The Real Return on Your Emergency Fund Has Nothing to Do With Interest Rates SB1819

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Real Return on Your Emergency Fund Has Nothing to Do With Interest Rates (SB1819)

Podcast: The Stacking Benjamins Show

Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy & OG
Date: March 23, 2026
Theme: Rethinking the true “return” on your emergency fund—why the benefits go far beyond interest rates, and how to maximize both the psychological and financial value of your cash cushion.

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Episode Overview

On today’s lively episode, the Stacking Benjamins crew—Joe, OG, and Doug—break down how to build a smarter, more efficient emergency fund. Rather than chasing minuscule improvements in interest rates, the hosts explore broader benefits: peace of mind, improved investing behavior, flexibility on insurance deductibles, and strategic risk management. They walk through practical approaches to enhance your emergency fund’s true “return” and discuss common questions about account types, liquidity, risk, and making the most of your cash. In the second half, Anna joins for the “Financial Planning Basics” series, demonstrating a simple five-column cash flow system for expense tracking—a prerequisite for knowing how big your emergency fund really needs to be.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Emergency Funds Matter (07:18)

• Behavioral Safety Net:
  OG emphasizes that the real return on an emergency fund isn’t the stated interest rate, but its effect on future decisions and portfolio stability.

  “The way to get a higher return on your emergency fund is thinking about all the things that helps you do... it allows you to keep that money invested, garner that higher potential interest rate, and not have to worry about it.” (08:45 | OG)

• Emotional Buffer:
  Joe underscores that cash on hand keeps you from making poor, panic-driven investment choices during market downturns.

  “The biggest risk people have with their investments is making a bad decision when things aren’t going their way… What cash allows you to do is stay invested confidently.” (09:38 | Joe)

2. Insurance and Cash Synergy (14:05)

• Higher Deductibles, Lower Premiums:
  With robust cash reserves, you can safely raise insurance deductibles to save on premiums—an indirect way your emergency fund improves your financial ‘return.’

  “Because we had that idle cash sitting there, we actually saved money on our insurance... It buys you lower premiums, it buys you increased returns in your market.” (16:11 | Joe)

3. Maximizing Emergency Fund Yields (17:13)

• Standard Savings Don’t Cut It:
  Doug finds current Bank of America savings rates at 0.01%–0.05%, demonstrating why “high yield” is a relative term and why bank shopping is necessary. (17:39 | Doug)

• CDs & Liquidity Concerns:
  The discussion moves through the drawbacks of Certificates of Deposit (CDs) for emergency funds—notably their lack of liquidity for the risk premium offered.

  “CDs just don’t seem to be paying high enough interest to put them on the table… the rate doesn’t make up for loss of flexibility.” (19:08 | Joe & OG)

• CD Laddering Strategy:
  To balance returns and liquidity, consider laddering short-term CDs so some portion matures every few months.

  “Basically you have this rolling, every quarter you’ve got a one year CD coming due that is a one year return… but with more liquidity.” (21:07 | Joe)

• Money Market Accounts vs. Money Market Funds:
  Money market accounts are typically FDIC insured, whereas money market funds (in brokerage accounts) are not, but may offer marginally higher returns.

  “A money market fund doesn’t have insurance… but in modern history, it’s only lost principal once—in 2008.” (21:31 | OG)

• Bucket/Balancing System:
  Joe shares his “bucket” approach—using separate sub-accounts for different goals within a high-yield online savings account.

  “Mine’s with Ally… they have buckets inside the account—vacation, new car, whatever.” (25:53 | Joe)

4. Tax-Efficient Cash Options (31:03)

• Brokerage Alternatives - T-bills and ETFs (e.g. SGOV):

  “Paula Pant had a guest with a ‘T-Bill and Chill’ strategy for second-tier cash reserves—T-bills can offer a higher rate with solid safety.” (31:01 | OG)

• Interest vs. Dividend Taxation:
  Joe and OG debate the significance of after-tax returns for large balances, business owners, or those between real estate transactions.

• SGOV, Explained:

  “SGOV is iShares’ 0 to 3 year Treasury ETF… people use it as a cash proxy, with slightly better yield and tax treatment, but less convenient access.” (33:18 | Joe & OG)

5. Bonus Hacks and Real-World Trade-Offs (36:07)

• Chasing Bank Signup Bonuses:
  Joe relays how moving large sums between banks for bonuses can net “like a 10% guaranteed return,” but warns of “decision fatigue.” (37:12 | Joe)
• Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good:

  “If you spend more time on your career, or on your investment policy, the gain is bigger than eking out a few more basis points on your cash.” (38:14 | OG)

• Set and Forget Simplicity:

  “The best thing you can do for your cash is establish a system that is easy for you to execute on and that doesn’t blow up in your lap.” (39:01 | Joe)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Investing Mistakes:
  “More people make mistakes on the downside… when people think they’re behind, they try to play the game more, make market-timing moves, which rarely work out.” (12:23 | Joe & OG)
• On the Value of Cash:
  “It is far more valuable than pundits give it credit for when they say money’s ‘just sitting there.’” (17:13 | OG)
• On Life-Hack Fatigue:
  “We get decision fatigue. You want to save your brain power for the decisions that matter.” (37:23 | OG)
• Podcasting Self-Awareness:
  “This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.” (End Credits | Doug)

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Important Timestamps

• Main Topic Intro: Emergency Fund Real Return – 07:18
• Insurance Benefits of Cash – 14:05
• Bank Savings Rates & Money Market Options – 17:37
• CD Laddering Theory – 20:21
• Brokerage Account Cash Alternatives (SGOV, T-bills, etc.) – 31:03
• Signup Bonus & Optimization Fatigue – 36:07
• Perfect vs. Good Philosophy – 38:14
• Listener Segment - Cash Flow Column System – 44:42
• Rapid-Fire Five-Column Cash Flow – 45:27
• Tips for Effective Expense Tracking (for Emergency Fund Sizing) – 52:05

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Financial Planning Basics Segment: "Five-Column Cash Flow"

Hosts: OG & Anna (44:42–53:59)

• Why Track Cash Flow Simply?
  Many apps are overwhelming—OG and Anna present a 5-column system you can do with pen and paper.

• The Five Columns:

  1. Income: All sources, annualized (salary, bonuses, RSUs)
  2. Taxes: Check your actual tax bill from your tax return (not withholdings)
  3. Savings: 401(k), IRAs, HSAs, brokerage contributions—even cash that just sits in checking
  4. Debt Payments: Mortgage, loans, childcare (if temporary)
  5. Living Expenses: Calculated as the leftover

     Living Expenses = Income – Taxes – Savings – Debt Payments

• Why Do This?
  Understanding your spending baseline is essential for setting the right emergency fund target and building a solid financial plan.

  “A lot of things within the financial plan are going to spring off of this number.” (46:28 | Anna)

• Homework:
  “Sit down, this will take you no more than three minutes... That’s your lifestyle expense number.” (53:52 | Joe)

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Actionable Takeaways

• Don’t Chase Interest at the Expense of Simplicity:
  Spend your energy where the returns are highest—career, investment strategy, and optimizing insurance, not squeezing out tiny gains on savings rates.
• Use High-Yield Online Savings for Simplicity:
  Compare through resources like NerdWallet (Ally, AmEx, Barclays, Capital One often competitive).
• For Large Balances, Consider T-bills or Money Market ETFs:
  Only if the amount/tax benefit makes the added complexity worthwhile.
• Raise Insurance Deductibles if you have enough reserves—this is often a bigger net win than searching for slightly better APYs.
• Segment Savings:
  Use buckets or sub-accounts for different goals.
• Bonus Hacking:
  For the fastidious: rotating bank bonuses can provide real value if you have the time and discipline.
• Keep Emergency Fund Size Right for You:
  Use simple cash flow tracking to size your fund—most families can do this in minutes, not hours.

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Fun & “Very Stacking Benjamins” Moments

• OG’s deeply-insured but out-of-date car registration in Texarkana “gamble” story (26:47)
• Heated popcorn preference “debate,” and playful show banter (05:58)
• Segment name brainstorms: “Anonymics” vs. “Basic Training” (listener suggestions) (54:33)
• Anna’s patient, practical tone on expense tracking:

  “It’s as easy as that.” (53:52)

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Conclusion

This episode reframes the way you should think about your emergency fund: it’s not about maximizing yield at all costs, but about maximizing confidence, freedom, and financial resilience. The true “return” is how it saves you from costly mistakes, unlocks insurance savings, and gives you the ability to take smart risks elsewhere. Use smart accounts, but don’t get paralyzed by optimization. Track your cash flow simply, and make your emergency fund work for you—without turning it into a part-time job.

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Full show notes, resources, and links: stackingbenjamins.com
Share your thoughts: Join the Basement Facebook group, or email [e-mail]

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Transcript

[Joe]

Refreshing Wild cherry cola meets smooth cream.

[Anna]

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[Joe]

to shop your own way.

[Anna]

Curbside pickup delivered to your doorstep. Come in and grab it yourself. Yes, yes, yes. They've got plenty of options. Your call. Say yes to shopping the way you want.

[Doug]

Join now [e-mail] yes.

[Anna]

And you must be 18 years or older to purchase a membership, and membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samsclub.com yes and for details.

[OG]

It's Monday morning. Our troops around the world are working. Talk about working overtime.

[Joe]

Overtime.

[OG]

They are working triple time.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's. It's rough out there right now, huh?

[OG]

I have trouble getting out of bed at 6:30.

[Doug]

Like, oh, wow.

[OG]

I know. And then I think about what these people are doing and I'm like, come on, man, you can do this.

[Doug]

They're like, I would do anything for a bed right now.

[OG]

Exactly.

[Doug]

And you're complaining about getting out of it.

[OG]

And I'm laughing because it's not funny. It is way, way, way too real for people now. So I think this is maybe the most important salute we've had in a long time. On behalf of the Mickey Mouse.

[Doug]

I was gonna say, is that the right cup to be using?

[OG]

It might. Might not. It was what. What's in my hand? People that don't know I've got a Mickey Mouse having trouble getting up. This is what. What I look like at 6:30. On behalf of the men and women making podcast, Mom's Basement, though, very, very seriously, and the men and women who are all trying to stack Benjamin's, I think we all need to salute our troops. Thank you so much for the hard work you're doing for all of us. Stay safe out there, people. Let's go stack some Benjamins now.

[Doug]

Thanks, everyone. I feel like we need to have Mickey going. Thanks, everybody.

[OG]

Good morning, Christopher Robin. Oh, good morning, Winnie the Pooh.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and today we're declaring a state of emergency for this podcast. No, the basement didn't flood. Specifically, we're helping you build a better emergency fund. How does it look? How do we raise the interest rate so that you're locking in some better returns? What are risks you definitely do not want to shoulder? We've gotcha. And today we'll help you make some bank. Plus, it's episode two of our new financial planning basics series with Anna And OG Ready to dive into how to really trim expenses. That's coming in the second half right after the best part of the show. Such a hard act to follow, man. I feel sorry for these two guys right after my incredible trivia. And now here come two guys who are ready to help you spring clean your money situation. It's Joe. Oh, and. Oh, ja, ja, ja, ja.

[Joe]

G.

[OG]

Hey there, stackers. Happy Monday to you. We are so happy to be back and ready to help you, man. We got an action packed show today. Oh, gee, we're talking emergency funds. We talked emergency funds all last week and apparently we had something to say. We had something to say because we haven't even talked about raising your interest rates on your emergency funds. How do you make those actually keep up with inflation? We got that today. You ready?

[Joe]

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah, I'm ready.

[Joe]

That is my excited face.

[OG]

That was, that was a 7 on the OG Richter scale, which is a 2 for everybody else. But yes, resting OG face is a real thing, man. We've, we do have a great show. But before we get to that, on Wednesday night, we're doing something. We haven't done one of these special stack events in a long, long time. We got one coming up. There was a film called Retirement Plan that was up for best animated Short. First of all, a movie about retirement plans. Can't figure out why it didn't win. But the fact that it was up for an Oscar in the first place, I think is something we need.

[Joe]

Isn't this show technically up for an Oscar?

[OG]

It should be. I do have to say this. I don't know if people saw the news. The Golden Globes now has a best podcast category, so we could. I know you're being facetious, but 2027,

[Joe]

I wasn't being facetious. The Golden Globe goes to possibly saying

[OG]

there's a chance could be, you know, us and Conan o' Brien going head to head finally, finally for. For that Dutch the piece of hardware. So on Wednesday, the movie's called Retirement Plan. It's a seven minute long film. We're going to watch it together. And then afterwards, we invited the creators of the retirement conference, who also have an awesome podcast called Talking Real. Our friends Don and Tom are going to join us from Talking Real Money and Retirement because these guys have seen a lot of people retire over the years. And so we're going to talk retirement after we watch this great film. And I know a lot of you may have already watched it. You might even want to watch it ahead of time. So you get to watch it twice because it's like I mentioned, not that long. And it has a lot to say og about the state of retirement. So Wednesday night. Doug, what's the time on that? I think it's eight. Is it 8pm Eastern?

[Doug]

8pm Eastern, 5pm Specific and it's stacking

[OG]

benjamin.com movie get you there or just go to our YouTube page and join us. But if you want all the all the details on what we're doing, you know, you got to make popcorn ahead. Time.

[Doug]

Gross.

[OG]

What?

[Doug]

What?

[OG]

No popcorn?

[Joe]

What?

[Doug]

Do you seriously don't like popcorn?

[Joe]

No.

[OG]

What are you talking about?

[Doug]

It's a matter of.

[OG]

Okay, we got a couple sponsors to help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them so I can stop having flames come out my ears because this is driving me crazy. And when we come back, I'm going to be much cooler. I'm going to have cooled down. We're going to heat up the interest rates on your emergency fund.

[Joe]

See what you did there?

[OG]

The world moves fast.

[Joe]

Your workday even faster.

[OG]

Pitching products, Drafting reports.

[Joe]

Analyzing data.

[OG]

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[Joe]

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[OG]

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[Joe]

helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn [e-mail] M365 copilot AI is incredible.

[OG]

It can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem pirate style, but it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the fact. It knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief. And it doesn't need to be taught because Slackbot isn't just another AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit slack.com meetslackbot to learn more. I love this idea of an emergency fund, but the thing that gives our super stackers hives is the fact that getting an interest rate on this emergency fund is garbage. Yeah, it just. Oh my goodness.

[Joe]

We'll just say popcorn from now on. No garbage.

[OG]

No, no, we won't. No, we are not. If we're thinking delicious. We started this discussion around emergency funds last week so people want to want to go through a few things. You can hear on Monday about debt levels rising and about how an emergency fund and tracking your expenses is the number one way to know that. You know what? Maybe expenses are going up and I'M not catching it. It's. It's that they're kind of your trip wires in your budget to know before you go into debt that things are coming off the rails. And then on Wednesday, we gave you an introduction to how much money should you have an emergency fund and all the reasons why. Now, what's cool is that discussion we're actually going to continue next week with OG and Anna. So they're going to actually put even fencing around that for you next month.

[Joe]

Electric fencing?

[OG]

Yes. Today we're going to talk about getting those interest rates up on the emergency fund. The first thing I think we have to do, og, is we have to redefine where. Where that interest is coming from. Because truly, the way to get a higher return on your emergency fund is thinking about all the things that helps you do. And we kind of introduced this a little bit last week. Number one, we don't have to hedge our bets with our investments. We can go ahead and invest with the time frame in mind. Meaning a lot of people go, what if I need this money ahead of time? I'm going to take a little less risk with my money in case I got to. I got to touch it. Well, that emergency fund allows you to. To keep that money invested, garner that higher potential interest rate, and not have to worry about it. That's the first return on the emergency fund. It doesn't come directly from the account itself. It's what that account does in the other account that gives you the bonus return. Yeah.

[Joe]

If you look at it from a behavioral standpoint, the biggest risk that people have when it comes to their investments is making a bad decision when things aren't going their way. There's another decision that people can make that's bad, which is making a bad decision when things are going your way. But that's a lot rarer. You know, that's like kind of the FOMO type of. You know, the market's doing really well. And. And Doug doesn't like what I'm talking about.

[Doug]

I disagree. I think people make a lot of stupid decisions when things are going really well because they feel invincible. Hey, I made a lot of money. I must be doing something right. Let's.

[OG]

Well, this is why Kalshee and Robinhood prediction markets exist. It's because things are going really well.

[Joe]

But I'm saying, like, in terms of investing.

[OG]

Yeah, right.

[Joe]

You don't generally see. At least in my experience, you don't generally see people continue to YOLO on the upside of, like, being successful. It happens where it's you know, and you read about these stories and how many of them are true, you know, you got to. Anytime you read something on the Internet, you just have to be like, is there a chance that somebody's just making this up for clicks? And the chances are always like, 50. 50, right.

[Doug]

At least.

[Joe]

And you see the stories of, like, I had 100,000, I'm up to 3 million, and now I'm back to 10 grand. And it's like, okay, maybe that happens every so often. But I think more people make mistakes on the downside in terms of behavioral things. What I mean by that is saying, I might need this money. Like you said, Joe, and the market's down. There's crazy stuff going on in the news. I'm a little concerned about the volatility in the market, so I'm going to take some money out. Well, when you do that, you've locked in that loss that happened, you know, and. And everybody who I talk to and stackers who are above average say the same thing. They go, no, no, no, no, you don't understand, OG during 2022, I didn't change a thing. During COVID I didn't do anything. Well, both of those instances, Covid in particular, was 17 days long. Like, we were all still going. Like, what are we all going to die? Like, we. Money was the farthest thing from our mind at that moment. And by the time you really reconciled and got your statement at the end of March, during COVID it had started to, you know, you didn't know it was the bottom, but it had started to ease off the pressure. You know, that was 17 days. 2022 was like a year, which sucks. But in the grand scheme of things was nothing like great financial crisis or the 1970s, like, these long periods of time. And so when you say, like, I don't make changes, I go, well, you didn't make change last time. Secondly, you didn't have the money then like you have today. So what you did when you have 200 grand in your investment account would be way different than when you have 2 million. So what cash allows you to do is it allows you to stay invested confidently when things aren't going your way because you have that backup to say, if I do lose my job or if my expenses are a little bit higher than projected or whatever. I've got this reserve. I don't have to worry about taking my foot off the gas or making an investment decision that's not in alignment with my financial goals.

[OG]

And I think even with the 17 day downturn. The thought that I'm going to take money out even during that, you're like, well, wait a minute, it's only 17 days. I've got this emergency fund built out for X number of months. I don't have to make these silly market timey kind of moves. So even, even in these much quicker times, we still do the dumb stuff. And I think, I think part of it's also rooted. I like where you're going with this OG Because I also, part of it is when people think they're behind, they think, okay, I got to play the game more, I got to make these moves, I got to be on top of it more. I got to think about it more. And you know, the more we think about it, the more the propensity we have of making dumb moves and making the wrong timing decisions, which no timing decision I think is ever a great decision.

[Joe]

Yeah, I mean you can get lucky, but it's hard to be, it's hard to be lucky consistently. And sometimes we confuse being lucky with being good, you know, and just because you happen to put a bunch of money in April 7th of last year and your 2025 performance looks amazing because you avoided the four days around the market going down because of the tariff thing doesn't make you a great market timer. Means that you got lucky. And sometimes it's helpful. Right, like that can that, that's, that doesn't hurt you to be lucky.

[OG]

But I think it also makes sense to admit that you were lucky.

[Joe]

Yeah, but if you think lucky is your skill, then you know that's a

[Doug]

strong suit of yours.

[OG]

That's already the quote of the show and we just began. We then also look at other things such as the deductibles on our insurances or insurance that we don't need to buy. Like we, we might not need the aflac duck, the short term disability insurance, which can be really important. If you don't have an emergency fund, I may not need that insurance OG at all. And on my homeowners or my car insurance, I may be able to raise those deductibles substantially because of the fact that I have insurance. My insurance is this money that's sitting in this emergency fund.

[Joe]

You know, this is something that I hadn't really considered a lot until you just started talking about it. Because when you were talking about like raising your return on cash immediately, I was thinking like, well, what accounts should we use? Like where's the high yield savings account? And I know we'll spend maybe A second talking about that, but this is a very interesting observation that you have. And I'll just use our personal situation where we live, our property insurance, our homeowner's insurance, number one, is insanely expensive. Number two, largely excludes wind and hail, you know, which is the two things

[OG]

that are going to happen, the two

[Joe]

things that are likely to happen. It doesn't exclude it, but it, like, has a high, you know, has a pretty high deductible for wind and hail damage. And we had a rather large storm that went through the Dallas area some years ago, and they got this big increase. We were able to change our deductible from 1% for wind and hail, which, for what it's worth, like, largely still meant I was. If I had a roof damage from hail, I was buying my own roof. And you're paying for it, you know, to 2%. Because in my mind I looked at that and I said, what happens between wind and hail damage? And like, the next thing, the next thing that happens is, you know, the house burns down, right? Like, you know, I mean, like, there's not a lot of gap between you need a new roof and something else, you know, like, to me, it's like you have a small claim or the whole thing gigantic. Yes, to me. And I can't prove that just in my brain. That's how I think about it. So we were able to offset the significant premium increase by going from 1% to 2%. That increases our risk, right? That increases our out of pocket, but still is in the realm of I'm still buying a roof anyway if I have to, you know, if there's roof damage, I'm still in the. I'm still buying my own roof. But it kept the premiums the same. Actually, the premiums went down a little bit because we have the cash reserve in order to offset that delta. So to me, because we had that cash, that idle cash sitting there, we actually saved money on our insurance. The risk is different. And I understand that. And it's maybe semantics and how we're talking about it, but as you're looking at it from a cash flow standpoint, and I think that's your point, it's like, this isn't idle cash. And I think people sometimes get concerned with, I've just got 100 grand just sitting there. And that hundred thousand dollars buys you a bunch of stuff. It buys you lower premiums, it buys you increased returns in your market. And of course, we'll talk about actual, actual returns in a second. But all of Those things count in that decision matrix that you're making.

[OG]

It is far more valuable, I think, than the pundits give it credit for when they say the money's just sitting there. But let's dive into how you notch up the actual return on that specific account if it's all sitting in a Bank of America savings account. Doug, you did me a favor while we were having this discussion. You were looking up the, the current interest rate as we record this on a Bank of America. Just regular savings.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

What's it paying?

[Doug]

You know, it's not as dark and gloomy as I thought it was, Joe. Things must have changed in the Marketplace because it's 0.01% to point all the way up balloons all the way up to 0.05%. So, I mean, I don't know why we're pushing high yield savings accounts so often, because I think you're pretty good just in the straightforward vanilla you're making

[OG]

between next to nothing and next to next to next to nothing. It is so frustrating when inflation is just clicking along at 3 and 4%. You end up with interest rates that have difficulty keeping up. And I think the goal with your emergency fund shouldn't be to kick the pants off of inflation, but certainly to try to keep up as much as possible. There's a few things that OG and I look at when it comes to notching up the interest rate. And I think maybe the easiest one, Og, without changing banks, is probably to look at the money market accounts that are at your bank and to look at CDs that are at your bank. So without changing banks, we can just use these different accounts. CDs are something for me. Let's, let's start there. Because I think in the current climate, CDs just aren't doing it. Like I think about it for 25 seconds and I go, yeah, probably not. CDs just don't seem to be paying a high enough interest rate to put them on the table at this particular juncture. Are you seeing things differently?

[Joe]

Well, the concern that I think most people have, and I bet this is your concern as well, is you look at it and you say, well, maybe I've got a. And I don't like these terms. We'll talk about this more next week. But let's say that we have a 12 month emergency fund, right? And you look at that and you say, okay, I know I can't have a bunch of money in my checking account. I'm going to keep three months. There's. I'LL keep nine months in my long term savings, my long term cash. And then you look at the CD rate and you go, but I might need it in three months. So I'm going to have a three month cd. And then you look at the rate and you go, you know, I'm getting 2% or whatever number is there, but I'm giving up the liquidity for three months. And that just makes you a little, gives you some heebie jeebies, you know. So one of the ways, or I was going to say to contrast that, you say, well, in order to get a good return, air quote's good, I need to lock this money up for three years which totally defeats the purpose of having an emergency fund because you know I'm going to need it now. Now the reality is is that while it's locked up, you know, there's a, all that is is just a penalty to withdraw it. So you could say, I'll take that gamble, I'll take the three year rate and assume that I'm not going to need it. And if I do, I lose a little bit of interest.

[OG]

Yeah, the vast majority of these, vast majority of these penalties are not punitive. It's just you lose interest, you don't lose your principal.

[Joe]

Yeah, that could be the case. The other thing that we see, and again this is maybe like 201 type stuff would be to say let's buy some laddered CDs. So you say I'm going to, I'm going to look at the, say the one year CD is a profoundly better return than a three month. Right. And so you say, all right, I'm going to buy with three months of my emergency fund, I'm going to buy a one year CD today and then in three months from now I'm going to buy another one month CD for, or I'm sorry, one year CD with three months and then three months after that I'm buy another one year cd. So basically you have this rolling every quarter. You've got a year CD coming due that is a one year return, basically

[OG]

bumped up interest rate.

[Joe]

So you've got the liquidity, but you've got, and so you could spread that out, you could structure that and say, well, the better return is a two year time frame. So I'm going to do, you know, I can structure this out over two years. That offsets some of the liquidity issues and gives you a little bit better return. If you're looking at, you know, from a CD versus a bank money market account which is going to be somewhere between a checking account rate and large, you know, one year CD probably.

[OG]

Well, and with a lot of banks, that's my issue right now is that the delta, the difference between what that one year CD even pays and that money market account for me in most cases in this current conditions, I go, you know what, I'm just going to leave it in the money market. Because the difference is, is not going to be worth the squeeze. A money market account has an important feature which is that it is insured. So if something happens, if there's a run on the bank, you can get it your money, you can move it to your brokerage account OG and now you can bump that interest rate up with something that is a money market fund. I think it's important to note that a money market fund doesn't have insurance. But if we look at time frame wise, you know, in modern history we've had one time when money market funds have broke a dollar, meaning they lost principal. And that was back in 2008 when we saw that happening. But I guess money market fund versus money market account, is that the only risk or would you tell people, you know what, as long as you're comfortable with not having the insurance, put money in a money market fund because you'll see a money market fund will earn more money because of the fact that you're not paying for that insurance through a lower interest rate.

[Joe]

Yeah, I mean it's still invested in government treasuries. Generally speaking, in a money market fund you can also look at, if you're in a high marginal rate you could go to. And in a high tax state you could look at municipal money market funds. They also have those where you're going to have some tax advantages for the dividends that are paid there. I'm not concerned about the liquidity or the breaking the buck thing that happened one time. I think that's a risk that you have to recognize is something that you could have once in a generation or once in a 30 year time period when things are really chaotic. So that doesn't overly concern me. Especially if you just check the box and go, I understand that this could happen. I would much rather have a high yield savings account that is FDIC insured and super liquid for my emergency fund than necessarily nickel and dime it for, you know, for a little extra money. But then the access is weird. I gotta sell a fund. Sometimes it's still the sweet money in my brokerage account. So maybe I accidentally invest that money and I didn't mean to. There's a lot of other intricacies there when you use your brokerage account for your cash. Not opposed to it. I just like having designated buckets. And I'm becoming more of a fan, personally, in literally the bucket strategy of cash. I always, again, I love telling these little lessons that I learned on my own here. I never was a big fan of that. In my mind, you could bucket it out forever. Like, well, in 2061 I might buy a car, so I should probably have some bucket money. It's like, okay, seriously, different buckets. Yeah. What I've realized for me personally is that we have such a large expense. This is where we are in our life. We have such large ran. I don't say random, but they're not quarterly. You know, it's like property taxes are due in January.

[OG]

Big ticket things.

[Joe]

Yeah. And the biggest change is just the college tuition thing, which we have set aside at 529. But you know, we're trying to cash flow it. It's not like every six months. It's like August in December or August in January if your school is one of the, you know, it's like, that's not a good rhythm. That's like almost the same quarter, you know, like, if you charge it in August, you're paying it in September. If you charge it in December, you're paying it in January. It's almost like the same period of time of your life that you're paying for that. And so I've been thinking more and more about like taking these, these amounts and spreading them out. The property taxes, the property insurance, which is once a year, the tuition bill, you know, to just kind of offset that a little bit. But again, you got to be careful because you'd say, well, I think in six years we might go to Disney. So I should have a bucket of cash for that. It's like, okay, we end up with a little too much. But me personally, I want my cash to be like, sleep easy, baby. I never want to have to say, sorry, I can't get to that. Sorry, that's only worth 97 cents on the dollar. That's the trade I'm making. I want to be fully invested in the market and fully invested in nice, safe, secure cash.

[OG]

Yeah, these high yield savings accounts, often they are online. I like the fact, to your point, og that it's not a fund where it's commingled with your brokerage account at Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard or wherever the heck you are. It's in A separate spot. Mine. We have no affiliation with this company. They're not a sponsor. They've never been a sponsor. Mine's with Ally. I like the Ally account myself because they have buckets inside of the account. So while I don't have multiple vacation funds, I do have a fund inside of my Ally account where money goes into the vacation bucket so that I always have this segregated money that's not affecting my emergency fund. I also have a new car fund inside of my account so that when the next car time comes, I've got the money sitting there.

[Joe]

Yeah. Because you follow the strategy of, like, once the payment's done, I just keep making the payment.

[OG]

I do.

[Joe]

And then five years later, I've made five years worth of payments, and now I've got the cash.

[OG]

It was great when I was able to turn that corner and pay cash for the car.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[OG]

Which, by the way, you know this. A lot of our stackers might not. We have one car that is just a complete beater because I don't drive very far. So it. It won't make it out of Texarkana. This car, If I was 20 miles,

[Joe]

not even insured or licensed correctly. Just be careful when you're out in Texarkana.

[Doug]

Do you do.

[OG]

Do you know that story?

[Joe]

I know that that's what you do. I don't know that there's a story to it. I remember getting in your car being like. It had registration stickers from, like, ought seven. You know, you're like, yeah, I know.

[Doug]

This is.

[Joe]

What are they gonna do?

[OG]

This is a horrible thing to admit. It is insured. It's insured. It's been paid off forever. I forgot to go to the DMV to get my license a long time ago. And now I'm at the point where if I get a ticket, you might just go to feel like I'm so far ahead of the game.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[OG]

That if I get a ticket, I know this is the wrong way to think about it. Please don't send me hate mail. This is. This is not healthy. I 100% get it. But it has been forever since this car has had a valid license.

[Doug]

Joe, you.

[OG]

You.

[Doug]

You know, Joe, that we. We have listeners in, like, 97 countries, and you're banking on the fact that no state of officials from Texas are listening to this right now.

[OG]

You think they're going to segregate me out and they're going to. All of a sudden, the absolute.

[Doug]

I would.

[OG]

The Texarkana popo is in my driveway.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Joe's Getting swatted and you're like the biggest.

[Doug]

You're the biggest celebrity in Texarkana. They absolutely know who you are. They are coming for you, man.

[OG]

A search warrant. No, we don't need to search your house. We need to search the late model Chevy.

[Joe]

Chevy truck that's out there.

[Doug]

Oh, my God.

[Joe]

My biggest concern with all of that has nothing to do with insurance.

[OG]

You outed me on that. I can't believe you outed me.

[Joe]

My concern about isn't any of that. It's the fact that I'm going to get picked up at the airport one time. You're going to get arrested. Then I'm going to have to walk somewhere in the Texarkana heat because I'm be like, can I just drive the car? They're like, no, we're impounding this thing. I'm like, well, dang it, now what do I do? I'm like out in the middle of nowhere, Texarkana, and I need to walk.

[OG]

Yeah, Part of that high yield savings should be in a registration bucket, I think.

[Joe]

I mean it is pretty pricey at like $19 a year. I understand you're hesitation.

[OG]

I have to admit it has become a crazy game about how long do I go until I get caught.

[Joe]

Fair.

[OG]

High yield savings, I think right now is the magic and a great place. And again, they have been a sponsor of the show, but in a whole different area. Raising money for businesses. You've heard their ads, we've never had them talk about this product. But Nerd Wallet is now a great place to go and compare high yield savings accounts. And frankly, Ally for me is never the highest, but it's always up there. You know, American Express is a good product. There's several of them. Barclays is, is fine. Capital One has one. Those always seem to stay competitive and stay up near the top. I just want to pick a good one with a name that I know.

[Joe]

Yeah, we use a collection of savings accounts for our clients. It's kind of an invite only type of thing. Same sort of deal. It's toward the top. Never going to be the number one. In fact, I've had people like mine is 3.9, but I saw one for 4.1. It's like, okay, that's not. We're trying to. We're trying to be close. We're trying to be always number one. It's too hard. But the other thing you have to pay attention to is, especially when you get into some large savings is potentially FDIC insurance. Making sure that you're aware of what those limitations are. This is only for people that have over 250k. I know there's some people out there going, who the hell has $250,000 in their checking account? It happens sometimes. Or it's a business owner that has, you know, business accounts don't have the same FDIC insurance. Or you just sold a piece of property, you got a million bucks sitting in your savings account. That is some stuff that you should be cognizant of. Can we talk for a second about evaluating the differences between using the money market fund, let's say, or something like SGov in your brokerage account versus cash interest versus dividends? Like that, Kind of.

[OG]

I just wanted to ask you about that because.

[Joe]

No, I wanted to ask you about it.

[OG]

Well, our friend Paula Pant at Afford Anything had a guy on recently who has a strategy he calls that I wanted to run by you. He calls T bill and Chill where he's like for the second tier cash reserve, T bill it up. Yeah, and get the higher interest rate. And yes, there is a downside to that and you can potentially step in one of those time frames, frames where it's not the best strategy. But man, you take the longer view of a 40 year emergency fund, you've got your money in a very safe place with bumped up interest rates.

[Joe]

Yeah. Well, I guess what I would say, and this is kind of where I was thinking about this, was the difference between the taxes on the dividends versus taxes on interest. And that could matter to you depending on your tax bracket. It could also matter to you based on the dollar amount of the cash reserve. Again, if we're Talking about a $20,000 cash reserve at 4% versus 4% and you're in a marginally low tax bracket, 12% or 22% bracket, I'm not sure that you're making a heck of a difference one way or the other, but I do think it's worth evaluating. If you have a large cash reserve, you're high income earner and high spender. So you've got a big giant cash reserve. You're a business owner that has decent amount of cash on hand because that's the prudent thing to do. Or you sold a business or you're sold an investment property and you're waiting to deploy that cash into something else. You're not going to invest it in the market because you know, hey, I'm going to reinvest this into another building or whatever and it's going to sit there for the next Year or a short period of time where I'm going to need the cash. I think you have to evaluate dividends versus interest and that difference between, you know, four and a half percent and three and a half percent, that can be non material immaterial.

[OG]

Yeah, I want to bring that up next because I want to dive into that thought here before we say goodbye to this idea.

[Doug]

Doug, this is probably minor and may not even. There's. Maybe there's a reason you blew past it, but you've used an acronym twice. OG I'm not aware of. And so maybe the common guy out there listening isn't either. You've said SGov at least twice. What is that and should I know what that is?

[Joe]

It's an acronym, Doug. Just a very popular cash alternative. In the parlance of DIYers, it's the equivalent of VTSAX parlance. Oh, when you say that you go, oh, I, I generically know what that might mean. It's a ticker symbol. Sgov is the iShares 0 to 3 year Treasury ETF. It's.

[OG]

This is for short, for short, Short

[Joe]

term government fund, basically.

[Doug]

All right, okay.

[Joe]

It's a low cost passive ETF that is all short term government bonds. Basically people use it as a proxy for cash, which I think is a fair trade. It pays a little bit higher than your routine, you know, savings account, high yield, savings account taxed a little differently. And that's basically the crux of what I was talking about with Joe was does that belong in that discussion of is it worth having that little marginal extra in the grand scheme of things? And I don't know if the. I haven't sat down to figure this out. Honestly, maybe I should use some AI tools to evaluate this and create a policy around it. But it seems like it's a little bit better return dollar for dollar. It's a little bit better tax benefit depending on what tax bracket you're in or could be it's a little less convenient because it's in your brokerage account, not in your savings account. It requires you to trade it, although it is a T plus one trade. So it's like literally the next day it's available. So it's not, it's not super illiquid, but you're not going to today. And is it worth like playing the game of like high yield versus you know, I'm bouncing it all around for an extra whatever percent it is 0.2% a year difference. I don't know.

[Doug]

But I think it's.

[Joe]

But I think you have to explore it. If you have a large cash reserve, if you have a large amount of money sitting there that's going to be deployed for something later and you're in a high tax bracket, I think, I think it's worth exploring as an alternative.

[Doug]

And sarcasm and obvious jokes aside, generally government bonds are thought to be pretty stable.

[Joe]

Yes.

[Doug]

Yeah. So yeah, 100%. Other than the inconvenience of the T plus one. It seems like for all of the. If you meet a lot or all of the criteria you just listed, it's something you should consider when you take

[OG]

your basic financial planning courses. The US treasury obligations still the safest obligations worldwide. You could spend hours on this OG in fact we didn't talk about, we had the stacker Allen on a few years ago on one of our episodes, you know, where we shone a light on people doing some cool stuff. Alan would go from savings account to savings account and he would collect these hundred dollar bonuses. He ended up making a good amount of money every year, like an eye popping amount of money every year.

[Joe]

So interestingly again back to just OG story hour. Yeah, I sold a piece of property. The money is sitting in my cash account right now. And at almost the exact same moment that I sold this, it's like they're listening. I got an advertisement from Marcus for hey, put your money in here, you'll get a great. Marcus is one of the Goldman Sachs banks, high yield online banks. Right. And it said if you keep your money here for an ideas, we'll give you a $1500 bonus because it's over 100k and we'll give you a competitive interest rate of 3.7% or whatever it was. And so I sat there and I was like, wait a second. If I literally time this out exactly right, assuming that that same bonus exists at Capital One and at E Trade and at American Express and at Ally, which it probably does, you know, in some form or fashion that ends up being 6K a year, you know, every 90 days. So I have four opportunities to do that. So I get 6,000 plus the regular interest of three and a half percent. Let's say this turns into a nine and a half percent guaranteed interest rate on this money while it sits here. I'm like this is a pretty good deal.

[OG]

Ellen was making some good money.

[Joe]

Yeah, I mean it's like a 10% guaranteed return. So the question I have is, is the juice worth the squeeze of like setting up the new accounts and all that stuff? I, I haven't done it yet, but maybe I will.

[OG]

And this is the important thing of this whole thing, right? We get decision fatigue. We had Laura Vanderkam, time management expert on earlier this year, you want to make really important decisions and you want to save your brain power for decisions that matter. OG and the thing that I want to end here is that while we did want to get nerdy about this and we want people to mine their money for people that are like, you know what? I don't know if I have time for this. You're gonna be okay. Yeah. The juice in a lot of these moves, you really. I think sometimes people spend a lot of time on this and they don't make significant returns doing it where if they spent more time on their career, they spent more time on a better investment policy statement. There's a lot more that could be made than. Than worrying about the stuff that we worried about today.

[Joe]

Yeah. I mean, what's the phrase? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And. Nope, Doug didn't like it. Doug gave me a look. What's the phrase? Doug?

[Doug]

No, no, you were 99% there. It's just shorten it. It's just perfect is the enemy of good.

[Joe]

Oh, well.

[OG]

So he didn't like the words don't let.

[Joe]

Don't let. I believe that's the whole.

[Doug]

Because of the phrase, it's less of an absolute. It's less of an absolute that way.

[Joe]

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say Doug's wrong on

[Doug]

this one for me to edit Doug.

[Joe]

Doug is kind of the go to idiom guy. But I believe this one is incorrect. This is a decision making matrix of I got to make a decision, and I'm struggling with being perfect. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Like, good enough is good enough.

[OG]

This is the most important thing we talked about today. Stackers. You need to weigh in on this.

[Joe]

Yes, yes, please do. The best thing that you can do for your cash is establish a system that is easy for you to execute on and that doesn't blow up in your lap. And if I do the. I'm going to bounce accounts around every four months or every 90 days to get the $1,500 bonus. That's awesome. Until I miss it by a day and I blow up the fifteen hundred dollars. And then all I did was just do a bunch of paperwork because I'm an idiot or the interest rate lags or I, you know, whatever. Like, if it's. If you can do it and you can create the system to do it then have at it. Like giddy up if you've got other things that you'd rather spend your energy on. 3 1/2% high yield savings accounts. Just as good as a 3.751 in the grand scheme of things.

[OG]

We listed several different resources and brands here in our discussion. I'll link to those and the pieces that were the inspiration for today's discussion in our show. Notes@stacking benjamin.com and no matter how you do it, whether you decide to just notch up the interest rate a little bit, make sure that it's competitive, or you decide to get analytical here and really juice that. Juice that orange. I'd love to hear your thoughts about where you're going with your emergency fund.

[Doug]

Don't sleep on that 0.05 over at bank of America. I mean, keep that in the decision matrix for sure.

[OG]

Oh man. Doug, let's pivot to you, man. It's halfway through the show. Well, it's a little bit past halfway through the show. Before we get to our brand new segment with Anna and og, give us some trivia, man. What's going on out there?

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And isn't it amazing all the media around the stock market the past few weeks, it's incredible the terms these journalists use. No wonder we're all worried. I mean, if your two choices on an elevator were the same terms they use for financial markets, there'd be like a button for skyrocket and a button for plummet. We'd never ride an elevator again. Well, it's because of one man that we actually have elevators at all. On today's date, way back in 1854, the first elevator was put into service in New York City. New York City. While. While you've walked across this inventor's name thousands of times, you may not have committed it to memory. His first and middle names are Elisha Graves. Here's today's what's the last name of this Benjamin Stacker who put the first elevator into service? I'll be back right after I go see if Joe's mom is in a downer or an upper mood today. No sense asking for lasagna if she's headed down. Alright,

[Anna]

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[Joe]

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[OG]

The wait is over. Tron Ares now streaming on Disney plus. We are looking for something, something you've discovered.

[Joe]

Give me something to believe and some

[OG]

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[Joe]

The countdown is complete. There's no going back. Our directive is clear. Hang on.

[OG]

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[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm lasagna lover and guy who's your elevator to better money tips. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, one famous stacker debuted the first elevator on today's date in history. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but nobody wanted to get into a little box attached to a frayed rope until they found out that the inventor included a safety device in case things got a little, shall we say, plummety. Because of his commitment to safety first, he earned his first customer the HAWT department store. Pretty sure that's how you say it. But this man, whose first name was Elisha and his middle name was Graves, had a last name that we all know, or you should know. What was it? Of course. He was Elisha Graves Otis, creator of the Otis Elevator Company. And that name is right there every time you get on an elevator or an escalator. And now let's hand things over to Og and Anna.

[Joe]

We still haven't figured out what the name of this is yet, but today we're going to talk a little bit about cash flow, right? So we're building out this financial plan or working through financial planning. Kind of a beginning to end each week for us for the next several weeks. Last week, we kind of laid out the six areas you Graded yourself. We're going to talk about cash flow today and we've got a five column cash flow plan. You can take out a piece of paper, you can just draw five columns in there. By the end of today, you're going to know what goes in each one of those. Super easy to keep track of. You don't need to have 53,000 apps and categories and transactions because why not? I mean, there's a bunch of tools, right, to help us keep track of this. Why do we want to put it on a piece of paper and not download it?

[Anna]

Yeah, those tools are awesome. This is not to tell people to move away from those budgeting apps or your individual spreadsheet, but sometimes they can be a little overwhelming. And to understand your top line expense number doesn't require you to go in every single week and categorize your expenses and have this meeting and blah, blah, blah. We can figure it out in probably 10 minutes.

[Joe]

Why does it. Who cares about any of that stuff anyway? What's the, what's the end goal of having an idea of what your expenses are?

[Anna]

There's so many places that we're going

[Joe]

to use that information from a planning standpoint, I guess.

[Anna]

Yeah. From a planning standpoint, it's really important for a. Our next episode where we talk a little bit more about emergency fund.

[Joe]

Don't we have to emergency. Yes.

[Anna]

Another fun topic. So we cannot figure out the emergency fund without figuring out this number first.

[Joe]

Okay.

[Anna]

A lot of things within the financial plan is going to spring off of this number.

[Joe]

This is a critical component to the overall. To the overall plan. Okay. So we talked about five columns. What are they? How do I find the information? Let's just go piece by piece. Column number one is income. Income? Yeah. Like where do you get your money from? If you're a regular W2 employee, this

[Anna]

is what number I would use your annualized salary number.

[Joe]

Okay. Including bonuses.

[Anna]

Including bonuses. Including, like if you're getting RSU income, any sort of equity income, all of

[Joe]

that included on the income, gross income top line. I make 200k. Okay. And I can get that from my pay stub. I can get it from, I mean, I guess basically my pay stub. Right. Because tax return is going to be somewhat adjusted based on where my savings are. And that's another column. But paystub is going to have kind of that gross top line number. Okay. So I know how much money I make. Now the other four columns are where I'm consuming this money. Right. Where's the first place that I can Consume money.

[Anna]

First place you can consume is taxes.

[Joe]

Okay? Uncle Sam gets their cut first. So basically I could probably take that off of my pay stub too, right now.

[Anna]

You could. That's typically where you're going to see all your taxes withheld. But if you're under withholding, if you're over withholding, that might be off by a little bit. Okay, we want to check out our most recent tax return and look at the number of the total taxes that you owed for that year, including state, if you have state taxes, including local taxes, if you have local taxes, and adding up that number so that you know exactly what you paid in taxes.

[Joe]

The line item on your tax form that says this is your total tax, not how much I get a refund, not how much I had withheld. Because to your point, those numbers could be off by a little bit. If I owe 10, but I withheld 12, I'm getting a $2,000 refund, which is a de facto $2,000 savings account. It's arguable as to whether or not that's a good idea or bad idea, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you think your tax bill's 12 when it's really 10 or if you think it's 10 and it's really 12. So get it from the source. So I need my pay stub for my income. I need my tax form, which by the way, probably just recently figuring out. So you got that kind of handy. All right, what's the third column?

[Anna]

Now we're going to look at savings. We're going to look at if you're saving into a 401, if you're saving into an IRA, a Roth IRA, if you're saving to cash, if you're saving to a brokerage account, really any sort of savings, HSA, HSA, 529, 529, all

[Joe]

of that Trump account.

[Anna]

There's unlimited options.

[Joe]

We can be here all day. Don't name them all. Yes, there's any place.

[Anna]

I'm just trying to give the listeners some ideas, but I do love all the specifics.

[Joe]

So any place that you're actively saving money intentionally, like if you're setting up a transfer to your bank account for savings, if you're putting a Percentage in your 401k pre tax after tax, if you're putting money in your stock purchase plan, anything that's an intentional savings and you can itemize those and total that number up and say my total savings is this.

[Anna]

Yeah. Even unintentional savings where you've realized over the last year you've just had cash pile up in your checking account, which is a whole nother situation we'll talk about later. But if you see that your checking account went from 20,000 to 40,000 in the last year, that's cash savings that you've done. Even though it's not being transferred automatically every month, it still is not being spent.

[Joe]

A little reconciliation there. All right, so savings and then we got two to go. What are the last two?

[Anna]

Then we have debt payments.

[Joe]

Pretty easy stuff here, right? Stuff you owe money to.

[Anna]

It's typically going to be a set amount. Debt payments, student loan payments, auto loan, personal loan. All of that would be categorized into the debt payments.

[Joe]

And why do you want to peel that column out and not include it as part of your expenses?

[Anna]

That would be helpful for when you're doing more long term financial planning. Trying to understand what are your actual living expenses. You know, eventually you're not going to pay your mortgage. I know that might sound very far off for some people

[Joe]

in the short 27 years from now. You're right. I will have had my house paid.

[Anna]

But a little shorter term, you're probably not going to pay your auto loan for many more years. So that's going to fall off eventually. Those are not your regular living expenses. They are payments that fall off. You could. Even if you want to go a step further, you can categorize a couple of other things in this one could be daycare. You might have daycare expenses that are a lot and they're probably going to fall off in a couple years. There might be a couple others that also go into that category that you know you're not going to continue paying for the rest of your life.

[Joe]

Okay, so then the last column is the living expense column. A lot of ways to calculate this. How do we calculate your living expenses after we know these other four buckets?

[Anna]

This is the easiest one to calculate.

[Joe]

What are you talking about? I got to get my credit card statements out. I got to get my bank account statement out. I got to figure out how much I put in the vending machine every week. Now, you don't even put money in a vending machine. You just tap to pay, which is dangerous. Dangerous. Ask my kids.

[Anna]

So what you're going to do is you're going to take the income, you're going to subtract out your taxes, subtract out your savings, subtract out your debt payments, and what you're left is what you're spending. Everything else Everything else.

[Joe]

Is there a test? Is there a way to make sure that I'm not spending too much money? Or like, what's the little catch all at the back end? We have one little, one little litmus test at the end of every year that you can just. Just double check.

[Anna]

Yeah, I mean, if you are seeing that your cash reserves of your checking account, emergency fund, any of those, or your credit card balance, let's say the cash is going down, credit card balance is going up, then we know that you're spending more than that.

[Joe]

Actual something's happening in that expense bucket to account for that. It could be those one off expenses, like you mentioned. Could be something intentional, like you chose to spend an extra $20,000 on the backyard remodel. That's what drove the cash down and the spending up, but it just gives you a little bit of pause. So five columns. Income taxes, savings, debt, payment. Take all those things subtracted from your income and that leaves your everything else bucket. And the everything else bucket is just kind of back tested by what's going on with consumer debt and your. And your checking account. The everything else bucket is the key to everything from here on out. This is the secret number. So homework for this week. I already told you five columns. Sit down. This will take you no more than three minutes to do. You just grab the information, pay stub, tax return, you know, loan payment information, which you probably know off the back of your hand. And then that's your monthly or annual cash flow number. We use annual because sometimes cash flow is a little lumpy. But that's your spend number. That's your lifestyle expense number that we use.

[Anna]

Easy as that.

[Joe]

Easy as that. All right, next week. What are we doing next week? Do we know yet?

[Anna]

Jumping into the emergency fund.

[Joe]

Emergency fund, Got it. All right, that sounds fun. See you next week, eight squared.

[Anna]

Bye.

[Joe]

Hey, this is Andy Hill from the Marriage, Kids and Money podcast. And when I'm not singing Disney karaoke songs with my kids at home, I'm stacking Benjamins.

[OG]

Nice job again, OG Good work. You and Anna.

[Doug]

I mean.

[OG]

Well, this thing's rolling. Let's wander out on the back porch before we say goodbye, because we did have some discussion after we asked what should we name this segment? And we had a couple of them. Doug.

[Doug]

We did one from James. He suggested anonymics.

[OG]

Anonymics. How about that, O.G.

[Joe]

okay, okay, Anna.

[OG]

Anonymics.

[Doug]

I mean, I hear anatomical when I hear that, but I think of.

[OG]

What's that cartoon? The Animaniacs.

[Doug]

Animaniacs.

[Joe]

Animal maniacs.

[OG]

Animaniacs.

[Joe]

She's definitely a maniac. We should have her be part of this discussion. But we should.

[OG]

Yes, but we're not going to.

[Joe]

We're not going to. We're just gonna do what we want.

[OG]

She's already left for the day, so.

[Doug]

Yeah, but Joe, we also got a letter.

[OG]

We just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. Wonder who it's from.

[Doug]

George said since OG's past military service is referenced. Referenced. It's referenced on a somewhat regular basis.

[OG]

How about Passas on a regular. Referenced on a regular basis.

[Doug]

George suggests how about basic training as the name for the new segment? Perhaps with the military sounding music playing in the background. That's pretty slick.

[Joe]

Okay. Interesting.

[OG]

That's what we got so far.

[Joe]

Og, we're going to keep the poll going and see if.

[Doug]

Oh, oh.

[Joe]

I'm not saying no. I'm just saying not right now.

[OG]

20, 29. We'll make this decision.

[Joe]

Wow.

[Doug]

I liked both of those.

[Joe]

Doug got a nickel for every time he's heard that in his life.

[OG]

Life. Keep them. Keep them coming, people. Joe@Stacky Benjamin.com or open it up to the basement Facebook group. Maybe hit us up on Spotify. Whichever way you'd like to go. We also have our movie Doug coming up on Wednesday. I'm gonna have popcorn. I don't care what OG does. You can have popcorn.

[Doug]

I am. And I'm probably gonna do the best mix ever. I'm gonna do a little bit of caramel and mostly cheese.

[OG]

Mine will be popcorn flavored popcorn. But it's really good. It's a seven minute movie called Retirement Plan. It was up for best animated short. Sadly it did not win. But how often does a movie about personal finance actually make it? I think that's incredible. I believe it was backed by the New Yorker. It really makes a lot of fantastic points. And Don and Tom from not just talking real money but also the guys behind the retirement conference which had what Christine Benz was spoke there. Paul Merriman spoke there. We had a great time at retirement a couple weeks ago. It was just a wonderful conference. One of the nation's top retirement planning conferences. One day only and super fun. They are going to be talking retirement with us.

[Doug]

Seven minutes. I can't tell you what I had for lunch in less than 11 minutes. How do you make a whole movie in seven?

[OG]

Well, and that's why they very succinctly say some things. And then we're going to take another 45 minutes trying to Maybe say half of what it said. Actually, I think there's going to be a lot to expound upon because the first time I watched Retirement Plan I had some ideas and the second time I watched it and I've watched this thing three times and every time I come away with a little, little something different. So we're going to really do a good job. I think of fleshing out what you need to do to either plan retirement or your continued retirement. Much more than just the money side. This film is not about just the money. It's about what are you gonna do. So good stuff.

[Doug]

I got distracted there for a second. We're talking about a movie about retirement planning and I heard flesh. Is there nudity in this?

[OG]

There is some skin. It's old retired guy skin. Oh, oh, oh. But I don't think there's any nudity. Stackingbenjamins.com Movie by the way, to go there or just go right to our YouTube page. 8:00pm Eastern, 5:00pm Pacific. All right, that's going to do it for today. A lot going on. If you would like to meet people in person, look up one of our bad groups. I know the guys in Tucson have their first official meeting. They've had one meeting, but their official meeting coming up in April. They are getting rolling. I know our group in Seattle has a meeting coming up. Our group in Boston and our group in southern Minnesota. I know that the Twin Cities just had a wonderful meeting about using retirement planning calculators. So look for groups in your area. That's@Stacky Benjamins.com bad which is Benjamin's After Dark, our fun get togethers for local meetup groups. All right, Doug, man, you got it from here. What is going on?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first take some advice from you and OG that interest rate game you probably don't need to play. Find a good high yield savings account, raise your deductibles, stay invested and your emergency fund will have a high rate of return. Second, if you do play, tier your reserves into two levels. Keep enough in place for now emergencies. And a second tier in a safe place that earns some money but is still stable enough that you can tap it without worry. Oh, I'd tap that.

[Joe]

Fun.

[Doug]

But the big lesson, if you want lasagna for dinner, slowly describe to Joe's mom how much you love that gooey melted cheese and those, those firm noodles bit by bit in the aftermath of that. Yeah, you got it. She's upstairs making tonight's dinner right now. Man, I am really good at what I do. This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026, and is created by Josal Sehai. 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. Sa.

[OG]

Og. I know that there are some things you wouldn't do in a million years. You barely have time to come to this podcast. Like, it. It barely makes the cut of things that OG likes to do. So imagine sitting down and going to, like, TripAdvisor and writing a review of some experience you had, like, telling people that you will never meet again.

[Joe]

I've debated this because we. We were on spring break last week and we went to this. We just used vrbo. That's kind of our go to condo rental thing. We like the area that we were in last time, so we do it and bang. Turns out it's like, literally the same condo we've had two other times.

[OG]

Exactly. Wow.

[Joe]

And maybe because they allow, like, not full weeks, like, because most times, you know, during spring break, they want, you know, Sunday to Saturday, all the days. But anyway, so we were like, oh, yeah, we've been there. So on the second day we were there, we'll go to turn the faucet on, and the faucet, like, runs for a second and then it stops running. You know, you turn the faucet. You just turn. You're like, it's not working, but the dishwasher's running, so that's good. There's another, like, water filler station next to the main faucet. You know, like, you can just fill up a glass of water from, like, kind of a filter water thing out of the sink that works just fine. I'm like, okay, this is weird.

[OG]

It's not a water main issue.

[Joe]

Like, it just slowly stopped running, and then it stopped. Okay. Doug's perplexed. He's building a house. What do you think this might be?

[Doug]

I don't think bathroom faucets have prostates, do they?

[Joe]

Nope. Nope. But this was a kitchen sink.

[OG]

You could tell what a handyman Doug is. It might be the Prostate.

[Doug]

I think it's.

[Joe]

He's actually pretty close, surprisingly close. So I said to Lyssa, I'm like, okay, well, I'll just text the people. Like, this is weird. And she just kind of casually says, yeah, you know, it was really weird this time. The towels that were in Caroline's room and the bathrobe were, like, soaking wet. They're, like, piled up, but they were, like, soaking wet. Like, they just took them out of the dryer and didn't even. Oh. Oh. You know, like from the last people. I washed them. They weren't completely dry and just put them up there. And I was like, that's annoying. So I text the people because they give you a number to text. I'm like, hey, the faucet's not working. We're going to go ski. If y' all could figure it out, that'd be great. So they write back, you know, five hours later, we're sending a tech out there. So what do you think the issue was? Doug said, prostate of the faucet valve. The actual answer was they needed to replace the batteries.

[Doug]

What?

[OG]

The batteries in your sink in the faucet.

[Joe]

And I was like, I literally wrote back. I go, what kind of dumbass has a battery operated faucet in their condo rental?

[Doug]

You won't be staying there again next year.

[Joe]

Supposedly it was some sort of, like, also faucet you could touch to turn on one of those needles, but you'd think there would be a backup of whatever. I didn't know that you could touch it to turn it on. It's probably my problem of 25 years of marriage.

[Doug]

This whole thing was a setup for that joke, and I'm good with it.

[Joe]

I don't know. That worked out pretty good.

[Doug]

But anyway, fantastic.

[Joe]

So I took the liberty when they wrote back and said, well, we had to replace the batteries. And I said, what the hell kind of faucet? I'm like, and oh, by the way, the dishes were dirty in the cupboard. And the. I listed all the things. They're like, sorry, you know, we know you're a repeat visitor. And then I thought, I'm going to really roast these people. And then I was like, nah, I don't actually care that much.

[Doug]

Much.

[OG]

Yeah, right. Exactly. Well, that's funny. Leaving a review in the first place. I only leave a review if I'm way excited. And I would think, of the three of us, I'm more likely to relieve a review than either of you do. If I'm really excited or if I'm really pissed. So imagine when I heard this brilliant comedian Al Midregal talking about this topic and the psychos that leave middling reviews. Any three star review you see at any point in your life. No, it's written by a crazy person who doesn't have their life in perspective at all. Because think about it. Somebody went somewhere, did something, use something, ate something, went home, remembers one of

[Joe]

their 40 passwords, and they log in,

[OG]

write an unsolicited five paragraph essay.

[Joe]

Ultimately to arrive at it was pretty good three stars.