but I'm less impressed with him.
- [74:48]
OG
Yeah, he's. He just adds the. The gravitas to the. To that senior role. Whatever.
- [74:53]
Joe
He's great at playing that role.
- [74:55]
OG
Yeah. He comes in and goes like, oh, we need to have heads on the wall by Tuesday. And they're like, okay, right away, sir. And then like, that's his line. And yeah, I like it. They got another Linus coming a couple of months.
- [75:08]
Joe
Oh, there's a new. There's a new season. So this is perfect.
- [75:12]
Doug
I'm midway through or almost at the end of season two. And it's so. I mean, season one was great enough to certainly make me go for season two. And it's. Season two is way better. I would say season two is almost 100% better than season one. It's wild, that opening right on season one.
- [75:31]
OG
Season two.
- [75:32]
Doug
Oh, season two.
- [75:34]
OG
Like the whole reason season two exists. Like the opening, like, what happens. Have you forgotten? You're just. You're just like. It's just an episode to you. You don't even know what the storyline is of the show anymore. Wow.
- [75:46]
Doug
I am drawing a complete blank right now.
- [75:47]
Joe
Oh, this is great. This is great. Radio.
- [75:51]
OG
He's like, it's so great. It's amazing. It's my favorite show. I have no idea what it's about,
- [75:56]
Doug
but there's no reason to get this way.
- [75:59]
Joe
I had a conversation with Doug about that recently. On another front. It's a short term memory that goes first, Doug. Short term memory goes first.
- [76:07]
Doug
No, but. Well, here's the thing. I actually. That you're right. That was pretty cool. That. I mean, it was engaging. Not cool, but it was very engaging. But what stuck with me more was actually the. The open to season one, which is the introduction to the true lioness. Yeah, I thought that was.
- [76:23]
OG
That was pretty cool, taking one for the team.
- [76:25]
Doug
You get an origin story. You get how she's a natural badass just to start with. By nature.
- [76:31]
OG
Yeah.
- [76:32]
Doug
Or have you forgotten that?
- [76:34]
OG
Oh, no, I got it.
- [76:35]
Joe
Well, and that's a great place for a quick segue, which is. Cheryl watched the Apple TV show Slow Horses with Gary Oldman and what Kristen Thomas, I think is. Oh, she.
- [76:46]
Doug
That's right. She's the other name in it. Yeah.
- [76:47]
Joe
Is her name. She watched the first four episodes. She said she was bored to tears. You watched it at first, didn't love it, came back to it, liked it. A lot. I got to watch it on a plane because I just like the idea of spies. And I like the. I like Gary Oldman's acting. And I also liked just this idea that these. These spies are really bad spies. And so they all get demoted to this place. And. Yeah, I was engaged from the beginning. I thought it was great. I thought the opening sequence where this guy is on a. You don't know. It's a training run at the time. They're trying to stop this guy from detonating a bomb and they fail because the dude on the other end of the earpiece says, blue jacket with a white shirt. And it turns out it's a white jacket with a blue shirt. So he's onto the wrong guy and because of this miscommunication, he gets demoted. And now they're trying to solve this. There's a poor kid, basically, who's been grabbed out of a university and a group is going to cut off his head. And it's on tv and they're trying to stop that from happening. And I got to tell you, I'm on episode three. I don't know why Cheryl thought it was boring. I don't know.
- [77:53]
OG
I got it as far as Cheryl got four or five, and I was like, I'm out. Couldn't do it.
- [77:57]
Joe
Yeah, I am in, man. I think. And Gary Oldman is fantastically cranky. He is OG on steroids. Like, just.
- [78:04]
Doug
Yeah. I think he should be your hero because he also says whatever he wants to say. No filter, zero filter.
- [78:10]
Joe
Yeah.
- [78:11]
Doug
And it's all the stuff we wished we could say.
- [78:13]
Joe
Yeah.
- [78:13]
Doug
I think you should give it another try. I. I think you were right about at that point, OG where we gave up the first time and then we were just in a spot, we. Nothing to watch. And we went back to it. Oh, I know. She had seen. My wife had seen an article about
- [78:27]
Joe
the author of the original season two is coming out. They did another media push.
- [78:32]
Doug
That must have been it. So we're like, let's give this another shot because that sounds really good. And then it, like. Like, I don't know what changed because we went back and started over again. This is awesome. What were we thinking the first time?
- [78:42]
Joe
I'm wondering if something happens around episode four, that it gets worse. But anyway, right now I'm in it. I'm excited. Good stuff. Lioness and slow horses.