← The Stacking Benjamins Show
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- [00:00]
A
In business, there's no room for guesswork. Every shipment matters. Every deadline counts. When you're trying to keep operations running smoothly, the last thing you need is uncertainty. That's why reliability is at the core of USPS Ground Advantage. Every package moves through a secure nationwide network tracked from door to door with affordable upfront pricing and delivery you can depend on. Because knowing your logistics are handled lets you focus on everything else. Visit USPS.com ground advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS ground advantage. We mean business.
- [00:39]
B
Snacking Benjamins is not for everyone. Side effects may include euphoria, increased ability to meet your goals, and aggression from people wondering, quote, what the hell your secret is. Stacking Benjamins may be habit forming, especially if you stick around for the entire episode. Wink, wink. Please check with your doctor to see if Stacking Benjamins is right for you.
- [01:01]
C
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 handing the steering wheel over to you. That's right. Your questions are front and center, including this question from Tyler about savings rate. Tyler wants help figuring out the significance and how to up his rate. Marie has a question about a 401k. She doesn't love her company. Should she use it or invest elsewhere? And finally, jj who just scored a backdoor Roth IRA but got a tax bill from the government and lots more. You know what else we're gonna do today? Halfway through this shindig, I'll share some homemade trivia. And now three people who are big fans of homemade money talk. It's Joe, Og and special guest co host Anna.
- [02:04]
D
Thanks, Doug.
- [02:06]
A
Hey there, stackers. Welcome to Wednesday. Let me be the first to say happy Wednesday to you. I am Joe Saul Sehi and this is the Stacking Benjamin Show. Sit back and relax. You found us. And man, we're going to answer a ton of your questions today. And seated across the card table from me. Well, let's start with my usual co host. Mr. OG is here. How are you, man?
- [02:31]
E
I'm just here so I don't get fined.
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A
Yes, you brought in the person who's going to do all the work for us today. Anna's here with us.
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E
Yeah.
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A
How are you, Anna?
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D
Hi, Joe. I'm good, thanks. Happy to be here. A little happier than OG I'm always said.
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E
This is my happy face.
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C
Yeah, I was going to say you're
- [02:48]
D
like the pow pow fish.
- [02:51]
C
What's a pow pow note?
- [02:52]
E
That is the pow pow fish.
- [02:54]
D
It's a children's book. It's a fish who has obviously pow pow face.
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A
It's the perfect analogy for the three of us.
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E
Maybe people say rbf I have resting.
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D
I say pop up face.
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A
I see we can call it ROF now is that we're going to call
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E
it resting OG face.
- [03:15]
A
Well, we got a great show. I'm super happy that you guys are here to help us answer our questions that Stacker submitted. By the way, if you have a question, go to stacky benjamin.com voicemail and we're happy to answer yours too the next time, but we've got some fantastic questions. We're going to get to those, but before that we got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them and then Anna, OG and I, we're going to dive into your questions. In business, there is no room for guesswork. Every shipment matters. Every deadline counts. And when you're trying to keep operations running smoothly, the last thing you need is uncertainty. That's why reliability is at the core of USPS Ground Advantage. From the moment your package is first scanned in, it moves through a secure nationwide network, aiding in a timely and accurate delivery. You get near real time tracking so you can keep up with your shipments and with affordable upfront pricing. The There are no hidden fees or surprise surcharges to throw off your cost sheets. It all adds up to predictable deliveries you can depend on because knowing your logistics are handled lets you focus on everything else. Your customers, your team, and the future you're building. Visit USPS.com ground advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS Ground Advantage We Mean Business I had a breakfast mentoring meeting yesterday with a young woman who was just amazing. She is graduating from college with a degree in wealth management and she reached out hoping for some pointers. And listen, if somebody's in Texarkana and wants to go into this beautiful field of personal finance and helping people get their money together, that is incredible. But even more incredible is how she reached out, how she was trying to network and I was having a discussion that finding the right person and avoiding the wrong person for a role, that's what can make or break an organization. And we just don't see that many qualified people. So how do you find them? Well, indeed sponsored jobs is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent. If you're hiring, indeed is all you need. You can stop struggling to get your job post even seen on other sites you'll match with quality candidates with indeed sponsored jobs. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need. Reach candidates who meet your specific criteria like skill, certifications or location. Drives me crazy when I'm matched with all kinds of people who aren't a fit. I don't have that kind of time. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now in the minute I've been talking to you. Companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed. According to Indeed data worldwide, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non Sponsored jobs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all the boxes. Less stress, less time, more results when you need the right person to cut through the chaos. This is a job for Indeed. Sponsored Job and here's what's cool Stackers. You're going to get $75 in sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com podcast just go to Indeed.com podcast right right now and support Stacking Benjamin by saying you heard about Indeed right here at stacking benjamin indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the Right Way with Indeed. All right, let's start this shindig with a great question here from Tyler on savings rates.
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F
The word savings rate comes up on the show all the time, but after trying numerous different ways to calculate it, I'm beginning to feel like the concept is meaningless without further context. For example, when I use Monarch, my savings rate is entirely based on cash flow and it doesn't reflect savings in a 403, 401, 529, or other accounts. It's also not adjusted for taxes or employer contributions. From there, it becomes even more complicated. I participate in the ESPP and I have RSU grants. I'm not sure if I factor those as they are acquired or after I sell them annually once they reach long term capital gains taxes. Depending on which approach I use, my savings rate varies from 10 to over 50%. Am I just doing okay or am I absolutely crushing it? The savings rate, whatever the hell that means, actually matter if you're seeing consistent positive cash flow and net worth growth. How do each of you calculate it? Does OG do it differently? What's the simplest way? I presume that's what Doug does. Honestly, I'm most interested in that.
- [08:25]
A
He's most interested in whatever Doug does. If Doug does it the simple way, I want the simple way. Tyler, thank you very much for the question. And by the way, of course you're crushing it because you're hanging out with us that's always the first definition of crushing. It is being a stacker, but. Oh, gee, this is a good question. You know, you see these people online all the time, nerd out about things like savings rates, safe withdrawal rates, we call ourselves all these different versions of Phi Coast Phi, Barista Phi. Like, we got all these different things. I mean, when I first heard of the 401k, I was even like, what the hell is that? Like, I can't run that far. That's a. That's a long, long way.
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E
Such an OG.
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A
No.
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E
Awful.
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G
No. Nope.
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A
Too soon.
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E
So bad.
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A
But back to Tyler's question. Does his savings rate matter? Is he crushing it, or is he just doing okay?
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E
Ultimately, it's however you feel like describing to yourself whatever it is that motivates you or demotivates you. If you're making a million dollars a year and you're saving 10%, the savings rate people would be like, oh, my God, I can't believe your savings rate's only 10%. If you're making 200,000 a year and you're saving 30%, all the savings rate people are like, oh, my God, you're so amazing.
- [09:41]
G
You're saving.
- [09:42]
E
But guess who has more money? The guy that's putting a hundred grand away versus the guy who's putting 60 grand away. Sometimes it's an absolute, sometimes it's a rate, sometimes it's none of those things. Because ultimately, the only thing that matters is how much you are actually moving toward the goals that are important to you. If your financial goals require you to save $10,000 a year, and you're saving nine, but that's a great percentage, you arrive to your goals without having enough money, and you'll be broke. You know, your kids don't go to school or whatever you're trying to do. If you are supposed to save $10,000 a year, but you're really focused on savings rates, so you save 20,000 because that's 20%, and that makes you feel good about yourself, well, then you're over saving, and you're stealing from life experiences today that you could be enjoying now. So I think you have to go back to, what are you trying to get out of this whole charade of life as it relates to money? What's the path look like for you? And then what do you have to do? What do you have to bring to the table? And there's another piece of this, too, that we talk about a lot, which is there's some people that have just blindly saved money. You just Invested, Right. I'm supposed to invest. So I did it. And now they're waking up and they're 40 years old or 45 years old. With two or three million dollars in the bank, you might not need to have any savings rate from here on out. Like you might be good. Like that's the whole thing that you did by luck or maybe intention. But you know, you end up with a, with a big basket of cash. And that in and of itself, your money is going to make enough money from here on out that you don't have to do anything unless you want to accelerate your goals. So really start with what are you trying to accomplish? And then, and then the savings rate stuff doesn't really matter.
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A
Yeah, I like what OG saying here, Anna. And I just think about what mom says. The comparison is the thief of joy comparing herself to other people. And I feel like focusing on savings rate just invites comparing yourself with somebody else.
- [11:41]
D
Absolutely. I do think if you come up with the rate that you want, it doesn't mean 5% is, is bad and 25% is good. But whatever number you come up with based off of your goals, based off of the speed you want to get to your goals, all that, you have to come up with the number that works for you. And I think that's what OG is talking about. And we're not comparing it to other people. But once you do nail down that number and you want to actually calculate it, I think what you can do is look at your gross income. It's not as challenging as it might seem. I wouldn't look at Monarch, I wouldn't look at that. They can't see the whole picture. I would look at what's your total income and you're dividing your total savings. So 401k, 403b, employer match, your brokerage savings, your cash savings, your company stock, if you're saving into an ESPP, if you get RSUs, all of that is income. And if you're saving it, then it should count towards that on the RSU side of things. I don't think you need to wait until you sell them. Technically they're yours when they vest, so I would use it when they vest. But I think that's the clearest number that you're going to get and it will be most consistent as you continue on. And you can keep recalculating this, but
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A
you don't count the RSU's before they vest, is what you're saying.
- [12:59]
D
No, because what if you get fired?
- [13:01]
A
My thought process just is Is that you're so much happier if you just begin with the end of mine. Like, what am I saving toward? And then the question is, is, am I saving enough to meet that goal? And if I'm not saving enough, then my saving rate sucks. If my savings raise 50%, it needs to be 60 to reach this goal that I'm really thrilled about. That no, 50 sucks, which is kind of funny to say. But if I need to save 5% and I'm saving 10%, why am I saving so much money? Yeah, like why?
- [13:30]
D
Yeah. And what's the trade off for that too? Like you want to now save 50% of your income. What does that look like for you? Are you now not going on vacations? And, and that's all because you want to retire five years earlier, living in
- [13:45]
A
a van down by the river, right? Yeah. Yeah. What are you giving up for this? You know, future of unicorns and rainbows. I just think that we in the financial nerd community, sometimes we're our own worst enemy because we focus on things like save more, save more, save more, save more instead of live more, live more, live more. And I think it's all gotta begin with your goals.
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E
Og it's the only thing that matters.
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A
Yeah. Let's say though that he does need to notch up his savings rate while we're on this question, because I think this is a good exercise because let's say you're not saving enough. You start with the end of mine, you've got this goal and you need to save more. Anna, what's an easy way somebody can begin notching up that savings rate?
- [14:25]
D
I think it can be a slow process. I don't think it has to happen immediately. There's automatic transfers that you can do. $50 a paycheck going in, I mean, depending on what your, your total income is. But $50 a paycheck, going into your brokerage account, going into a Roth, going into cash, if you're saving for something that's more short term, small incremental changes is what I think is going to last the longest.
- [14:54]
A
Yeah, I love this idea of hiding a little bit of money from yourself. Oh gee. You and I have been doing this for a long time and just challenging people to raise that savings rate, like Anna suggesting just a little bit. I don't remember any time during my 16 year career somebody ever coming back and, and going, I wasn't able to do that. Like the 50 bucks Anna's talking about. I just go, hey, let's just challenge ourselves and see if you can do it. And they go be like, oh, what if I need that money? Well, we can lower it again. Just call me and we'll put in a place where, you know, you can get it. If you end up needing the money, we'll put it in someplace. But let's just take the challenge and. Oh, gee. I've never had a time when somebody came back and said that didn't work.
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E
I had a funny joke there when you said, we've been hiding money from each other for a long time. And I was thinking, yeah, I've been hiding money from you for, like, 15 years, man. You should see how much money I have sucked away.
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A
It's incredible. All that big podcasting money. Oh, gee. Spin. Piling it up, ready to embezzle out.
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E
You guys have seen, like, the whole Scrooge McDuck thing with the big fault of dollar bills that he dives into.
- [15:54]
A
Yeah, that's you.
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D
That's you.
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E
It's like my spare bedroom podcast money.
- [15:59]
C
All the. All the hidden podcast wealth, bathing in podcast money.
- [16:04]
A
I also like the idea at nog. I'd love to hear some of the tactics that you'll use. I love just the challenge that Anna suggests. I like going through your expenses and taking a look at which ones really are ones that we could get rid of to save more money.
- [16:21]
E
So I was going through, I downloaded all of our monarch transactions from 2025, and I dumped it into an AI tool, and I was like, put this all in categories and tell me what you think. And it goes, are you on a wine subscription?
- [16:37]
G
No.
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E
It's like, do you know how much money you'd have if you didn't buy this wine? It literally said, is this a subscription you forgot to cancel? Because it comes up often, very frequently.
- [16:49]
D
Oh, gee. Does that spark joy? Going back to what Joe said, okay, then that's all that matters.
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C
Does it spark joy the next morning?
- [16:57]
D
True. Does it spark joy when you're riding your bike?
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B
Yeah.
- [17:00]
A
If wine does it, then that's great. If it doesn't, then certainly start saving that money. And then when you don't have it available, your habits change based on your savings. Tyler, that's a great. Cheryl and I do this every week in our weekly meeting. We look at how we spent money the week before, and we ask that question, did we really like that thing that we did? And, man, we found that our savings rate went up almost unintentionally as we started just being more focused on what we really valued. Let's stick with this idea. Of financial concepts. Tyler wanted to talk about savings rate, and Michael wanted to talk about a different calculation that he's struggling with. And this one is around inflation. Hey, Michael.
- [17:45]
B
Hey guys, it's Michael at New Mexico, and I've got another question I'm hoping can spark some interesting discussion. I was listening to episode 1789 and during the part where you all are talking about the individual who is tracking their net worth in inflation adjusted dollars, that got me thinking about my own plan and the ways in which inflation both fits into it and doesn't fit into it. Back in 2021, when I was fresh out of school and my spirit had yet to be grounded dust by the world of engineering, I estimated that I would need about $1.5 million to retire in $2021. This would account for potential changes in my lifestyle between now and whenever I actually do intend to retire. If you fast forward to today, I've managed to save about 33% of that number, but that's in $2026. But my initial goal of 1.5 million remains unchanged. So my question for you is, how often should we be returning to our goals and adjusting them based on inflation? From where I'm sitting, five years feels like a good spot, but I'm also about 10 years from hitting that goal. Even if I don't plan to spend the money in 10 years. And I could see that how long you have until the goal affects that number. I'm hoping this at least serves as a good jumping off point for some interesting discussions. And thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen.
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A
Michael, thank you so much for the question. And I'm sad that your spirit got grounded to dust by the world of engineering.
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E
Five short years even. Just think what the next 20 years will be like. There's a funny YouTube or something where they're wrapping up a meeting and she's like, okay, well, see you guys in the fall. And. And like the two other like, older corporate people are like, you on vacation or something? She's like, no, it's end of June, summer break. They're like, yeah, we don't do summer break at work. Like, it's work. She goes, what do you guys have to look forward to? And the lady goes, retirement maybe. She goes, oh. And then she goes, I got a rebate on a furnace. That was kind of cool. Anyway, see you on Monday.
- [19:45]
C
It is crazy how excited you get about those things.
- [19:48]
E
You're like, ah, I got a $250 rebate on that. That's really Cool. I forgot about that. It's like, what do you find in your pocket?
- [19:54]
A
We had a leader when I was at American Express that would talk about the power of being five. And when you were five years old, you were gonna be a firefighter, the president, or an astro lot. And then when you're 40, you're hoping for a 3% cost of living raise, like just the. The different outlook that you might have. This is an interesting question, Michael. What's most interesting to me about this question is 5 years ago on stacking Benjamins, we were never talking about inflation. And when we did, I felt like we put all the stackers to sleep. Because, you know, inflation, while we called it the silent killer, was something that was pretty much silent. I mean, it was. It was just this 2 to 3 to maybe 4% per year. And now we look at inflation today versus five years ago, just the cost of living has changed dramatically. But I guess, Anna, that brings up Michael's question, which is he starts off calculating his goal. Now, inflation has been a little different than what he thought it would be. How often should he recalculate, you know, the experience that he's had and. And what his gold cost now versus what he thought it cost five years ago?
- [21:02]
D
Yeah. Even though inflation the last couple years has been higher than normal, than average, there's still inflation nonetheless. So this needs to be addressed whether we're in a environment with very high inflation or not. And to answer his question about how often he needs to look at his plan and adjust it for inflation, I think that really depends on how dialed in he is on his return. I mean, this is also just how often are we looking at the plan in general? Because I think every time you look at the plan and you're really trying to figure out what your number is and all the numbers involved in it, inflation should be part of that conversation and part of that planning. So it really goes back to how often are we looking at the plan in general? And I think if you're looking at it every five years, then you're probably pointing the ship in the right direction, and that's totally fine. There's people who never look at the plan. So every five years is better than that. It could probably be done more often than every five years. Every year is probably a good cadence. If you are a little bit more honed in on, like, what you're trying to achieve and you have a specific number in mind and that's what you're working towards.
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A
It's interesting that you say that Because I look at it like a road trip, Anna. I mean, initially you get on the road and I live in Texas and let's say I'm going to California. Initially I just point the car toward California on the highway that gets me there. But when I get to California, I'm looking for exit 76 that says this, you know what I mean? The road becomes clearer the closer you get. So I think it's easier to get more granular the closer that you get as well. So the goal's even gonna change a little bit?
- [22:52]
D
Yeah, that too. Going back to adjusting the plan. Like in the last five years your expenses probably have changed. I mean, I don't know, outside of inflation, maybe you potentially had a kid, gotten married, you could just be at a higher salary now, and now you're spending more money, you've nicer things, nicer memberships, like all that kind of stuff could have changed in the last five years. So everything needs to be updated.
- [23:20]
A
Yeah, that is interesting, Michael, that it's not just inflation, the goal has changed also. Oh, gee. His investment results are not going to be what you pinpointed either. Like, even if you're just doing the back of the envelope, the, you know, rule of 72 or whatever with your investments, you're not going to double exactly every, every X number of years because you're not going to get that exact return that you focused on.
- [23:45]
E
Well, and honestly, most people forget about the value of the contributions, especially early in terms of your doubling frequency. You know, if you're maxing out your 401k, you're putting money in a Roth, or if there's two people in the household and you're doing a bunch of savings, you know, and you're starting from scratch, or you're starting, you got 30 grand in your account, you know, and this year you put in 80,000, you've more than doubled, you've quadrupled in one year, and next year you put another 80, you doubled again. So the doubling happens because of your contributions, not because of the market. I would look at this from the perspective of the inflation adjustment on the front end. Let's assume for a second that you could accurately predict your spending today. And setting aside for a moment that 25 year olds spend way differently than 35 year olds who spend differently than 45 year olds just because of life circumstances, generally speaking. And I know there's plenty of people that are out there that are like, no, we track everything to the penny and our cost of living is, you know, remain flat for 20 years and okay, that's cool. But like Anna said, you know, as your life changes, you do other things. You maybe go on vacation, more or less, or you, you know, your kids are involved in different events or you join a country club or, you know, whatever, you have different hobbies. And so your spending likely is going to change. And I've never met anybody who retires, especially retires early to a lower standard of living, right? Like, I spend 10,000amonth, but I can't wait to retire five years earlier than I should and spend 7,000amonth. Nobody does that. Now if you're 68 years old and you're like, okay, I've been doing this for like 40 years, I have to be done. Like, I will just accept whatever I have to accept at that point that happens. But maybe 50 year old doesn't walk out early to a crappier lifestyle than they're used to. So let's just assume that you're 30 years old and you're like, nope, I'm convinced that I know exactly what my spending is going to be and I just need to have this target. Kind of like what you were saying, Joe, out in the distance, some pretty broad brushstroke number. But I need to at least account for inflation. I think you do the inflation on the living expense in the front. So let's say that Your spending is $100,000 a year and you say, well, I want to use the 4% rule as a rule of thumb to get me close. That says If I distribute 4% of the portfolio, my first year retirement, add inflation to that every year, I should be okay. That's kind of the theme of the 4% rule. So basically I got to get to a big enough pool at my retirement date so that my 4% number is there. So you divide by 4%. So what I would do is I take that cost of living 100k, I got 20 years to go, I would add inflation for 20 years on that 100k. You just do it on your calculator or type it in the computer and it will say, okay, your, your new spending in 20 years from now is, I'm going to make up the number because I'm not going to do it. Let's say it's 200,000, then divide that number by 4% if you want to use the 4% rule. And so now you've got your true inflation adjusted dollar amount based on today's spending that you've inflated. Does that make sense? And like Anna said, the reality Is is that you're going to be fine tuning this every year as you're reviewing your financial plan anyway. And then in those final 10 years of retirement, you're really going to be. Or final 10 years before retirement, rather, you're really going to be kind of being particular about like, is this a recurring expense? Is this going to go away? I need to factor in this one time thing that may or may not happen, so you get a little bit more granular. But if I was doing this and I was 30 and I said I want to be done at 55, I got 25 years and I spent 100 grand a year, I would just inflate 100 grand for 25 years at 3% makes it 200. Divide by 4%, that means I got to have somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3, 4, 5 million dollars. Is that right? 5 million at 4%.
- [27:34]
A
And I don't know that I want to go OG right when I reach that point either. I actually, this was part of my talk in Seattle last weekend, right? Was the scoreboard. Well, just, just, just like I said there, you start off with if your goal is a happy retirement, you start off with this question. Oh my God, inflation. You know, take Michael's question, but you're retired. Oh my God. Inflation was way more than it said in my plan. What am I going to do? Because I use the 4% rule, and I went immediately when I reached 4%. Now I can't live on that same amount of money anymore that I did. That leads us to watching the stock market every day, right? Instead of doing the things that you want to do in retirement, so you're fixated on the tv. We've seen a little bumpiness in the road lately in the stock market. And I think. But there's always bumpiness in the road. But you're watching every single move because you need that 4%. Like you've, you've based your lifestyle on that same number.
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E
And then that's not the 4% rule, though. The 4% rule is 4% on day one, plus inflation from that point forward.
- [28:39]
A
But what I'm saying is if I base the amount of my spending on that versus what I want to do, which I see some people, you know, you see all these people online that go on and on and on about the 4% rule and go on and on and on about, oh my goodness, the safe withdrawal rate, right? What's the safe withdrawal rate that I can live on? And I'm on this jagged edge. I think I become the Angry guy that watches my TV all day. We all know this person. They're fixated on the tv. They're watching every single thing. They're worried all the time. Is that a happy retirement? I don't, I don't think it is.
- [29:07]
E
Yeah.
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A
Even if you get to the point where you reach the number, I think I might build in a little buffer above that, I guess, is my point.
- [29:15]
E
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Be pretty, pretty silly to pull again, depending on the timing. Right. If you're like, if you're the person that's trying to do this early financial independence thing.
- [29:26]
G
Yeah.
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E
You want to give yourself a margin of safety if you're like 64 and a half years old. And by God, if I work a day past 65, so be it. And like my lips are just above that 4% target number.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah.
- [29:38]
E
Gone.
- [29:39]
A
I'm out, sure. But I'm still, then rather than spending every punny, I'm still looking for ways to lower that number, give myself a little margin of error because I don't want to be watching the news all day. I don't want to worry about, you know, if the stock market drops, I can no longer live. If the inflation goes up, I can no longer live. Like all of these things that I could worry about.
- [29:58]
C
4% does give you a little cushion because isn't it up to 4.7 now?
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A
It is, yeah.
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E
Five something.
- [30:04]
A
It could be five.
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D
The other thing to take into consideration too is that 4% rule is based off of a 6040 portfolio. So maybe that's where you're at. But I know a lot of people were moving away from 6040 portfolio in retirement. There's been some articles I read recently about that.
- [30:23]
E
I think, of course they are, because the market's at an all time high. Everybody's like, yolo, man, this is awesome.
- [30:29]
D
Yeah. There's other ways to protect yourself from risk in retirement. And so the 4% rule, I don't think it's too far off of 4%, but it's not that we need to be tethered to that number particularly.
- [30:44]
A
I think it's a, it's just a better number to be tethered to the number you need for your goal and then ask, can I safely maintain retirement during that time?
- [30:53]
D
Yeah.
- [30:54]
A
It's interesting, Michael, that you bring this up because I think that all of these things factor into your plan. And the reason why I like what Anna said about checking it every year is not just a course. Correct. Which is what we've been talking about during our answer. But it also is, you know, we get frustrated with the boring middle of the plan. We get frustrated with. I'm still just doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over, and it doesn't look like I'm making any headway. And if you look at it once a year and you can look back a year and you see just how many steps you've taken. I like Anna. I like these many celebrations along the way so you don't get distracted and you don't get. You don't wreck your own plan. You high five yourself and it gives you the courage to keep going. Yeah.
- [31:40]
D
And also on the flip side, trying to give yourself grace, too, when you have difficult years and you maybe need to adjust it, but you understand why, like, maybe an emergency came up or something came up or the plan changed, but giving yourself grace in that. Because of. In that moment, you know what happened. You know the feeling. You know, you had to adjust cores, and that's okay because it's what you had to deal with.
- [32:07]
A
Yeah. Great stuff, Michael. Thank you so much for the question. And keep stacking those Benjamins, buddy. Hey, we've got three more, but we've got Doug, who looks a little antsy here. We're a little late to your trivia, my friend. What do you got on tap today?
- [32:24]
C
Yeah, really? You guys just keep on. I mean, you guys just keep on going? I don't. Nobody's really here for the. What am I talking about? Everybody is here for the trivia. Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we ask all the time, how do I know that my advisor has my best interest at heart? The answer is they should be something called a fiduciary. A word that's not that fun to say and kind of sounds like a medical issue Joe's mom's having right now. But sadly, as OG says all the time, nobody's really enforcing the fiduciary rule. So lots of providers are calling themselves. This ridiculous word would do that to themselves. But here's a question. An advisor is required to hand you a form that can help you find out about whether they are, in fact a fiduciary, where they may have conflicts of interest and where they've had disciplinary actions against them in the past. What is the name of this form you should definitely ask advisors for? I'll be back right after I go find out if Joe's mom's fiduciary gland is inflamed again.
- [33:37]
A
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- [33:45]
D
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- [33:50]
A
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- [34:01]
D
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- [34:12]
C
Hey there stackers. I'm big word lover and guy who will tell you to fidouche this naughty Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Fiduciary is a big word that sadly has no teeth, thank God. But you can still protect yourself by asking for a form that shares how your advisor is paid, where conflicts of interest may arise and any disciplinary actions against them. Among other things that'll help you decide if they're on the up and up. What's the name of this form? It's called form adv. Officially known as the Uniform Application for Invention, Investment Advisor, Registration and Report by Exempt Reporting Advisor. That's so ridiculous. Where do they get ADV out of all of that? I mean, I, I guess every letter in the Alphabet's in there, so adv, probably you can pull from that. It's the government. There's your answer. Now, your advisor may tell you she doesn't have an adv, but that just means you've got a lot more questions to ask and you'll have a great discussion before you buy that oceanfront property in Montana. I hear it's beautiful this time of year. Did you learn something? Of course you did. On this show you learn all the time. Stacker. And now back to three people who are also still learning how to quickly say fiduciary. Joe, Og and Nana.
- [35:34]
A
Thanks to Doug, who puts the douche
- [35:36]
C
in the douche here we all try to contribute in our own ways.
- [35:42]
A
Good, good work, my friend. That is a quite the term. Whoever created that term, I have no idea. Hey, in the first half we talked financial planning and some of the financial planning concepts like savings rate, we talked about 4% rule, we talked about inflation. In the second half we've got a couple questions about 401k. So let's start off with Marie. Hey Marie.
- [36:09]
H
Hello basement dwellers. This is Decker, Marie and I am calling to ask a question about a 401k. I am working currently with a company that I am closing my service with and will be starting a position at a kind of pass through company contractor. And this contractor has a 401k provided, which is nice. With a company that I'm going to call Eddie. I have some experience with Eddie in the past and I don't like Eddie. Just for a little bit of background. Before I got married a few months ago, I had collected about $2 million chasing fire. I'm definitely financially independent as a single person, but as a married person I am not. And my husband is a little less on board. So I'm working on what that's going to look like in the near future. Anyway, that money part of it is 1.1 million in traditional retirement accounts. 425 in Roth. And this year I have already put about $8,000 in for frontloading. So would you avoid Eddie by not putting money in? There's no match from my company so I don't see that I'm missing anything out and I could pass through to the new company with a better 401k soon. Thanks.
- [37:30]
A
Hey, thanks for the question, Marie. And congratulations by the way on a nice job of saving so far and getting married.
- [37:36]
D
I was going to say. I thought you were going to say marriage.
- [37:38]
C
Yeah. Oh, by the way, it's all dollars and cents to Joe.
- [37:43]
A
It is, it is. The other stuff that's okay too. But great savings rate. Nice job. Anna, let's dive into this. Marie does not like Eddie. This 401 provider, she's done a good job of saving. Is she okay just ignoring or saving for a little bit while she's at this company for a short amount of time?
- [38:01]
D
Yeah. Is she. Are we assuming that she's going to the next company within the same year, like in 2026, she'll be at a new company with a 401k access and all that.
- [38:12]
A
I don't know the answer to that. I don't think she clarified. So let's do it both ways. Let's say she is and she isn't.
- [38:18]
D
If she is going to go to a new company, let's say mid year and she will get access to contribute to the 401k because that's also key in this situation. If she can start with a new company in, let's say July, they may not let her contribute to the 401k until a certain period of time. So keep that in mind if that is this situation. But if it is, you start in June or July, whatever it is, and you can now contribute to their 401k. Yeah, just wait until you move over there. I personally haven't had an issue with a 401k provider so much that I wouldn't want to contribute to them and Just kind of like get through the rest of it. But if it is that terrible, then on the flip side of things, let's say she's not going to have access to a 401k. If you're already financially independent, let's take the husband out of this too. Then throw some money into a brokerage account. You can save in other places. And it sounds like you're young, sounds like you might need access to the money before you're 59 and a half. Maybe it's actually better to be moving some money over to the brokerage, just
- [39:32]
A
building some more flexibility.
- [39:34]
D
Yeah.
- [39:34]
A
Instead of handing money to Eddie. I like that solution, but I also think, oh gee, I like what Anna said about the fact that is it really a 401k so bad that you don't put money in it because you get the tax break. Right. You get the tax sheltering. And if she, if she's moving on to another company, whether it's this year or next year, whenever in the future, she can just roll it away from Eddie the second that she leaves the company.
- [40:01]
E
OG ultimately it's just going to go down to, or come down to the impact. You know, if you're going to do pre tax contributions, you know, and you don't do that 25k or whatever it is, you're going to have a $8,000 tax bill, something like that. I also heard her say that it's going to be an independent contractor position, which to me signifies a 1099, which means you can do your own 401k if you want, as long as you make that kind of money. It may actually be better to do your own 401 because it can reduce your overall tax bill even better than a normal 401 potentially. And you have more flexibility and you can put it wherever you want and you can do your own match if you're paid as a 1099 person, even if it's a short period of time. If you make $20,000, you can set up your own 401k, put virtually all 20k into it, then you've largely hit the max and off you go. I also have not run into a 401k plan that's so atrocious. I would just be curious as to what makes it bad. Is it the user interface vanguard very publicly even has announced themselves that, hey, we recognize that our technology is crappy. You know why it's crappy? Because we don't charge you guys any money. So we don't have any money left over. After we pay our people to frigging fix our tech. You know, that's. Pick your poison. Do you want, like, a cool tech program or do you want cheap fees in your ETFs? So is it like the tech package sucks? The usability? Is it like the cost structure? Because most of the time when it comes to 401ks, like you said, Joe, it's just, you know, or Anna, whoever said this, it's like it's somewhat regulated. You know what I mean? Like, the structure has to be the same. There's no surprises there. Maybe it could be full of, like, crappy funds.
- [41:40]
G
Maybe.
- [41:40]
E
I don't even know.
- [41:41]
D
But that's like, on the. Even if it was funds, it's on the. The company side more so than it is on.
- [41:46]
E
Well, I was thinking about, like, a total cost or something.
- [41:49]
G
Yeah.
- [41:49]
E
Don't let that be an excuse to not save money. You know, it sounds like in Marie's case, she's a great saver anyway. So she's going to save money. She'll just put it in her Roth or she'll put in her hsa or she'll put in her, you know, create her own 401k or brokerage account or whatever. Like she's got the discipline to do that. What we don't want to do is we don't want somebody to listen to this and go, oh, well, you know, if your 401k sucks, you shouldn't do it. It's like, well, no, you probably still should. And especially if you're getting a match, I don't care how sucky your 4. In your opinion, your 401k is free money is free money. Like, go get the free money. If you have some reason that you don't want to get put in beyond the free money, fine, but get the free contribution anyway.
- [42:29]
A
Marie, thank you so much for the question and congratulations. Congratulations on the savings rate and the marriage. Maybe I should do that, say that differently, the marriage and the savings rate. I don't know, but sounds like things are going in your direction.
- [42:43]
C
Joe's like, I give it a year.
- [42:47]
E
This deadbeat's not financially independent like me.
- [42:50]
C
So he smashed that cake in her face at the reception. It's never gonna last.
- [42:56]
A
We got another question on 401ks. This one comes from stacker Shane. Hey, man.
- [43:03]
G
Hey, fellas. This is Shane from Kansas. I got a question for OG my s P500 fund with Charles Schwab had a split back in August of 2025, and they said that it was to make the price more marketable and, you know, attractive to investors. But these days, with no minimum purchase amount and fractional shares pretty readily available for mutual funds and stocks and the like, I mean, basically at any brokerage anymore with no fees, what's the real reason why a split in today's market for funds or stocks? Can you dig into why companies or mutual funds would do a split? Whether there are advantages, maybe like long term. I know that at the time of the split, value for value, I have the exact same amount. And even that the dividend splits proportionally. But is there a benefit long term somehow? I mean, technically, now I have more shares. Anyway, thanks for all the laughs, the live shows. And Doug, you're still the lifeblood of the show. See ya.
- [44:11]
A
Oh, man.
- [44:11]
C
Did he say.
- [44:12]
A
Did he have to go there?
- [44:13]
C
What did he say I was the snow leopard?
- [44:14]
A
You said you're the lifeblood of the show.
- [44:16]
C
Lifeblood of the show. Damn, that's a smart man right there, Shane.
- [44:20]
A
Agree to disagree. Shane, thank you so much for the question and for hanging out with us. When we make our Friday shows, we do those on Monday Afternoons on YouTube. If you want to join us, just subscribe to the YouTube channel and make sure your alerts are on. You'll see when we go live. But he said specifically this was a question for OG which Anna and I went back and forth on. We're not allowed to answer this, Hannah.
- [44:44]
D
We have no business. I'm putting my feet up. So this is all you, og.
- [44:49]
A
It's time, man. So what's the deal? Why do they. In the old days, splitting it to make it more attractive for investors made sense. But why would a fund or a stock split these days?
- [45:00]
E
Well, first of all, it wasn't just the S and P fund that Schwab did this with. They did it with a bunch of products on last August. And it 100% has to do with the optics. You're right. The math doesn't change. It doesn't change the number of shares. I mean, it changes the number of shares outstanding, but it's divided by the same number. So share price is the same. The dividend payout is lower per share, but you have more shares, right? So like that stays the same. Your net difference is zero whether you have a hundred shares at $10 or 10 shares at $100. That's just how much you have. It's 100%. An optics thing. And while it's true that there's some places that you can do in a lot of places, you can do fractional shares. Not every place and not initially, sometimes depending on the product. And I don't know. Schwab S and P fund. Exactly. You know what rules they have around their initial purchase or subsequent purchases. They probably allow it. But I have known places that have some limitations there as well. But yeah, this is 100% a optics thing. Do you want to buy the thing that's $160, or do you want to buy the thing that's 16 bucks? And when you buy the thing that's $16, you feel like you got a better. You know, you did had more progress because you're like, oh, I got 10 of those instead of one. And so now I feel like a different level of baller with 10 in my account versus 1, even though the dollar amount's the same. And if you're looking at it from Schwab's perspective, they're competing against in terms of index funds, right? They're competing against Fidelity's index funds, Vanguard's index fund, BlackRock's index fund, that all largely do the same thing, all for roughly the same price. So how do you differentiate yourself? You can differentiate yourself by saying, ours doesn't cost 600 bucks. Ours cost 60. What a deal. You know, again, it's the same thing. It just. If you're a consumer of that, maybe you notice that it's a different price.
- [47:03]
A
Shane, thanks a lot for the question. And now you know. Now you can brag to all your friends that you know exactly why that is and you can just, I have
- [47:10]
E
10 shares of the fund. You losers only have one. Now, my favorite thing that happens with this, by the way, is when all the threads come up and go, why is the S and P down 84% today? And it's like it was a 6 to 1 split. It will be adjusted on your statement. Just give it a second.
- [47:27]
A
The sky is falling for real.
- [47:29]
C
Chill, man.
- [47:31]
A
One more question. Today before we say goodbye, we got a text question from J.J. not it.
- [47:35]
D
That's okay, because he wrote it to me.
- [47:38]
I
Hi, Joe and OG and of course, Doug. I'm JJ From Atlanta. I had opened a traditional IRA and Roth IRA with Charles Schwab, basically primarily for the purpose of, you know, doing a backdoor growth IRA. I moved $5,000 last year to the traditional IRA. And the moment it got cleared, within three days, I moved it to the Roth IRA, in effect doing a backdoor Roth. However, this year I got a 1099 R for the traditional Roth IR. And the 1099 R says shows the taxable amount has $5,000.03. I guess $0.03 is for the three, you know, interest or whatever it gained. But my question is, do I need to pay taxes on it? Because I immediately rolled it over to the Roth IRA and I didn't do any transactions in the traditional ira. I've been a long term listener of your show. Keep on doing the great work and of course enjoy Doug's jokes.
- [48:39]
F
Thank you.
- [48:40]
A
Oh, man. What is it?
- [48:42]
C
These last two questions are the best ones. I was wondering, the first couple of callers, I'm like, eh, boring. Now we're kicking it up a notch.
- [48:50]
D
Now we're kicking it up notch.
- [48:52]
C
Here we go.
- [48:53]
D
All right, what do we do with the 3 cents?
- [48:56]
A
JJ, glad to hear from you. And this sounds like he might be a little distraught. Anna. I mean, you, you do the right thing, right? You're, you're doing everything by the book and you get this tax form. What do you do?
- [49:09]
D
I know you don't want the IRS coming after you for those three cents, that's for sure.
- [49:14]
A
Well, and that is the part that I think will confuse everybody, like, what do you do with the 3 cents? But I think JJ, Anna's worried about the whole thing. He did this by the book and he's worried that I still got this tax form even though I'm just executing this backdoor Roth ira.
- [49:31]
D
Okay. When you do a backdoor Roth, you're basically going about it because you are over the income limit to do a direct Roth contribution. So ideal world, you're just putting money directly into a roth. But in JJ's case, he makes a lot of money and he can't put money directly into a Roth anymore. So what he's doing is doing a non deductible contribution into his IRA that has a $0 balance in it. And then it sits in there, it grows 3 cents. There's 3 cents worth of interest that is put into the account. Then he does the Roth conversion portion of that, converts it all over, and once that's completed. So that's a backdoor Roth. He sees a 1099 for the conversion and it's showing the full amount. And he's like, wait a minute, I already paid taxes on this money. I already paid taxes on the five grand and now I'm going to get taxed again on this money. And that's like one of the biggest tax errors we'll see is that someone will throw into TurboTax or even just tell their CPA or show them the documents and then they end up getting taxed on it a second time. And so what you need to do is also fill out an 8606, which just says, this was a non deductible IRA contribution. It should not be taxed when it goes through the Roth conversion portion. That makes sense.
- [51:05]
E
Yeah. So what's happening is Schwab is sending the tax document with the information that they know. And so what does Schwab know? Schwab knows that you took five grand from an IRA and put it into a Roth. That's all that they know. They don't know how you decided to treat that initial $5,000. And because they don't know what you did with it. Yeah, the traditional way to put money in a traditional IRA is you put the money in, and then on your tax report, you say, oh, by the way, I put this money in. I'm gonna take a deduction. But what you're saying, Anna, is you're putting the money in, and then you gotta wave the flag, the piece of paper to the IRS that goes, I don't want the tax deduction for this five grand. I'm specifically excluding this as tax deductible. And that's the 8606 form that says, do not give me a tax credit for this 5K, which then allows you to do the Roth contribution and have that be basically a tax free transfer because you never claimed a tax deduction on the first 5k. But schwab is gonna send this out regardless. Or your custodian's gonna send this out because they don't know your tax treatment of that original five. All they know is you took five grand from this account and put it in this account. That's all. In fact, what you'd see here, jj, is if you looked at that form, there's a box. I think it's box 2A. That'll be. Have a little check mark in it that says taxable amount not determined. Which is basically Schwab's way of saying, we don't know anything about taxes on this account. That's on y'.
- [52:31]
A
All.
- [52:32]
E
You guys figure that out. And so now you have to go to your CPA or TurboTax and go, don't treat this as a taxable event. This should be a tax free, you know, exchange and make sure you don't pay taxes on it, like Candace said. I would say that's probably the number one thing that we see wrong with backdoor contributions.
- [52:48]
D
Yeah. And you can even double check this on your actual 1040 I don't know what line it is. It's like midway through, you will see it should not show up. $5,000 of taxable IRA distributions or whatever the wording is there. I would double check on that, too, before you even submit.
- [53:07]
A
So hopefully, jj, that clears that up because. And it's funny because I know lots of people, they get this form and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, hold on. But if you just think about it from the company's point of view, I think that always clears it up. They don't know what you did with the money. You just got to tell them what you did. So they're doing their part. Now you got to do your part. Anna, what about the three cents? This is what drives people crazy, right? The money sits there just for a couple days, and it earned a little bit of interest. What's going on there?
- [53:36]
D
Yeah. So he let it sit there for three days. It's accumulated three cents of interest. This could happen with somebody else if they accidentally invested it and it grew a little bit or if they left it in there in cash for a couple of months. Whatever it is, you know, if it's $0.03, it's going to round down to zero, and you're not going to be taxed on that. If your interest was $5 or $5.03, we're going to round to the nearest dollar. So in JJ's case, it doesn't matter. This is not going to be a tax taxable event or anything like that. But if somebody else had this and they had it sitting around for a little bit longer and there was a little. Yes, that would be a taxable event that they would need to report on their taxes.
- [54:27]
A
And there it is, jj.
- [54:30]
E
And the good news here is that you don't have to, like, try to manually calculate this. Like, if you put in the conversion was $5,000.03, TurboTax or your CPA, the software is automatically going to round it, you know, so you don't have to sweat that.
- [54:43]
A
And you're good. Good news is the IRS isn't going to come after you for the three cents.
- [54:48]
E
Well, they'd only really come after you for like 20% of the three cents, I think, which is.
- [54:52]
A
Right.
- [54:52]
E
Do we even use cents anymore? Can we. Are we supposed to just go now?
- [54:57]
A
As long as it's digital, you. You digitally can have three cents. Oh, but you won't have three pennies anymore.
- [55:02]
E
I feel like that's a catch 22.
- [55:05]
A
Yeah.
- [55:06]
E
Or catch three.
- [55:07]
A
Catch 03.
- [55:08]
C
In this case, it's more proof that money is. Is just a concept.
- [55:12]
E
It's a construct.
- [55:13]
C
It's. Yeah, it's just a figment of our imagination.
- [55:16]
E
Damn right. That's what I say.
- [55:19]
D
It's our whole business.
- [55:20]
E
So, G. My whole cash flow problem is money is just a construct.
- [55:26]
A
It's just a construct.
- [55:27]
E
Wine is legit, but money's a construct. That Amex bill that I get because of the wine.
- [55:32]
A
Well, what a great bunch of questions. One tax question. Two 401k questions. Two questions on financial planning. Financial planning ideas. Thanks, guys for all the great questions. If you've got a question for us for next month's episode, tackle in all your questions. Stacking benjamins.com voicemail and we'd love to answer yours as well. All right, before we say goodbye, time to go out to the back porch. And Doug, I've just got one really quick thing here, which is I've got a thing too. Boston. Boston is having their big meetup tonight, 6pm at Hannah's Brewing in Melrose, Massachusetts. I hope you can come and join all of our other stackers there for Benjamin's After Dark, the very first Boston meetup. Super excited to see this team get rolling in Boston. I know my daughter's excited and I think she's going to be there tonight partying with other stackers. So should be a great time in Melrose. If you are a stacker in the area, come on out, get together with
- [56:32]
C
people with similar likes.
- [56:34]
A
They're all.
- [56:35]
C
You are all going to talk about money and how much you hate the Yankees.
- [56:38]
A
That's it. Yeah. I mean, a lot of bonding going on, right?
- [56:42]
C
And I. My one thing for the back porch was similar, Joe. It was about the Benjamin's After Dark group in southern Minnesota. We're not sure if southern Minnesota is a real place yet. It doesn't appear on any place on a map. But did you see the somo?
- [56:56]
E
It's called somo, dude.
- [56:58]
C
So
- [57:00]
A
would it be so. Man, it's so.
- [57:02]
E
Man.
- [57:02]
C
It's becoming like a gentrified neighborhood. Did you see the picture they Posted? There were 28 people at the last Benjamin's After Dark. That's huge. And there's all. There's so much you can glean from this picture. 28 people. Things are happening there right in the back of the picture. I can tell there's. There's. Sparks of love are flying. There's a couple that probably just met there. They're connecting. There's a guy in the back left who's just built out of testosterone. He's got the thickest beard I've ever seen. You can't even. I don't know how he gets food in there. It's just all bearded.
- [57:37]
G
And.
- [57:37]
C
And there's one beer. 28 people and one beer. That's a whole story. And it's a mug. Root beer.
- [57:43]
A
Especially since they meet on a college campus. I think that's.
- [57:47]
C
Yeah, that's part of doing it. They'd have 128 people if they had actual beer.
- [57:52]
A
They're doing great. I know that. Stackers Andy and Kristen did a great presentation about their money dates. That's what they talked about. If you want to look and see if there's a bad group, a Benjamin's after dark group and your neighborhood, just go to stacky benjamin.com bad and you'll find. You'll find your group.
- [58:11]
C
Stop it. You're so bad.
- [58:12]
A
You're so bad.
- [58:14]
G
Stop.
- [58:15]
A
All right, that's going to do it for today. Anna, thank you so much for joining us.
- [58:18]
D
Thanks for having me.
- [58:19]
A
Joe and OG great sit across the table from you as always, man.
- [58:24]
E
Thanks for you too.
- [58:25]
A
Thanks.
- [58:25]
C
Yeah.
- [58:26]
A
And finally, before we hand the show over to Doug, this is an. That's another line I really scares me every time I say it's dangerous.
- [58:33]
C
Cringe every time you say it.
- [58:35]
A
You know how we always talk about knowing where your money actually stands? We did that a lot today. Well, OG and Anna and their team, they built a free five minute scorecard so you can find out if you've got $500,000 or more and you're not sure that that money is optimized. Go to stacking benjamin's.com scorecard takes about five minutes. You'll get a personalized score across your taxes, your investments, and your freedom planning. So stacking Benjamins.com scorecard gets you there. All right, that's gonna do it for us. Doug, what should we have on our to do list after today's episode?
- [59:12]
C
So what's stacked up on our to do list for today? First, take some advice from our answer to Tyler's question. Savings rate only matters in the context of how much you need to save. Bragging about saving more and living less. We'll leave that for other podcasts, the boring ones. Second form adv. It's a great question to ask when you're wondering about fiduciary responsibility. But the big lesson, don't joke with Joe's mom about the word fiduciary. I'm fairly certain even she doesn't know what it means because she'll threaten to wash her mouth out with soap for the third time today. Thanks to Anna Allum for joining us today. Hear more of Anna every Monday in our new segment.
- [59:59]
B
Thanks.
- [60:00]
C
That hasn't been named yet, but will probably be called Doug's Educational Minute.
- [60:04]
A
Oh, boy.
- [60:05]
C
Don't like that name. Send us a better idea. This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Sal Sehei. You'll find out about our awesome team@stackingbenjamins.com 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.
- [60:51]
G
Sa.
- [61:39]
C
By your definition, Josh, that's a taco. Remember the argument we had over the difference between a taco and a burrito?
- [61:47]
E
No.
- [61:48]
C
Oh, yeah. It was a big one. It was one of our knockdown drag outs.
- [61:51]
F
Oh, wow.
- [61:51]
C
When I was at your club.
- [61:52]
E
Excuse me, Mr. Middle of Michigan, who happens to know everything about tex Mex food 1100 miles away from the place that actually makes it. Yeah, but you should have a strong opinion. Go ahead, tell us more. What separates a taco from a burrito?
- [62:06]
C
To me, anything that's wrapped in a tortilla. If you do the wrap and the ends are closed, and that's a burrito. It doesn't matter what size it is. That's a burrito.
- [62:16]
A
Size doesn't matter.
- [62:17]
C
It's in a hard shell. Yeah, I'm passionate about this topic.
- [62:22]
E
Okay, so if it's an enclosed soft tortilla, it's a burrito, regardless of burrito. Okay. I don't necessarily disagree with this. Why would you say that? I would disagree with it.
- [62:32]
C
You did. When we were at. When we were golfing at your club and they had. They were calling them breakfast tacos and we got one.
- [62:39]
G
Oh.
- [62:40]
E
I mean, to be fair, they were like taquitos. They were like teeny tiny things and.
- [62:44]
C
Right, and your answer was tacos. A size thing. It's like a snack, not a burritos. Like a full meal. That was your explanation of the difference?
- [62:54]
E
I mean, based on what Joe's shoving in his gullet right now? That's like three meals.
- [62:58]
A
Delicious.
- [62:59]
C
That's a. That's a small one. That's a snack.
- [63:02]
E
Okay. He's been eating it for, like, 25 minutes.
- [63:05]
A
I'm going to eat it for another 25 and wait for Doug to start.
- [63:08]
C
Okay. I'll talk slowly so you can keep on stuffing.
- [63:12]
E
That's the after show right there.