Top 5 Eye-Roll Financial Tips You Should Ignore SB1664

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show – Episode SB1664

Title: Top 5 Eye-Roll Financial Tips You Should Ignore
Host/Authors: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Doug
Release Date: April 2, 2025
Network: StackingBenjamins.com | Cumulus Podcast Network
Award: Named 2023 Best Personal Finance Podcast by Bankrate.com

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Doug dive into the often misguided world of personal finance advice. With a lighthearted and conversational tone, the trio discusses the top five most frustrating and ineffective financial tips they've encountered. Throughout the episode, they blend humor with insightful critiques, making complex financial concepts accessible and entertaining for listeners.

Top 5 Worst Financial Tips

#5: Extreme Couponing

Discussion Highlights: The hosts kick off their list with the pervasive yet counterproductive advice of extreme couponing. They argue that while using coupons can offer genuine savings, taking it to extremes often leads to unnecessary purchases and wasted resources.

• OG: “A lot of times it makes you buy stuff that you don't necessarily need or want. You end up wasting more money because you're like, I got a good deal on 700 rolls of toilet paper.”

• Joe: “We get this financial advice that you and I hear daily, weekly, monthly that just makes me stumble like I just did. Makes you go what? What? Why would you do that?”

Key Insights:

• Psychological Pitfall: Extreme couponing can create a false sense of savings while increasing overall consumption.
• Practical Advice: Focus on using coupons for items you already purchase regularly to maximize genuine savings without overbuying.

Notable Quote:

“The ROI on an emergency fund is not the crappy interest rate you get. You can take it from 1 to 4, whatever you want by using a High Yield Savings Account.” (20:24)

#4: Skipping Emergency Funds

Discussion Highlights: Skipping the establishment of an emergency fund is highlighted as a perilous financial mistake. The hosts emphasize that relying solely on credit can lead to substantial debt during unforeseen circumstances.

• Joe: “Number four is... Why would I have an emergency fund? There is absolutely zero reason for an emergency fund.”

• OG: “Skipping insurance is like a terrible, terrible, terrible idea... It can't go without it.”

Key Insights:

• Financial Safety Net: An emergency fund provides a buffer against unexpected expenses, preventing the need to incur high-interest debt.
• Long-Term Benefits: Beyond just having savings, an emergency fund offers peace of mind and financial flexibility.

Notable Quote:

“An emergency fund allows you to be aggressive with your investing, allows you to be aggressive with your interest deductibles... It gives you the breadth of life.” (21:32)

#3: Buying the Biggest House You Can Afford

Discussion Highlights: The advice to purchase the largest house one can afford is dissected, with the hosts arguing that it often leads to financial strain and underutilized space.

• OG: “I think it's important... to not buy the biggest house you can afford. The upkeep on that house with just two of us and all the wasted space is just an albatross around our neck.”

• Joe: “The house you live in should not be thought of as an investment because you're doing so many things that are counter to the ROI on this house.”

Key Insights:

• Hidden Costs: Larger homes come with higher maintenance, taxes, and insurance costs that can outweigh the benefits.
• Lifestyle Alignment: It's crucial to match home size with current and foreseeable life needs to avoid unnecessary expenses.

Notable Quote:

“Having a million-dollar house means planning on spending on average ten grand a year in just normal maintenance and upkeep.” (31:09)

#2: Making Big Purchases to Motivate Earnings

Discussion Highlights: The hosts critique the strategy of making significant purchases, such as luxury cars, to drive earnings through higher monthly payments.

• Joe: “He bought a Porsche... because he wanted to make sure his paycheck was big and he's motivated, so he's going to buy a bunch of crap he can't afford.”

• OG: “Nothing will get you motivated like having your car potentially repossessed.”

Key Insights:

• False Motivation: Acquiring expensive items for mere motivation can lead to financial instability rather than genuine financial growth.
• Sustainable Practices: Building skills and seeking career advancements are more effective and sustainable ways to increase earnings.

Notable Quote:

“The ROI on an emergency fund is not the crappy interest rate you get.” (20:24) (Note: This appears under #5 but emphasizes the importance of sustainable financial practices.)

#1: Skipping Insurance to Save Money

Discussion Highlights: The pinnacle of poor financial advice, as identified by the hosts, is the recommendation to forgo insurance as a cost-saving measure. They share personal anecdotes illustrating the severe consequences of such decisions.

• Doug: “Skipping insurance is like a terrible, terrible, terrible idea... You can't go without it.”

• OG: “If you skip insurance, you're taking a gamble with your financial stability and future.”

Key Insights:

• Risk Management: Insurance acts as a crucial safety net against significant financial losses due to accidents, health issues, or disasters.
• Cost vs. Consequence: The immediate savings from skipping insurance are often outweighed by the potential financial devastation from unforeseen events.

Notable Quote:

“Skipping insurance is a really, really, really tough call.” (45:07)

Listener Question: Investing an Inheritance

Question from Rob, Minnesota: Rob and his wife have recently received an inheritance and are considering various investment avenues, including impact investing in women-owned and immigrant-owned businesses. They seek advice on balancing charitable intentions with potential returns.

Hosts’ Advice:

• Joe: Advises caution, emphasizing the high risk associated with non-publicly traded investments and the possibility of not recovering the invested funds.

• OG: Suggests focusing on traditional investments for financial stability and using tread carefully with micro-investing platforms like Kiva for socially responsible investing.

• Doug: Highlights the importance of understanding the criteria and risks associated with being an accredited investor, cautioning against unregulated and inherently riskier investments.

Key Insights:

• Risk Assessment: Investments in private or impact ventures carry higher risks and often lack the protections of publicly traded securities.
• Diversification: It's essential to balance high-risk investments with more stable, traditional options to protect overall financial health.
• Social Impact vs. Returns: Aligning investments with personal values is commendable, but it should be done within the bounds of one’s financial capability and risk tolerance.

Notable Quote:

“If you're going to invest money in something that's not regulated, you better be getting a 20 or 25 or 30 or 50 or 100 percent return.” (60:29)

Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

The episode concludes with the hosts reiterating the importance of discerning financial advice and making informed decisions based on personal circumstances rather than popular but flawed recommendations. They encourage listeners to engage with them through social media and their website to share their own experiences and questions.

Closing Remarks:

• Doug: Reminds listeners to seek professional financial advice and not solely rely on casual or anecdotal recommendations.

• Joe: Emphasizes the significance of surrounding oneself with knowledgeable individuals to foster better financial habits and decisions.

Notable Quote:

“Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.” (72:14)

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Conclusion

Episode SB1664 of The Stacking Benjamins Show serves as a valuable guide for listeners navigating the often-confusing landscape of personal finance. By debunking common but ineffective financial tips, the hosts provide actionable insights that promote sound financial habits and strategic planning. Through humor and relatable anecdotes, Joe, OG, and Doug make complex financial topics approachable, empowering their audience to make informed decisions that align with their long-term financial well-being.

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Tune In: For more insightful discussions and financial tips, subscribe to The Stacking Benjamins Show on your preferred podcast platform or visit StackingBenjamins.com.

Transcript

[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[OG]

I've got a four bedroom house in a great community like my car. It's new. I even belong to the local golf club. How do I do it? I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and we what are the dumbest ways people have told you to get ahead financially? Today Joe and OG share their top five absolutely most mind numbing money saving solutions. And that's not all. We'll also answer a question from stacker Rob from Minnesota who has an inheritance question. I got an answer Rob. Give it to your old pal with an El Camino. And don't you worry yourself even a little bit because I'll be sure to share with both you and Rob my incredible trivia. And now two guys who tried extreme couponing and now have cat food that'll last well beyond Cooper's lifetime. It's Joe and oh juju. JJ.

[Joe]

There'S some solid advice. Spend 57 hours trying to save 27 cents. Hey everybody, welcome back to the stack.

[OG]

Of did you know extreme couponing was on my list?

[Joe]

Was it on your list Doug? Doug is Nostradamus apparently. Man, we got a great show today. Welcome back to the Stacking Benjamin Show. Sit back, relax because you're about to have an hour of financial fun and one of our listeners favorite formats. If you're new here which is our top five episodes and to have a top five episode we have to have two people that haven't compared lists. One is the person you hear speaking, and the other is across the card table from me right now. Mr. OG, how are you, my friend?

[OG]

I'm good. Yep. Happy to be here.

[Joe]

Just Doug, he's just skipping through the rose petals.

[Doug]

There's bluebirds and butterflies just flittering about his head right now.

[Joe]

Oh, no. I used rose petals completely because it seems like it's flowers, but there's some thorns underneath those.

[OG]

Have you guys heard of the Muse app? Muse?

[Doug]

I have not.

[OG]

It's EEG Machine. I have it, but I haven't used it in a long time, so. So I'm sure the battery's dead and unserviceable, basically. But basically, it's this thing that you put on your. It's almost like a hat, and you just kind of wear it, and it's got little contact points around your head. It's for meditation. And you put some headphones in and you listen to this thing, and as you get calmer, you hear this, like, the rippling of the brook. And then when you're completely calm, you get these little birds.

[Joe]

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

[Doug]

Allegedly, you've never heard those sounds, I'm sure. But it says so in the instructions.

[Joe]

That's what they tell you. Yeah, Supposedly it's an effin lie. The birds are lying. I quit using it because it lied to me. It said there were going to be birds.

[OG]

The cake is a lie. And then bonus points, you know what that's from? I know you two do. But then, like, instantaneously, because it's like, you know, it's doing this thing and you're trying to, like, think of nothing. That's what you're trying to get to is just dead space. And all of a sudden, like, it instantaneously will turn into, like, a roaring hurricane, you know? So it was like this babbling brook, and there's just like. You just hear, and you're like, okay, try to be calm. Try to be calm. Shipwrecks, people dying.

[Doug]

You're like the Exorcist soundtrack, you know.

[OG]

It'S like people drowning in the hurricane. You're like, no, no, just calm. And then a light calm down. So I might have been. I might need a little bit of that right now. That's all I'm saying.

[Joe]

Well, I'm glad you don't have it because we need you to bring it today.

[OG]

I need some birds chirping.

[Joe]

Well, I'll tell you, you know, our stackers as you know, OG need birds chirping and often we go looking for that in the wrong place. And we get this financial advice that you and I hear on a daily, weekly, monthly basis that just makes me stumble like I just did. Makes you go what? What? Why would you do that? And some of it actually sounds great. Sounds like great financial advice. So. Oh gee and I have not compared list. We're going to dive into our top five worst pieces of financial advice that we've heard. But before that, we have a couple sponsors that make sure that all of our stackers get this for free. And you don't have to pay a dollar for it. You don't have to pay a penny for it. The soon to be extinct penny for it. It's all yours. Coming right up. But let's hear from those sponsors that make this free and then oh Gee and I share in our top five list. Small business Owners State Farms there with small business insurance to fit your starting a new venture or growing an existing one. State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. Stay Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor. Stay Farm is there. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me Stackers. All right everybody, let's talk careers. You know, you work hard, you bring in a paycheck, maybe even contribute to your 401k. Like a responsible adult gold star for you. But here's the thing. Making money is great, but making the right move to actually grow your career and earn more. Are you doing that because, let's be honest, hoping your boss finally notices you and hands you a raise? That is not a plan. That is a gambler. And unless you're the type of person who gets excited about betting their retirement on meme stocks, you probably want a better strategy. I certainly do. I have a coach, Mary Lou, that I meet with every Monday morning and Mary Lou and I lay out my week. We talk about doing the things that are important to my family, that are important for my health and the things that are important for financial literacy and stacking Benjamins and and the intersection of all those things. And that's where Strawberry Me career coaching can help you. They'll match you with a certified career coach. Somebody knows how to help you get ahead. Like my coach helps me negotiate better pay and actually make smart money moves so you're not leaving money on the table. You've heard me talk about this before. The key is to have people around you, smart people around you who hold you accountable to getting those things you say that you want for yourself. If you're anything like me, you've been meaning to quote, update your resume for like the last five years. I remember what Mary Lou said. Are we going to keep talking about this book? Are you finally going to write it? And I'm very proud of stacked. But without Marie Lou, I would have never had Stacked. Your career is your biggest financial asset. It's time to start treating in that way. When I started treating it that way, things change. It can be the same for you. So here's the deal. Go to Strawberry Me. It's Strawberry Me stacking and you'll claim your $50 credit. That's Strawberry Me stacking. Because maximizing your earnings is just as important as maximizing your investments. Strawberry Me does not facilitate or provide healthcare services. Please consult with a health care professional. But guys, let's get smart people around us, shall we? The first question I think whenever we do a top five OG is got to be why is this important? Like why is this topic important? And I think it's important right now because with so many people on social media, like we are getting our financial advice from the worst places. And you always know it when you hear from somebody who you've known for a long time and they ask you to like, hey, I saw this video. Like it always starts with, I saw this video and I was wondering how this applies to me. And you're like, oh yeah, here we go. And you know, we do our Tik tok minute and you know how many of those have been just eye roll advice, right? Well, heck, let's do the TikTok minute right now, shall we? Welcome to the Stacky Benjamin Tik dock minute. This is the part of the show where we dive into something that a TikTok creator has done that's either brilliant or air quotes brilliant. Oh, gee, you think we're going to see brilliance today or air quotes brilliance.

[OG]

It's never anything good on Taktok, so.

[Joe]

Oh, this one might change your mind because this news organization identified an early candidate. We're in. We're in. You know, kids just choosing colleges, knowing what the next step is. 13 year old early acceptance to college. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a huge problem for the family now. But this is from a top news organization called the Onion. If he looks different than the other students on this college campus, it's because.

[OG]

He'S only 13 years old.

[Joe]

But the amazing young Tyler is already consuming alcohol on the level of someone twice his age. And his talents have gotten him accepted at Ohio State University. The school says the decision to admit him was a no brainer. He's impressive. As soon as we saw him pounding back Coors Light, falling all over himself and puking, we knew this was someone who belongs at the Ohio State University. If he looks different than the other.

[OG]

Students on this college campus, it's because he's only.

[Joe]

I was too, too busy taking that in to. That was a brilliant one, OG I mean, the Ohio State University finding greatness.

[Doug]

I mean, now I'm starting to think the Onion is a real news outlet because that couldn't have been more factual.

[OG]

That was.

[Joe]

Was right.

[Doug]

Probably gave him some nil money.

[OG]

I didn't come here to play.

[Joe]

School, Ohio State University, we love you so much. Let's jump into these because often we will hear a video like that one and go, oh, is that true? That must be true.

[OG]

You think there's people out there that are like, that's true. You think so?

[Joe]

That's got to be true. Let's dive into these ridiculous pieces of advice that we get online. OG what's your number five?

[OG]

Well, Doug already talked about it, but he kind of brought it up. Extreme couponing. Couponing. What's the correct pronunciation there, Dougie?

[Doug]

If you don't want to make everybody uncomfortable, you say coupon.

[Joe]

I think it's a coupon.

[OG]

It's got a couponing. Then I got it. Extreme couponing. You know, a lot of times it makes you buy stuff that you don't necessarily need or want. And, you know, ipso facto, you end up wasting more money because you're like, I got a good deal on 700 rolls of toilet paper. You know, it's like, well, okay, fine, but what are you going to do with all this? I mean, obviously eventually you use it, but probably you don't need to, you know. Klarna, back to our story for Monday.

[Doug]

What inventory does it need to stay in?

[OG]

Yeah, papers. So, yeah, I mean, there's a time and a place. If you shop at the same grocery store all the time and use your discount card, you know, you've got your little type in your number so we can keep track of the stuff you spend. A lot of times they will give you coupons for the things that you buy a lot of. And those are super beneficial because it's like, oh, eckerridge sausages.

[Joe]

We buying it anyway.

[OG]

I'm buying that anyway. So here's, you know, a dollar off. That's fantastic. Do that. But I think the extreme stuff might lead you to spend more money. And this is going to come as a shock to you guys. I bet you that's what happens. I bet you that's why they do that.

[Joe]

Well, and that was exactly where I was going. I should think about.

[OG]

People have figured this out. Well, think about the life.

[Joe]

Yeah, the life of a coupon. Right. Where does the life of a coupon begins? It begins in the marketing department and it's not, oh, you know what? Let's get people a little extra.

[OG]

It's like times are a little challenging right now. Let's cut some out of our profit margin and give back to the common man who's buying Eckeridge sausages this week. How do we give them all a dollar? We're making too damn much money.

[Joe]

How do we get them all a dollar off? How do we spur people to spend more money in our store? Is where these things always begin. And, man, when you're thinking about the coupon, you have to. You have to think pretty critically. I love what. We actually had this come up organically just last week in our Facebook group, the Basement OG Stacker Paul shared a meme that said life lessons. If something cost $1,000 and it's on sale for $750 and you decide to buy it, you did not save 250 bucks. You did not save 250 bucks. You spent 750 bucks.

[OG]

That's right.

[Joe]

Love that one.

[Doug]

Well, similarly, it's not unusual for prices to go right back up to MSRP so that they can offer that discount where the price was six weeks ago. Anyways, there. There's a website that'll do that for you right before Amazon Prime Day. Because everybody sees the big discounts on Amazon Prime Day because they weren't bothering to look at that flat iron grill back, you know, two months ago.

[OG]

Who needs a floating speaker? This guy.

[Doug]

Right, Exactly. And they're 40% off six weeks ago. But you just weren't paying attention.

[OG]

Yeah, I don't think you're right. I think. I think Amazon makes enough money. They're like, let's just give back.

[Joe]

Jeff Bezos is how many yachts can I water ski behind?

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It's so like OG to see the good in everybody.

[OG]

Absolutely. It's a whole new day.

[Joe]

Well, it's funny that Doug preempted you on his number on your number 5 OG this is one that is Doug's favorite argument online. So we're going right for the Doug immediately with our number fives. And this is the age old debate of debates online. Some of the dumbest financial advice I've heard for the people in a committed relationship out there. One checkbook or two? We need to share one checkbook. It's just absolutely dumb. It is the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest advice. And is your one checkbook? Like what? Like who talks about Sharewood checkbook besides that dude in Franklin, Tennessee?

[OG]

I do think you're supposed you should have one. One checkbook?

[Doug]

Yeah. Who's dumb here?

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

What do you mean it's two against one.

[OG]

What do you mean?

[Joe]

What I mean is it's dumb. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many. Go ahead and have seven checkbooks. Have nine checkbooks. We're not addressing what the true issue is, which is trusting your partner. We're not at all addressing this by the number of check. No, let's have one checkbook so that we have this. People can't hide money from each other. I think that's. Is. Is that the basis of one checkbook versus two?

[Doug]

How could I show more trust in my partner than by saying, yeah, let's give you access to my funds? I got access to your funds. That's the ultimate trust. Plus, now we're a team.

[Joe]

It doesn't matter how many checkbooks you have. If we've got Monarch money. Let's say hypothetically, like I do and OG does. Let's say I've got Monarch money and we've got all the checkbooks open. Who gives a crap how many checkbooks you have? It's the most ridiculous argument. Let's just go right to the heart of this thing.

[Doug]

Adding administrative overhead. If you're that open and trusting, why add administrative overhead? Just have one pot.

[Joe]

I can't believe this. This is the argument that drives you crazy. You're like, oh, I can't believe. Every time that we would bring this up in the early days of the show, you would always have the biggest conniption writing me going, oh, my God, we're talking about one checkbook versus two again. And now you completely have amnesia about this whole thing.

[Doug]

Well, it might have been a topic that we flagellated a little too often, but my stance has always been, you're a team one checkbook.

[OG]

I'm team one checkbook.

[Joe]

Also, I don't care how many checkbooks you have. My life doesn't work that way. Cheryl and I go very, very fast. Farnish Tarabi says the same thing with she and her husband. They have multiple checkbooks.

[OG]

Yeah, that's all right.

[Joe]

They have multiple checkbooks. I have multiple checkbooks.

[OG]

And how else are you supposed to kite checks between different banks if you don't have multiple checkbooks?

[Joe]

What's that?

[OG]

What I said. And how else are you supposed to kite checks from one company to another if you don't have multiple checkbooks?

[Joe]

Duh.

[OG]

Those were the days. Am I right, fellas?

[Doug]

Oh, my God.

[OG]

Nobody even knows what kiting checks are now with check 21, but that used to be a thing. You could write a check for bank of America, deposit into Citibank and write a check from Citibank and pay your bill, and then sometime in the near future, you better get that money back.

[Joe]

Into bank of America very quickly.

[OG]

You had a couple days. Find a way you could figure it out. You could.

[Joe]

Yes, law enforcement, please don't send your. Don't do that messaging to OG.

[OG]

No, I'm team one checkbook. But hey, if you do you. You want 57,000 apps on your phone, you do it, buddy.

[Joe]

This is why I think it's ridiculous. I think it's 100% ridiculous. I think the one checkbook, two checkbooks, irrelevant. That's why it's my number five.

[OG]

All right.

[Joe]

Not the response I thought.

[OG]

What's your number?

[Joe]

Four.

[OG]

That's all right.

[Joe]

Number four. My number four. You guys are also going to hate, I'm sure.

[Doug]

Awesome.

[Joe]

Number four is. I've got plenty of credit. I got plenty of credit out there. Why would I have an emergency fund? Like, there is absolutely zero reason for an emergency fund. Oh, gee, by the way, everybody is texting Doug right now to say, let's run with this. Let's just argue with. I'm watching a text right now.

[OG]

You know that.

[Doug]

Oh, my God. And I nearly verbatim.

[Joe]

I know the text isn't coming to me. Let's just.

[OG]

Well, let me just say this. I mean, I'm not going to answer that directly, but look, at the end of the day, if you've got credit, like, who actually cares how much cash you have? Am I right?

[Doug]

Doug, I. I mean, you took the words out of my mouth.

[OG]

This is really great advice. Honestly, I don't know why. Joe.

[Joe]

The number.

[OG]

Damn it. He caught us.

[Joe]

Doug, the number one. I was.

[OG]

I was, too. I was, too. You could see my fingers moving.

[Joe]

It was. It was so covert. Sitting right across the table from me with a big smirk on his face.

[Doug]

Notes in class.

[Joe]

Completely.

[OG]

He's gonna love this. I literally wrote, we have to object to everything Joe says today. You and me both.

[Joe]

The look on his face just said, I want to be an. Let's do this.

[Doug]

Play to your strengths.

[Joe]

The, the, the ROI on an emergency fund is not the crappy interest rate you get. And you know, you can take it from 1 to 4, whatever you want to do. Half percent, 4, 0 to 4, whatever you want by using a High Yield Savings Account. Ooh. You know, we, we could even talk about that's ridiculousness, right? How, how much we go on and on about the High Yield Savings Account, but the emergency fund ROI is on lowering your insurance cost, on lowering all of these other costs that you have in your life. That's the roi, not the fact that the money's sitting there earning nothing. So emergency fund.

[OG]

I think it's also funny the number of people that will say that and then also have 20 or 30 or $40,000 in checking just sitting in their checking account, not in High Yield Savings Account. It's like, pick which side of this argument you want to be on. Go make your 4% at least.

[Joe]

It is good advice to have a High Yield Savings account to keep most of your money there. But the amount of time I see the financial media spend on this High Yield Savings account. High Yield Savings account.

[OG]

If it's 3.5 versus 3.9, is it really that big of a difference? No, it's not. If it's sitting at 0.01 and you can go get 4, yeah, you should be doing that as much as you can. And the more automation, the better, obviously. And cash reserve or emergency funds is what allows you to be aggressive in other things. It allows you to be aggressive with your investing, allows you to be aggressive with your interest deductibles, like you mentioned. It allows you to be aggressive with your career. If you go, you know what? This isn't serving me. I want to go do something else. It allows you to be aggressive with using your days off because all the reports say that nobody uses all their free time. And why is that? Because you're worried about losing your job. And why are you worried about losing your job? Because you don't have any money. It just gives you that breadth of life that you get to so much.

[Joe]

More flexibility with that emergency fund in place. What's your number four?

[OG]

My number four today is going to be buying cheap stuff instead of quality stuff.

[Joe]

Oh, this one doesn't make sense to me. I think we should always buy Cheap stuff.

[OG]

Yeah. You can't use the same joke that I used on you. It doesn't work.

[Doug]

Nice try, loser.

[OG]

Yeah, nice try, dork. You know, always trying to find the least expensive thing instead of the best quality thing is a lot of times, and I can't say always, you know, that's a tough thing to say, but a lot of times it's going to force you to buy that lesser quality thing multiple times instead of the one good pair of shoes instead of the five bad pairs of shoes, or the one good pair of jeans instead of the five bad pairs of jeans or something. And it's not even just the money component of it, you know, I think about it like the energy and time and the stress of whatever it is that you're doing, you know? So I would much rather. I would much rather buy one high quality piece of whatever it is that I'm looking for than multiple less expensive ones. But I think a lot of times the advice is just buy the cheapest thing you can get. I think buying the cheapest thing that you can get is a bad idea.

[Joe]

I find that the things that came into my life because they're really cheap or they're really free, I do not respect those things. I don't take the time to take care of them. I don't value spending time with those things. But when I spend good money, I'm thinking about, There's a pair of slippers that I bought. We were at this.

[Doug]

Really?

[OG]

Tell me you were born in the 60s without telling me you were born in the 60s.

[Joe]

Well, and it's funny because, A, I.

[OG]

Got these pair of house shoes.

[Joe]

I generally. I don't wear slippers usually. And I was at this beautiful hotel in Alaska, the Alyeska Resort. And in the gift shop, the worst place to buy a pair of slippers that I don't wear is in the gift shop of a hotel. And these slippers, just amazing. And I thought about it the first day we were there. I was like, man, those are just high quality, beautiful, fantastic.

[Doug]

They have a moose on them, don't they, Joe?

[Joe]

They don't, no. What do you mean, moose?

[Doug]

They've like. Each one has a little moose rack sticking out of the left side and the right side.

[Joe]

Right. They say the word Anchorage across the top. Right? Right. Made in Alaska. I bought these in Alaska. No, it didn't have any of that. Like, this was a high quality pair. And it was funny because I went online, I couldn't find them online. And it was weird because Cheryl's like, what are you doing? And I said, well, there's a pair of slippers down in the gift shop, and they were a bajillion dollars. She's like, you don't even wear slippers. I'm like, I would wear these things around the house and working from home, I would totally wear those. I spent the whole.

[Doug]

So you have them on right now?

[Joe]

I do have them on right now. That's so funny.

[Doug]

Bring those up on camera, baby.

[Joe]

So the thing that I'm thinking about, by the way, Doug, they're getting old. They are getting old. But these are slippers. You can see the inside, how much I've worn these. These things. So you have a pair, too.

[Doug]

These are truly house shoes. They have rubber soles on them. I can go out and get the.

[Joe]

So you guys making fun of me? And you're domesticated, too. So I get to the.

[Doug]

Get him at a gift shop.

[Joe]

I get to the last day I haven't found slippers like this. I went ahead and I bought them. What year did Nick, my son Nick, do his. Alaska. Yeah, his Texas 4000. Raised money for cancer. God, that's got to be 10 years ago.

[OG]

10.

[Joe]

I've had these slippers for 10 years. And, you know, still today, every time I put these things on, I love them.

[Doug]

I know we can smell them from here.

[Joe]

They. They were.

[Doug]

That's how I know they're old. Across the table, the paint is peeling. Joe.

[Joe]

Every time Joe comes downstairs to the slippers, he's like, oh, God. But I truly appreciate them. And to your point, OG I think it's because it's something that. That I thought a lot about and went ahead and spent a bunch of money on where if I had bought some slippers at Walmart, I'd have been like, dude, I don't wear slippers, and these suck. These are. These are horrible.

[Doug]

I want to cry once.

[Joe]

Yeah, not great. That's our number fours, right? Let's go on to number three. Number three. All right.

[OG]

Number three. I'm going to say diying everything is.

[Doug]

A bad idea, especially with electrical.

[OG]

Yes, electrical.

[Doug]

Ask me how I know.

[OG]

I mean, how many trips to Home Depot do you need?

[Doug]

Oh, God.

[OG]

To get all the tools versus having somebody come out? Now, there is a spot where you got to be somewhat smart about this. Our refrigerator has water, you know, like many of them do, you know, but it's been making a lot of weird noise lately. Lissa called the refrigerator guy, and he goes, look, it's 150 bucks for me to come out There just to look at it. Have you changed the filter recently? And she's like, I wouldn't know the answer to that. And he's like, just before I go all the way out there before, before you just. Why don't you try to DIY that one? Just put a new filter in and, you know, see if you still need me to come out. There's a limit to this. But we're in the midst of staining our fence. Like, that's a project that we have going on in our house. I priced it out and I had somebody come out and quote it. I had another person come out and quote it. And it probably after all the stuff and energy, you know, excluding the energy cost of me doing it, but the stuff is. Probably cost me 500 bucks for the labor versus me doing it myself and having $500 to play with to go to Home Depot to buy a sprayer to get to make sure I don't spray my windows and it's too windy. You know, I don't know the rule, like how to power wash it without ruining it. All that stuff for 500 bucks, I'm. Have somebody else do it.

[Doug]

Yeah, you have children, right? I mean, what's the. What's the point of having them if not for staining your fence? Mark Twain wrote about this because they.

[OG]

Will spray stain everywhere, and it will go on my car and it will go in the neighbor's pool, on the cab. It'll be a mess. So diying stuff. Okay to a limit, but I think diying everything is a terrible idea.

[Joe]

I think the idea of DIY starts. Has to start from two places. Number one is, do I actually have the cash to even do the ROI thing? Because there was a day early in my journey when I just didn't have any money. And you know what? I was going to have to DIY it or wasn't get done.

[Doug]

Right.

[Joe]

I couldn't even make that decision, so I had to do it. Now, once you get past that and you can do the ROI, I think, oh, gee, that ROI's got to start with, am I going to enjoy this task? You know, because for me, I don't.

[OG]

Know, enjoyment is the right word. I'll give you another example. So we've got the fence staining project, but then we also have the arbor, where we have, like a wooden arbor over some of our backyard. They told us they would do that also, but it would cost an extra $5,000. Well, yeah, to take the COVID because we have this plastic cover off and replace It. Because it can't take it off and put the same one back on. They have to replace it all together. I'm like, hold on a second. We're not going to, like, I'm going to diy. Well, I'm going to have the kids. To your point, Doug, diy that one. It has nothing to do with me enjoying it. Like, I'm not going to enjoy watching them or helping them or supervising them doing it. I just. I'm just not going to replace a thing on my house that I don't need to replace, because that's just the only offering that they have. So I don't know if fun has the right thing to do. There's some, you know, break even on.

[Doug]

I'm really glad you brought that enjoyment up, Joe, because I'll tell you, there's a lot of people listening right now who don't have the choice right now of, you know, is it worth it to me to spend that 500 bucks? Because they've got $172 in their checking account right now.

[Joe]

Exactly.

[Doug]

It's not even a matter of, is it worth my time. My time's more valuable than 5. It's just not even an option. And I was there. I was there for a long time when the kids were young. We're paying huge amounts of money out to daycare, and we just didn't have it. And so I started doing a lot of this stuff on my own if I already had the tools or I could buy the tool for 89 bucks and didn't have to pay the $150 travel charge for the guy to show up in my house. And what I found is the more I did that, I did actually start to enjoy the sense of satisfaction of doing it myself and learning about it. And then the next thing that happened is when those DIY opportunities came up, when my kids were like 10 to 12 and I got them involved or made them do it, they learned a ton. Not only about the value of education and figuring out if you don't like fixing this toilet, unclogging the toilet, or whatever it is, then you better figure out a way that you don't have to do that yourself and you can pay somebody else to do it, but they just have a better appreciation for what it cost to maintain a house. So there were a lot of benefits of that that I got by doing it myself. Even when I did start to get the money to do it, I kept.

[OG]

You guys are texting one another going, let's pick no g. What the heck.

[Joe]

Not at all.

[Doug]

Screen is blank.

[Joe]

There's also in my mind been a computation of I'm not going to want to do this all the time. Doug, to your point, but I want to do it once so that when the person comes out here, I know at least enough about it.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Joe]

That I can speak to whatever the issue is.

[Doug]

Right.

[Joe]

And know enough about how that works. So I think about ROI. But to your point, OG 9 times out of 10, I am not going to waste my time on doing this thing. Even if I could DIY it, I'm like, forget it. I want to spend my time on stuff that either A, I enjoy, B has a higher roi. Three is kind of my unique talent. You know, if I can spend my time there, it's going to be a better use. My number three is one that I don't hear as much anymore. I used to hear it a lot, but it's still out there. I heard it just a few weeks ago. Somebody was told by a well meaning relative they're shopping for a house. Buy the biggest house you can afford. Buy the biggest house you can possibly afford. And I think what dangerous, horrible advice.

[OG]

Not making any more land.

[Joe]

Well, number one, just this idea that your house is an investment. The house you live in you should not think of as an investment because you're doing so many things that are counter to the ROI on this house. The upkeep on the house even versus a rental property is so high, is so absolutely high because you want to live in a nice place. But then just number two, what that's going to do to your overall budget and go back and listen to what we talked about with our headline in the second half of Monday show and everybody will hear our rants on payments, right? Having these big payments forever. Don't love the idea of biggest house. That's my number three.

[OG]

Well, and the interesting thing, if you march this out for a lot of people, you say, well the payment's three grand, I can afford that when we talked about this yesterday or I'm sorry on Monday, if you think about your taxes and insurance as part of that operational cost of the house and God forbid you add just normal house maintenance to that which by the way averages about 1% of the house value a year. And you don't think of it that much. But that's the budgetary line item. If you have a million dollar house, you better plan on spending on average ten grand a year in just normal maintenance and upkeep and some years could be less. That'd be great. Some years it'll be more. If you look at your taxes and insurance, add inflation to it. Inflation with a kicker. Because by the way, insurance and taxes don't only increase with inflation, generally speaking, but add inflation plus a kicker at the end of your 30th year. A lot of times you go, oh, my house will be paid off in 30 years. A lot of times your payment for insurance and taxes will be the same or more than your payment was when you first started, you know, so you started with that $3,000 payment. Over 30 years it rose to $6,000 because of the increase of taxes and insurance over that 30 year period. And then you pay your house off and you got a $3,000 payment still for taxes and insurance. So it's not like you get this thing free and clear and you're done with it. And once it's done, it's done because there's still going to be maintenance, there's still going to be upkeep. Yeah, I don't love the idea of buying the biggest house you can afford. We long said on the show every mistake that you guys can talk about, I've done maybe twice. And that was one of the major ones that I look back on in our decision tree of money, like buying a big giant colonial four bedroom house because God's not making any more land. Got to get, get in while you can because Lord knows we're talking many more houses. And we were recently married with no kids and no plans for kids for five years. And what do we need? Four bedrooms obviously. Four bedrooms and a finished basement, obviously.

[Joe]

Got to have the man cave.

[OG]

We bought that house and sold it 10 years later for the exact same price that we bought it for.

[Joe]

We luckily didn't step in this. We moved back to Texarkana. There's a another house right down the street which architecturally is just. It's a gorgeous house, but it's two of us. OG yeah, this house was a four bedroom house. It was a great place for entertainment. It had so many cool features. The office in this house was just absolutely amazing. But it was probably about 40% more than we paid for this house. Could we afford it? Yes, we could.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Did we? This would have been such an albatross around our neck. Just the upkeep on that house with just two of us and all the wasted space for two.

[OG]

Thinking about that with our house, we have a fantastic home. We love it, we love everything about it. But we are two years, I mean, we're two months away. From having one less kid in the house and two and a half years away from having two less kids. And what the heck are we going to do with all that stupid space when it's just. Listen, me and Caroline.

[Joe]

Airbnb.

[OG]

Yeah. No, no, that's not happening. We've already started talking about it, and the kids are like, wait, what? What do you mean you're gonna sell the house? What are we gonna do? We come home from college, like, sleep on the pullout couch? What are. I mean, obviously, you know, what do we need all the space for?

[Joe]

Those are our top three. Coming up after the break, we are going to have our top two worst pieces of financial advice OG and I have heard. Plus, we have a question from a stacker. All that. But first, let's pause for a second because, Doug, you are going to chat with us about. Ooh, yesterday. We had a big holiday yesterday and we missed it.

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And how was your April Fool's Day? Mine was great. OG Tried to get me on this idea that credit card interest somehow mysteriously compounds. Like it somehow just gets bigger all by itself. He's such a kidder. Which got me thinking. How did a day dedicated to practical jokes even begin? Well, I did some research and found out that no matter how great you think your fraternity house hijinks were, there's no way you're gonna top the French. Get this. It appears that in France in 1582, possibly as a joke, those froggy pranksters. Get this. They switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. What a hoot. They're still saying gotcha to us all on that one, aren't they? Well, those people who didn't fall for it and still followed the old calendar, they snickered at everyone who bought it as April Fools for celebrating the beginning of the year. Like, right now. Even though every Hallmark store in France at the time had switched to the updated, like, cute kitten calendars. Or like, those New England barn calendars that explicitly told them they were wrong. Here's maybe the worst April Fool's Journey joke ever, though, on today's date, April 2nd. Way back in 1866, Andrew Johnson declared the Civil War over, except in what modern US State? I'll be back right after I go apologize to Joe's mom about my latest April Fool's prank. I had no idea that sugar would be so hard to clean up.

[Joe]

Oh, that's so hard. Foreign.

[Doug]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

[Joe]

Do you ever think about switching insurance.

[Doug]

Companies to see if you could save some cash. Progressive makes it easy.

[Joe]

Just drop in some details about yourself.

[Doug]

And see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Joe]

It's part sports.

[Doug]

We have football on the brain, part pop culture. Dennis Leary True or false. You refuse to wear a glove with Mickey Mantle's signature on it for the.

[Joe]

Movie the Sandlot, the Red Sox blood, the Bruins blood. They run deep.

[OG]

Add in the best celebrity interview.

[Doug]

Robert De Niro here on the Rich Eisen Show. How are you sir?

[OG]

Just cut over a 24 hour virus.

[Doug]

The antidote is to appear on the Rich Eisen Show.

[Joe]

There you go.

[OG]

I would have done it earlier. And you've got the Rich Eisen show podcast.

[Doug]

There is a medicinal quality to appearing on this program.

[OG]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

[Doug]

Hey there stackers. I'm Sugar Cleaner Upper and guy who's never pulling Another April fool stunt ever. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug Stunts and pranks have been a big hit over the years, with notably one of the largest money makers being Orson Welles stunt broadcast War of the Worlds where he pretended aliens were attacking the U.S. the fact that we're still talking about it today puts Wells firmly with me in the legend category. Sadly, what happened on today's date sounds like an April Fool's prank. But wasn't Andrew Johnson back on April 2, 1866? He was the president, by the way. Crack a book. He declared the Civil War over. Except in what modern US State would.

[Joe]

Be like oh gee, going Civil War is over.

[Doug]

Randomly, it would be Texas, where President Andrew Johnson couldn't declare the war ended because Texas hadn't yet replaced their Confederate government. That would happen later that same year. Did you get it right? You can declare victory yourself. Then over today's trivia question. And now back to two guys who must have been told they were podcast host as a prank, Joe and OG.

[Joe]

Must have been a prank. And yet almost 15 years later, we still didn't realize it was just a ruse the entire time. Let's get back to our top five. Steve Q. The British guy, number two. Number two on my list. OG has to do with my number three. You know, the whole thing. Buy the biggest house you can afford. There's a financial planner that you and I used to work with who firmly believe this and also espouse this as a strategy to get ahead financially, which was make big payments on your stuff, and that'll force you to earn big money.

[OG]

Oh, buy stuff with big payments.

[Joe]

Buy stuff with big payments. He bought a Porsche that he was very proud of Just because it had a monster monthly payment and because he was being paid on commissions way, way, way back in the day. He was like, I need to make sure that my paycheck is big and I'm motivated, so I'm gonna buy a bunch of crap I can't afford.

[OG]

That's sweet.

[Joe]

Pretty great advice. That's why it's my number two.

[OG]

No arguments there. You know, nothing will get you motivated like having your car potentially repossessed. Yeah, that would remind me of that great movie, the Joneses. It's got David Duchovny in it and.

[Joe]

Demi Moore, and I'm starting to remember this now. Yeah, I'm starting to remember it. Yeah.

[OG]

A bunch of other cool actors and actresses and. Anyway, the whole tenor of the movie, if you haven't seen it, it's fantastic because it's complete satire. But the whole setup is they are a fake family who moves into a neighborhood, and their whole goal is to increase the spending of that neighborhood. And so they get tracked on the metrics. They have, like, meetings where they're like, hey, you know, home goods are really climbing. Good job on having the party and getting all the wives together. And the dad air quotes. He gets a new. Brand new Audi, which causes all his neighbors to be jealous. So then the. So then the neighbors are like, oh, we have to go get a new car. And so he gets high five because he drove the neighbors to get new cars. And he goes and plays golf. He's a really good golfer, but he gets custom golf clubs. So then the. Everybody at the club wants to get custom golf clubs because they see him playing really well all of a sudden, and, you know, and they track all these metrics, and it causes this other family to just go into this death spiral, literally, of chaos, because they're trying to keep up with the Joneses the whole time. And it's a wild, wild satire on. On Americanism, American consumer.

[Doug]

This movie sounds crazy. And you know how I know? Because Amber Heard is in it.

[OG]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. She is.

[Doug]

Yeah, she brought the crazy.

[OG]

She's one of the daughters. Air quotes. But they're, you know, again, they're all a fake family. Family lives a luxurious lifestyle. And the other family.

[Joe]

I don't want to play okay. Oh, my God.

[Doug]

What?

[OG]

We're not going to watch that one.

[Joe]

There's something else called Keeping up with the Joneses. Gal Gadot, isn't it? Or is Gal Gadot in this one?

[OG]

No, that one. That one is a comedy with, like, Zach Galifianakis or something.

[Joe]

Gotcha.

[OG]

It's not at all the same. It's like they're superheroes or the one.

[Doug]

You'Re talking about is just the Joneses.

[Joe]

The Joneses.

[Doug]

Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Amber. Heard few others, people you've recognized.

[OG]

Yeah. Fantastic view. All right, number two.

[Joe]

All right.

[OG]

My number two is. I got two left here. So I'm going to go.

[Joe]

Wow.

[OG]

Really bad advice is going to be reusing everything. Reusing everything. Like reusing Ziplocs, Reusing paper towels, Wringing them out. Don't reuse stuff. It might be a little bit more eco friendly perhaps to reuse some things, but it can't be better for you. It's got to be unsanitary at worst, you know, or at best, like, what.

[Doug]

About the plastic bags you get from the grocery store? They go in your little trash can in your bathroom.

[OG]

That I'm okay with. Yeah.

[Doug]

That one you'll allow.

[OG]

Okay, that one. That one I allow. I'm thinking of, like, reusing. I mean, I distinctly remember this as a kid, reusing paper towels. I remember somebody in our family, I don't remember which. Which great aunt this was would like, use a paper towel and then rinse it out gently and then lay it out on the counter so dry so she could reuse it again. And I'm going, that can't be good, right? Or, you know, reusing Ziploc bags. Or, you know.

[Doug]

Yeah, you rinse those out and you hang them over the. The faucet so they drip into the. I agree with that one.

[OG]

Yeah. That can't be. I think you're going to get sick or something and then you spend more money on doctors or night quillers.

[Joe]

I think there definitely is a line. I'm not sure where the line is, but you know it when you see it. Yeah, well.

[OG]

Or, you know, you're talking to Joe. You were talking about, like, leftover and stuff like that. Use reusable stuff. Don't buy Ziplocs. Get a pack of Tupperware that you can wash and reuse 50,000 times.

[Doug]

Get the kind that doesn't stain red when you put your pasta in there.

[OG]

It's okay. Even if it does. Who cares? It's. That's the microplastics that you're getting back into your body.

[Doug]

No, it's. It's because then the stuff, you know, the thing that made it red is still in there. We bought the super cheap set from Ikea, and those things sucked. We finally, four years ago, just decided to pony up and get really good stuff. And it's worth it.

[Joe]

Yeah, but, Doug, you didn't hear. Oh, geez. Trying to get those microplastics into.

[Doug]

Yeah, like, how do you want the microplastics?

[OG]

Yeah, it's like.

[Joe]

I mean, it's science. If you're 100% plastic, then you never have a heart attack.

[OG]

What do you think about that? Live forever hashtag.

[Doug]

Maybe that's where my moobs come from.

[Joe]

Number one. It's time for the number one. Oh, gee, you want to do your drum roll?

[OG]

No, that's old news. All right. Number one for me is skipping insurance to save money.

[Joe]

Oh, this is a big one. Wow, that's a great number.

[OG]

Well, thank you so much. Thank you.

[Doug]

We were having so much fun, and then you just got serious.

[OG]

Skipping insurance is like a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. It's not a commentary on insurance costs because Lord knows it's not great. And depending on where you live, it's suckier than some places, Whether it's health insurance and you've got preexisting conditions, or it's car insurance. Your kid wrecks two cars in 12 months, or it's, you know, homeowners insurance, and you live in a tornado area or a wildfire area. And, you know, I mean, all of that sucks, but you can't go without it. There's ways to mitigate it. We were talking about cash reserve, and, you know, you can have higher deductibles and that sort of thing, but skipping it all together is. That is a really, really, really tough call.

[Joe]

Well, the people that skip insurances are always the same people. They can't afford their lifestyle, and so something has to go.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe]

So then, oh, gee, that's when you go with the gambler mentality. And I'm just going to go ahead and risk it.

[OG]

I'll tell you, when I was a kid, our house, it didn't burn down, but it burned halfway down. The insurance company wouldn't approve the claim until they got the payment, which they had to wait for and check the postmark because it was one of those things where it was like, it was the last thing, like, barely have enough money to pay the bill, and it was due on the 31st, and the fire was on the 31st, and mom mailed it on the 30th. That was the Friday. They had to wait to get the envelope and check the postmark to make sure that it was that, that we were covered. And you know, I wonder what would have. It already sucked. And I just wonder how bad it would have sucked beyond that. You know, and I was a kid, so I don't, you know, I don't, I wasn't involved in the, you know, rebuild stuff or the, you know what I mean, the negotiation. I wasn't involved in any of that stuff. And it still sucked as a kid. I can't imagine what it'd be like if, you know, something happened or you're in a car accident. You're like, I don't need car insurance. I'm good. And then you get in a car accident that wasn't your fault and the other person doesn't have insurance and you don't have insurance, who's going to pay for your hospital bill?

[Doug]

Yeah. Or you live in one of the no fault states like Michigan and you don't. Your insurance never covers for the other person. And that person now lost their job because they can't get to their job because they don't have a functioning car anymore. And too risky. It is so, so risky. And on one, I mean, I definitely feel a lot of sympathy and, and I feel bad for those people, but there's a good chance that they have six streaming services going at the same time that they're choosing not to pay for insurance.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

That was where they have the highest.

[Doug]

Unlimited plan on their cell phone. Like, there are probably ways when I.

[Joe]

Would look through people's budgets. Doug, to your point, I would ask, why don't you have renters coverage? I can't afford it. And, and we would find it fairly easy by cutting something else. That. And to your point, OG Everybody asks the same question. What if I'm wasting this money? Man, I hope you do.

[OG]

Exactly. Trust me, having had a house fire and been in a pretty serious car accident with the family in the car at one point in time too. Like, I'm okay not having that ever again. Like I'm, I'm, I. As it wasn't about the money part of it, like, I'll spend insane amounts of money to never have to have my roof blown off in a windstorm again. Like, I'm good. I don't need, I don't need that in my life.

[Joe]

The number of people that I met with over the years. And I know OG this hasn't Changed that. I'm sure you've talked to since I exited Financial Planning that come in to meet with you because they're hoping that you know something that they don't know because they're throwing, to use a football analogy, they're throwing the Hail Mary pass because an accident happened in their family and now they didn't have the money for the hospital procedures. Right. So you end up with a bunch of debt and the inability to work. They didn't have any disability coverage, their house burned, whatever it is. The number of people I met with that had some calamity befall them and they didn't have the resources, and now they're trying to rebuild and are really panicked about it. Those were always the saddest meetings to go into.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

So, so, so sad. My number one is an offshoot OG of your. I think it was your number three, but I'm going to put it even a little stronger, which is yours was DIY everything. Mine is fire the smart people around you because a. Damn it, you're smart enough. And this is something that you can do by yourself, as if being able to. Just the fact that you can means that you should. I think it's such a straw man argument. You know, when it comes to financial planning, of course you're smart enough. But when it comes to car repair, of course you're smart enough. When it comes to your electrical, like Doug used earlier, of course you're smart enough. There's YouTube videos out there. There's so many things wrong with this argument because that's not the argument of whether you're strong enough. It is. In my time being around really smart people, what I found was really smart people focus on the thing where they know their unique talent is. Nothing drives you crazy more than that person who's smart in one area, so they think they're smart and everything. I had this girlfriend in college whose dad had a PhD in chemistry, so he thought that his economic position was far superior to anybody else's. I was in college and recognized how brilliant this guy thought he was in areas where he had no expertise. You don't usually see that, though. You see people that are really strong in a field, they focus on that thing and they're really good at that thing. Second is, I think you push yourself more because of the comparison with these really smart people that you surround yourself with. When you hire smart people and you surround yourself with smart people. I let myself get really out of shape. Kind of fat. Then I moved to Texarkana. I didn't I didn't care about running marathons, and I'm about to run my 14th marathon next January. But it's all because, oh, gee, the people that I hung out with, it's 100%. The people I surround with a bunch of runner nerds. And number three, I think, is this pushback that you get from smart people around planning more effectively around really decide to do it that way. Why wouldn't you have thought about xyz? And you're like, damn, that was a super smart way to handle that. And I did not handle it that way. I don't know. Smart people surround themselves with smart people.

[Doug]

Except for the jerk who says, really? You did it that way? Why wouldn't you have done it this way? Like, I'm firing that guy in a heartbeat.

[Joe]

Well, if they say it lovingly in a Gordon Ramsay kind of way, like, I want you to succeed, but why wouldn't you have done this, Joe? Oh, that's great. But I think just the push to do that, I think the surround sound to do that. So firing the smart people around you because you're smart enough. Absolutely. Stupid straw man argument.

[OG]

Yes.

[Joe]

Oh, I thought you were looking something up. Sorry.

[Doug]

We were talking about food waste earlier. A buddy of mine is in Japan right now, and he sent us a bunch of people in a group text chat. Classified military secrets. No, I'm kidding. Some of the stuff on this menu, there is nothing wasted in Japan, apparently.

[Joe]

Tail.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah. Tongue. There's different parts of the tongue that have different price points. Lots of offal. Offal, which are like the guts. Like, you can choose to get that on a little skewer. There's. Oh, it's just disgusting. Some of the stuff on here that we would never, ever. Cheese. An awful stew. Such an appropriate word.

[Joe]

It's called awful stew.

[Doug]

Yeah, awful stew. We have horse mackerel. I don't know if that's a type of fish or a type of horse, but it's horse fried. Horse mackerel could be both. We have that as an option. And then, you know, we have pickle things that are pickled that should never be pickled. And guts. Guts. It's called guts on the menu. Guts sashimi.

[Joe]

We went to a great restaurant a few times in Detroit. One of the top restaurants in Detroit, Mabel Gray.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah, that keeps on getting better.

[Joe]

The chef at Mabel Gray did that with a duck. When we were there, we did the chef tasting menu, and it was trying to use as much of the duck as he could possibly use throughout the it was delicious.

[Doug]

So when they deep fry the bill, does it get nice and crunchy like softshoe crab? Yeah.

[Joe]

Soft chew duck bill. No, did not use. Did not use the bill. I'm not sure what that has to do with firing the smartest people around you, Doug.

[Doug]

It doesn't. I thought we were on a break and so I was just pointing out we earlier we were talking about, you know, no food waste.

[Joe]

Well, there we go. That's gonna, that's gonna wrap up.

[Doug]

Japanese apparently can teach us a few things.

[Joe]

That's gonna wrap up our top five. If you've got your tops, let's hear them. If you're hanging out with us on Spotify, give us your top five. Even heck your top one or two. We'll talk about those in a future episode. Or if you're hanging out with us in mom's basement, our Facebook group, stuckybenjamins.com basement. Give us your top five, your top one, your top two, whatever it might be. What are the dumbest pieces of financial advice that you have heard? What did we miss? I'd love to hear all of those. Thank goodness we left time for our final segment of the day. This one we're going to help a speed round. Yeah, we're gonna help a stacker who said, you know what, I better call Saul. See. Hi and Og. This is a part of the show where we help you stackers manage your money better based on the questions that you have in everyday life. Stackingbenjamins.com Voicemail is the place to send us a quick note. And you know what it may have sound like to the Minnesotans out there that we were making fun of Minnesota. Nay, nay, nay. Our friend Rob was making fun of them himself for us in this.

[Doug]

Thanks Rob.

[Joe]

Yes, in his message. Hey Rob.

[OG]

Hello neighbor. Doug and the other two Midwest transplants living in Texas.

[Doug]

Love this guy.

[OG]

This is Rob in Minnesota. My wife and I have recently become recipients of an inheritance. In addition to investing some of the funds into various investments for our retirement, we have created a donor advised fund. We are also interested in investing some of our funds into private debt financing or impact investing. Do you have any suggestions on how we should approach this where we can help someone out while also having the possibility of making a return on an investment? Primarily, we would like to invest in women owned or immigrant owned businesses. Although we are considered accredited investors, we are looking at a total investment of no more than $50,000. Thanks for your help.

[Joe]

Hey Rob, thanks for the question. Good to hear your voice, Rob. Is a member of our Stacky Benjamin's meetup group up there in the Great White North. I heard that winter will finish there sometime, guys. In the next what, six weeks?

[OG]

I, I don't, I don't know. Very soon. I saw on the weather channels there's supposed to be a foot of snow up there.

[Doug]

Yeah, I don't actually think Minnesota got as much snow as they have in previous years. I'm sure they're getting some of the temps of winter temps, but I'm still looking at a foot of snow out my window right now.

[Joe]

Wow. Oh gee. What do you think Rob should do here?

[OG]

I think it's noble to want to do some micro investing. What's important to understand with any sort of non publicly traded investment, whether it's a micro loan, whether it's investing in your brother in law's ice cream business, whether it's the cool private equity thing. That sounds really awesome that somebody sent you a cut sheet on private real estate investing. Like anything that's not publicly traded is that you are relying solely on the good word of the person who put together the piece of paper that they're mailing it to you on. If it's a publicly traded company, you're still relying on that, but there's recourse if they're full of crap. You know, like one of the things that changed in the early 2000s and late 90s was directors and CEOs and CFOs are signing off on the accuracy of their data. You know, and we've seen it happen where company CEOs have signed off on it to find out that it's incorrect and then they find themselves in a heap of trouble, jail time, that sort of thing. Although that's certainly true and possible for micro investing or whether it's, you know, a platform or something as simple as your brother in law's ice cream business. There's the recourse is a lot. It's a lot less intense. Right. Your brother in law lies to you about his ice cream business and how many ice cream cones he's selling. You're just mad at him. And you know, you're like, well, this is bs. I wouldn't have given you the money if I'd have known you were only selling 10 ice cream cones a day. You said 100. He goes, My bad. What I would think about with any sort of non publicly traded investment is that I would expect to not get the money back. If you're thinking about it from an investing standpoint, I would Assume that the investment return has to be so great that the other side of the return is zero, if that makes sense. Right. So we know that publicly traded investments, the s and P500, you get 10, we know that small companies, you get 12 or 13. Right. And so if you're going to invest money in something that's not that regulated of industries, then you better be getting 20 or 25 or 30 or 50 or 100. Right. Percent return. But the other side of that, of getting those high returns has to be zero. If you've got a portion of your portfolio that you're like, okay, I want to take some wild swings on. And the things that I want to take wild swings on are these things that are important to us. Minority owned businesses or women owned businesses or whatever the case may be. Ice cream shops are your brother in law, it doesn't matter. Be okay with the fact that you're probably more times than not going to swing and miss, but you might be okay. And so when it comes to your financial plan, how I would fold this into your financial plan is I wouldn't count this money, I wouldn't count on it being successful. I wouldn't count on it as part of your plan. And if you do get a return or if you do get a sizable roi, that's fantastic, that can go back into the plan and you can reseed the, you know, the micro investing or the PE or whatever it is that you want to do you if that makes sense. So probably the best platform for this is going to be Kiva. Is that how you'd say it? K I v a kiva.org it's all micro loans. That's the one that I'm most familiar with. Certainly there's other businesses kind of going around. An article that I read and have seen pop up from time to time, a woman named Cody Sanchez, her focus has all been on, you know, Main street businesses. And a lot of Main street businesses are owned by mom and pop type of people, right? And some of my grandparents owned a printing business. They were immigrants, the dry cleaning people. You know, as a mom and pop business, you're not investing in a big giant corporation like a Starbucks or something like that. So that might be as simple as walking down your Main street and seeing what are the businesses that excite you and that, that you might want to partner with. But if you're looking to do something online, Kiva is probably the best platform that I'm familiar with.

[Joe]

I still wouldn't go there. OG I'm with Your original statement, I think that the average stacker, and maybe Rob you do, doesn't understand the huge jump in risk when you go from a publicly traded investment to a single investment, accredited investor or not. If you don't have a lot of experience in these, the drama that you are going to be involved in as things don't go according to plan, it is a level of frustration. 10x anything that you get from a public investment. And I think that's being generous, by the way, even if it goes well. OG there's going to be times in the development of this business where you don't agree you're brought in on some things. I'll give you an example. Locally, I've got these friends that invested in a brew pub that's right next to the main theater in town, the Perot Theater. It's called Pecan Point. They invested in Pecan Point. This wonderful guy, Bill Spurlock, owned Pecan Point. Bill partnered with another guy. They started fighting over who owns the recipe. This is after it was open. Who owned the recipe to the beer. And the beer, by the way, sucked. And it wasn't working. And they almost had to give away the beer they opened beforehand. The food part, which was Bill's part, went really well. They had this huge public feud. It's in the news. My friends who invested in this business all of a sudden are part of this, this feud about who's gonna go, who's gonna walk, who's not gonna walk. Then you even wonder if the business is gonna stay open because this is happening. So Bill ends up then in control of the business after this really public thing. Then they have this manager who is doing a horrible job. They end up having to fire this dude. Three more things later, OG Bill has a heart attack while he's on a tractor. This is the way that I heard the story. Hits a tree. The tree falls over on top of him. Like, it took them forever to figure out how this happened. Did. Did he accidentally hit a tree in the tree? Turns out he had a heart attack and he died on the tractor.

[OG]

He threw himself out of a window. Weird.

[Doug]

Oddly, the tree broke perfectly straight horizontally.

[Joe]

Now his kid, his kid, who doesn't know anything about running a restaurant, is in charge of running the restaurant partners.

[OG]

With your friends who somehow invested.

[Joe]

And my buddy is part of the money of this deal. I think if you ask my buddy, he'd rather have an ETF. 100% would rather have an ETF.

[OG]

I'll just add to your line of thinking here. What's the outcome that you're trying to get to now? It sounds like maybe that the outcome is, I want to do some good stuff with this money that I inherited. Something that's not for me, right? I want to do something that's not for me. I did something for me. I invested some money. Now I want to do something that's not for me. And do this other thing mentioned having a donor advised fund. Why not just invest the money for the next 20 years, let it double three or four times, and then you have this war chest of money that you can donate to things that are really important to you. You know, you've got $250,000, is 500 turns into 250. And now you can say, now what good can I do? Or if you just want to give away 50 grand, just give away 50 grand to somebody, but do it without the strings attached of ownership and expected return. I'm with you. Being an entrepreneur is the best thing in the world. If you're the entrepreneur, if you're an investor in entrepreneurial businesses, it's probably the worst thing in the world. I don't know that I would take your money, Joe, in my business. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know that I. Like, if you were like, I could use it, you know, like, we could have a marketing campaign or I could hire some more staff or, you know what I mean? But that's some level of complication for me and for you. Let's just take away our relationship, you know what I mean? Like, it's just weird, you know? And then you're going, wait, how come Huckam OG is not working right now? I invested in this gosh darn thing he ought to be making me, you know what I mean?

[Joe]

I had a friend that you guys both know here locally that at one point was talking about trying to invest in stacking Benjamins.

[OG]

And you're like, you just laugh.

[Joe]

No, at first I was like, oh, we could do this, we could do. And then I'm like, what the hell? Why? Why? Why? No, no, no, no.

[OG]

Give him the same ROI we get.

[Joe]

That's my point.

[Doug]

Yeah. You valued the friendship more than the money.

[Joe]

Sounds like, why have somebody else in this thing?

[OG]

I would think that if you fast forward 20 years and you say, like, what's the purpose of this? I want to help people. I want to do good with the money that I inherited. I did something for me. I want to do something for somebody else. Just dump the money into Your donor advised fund, let it ride for the next two decades and then go now what do I really want to do with it? You'll make a bigger impact than right. Investing in a business, probably.

[Doug]

I just want to take a minute because Rob said something quickly that I'm not sure if all of our listeners would understand some of the depth of where he said. We are accredited investors and not everybody listening right now may know what that means. But there are certain criteria you have to meet. It doesn't just mean you got a bunch of money and you can do whatever you want with it. Well, kind of does, but there are actual criteria for what the SEC qualifies as an accredited investor. You've got to have an income of at least 200,300 if you're investing with your partner. And sellers of unregistered securities are allowed to sell only to accredited investors. Well, what does that mean, unregistered securities? Well, they are inherently riskier because they lack the normal disclosure requirements that come with SEC registration. So you know, you're getting into the brother in law's ice cream shop or the brewery. That is not having to, you know, have books. Exactly. Neat and tidy like they would if it were an SEC registered company. And so you are by definition, if you are an accredited investor, that means you've got money to play with, but you're also getting into some pretty dicey potential investments.

[Joe]

Yeah, and by the way, that accredited investor thing, I don't know how you feel about it, og but that's a whole different episode. But that thing has to be cleaned up. What a stupid way to identify who is competent enough.

[OG]

The all in podcast a couple of weeks ago had a, had a great bit about this. They were talking about how they should have a like a test in order to a hundred percent invest in crazy stuff. Like you should have a very simple test to invest into ETFs. You should have a very complicated test to invest in private equity. On our brokerage account we have a thing, a special kind of margin privilege on our brokerage account. And in order to have it we had to take a special margin test, a special options test with all the crazy things like that totally made sense to me. It's like we're going to lend you 6x on your portfolio. You better know what the hell you're getting yourself into. Like this can go bad in a hurry if you don't know how to do it correctly. Let's make sure that you know how to do it correctly.

[Joe]

That's far more Important than these arbitrary numbers. Like what is the fact that you make $250,000.

[OG]

And that number was the same 20 years ago, by the way. So, you know, 25 years ago, 200 grand was a lot of money. Right now, 200 grand's like, you know, every so often I klarna some doordash too soon.

[Joe]

You automatically are not eligible to be an accredited investor. Do you know what you just did?

[OG]

Like, did you klarna Chewy's the other day? You're like, maybe. Why?

[Doug]

What's it to you?

[OG]

You haven't had their jalapeno ranch before. Trust me, it's worth it.

[Joe]

I hope it was worth it because you no longer can be an accredited investor. Your cognitive function is not high enough. Rob, man, thanks for that question. Great, great, great question. If you've got a question for us, Stacky Benjamins.com voicemail and you can hear us debate the question like we just did Rob with yours. All right, let's meander out on the back porch. And Doug, I think we got some email about a segment we did recently on the show. About movies or TV shows?

[Doug]

Yeah, well, both. What do you call a streaming series now? Is that a TV show still?

[Joe]

It feels like a movie. Over eight parts.

[Doug]

Right?

[Joe]

I'm just about to finish Reacher, by the way. By the time people hear this, I would have finished the last. Are you guys keeping up on Reacher?

[Doug]

We're not, actually. It's funny, that came up in discussion last night. Should we watch Reacher? We chose not to.

[Joe]

I can't wait to see how this thing ends. One episode to come.

[OG]

I'm all caught up, so.

[Joe]

Oh, isn't it? It's been so good this season.

[Doug]

Og you like this season?

[OG]

Oh, yeah. I mean, they're all great. Yeah.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Season two did not get great reviews.

[Joe]

I did. Season two is my least favorite season.

[Doug]

Yeah, I love season one. Season two, I just finished because I got halfway. I'm like, I made it this far. I might as well. So that's what's I'm. That's why I'm not diving into season three. But you guys are saying it's worth it.

[Joe]

Ah, season three, I think, is really good.

[Doug]

Okay, listener Mark, definitely. We ruffled some feathers on Mark. We put a pea under his mattress. Princess Mark, easy. Well, I don't know. I know.

[Joe]

Holy cow.

[Doug]

He said as a. Well, here's what you'll see why I was a little bit. He ruffled my feathers with this. He says, as a loyal listener, I'm very disappointed in you and your recollection of season one of the Night Agent during the after show, the part of the show that doesn't exist. The very first episode, the Night Agent himself was on a train where a bomb was planted. He pulled the emergency brake and cleared the train so it did not blow up where it was supposed to.

[Joe]

Oh, my goodness. Hold on a second.

[Doug]

Here's where Mark has run afoul, all right? He says your punishment should be swift. You should be forced to give the trivia segment on the next episode. First of all, you're taking away my job, Mark. Second of all, why punish all of the listeners by having to listen to OG Or Joe do the trivia? I mean, it's the one entertaining part of this show, and you want to give it away.

[Joe]

Mark is definitely referencing me because. Oh, gee, you said, Yeah, I don't remember the Night Agent. Is it the one where the guy's on the train and there's the bomb that was planted? And I go, yeah, I don't think so. I don't remember that scene. And Mark's like, holy crap. Like, I didn't even know what he was talking about at first. He goes, dude, it was like the very first episode of the Night Agent and you don't even remember it. And OG Asked you point blank. You're like, I don't know. I don't know. But it was really good.

[Doug]

I absolutely remember that. But I would have said that was, like, one of the culminating scenes. I wouldn't have thought that was episode one. But I definitely.

[OG]

It was like, literally the first three minutes he was going to work, I think. I don't know.

[Joe]

I think it's very early. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very early. So, Mark, you're right. Sorry. We should be punished. But I. I'm with Doug. I think. I think we find maybe some other way to flog me. Make me do dishes for Mom.

[Doug]

You'd like that, wouldn't you?

[Joe]

Oh, I would totally love that. That'd be great.

[OG]

Can we go? I gotta.

[Joe]

Okay, let's go. Doug, what should we have learned today?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from our top five lists. Debt is debt. And there are other ways to motivate yourself than using high spending as a way to force yourself to earn more. Second, buying a trend. All trends, reverse storms are a reality, and you do not not want one in your portfolio. But the big lesson. Yeah. If the guys say, hey, how awesome would it be if we pranked Joe's mom? Don't volunteer to go first. Now she's just giggling at me every time I get near the kitchen. Seriously, I have no idea what evil is about to befall your old friendly neighbor Doug, but if you don't hear from me on Friday's show, call for help. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Josal Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. 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.

[Joe]

Oh yeah.

[Doug]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from 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.