Jesse Mecham (YNAB Founder) On The One Question That Ends Money Anxiety For Good (SB1879)

There's a strange thing that happens to a lot of people as their income grows: the anxiety doesn't go away, it just changes shape. More money, more accounts, more to track, and somehow the same low hum of worry every time a bill comes due. Jesse Mecham, founder of YNAB and one of the most trusted voices in budgeting, has spent over two decades helping people fix that, and his conclusion isn't a better spreadsheet or a stricter budget. It's a single question, one that sounds almost too simple to matter, until you actually try to answer it. What You'll Walk Away With The one question that replaces budgeting guilt with genuine clarity, and why it works even for people who "already have money figured out"Why looking backward at your spending almost never makes you feel better, and what to do insteadThe five categories every dollar actually falls into, and why skipping even one of them creates financial blind spotsWhy future income should never be allowed to rescue your current plan, and how that habit quietly leads to credit card debtA surprisingly simple system for making irregular bills stop feeling like emergenciesThe real story of a Costco cashier who became a millionaire without doing anything complicated, and what it says about the myth of needing to "get fancy" with moneyWhy money worry doesn't disappear once you have more of it, and what actually makes it go awayWhy This Matters Now It's easy to assume that financial peace is just one income bump away. Get the raise, pay off the card, hit the next savings milestone, and the anxiety will finally quiet down. But that's rarely how it actually works. Real financial confidence comes from knowing exactly what your money is for, not from having more of it. That clarity is available at any income level, and it's the difference between managing money and constantly feeling managed by it. From the Basement A story about a seventh-grade inline skating competition, complete with donated gear, mystery sponsors, and an unauthorized parking lot, turns out to be the unexpected origin story behind one of personal finance's most beloved communities. Some of the best lessons about building something people care about show up in the most unlikely places. Resources Mentioned Never Worry About Money Again by Jesse Mecham https://www.ynab.com/book/never-worry-about-money-again — Jesse's new book on purpose-based spendingYNAB (You Need A Budget) https://www.ynab.com — Jesse's budgeting app and free trial See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Maybe it's time we talked. Kiplinger calls it the trillion dollar talk, a conversation about inheritance, estate planning, wills, and the questions families should be asking before those decisions become urgent. Because knowing what your family wants and having a plan for it can be one of the most important financial conversations you will ever have. Ready to start yours? Visit kiplinger.com to learn more about the trillion dollar talk and what this historic wealth transfer could mean for your family.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  I just can't get these numbers to add up.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Like we're never gonna get out of this hole.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Credit card debt, does it ever end?

• 1:09Speaker 04

  Maybe I can help. We sure could use it. Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control? That's why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It's called Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Live from Joe's Mom's basement, it's The Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and how's your budget? On today's show, we'll help make bad budgets good and good budgets great with the king of budgeting, that's right, Jesse Meekum is here. Plus, think you need to get fancy to stack Benjamins? Ah, pretty sure today's headline will dispel that myth. And then, this isn't a myth, but it sure is mythical. I'll share some of that trivia you've heard about. You're welcome. And now, two guys who are racing to beat each other at Stack-O. It's Joe and O-J-J-J-G.

• 2:22Speaker 05

  Hey there stackers. Welcome back to the greatest funny show on earth. I am Joe Saul Sehi and we're super happy that you're here with us. So sit back, relax, grab something to take notes because we're going to be off and running here in a minute. And the guy running along beside me also trying to fill out his stacko board this month is Mr. OG. So we checked one box, but I thought I think we're gonna have a bingo or a stacko here fairly soon.

• 2:47Speaker 06

  Okay, who's gonna get it?

• 2:49Speaker 05

  Well, hopefully me before you because mom said we need to be first in line for the brownies. If we do that. How are you today, man? You're getting ready to go on, go on a little trip tomorrow?

• 3:00Speaker 06

  I'm unaware of any trips I'm taking tomorrow, but okay.

• 3:03Speaker 05

  You're not taking any trips tomorrow?

• 3:05Speaker 00

  I'm taking a trip to HR.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  Is that what you call mom now is HR?

• 3:13Speaker 06

  Again?

• 3:14Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, just, I mean, we're back from being up in Michigan for a week. That was nice. School starts in a week, which is frigging absolutely crazy.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  That's horrible.

• 3:27Speaker 06

  But we have a senior, so we are, I mean, also a fifth grader, but a senior.

• 3:33Speaker 05

  I thought that's what we're starting to refer to you as, as a senior. No?

• 3:37Speaker 06

  Forty-eight, bro. Like, I'll let you know when you can, when, when you guys can start calling me senior, I'll let you know.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  He's counting on chronological date, judging his age because he's grumpy as an 88-year-old.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  And it's all you gotta do to trigger him, Doug. It's all you gotta do. Start talking senior. Hey, we do have a great show. We have, when we think of seniors, we think of this guy. He is maybe one of the senior people when it comes to having an effective budget. His groupies, we lovingly refer to as a cult, because it's almost like CrossFit. If somebody, you know, how do you know when somebody does CrossFit? They tell you. How do you know when somebody's a Y-NABber? They tell you. Y-NAB is software you need a budget. He's been in mom's basement with us a few times, always charming, always so, so, so helpful. Jesse Meekum is back. And

• 4:34Speaker 05

  if you've never heard Jesse, you're gonna understand why so many people love his Y-NAB software. So sit back, get ready to learn about making a better budget. Turn your budget a little bit into some art, which is really fun. If anybody can make budgeting fun, it's Jesse. But you know, we're going to have fun doing first, making sure that we can keep podcasting. We have a couple of breaks during the show, one now and one while you're trying to figure out the answer to Doug's trivia question, we're going to hear from a couple of sponsors. And then the one and only Jesse Meekum, joining us in mom's basement. Well, you may know the chaos is the name of the game here in mom's basement, what with guests coming in and out, Cooper the cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug.

• 5:19Speaker 05

  The holidays make it even worse because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge, huge bookends. Well, that's where factor comes in. Factor is made with high quality ingredients that you recognize and trust with over 175 banned ingredients. You always know you're eating something that's good for you, even when you don't have time. It's ready in two minutes, whether it's lunch between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping. Factor requires zero prep cleanup or effort from you or mom. So you can focus on everything else in your day.

• 6:03Speaker 05

  Factor even has heart smart options like the green goddess barramundi with tomato, rice, peas, kale, and green beans, or the enchilada style chicken and sweet potatoes. Those are so good. They're crafted with lean proteins, fiber packed fruit and veggies and healthy fats. Try those out. Your heart and your taste buds will thank you. For Cheryl and I, factor has been a great way for us to stay busy and focus on family life and beating mom at card games. I use factor and you should too. So let's eat real stackers. Head to factormeals.com/sb50off. Use code sb50off. And you know what?

• 6:45Speaker 05

  You're going to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until December 31st, 2026. That is code sb50off at factormeals.com, sb50off at factormeals.com. See website for more details.

• 7:12Speaker 05

  All right, stackers, a lot of you are earning more than you did five years ago. You might have more saved, you might be investing, you might even be doing most of the things responsible people are told to do, and yet money still follows you around at the grocery store, at dinner with friends at 2 o'clock in the morning. Well, Jesse Meekum has spent more than 20 years helping people organize their money, but his view, and I can't wait to get into this, has changed. He now argues the answer is not necessarily a tighter budget, a bigger spreadsheet, or even a larger paycheck. It sounds like, Jesse, you're trying to go out of business with that open, but we'll get into that. It may begin with one simple question. There might be one simple question, stackers. Jesse, welcome back to the basement, man. Great to talk to you.

• 7:55Speaker 07

  I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me again, Joe.

• 7:57Speaker 05

  So I set it up. What's the question we need to be asking?

• 8:01Speaker 07

  Well, before I say the question, we, just to keep everyone on pins and needles, you know, we used to teach people the Yenab method. I've been doing it for 20 years. I've had to unlearn some things on podcasts like this, but we were trying to figure out what is the essence of this thing we're teaching people. We figured out that we're taking people from bad at money, no offense, to good at money, and that in that transition from bad to good, they stop worrying about money. In realizing that, we, we just started to see money worry everywhere. What I taught in our first book back in 2017 still holds, but we wanted to teach it in a simpler, more accessible, just quicker to understand way.

• 8:45Speaker 07

  And so we realized that it all distilled down to just one question for money that is hard to answer. So it's a simple question, hard to answer, and that is, what's the money for? What is it for? All with the mission to have people stop having it, like you said, following them around at the grocery store.

• 9:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, so what's it for? Why is that more useful than asking, where did my money go?

• 9:10Speaker 07

  What's it for is prospective. Where did my money go is retrospective. You're looking back and you're like, oh, there it is.

• 9:16Speaker 05

  Usually reactive. Yeah. Like tracking versus budget. Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 07

  Yeah. And when you've tallied up what you already spent, I want to know if there's any listener ever that saw what they spent and they were like, good job, Jesse. Good job. Like they're never looking to be like, I nailed it because they actually don't have a number in their mind of what would be good. They just, whatever they're going to see, they're going to be like, I, oh, man, I can't believe I did that. Like it's never like congratulatory, you know, so tracking and retrospective kind of analysis, well useful, especially as you want something to start looking forward. It tends to just kind of be like hand slappy and people just kind of do it for themselves.

• 9:56Speaker 05

  A lot of our stackers talk about, I'm good with money, but I still feel anxious. Is this why we still feel anxious?

• 10:02Speaker 07

  Yeah, they just don't have a firm answer for what their money's for. It, that's it. That's the end all be all of it. It is, again, it is not easy to answer. Like it takes a lot of looking inward, a lot of like, if you're sharing finances with a spouse, a lot of good discussion between the two of you to figure this out. But when you do figure it out, the money worry starts to disappear. And you start to see more and more of you in what your money is doing, which I think is an exciting spot to be.

• 10:29Speaker 05

  For a long time I was in this group called Strategic Coach. You might've heard of Strategic Coach.

• 10:35Speaker 07

  I've been in there before.

• 10:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, Dan Sullivan, good stuff, but he talks about, as you know, the Jesse, the gap in the game. We find ourselves in the gap all the time. Man, I should have done this. I should have done that. I should have. And you're talking about, I believe the gap with your money, but the gain is where you actually look back and you go, look at how much ground I covered. Look at how great I'm doing. You're talking about something similar in your budget with your money, but you gotta notice it in the moment. Like, how do you begin to see that gap in the moment? You know what I mean? See the fact that I'm actually doing okay versus, you know, spinning this wheel of misery that's never going to end.

• 11:13Speaker 07

  One thing that Dan teaches that I, that's it's a simple but powerful concept. One is just to look back and demand of yourself that you say, you, you define and explicitly state what you have done, where you have gained. And, and that alone is an interesting and useful exercise. I gave that book to actually one of my teenage boys and he read it quick. It's not like it's some tome of a read, you know?

• 11:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 07

  He read it quickly and was just like,

• 11:37Speaker 05

  I read it very fast. It was really fun.

• 11:39Speaker 07

  Yeah. But he was just like, I, I saw like I've made, I think he's maybe a junior or sophomore in high school, like young, young boy. And he,

• 11:46Speaker 05

  Wait a minute, this is your kid and you don't know what year they are?

• 11:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  Oh, you gave it to him back then?

• 11:51Speaker 07

  I gave it to him back then.

• 11:52Speaker 05

  Oh, the gap in the game. I thought we were talking about your book right now. I'm like, my God, you don't know what year.

• 11:57Speaker 07

  I'm talking about Dan's book, Dan's book, because you got me on it.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  I was like, Jesse has no idea how old his kids are.

• 12:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. I can give you a rough estimate of when, how old they are. There's, there's a lot of them. So you gotta kind of like do the hands and stuff. He's a hard charger, which is a good thing. But I gave him that saying like, listen, you gotta make sure you look back and note what you have achieved. Not always just, it's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. So just to kind of reinforce what you're talking about. With our money, it's the same thing. I mean, gosh, with life, it's the same thing. You could browbeat yourself all day long. And I think too many people with money, when they get an itch and they're like, I'm going to take this more seriously or whatever. Maybe they get their W two in the mail and they're like, there's no way I made that much money because I have nothing to show for it.

• 12:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, where did it go?

• 12:43Speaker 07

  Yeah. Maybe, I mean, maybe a lot of your listeners, like you said in the intro, you're making more and more money and you're like, why do I still feel anxious like I'm 27, just getting started? That happens all over the place. And if we can, one, acknowledge, first, we have made some progress. And then second, to kind of note, okay, there really is some anxiety here. What is it? How can I get my arms around it? How can I eliminate it? That's where I hope the book can come in and help people out quite a bit.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  It is fascinating, but I think that knowing there's other people anxious too. The fact that you said, somebody like you who sees people every day, their, their money every day and their relationship with their money says that everybody does it. It's, you know, hey, I'm in a sinking boat, but everybody's sinking. So I feel, I feel much better. But I know it does make you feel better when you go, hey, this isn't just me. I'm not this person off by myself. Everybody feels this. So what does this look like in real life? Do I open up my accounts and start going through then my account line by line?

• 13:42Speaker 07

  Yeah, you would, I mean, you look at a pile of money because we're only perspective. Look at that pile of money and you ask yourself, what is it for? It can only be five answers. Now, inside those five infinite, you know, unique spending DNA of all people, but there's only five answers that are possible. The money can be for now. It can be for later. It can be for ease, making the system itself easier to operate and run less overhead, less friction. It can be for you or it can be for change. And if you consider all five of those, as you're deciding what your money is for, you will be considering a thorough amount of possibilities such that you begin to make trade offs.

• 14:23Speaker 07

  You begin to feel if I do this now, I can't do this thing that I thought of like for later. If I do this thing later, this thing that is not available to me now. I mean, Thomas Sowell, one of a great economist, he said, often people are always making trade offs. They just don't know it. And what we're trying to do with explicitly saying what our money is for, spread among these five categories that cover everything. We are saying, make these trade offs known and then decide. There's no, there's no correct answer inside there, but to consider, to not consider all of them is incorrect. That's where people will make the mistakes.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Stackers, what I'd love for you to do would be to pause this right here. And if you're not going to pause it, do it in the next 24 hours because we already know if you don't do something the next 24 hours, you're not going to do it. I would love for you to open up your bank account and just go through it the way Jesse just mentioned. So again, Jesse, we've got five.

• 15:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 05

  Let's walk through the five one more time.

• 15:21Speaker 07

  For now, it'd be like, I've got a bill due tomorrow.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 15:24Speaker 07

  Easy.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Got to do it.

• 15:25Speaker 07

  For later could be the car's making a funny noise. I got a feeling in my stomach. It could be the HVAC is doing something it shouldn't. It could be something cool like we have a big Christmas trip, you know, a few months from now, kind of a thing. So anything for later in that regard. For ease is something very unique to YNAB where we want people to build up money such that when they earn money in September, they're spending it in October. Money they earn in October, they're spending in November. So the system gets some slack in it and everything bill paying, timing, paycheck, paycheck one is paying these bills, paycheck two is this, my spouse just got this commission. All that just goes away. It's like, here's the money we have for

• 16:07Speaker 07

  the month. We use it and as we're using it, more money's coming in. That's the ease part. For you would be where you and I could sit, Joe, like, I don't know, we'd go to dinner or something. I'd be like, so Joe, like, it'd be like we're playing spending boggle. I'm like, Joe, tell me something that you spend money on that these other eight people around here will not say they spent money on. That's how you can kind of find out like, the unique thing to get someone going. It's a very, very fun conversation. And then the last section is for change. And that can be, money can be for change that comes at you. Like, I don't know, you were furloughed, job is looking a little iffy. It could be that you got a big raise. That's a, that's a great one. It could be that you're starting a business. It can be changed that like, is just happening. That's

• 16:52Speaker 07

  normal. Or, or it can be changed that you decide you want to see also. Maybe you're like, I, I mean, I remember when Julie and I carved out, you're gonna laugh at this because you're, you're old enough, no offense to, to get this. When we were first starting YNAB in 2004, this new thing came out called AdWords, you know, where you could bid on terms and see yourself in the rankings. And I told Julie, I said, Julie, we have, we had, our, our grocery budget was 120 bucks a month to give people context. And I said, hey, we have $63 that I've carved out. Could, we could use this to experiment with AdWords. And she was like, okay, yeah, 63 that. And to us, that was like half of grocery money. This is a big deal.

• 17:33Speaker 07

  But clicks were like five cents a pop. So you actually could get enough people in to see like, oh, this is working. This messaging is working. Anyway, I say that because that little bit of like $63 seed money for me and Julie, while big at the time, that was money that we were using for change. We were like, we're going to start this business. We're going to see what happens. That money in, it gets me most excited, kind of on the entrepreneurial side where people are like, listen, Jesse, I've scrolled away this money. What do you think? And what they've done is they've used some of that precious, beautiful resource called money to give themselves some time, some opportunity, some options to maybe make some change.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  That's cool. It could be that course you wanted to take.

• 18:14Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. You have one non-negotiable rule. We only answer the question using money that we already have. Why is future income not allowed to rescue the plan?

• 18:26Speaker 07

  Yeah, because it's not there yet. That's it. Now, I've just seen it too often to allow it. So yeah, it is non-negotiable. People will say, okay, here's my pile of money and I know what each dollar of it is for. And so you're like, okay, and they've traded off because that that pile of money is finite. So they can't have it do everything. It's got to be, you know, either or. So they've done this fantastic exercise. And then something else will come up and they'll say, oh, well, hold on. I will be getting this commission check on Friday or the, the client will pay me. They said they'd pay me. Or even my paycheck guaranteed, right? Guaranteed on Friday. That's coming. And so they'll step away from that really important trade off game with finite resources.

• 19:08Speaker 07

  And they'll give themselves a little more breathing room, suppose it with new money that isn't there yet. What starts to happen is they're trying to escape that squeeze of having to actually prioritize with a finite resource. They're trying to just make it not quite so much of a squeeze and give themselves some future money to make some hard decisions.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  This is where credit card debt comes from, by the way.

• 19:30Speaker 07

  Always. There's like, I'll just get out of it this month. And then next month will be different and it will be different, but it'll be a lot the same where some other new thing pops or whatever. And something else is making a noise in the house and it's just on the card this one time. I wonder if you've heard this, an off sided statistic that medical debt is what the main cause of bankruptcy, at least in the United States, right? And what they never talk about is all of the debt preceding the straw that broke the camel's back that was some kind of medical emergency. It is very rarely, this person was not living on the credit card float, had no debt, and this big medical thing just nailed them.

• 20:08Speaker 05

  You were teetering already.

• 20:09Speaker 07

  You were teetering, you were not in a safe spot, and then that tipped you over. So the credit card, I mean, we're hitting records again with credit card debt. During COVID, when everyone ratcheted down, I'd had some money sent to them a little bit, but even before all the money was given to people, everyone was ratcheting down and credit card debt was precipitously dropping. The banks were freaking out.

• 20:31Speaker 05

  It was so awesome for me, though. I loved it.

• 20:34Speaker 07

  Just plummeting. And the banks are like, where are our fees? I mean, they were looking at their earnings prospects dropping. That is such a lucrative business for them. And it's sad for me, it's sad for you to see that everybody's just back to normal again, man. Back to normal.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  We are such a debtor economy, the banks are freaking out. Which is funny, I don't know if you've studied this worldwide finance, but Singapore is the exact opposite. I mean, the banking system, everything's built on the fact that everybody saves. People stay out of debt. And generally, it's a very lucrative place to be when everybody is not living in debtor hell and owes people money.

• 21:11Speaker 07

  Singapore used to attract money from foreigners because the banking system was so solid, not a lot of this fractional reserve type stuff where, you know, you could say, I'll park some money here and it's really, really safe. They have so much of it that they're kind of like, eh, we're good. Now we don't need anyone else. It's tougher to become a customer now than it was, you know, 20 years ago.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  Isn't it?

• 21:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  I've never heard what you talked about, medical debt, but in my own practice, back when I was a financial planner, I remember in the early years of financial planning, I had this mentor, and it's funny, it's one of these guys, Jesse, that I learned what not to do as much as I learned what to do, you know? You could learn from the positive and the negative. He had some great stuff he did. This one I'm about to say was awful. We would always see this. People would come in and they would have medical debt and they would go, well, the reason I have $25,000 in credit cards is because of these medical debts, this, you know, whatever the, the situation is. And his name was Tony. Tony would ask to see their statements and then he would do what was the most demeaning thing ever. He would go, oh, I

• 22:16Speaker 05

  see, I see Wendy's hamburgers on here. Uh, you get those at the hospital? I see, I see JCPenney. I didn't know there was JCPenney in the hospital waiting. Like, why did you need that with medic? And he would just point out that none of this is medical debt. And it was what you were saying, but he needed to put some velvet on his hammer. A lot of velvet.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  Cause uh, nobody was appreciative. He brought it up that way. Yet everybody got the point that, hey, maybe we need to do a better job of looking at the little things. So when the medical debt happens that we're in a good spot.

• 22:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, they were trying to avoid some cognitive dissonance of like, I know better, but I'd like to have my story be this so that maybe it doesn't feel so rough. Absolutely.

• 22:58Speaker 05

  Let's do this in a kinder, gentler way than Tony did though, Jesse. Let's start with this person though, that feels buried, whether it's medical debt or something else. Bills debt, lot of priorities. You know, you see people, I'm sure at Ynet come to you and they're like, the reason I'm here is I've got 50 priorities that are all shouting my name at one time. Where do I, where do I start?

• 23:18Speaker 07

  You know what's interesting about the word priority is it didn't have a plural when it first became known. Like there was no plural. It was just, you had a priority. That was it. And I think the Latin is like a priori or something like that. Like it literally means just one. And so it's, we've, we've taken that word and made it, we've kind of taken the teeth out of it. Oh, well now I can have, yeah, I can have 40. Um, but the, the exercise that they haven't done yet that got them here is kind of feeling like, um, The system wants you to feel like the money is always available. It's always going to be coming. You can walk past zero and just swipe a card really quick if needed. The Bing that Apple Pay does, I love Apple Pay. It's so convenient. Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 07

  And that, that little Bing, like, I wonder how much money they spent developing that extremely pleasant sound of the Bing, you know? Because you know that what they're angling for is for people to spend and spend. Apple makes money when everybody spends money now on anything, right? The debit cards, the credit cards, they all make money when we spend. So the whole system is really geared toward us spending. Instagram's really good at having you one click shop and have it just arrive at your door so, so fast. Amazon invented the one click back in the day. Mobile ordering, QR scanning, all this tech is pointed toward easier and easier spending. And so this person that has all these places where their money's going, they're in a stream.

• 24:43Speaker 07

  And that stream is just carrying them along. And they are now slowly realizing like, I don't like where this is going. I don't like how this feels. And what we need them to do is just to kind of find footing in the stream. Decide what is most important to them, which they haven't done yet. And then start to maybe walk upstream a little bit. It's, it's not a, it's not rapids. Like we can do it, but you got to find your footing. And you really have to say like, this is the pile of money. What is it for? It can't be for everything. But when we get people doing the exercise, they'll say in the first minute or two, listen, I have so much going on. I have this, this is this. But when you kind of slow it down and you remove all the noise and you just start having them whittle away at the pile saying,

• 25:28Speaker 07

  this will go for this, this will go for this. Their demeanor changes. It is, it's one from a little bit of victim, a little bit of like, woe is me, a little bit of like, hey, I, I'm helpless here. This is just, this is what I'm dealing with. And suddenly you see them a little, their, their body language changes, their tone changes. And you see them asserting a little bit and. And choosing and actually exercising some agency with their money. And they realize, one, that wasn't that hard. And two, it feels actually pretty good.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Well, and I think it feels good because you're finally in control.

• 26:04Speaker 07

  You are in control. You are taking control. You are now, they haven't earned more money. All the bills are still sitting there.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  Nothing has changed.

• 26:11Speaker 07

  Nothing has changed, except they are saying, I am in control of this situation. That's the beginning of that transformation.

• 26:18Speaker 05

  It is so powerful. And what I was going from being bad with money to good with money. That's exactly the way I felt. I remember this moment, Jesse, when I felt like my life was screwed. I was doomed. And then all of a sudden, after just walking through what you just said, the next collection agency called and I was like, no, you're getting paid when I tell you you get paid.

• 26:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 05

  And by the way,

• 26:41Speaker 07

  Because you have to, you, yeah, you're, you're the one holding the money.

• 26:44Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 26:44Speaker 07

  You have, it's like when you accidentally pay a bill, you shouldn't have the, and the insurance is like, oh, well, I, yeah, we'll not cover that. You have no option. So, holding that money is, you have so much power when you're the one holding the money. I love that. I did that little bit. You can tell them to take a hike for days and they can't do anything about it.

• 27:01Speaker 05

  It is fantastic. And I assured them, I'm like, you will get your money, but you're not running this game anymore. You can call me as my names as you want. It's me. Let's move, there's so much to talk about there about today, but let's move to tomorrow. Once today's handled, you know, then we start looking at tomorrow. Why are so many surprise expenses not actually surprises?

• 27:21Speaker 07

  I don't know what it is about where we, I don't even like Christmas. People are like, oh my gosh, here it comes. And you're like, man, that's pretty, it's pretty consistent, you know?

• 27:31Speaker 05

  They haven't had a change in the calendaring of Christmas ever.

• 27:34Speaker 07

  For so, so long. And it goes back to a little bit of like, who's in control? Are you in control or, you know, are you just, you know, flapping in the wind? But, um, my oldest boy, who's 22, okay? So I did, I did know that right off the bat. Yeah, he curb checked and like popped a tire, just like that. Well, this is hard. I've been teaching him these things for years and years and he's out working and traveling. He needs his car daily because he's, it's, he's like on the road. And I was like, ah, it's lame. And he's like, yeah, it was 340 bucks for the tire. And I'm like, wait, what? For like a little Kia?

• 28:08Speaker 05

  Man.

• 28:09Speaker 07

  That's not a Formula One tire. And then he's like, oh, no, it was, it was 150 for the tow truck. And then I was like, okay, you didn't get taken. The tow truck was expensive, but you didn't get taken. And he's still kind of learning the ropes on like car ownership and all the hassles that come with it. But what was really cool is I was like, oh, that's lame. Like that's, that cuts into your earnings. And he's like, oh, no, I have like two grand set aside for car stuff. There it is.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Fantastic.

• 28:35Speaker 07

  And the guy eats at Chipotle a lot. I'm not gonna lie. Like, he's still eating at Chipotle all the time. But he does have money squirreled away for the car stuff. And that, that mentality of like, this surprise expense doesn't need to be a surprise. And it can be kind of pretty ho-hum normal. I would love for people to, to say after they've been doing this for, I don't know, maybe six months, eight months. Suddenly where they're like, man, money's gotten kind of boring. Even when they're using our app, sometimes they'll be like, I wish I could open the app more and like, had something to do with it. Be like, you don't. It's all, don't go, you know, go stare at a wall.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  Games in there, Jesse.

• 29:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. But that's when you know you've arrived where you've made money pretty boring because you've considered those later expenses that have always surprised you, usually made you reach for a card. And you've said like, now we want to go on the next vacation with cash. Yes, summer camp comes every summer. Christmas comes every Christmas, all that stuff. And everyone's a little unique. I mean, you and I'd have a lot of crossover. I'd be like, you have insurance premiums? You're like, yeah, okay, so do I. You have property taxes? Yeah, so do I. There's a lot of that. But then there's some unique stuff where I'm like, oh, we, my family is all into the travel right now. That's Julie's main way she loves to spend. And so we, we're setting aside money for an October trip with fall break with the school. And when the trip comes, you just do the trip.

• 29:58Speaker 07

  Like you just have fun on the trip. They're like the whole money game. And should we buy this churro at Disney or whatever? I don't know if that's your thing. It's not really mine, but you just get the churro. Heck, get two, you know, live on the edge.

• 30:09Speaker 05

  The churro is my thing or if? Disney's my thing.

• 30:11Speaker 07

  Churros are my thing, but Disney churros, the overlap starts to get really small.

• 30:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, agreed. I never, Disney churros, not together. What's the thing at Disney? The, uh, the Dole Whip? That's my, that's my Disney thing. The Dole Whip.

• 30:24Speaker 07

  That would be a good, that would be a good.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Incredible.

• 30:25Speaker 07

  I always saw you more as like one of those turkey leg guys, just like.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  Just because I have a turkey leg body doesn't mean I'm a turkey leg guy.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  And I thought you were my friend. If I'm just starting out at this though, Jesse, you know, there's a place to start and a place to get to. I mean, the place to get to, I think, is that anything comes up and it's almost like swatting mosquito. I'm like, okay, yeah, got it, got it, got it.

• 30:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 05

  But how far ahead should beginners look? Just next month, next quarter, full year? Where do we begin?

• 30:55Speaker 07

  I mean, next, next paycheck, honestly. Yeah. If you're just getting started and you're living paycheck to paycheck, then that, that paycheck that's there, maybe a little bit that's left over right now, you get that money assigned that you have on hand. Take control, assert your authority. And then when that next paycheck arrives, repeat. And start thinking a little bit about later so that you can slowly step away from that paycheck to paycheck grind. But yeah, it's a paycheck dance for a little bit. Usually on average, we see people start to live on their prior month's income entirely. If four to six months, usually how long it takes.

• 31:32Speaker 05

  That's so great. There's another source of anxiety that's related. There's nothing to do with overspending. It's just the timing, the cadence of life, right? The electric bills due two days before the paycheck arrives, the insurance payment hits the same week that groceries hit. How do we begin to fix that problem?

• 31:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, that ease answer where some of that money is for ease. When you have a pile of money sitting at the beginning of the month, all of it, conceivably, you can go to Costco, pay your electric bill, pay your insurance bill, pay the dog, whatever thing, pay some Netflix subscription, all on the first, and you'd be like, oh, this month is done, easy breezy. So the timing of when those bills actually land, we eliminate. And that's just by having that pile of money there at the beginning of the month. And then while the month is happening, you're obviously earning more money and kind of replenishing that pile to then be drawn down for the next month. But that, that bit of stepping away from that edge of paycheck to paycheck living.

• 32:28Speaker 07

  The psychological gain people get from that is unbelievable where like they, they put, they start putting bills on autopilot that used to rob them of sleep, right? And suddenly they're like, oh yeah, the gas bill is higher in the winter, but yeah, I give it, we're good, you know, and it just auto pays. And again, mosquito, you just, you don't even think about it. That ease portion, I can't overstate how critical it is for just the system operating well enough where good decisions can keep being made.

• 32:58Speaker 05

  You've been on stacking Benjamins down here in mom's basement enough times to know how much I like games or stackers know how much I like games, but stackers, I want you to play along because Jesse, let's play a game. I'm going to give you the spending. You tell me where it fits or tell me the answer depends, right? And tell me how the answer depends. So, uh, and stackers, I want you to play along with everything Jesse said so far. Let's see how well you do. Ready $1,200 car repair. Where does it fit?

• 33:25Speaker 07

  For later.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  A vacation book nine months from now.

• 33:31Speaker 07

  That one's stacking going either later, or if you're like, I'm going, I mentioned F1 earlier and you're like, Jesse, I live and dream F1. And it's that I'd be like, oh, that's kind of for you. Like that's a uniquely Joe thing.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 07

  So you could go either way.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'll do F1. I'll do NASCAR. I don't care. I like it all.

• 33:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, who cares?

• 33:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. Auto racing is, uh, and yeah, a hundred percent. Getting ahead of my mortgage payment. Where would that go?

• 33:52Speaker 07

  That's for ease. Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  A cash cushion that lets you leave that toxic job.

• 34:00Speaker 07

  For change. Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 05

  A $75 dinner after a difficult week.

• 34:08Speaker 07

  For you, most definitely. Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  How about this one? A new woodworking tool. My buddy's big time into woodworking. He gets the latest, greatest woodworking tool.

• 34:16Speaker 07

  That's for me. That's for Jesse Mecham right there. No one else. Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 05

  You're into it too.

• 34:21Speaker 07

  Oh, I'm so into it. I, I come up with projects just to buy a new tool.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  It's my buddy Rick. He just, and he's in the deeper he goes, the more he's in YouTube heaven, I think. I was going to say YouTube hell.

• 34:32Speaker 07

  It's, but YouTube. It's a great, it's a great place where you, you, there's, it's endless, right? Like you can just, you can dive into green wood carving and for the rest of your life, if you want, or you can go a completely different direction and do wood burning, you know, or I mean, or you can just go Japanese and just stay there your whole life. It's a great, great spot.

• 34:51Speaker 05

  As you'd never think something so niche would be so wide.

• 34:54Speaker 07

  Yeah. And that's the beauty of what when we live now, you can find your people and then spend money in that area your whole life.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  That is funny. I feel like that with board games. I'm like, yeah, I like board games, but not that kind of board game. Like, are you kidding me? No way.

• 35:09Speaker 05

  College savings, either for you or for a child.

• 35:13Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. That could be so many. It could be for you. It could be for change. What if it's the first college graduate in your family? That's maybe a change energy there. It could be for later, where you're just like, ah, that's, that's for, you know, 18 years down the road. The baby's just born and you're like, okay, college fund starts if you're so inclined.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  And what's so exciting about this, and I think, Jesse, this is a lot of, and you get much deeper into this, but I feel like this is the big, biggest takeaway point is just look at the fun we're having, just deciding where it goes. The power you're giving yourself and thinking about, no, this is this. So when you actually then spend the money, it goes from, where did that money go to this big high five to, wow, I completed the

• 35:54Speaker 07

  You're acting.

• 35:54Speaker 05

  The cycle. Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're, you're expressing yourself authentically and forcefully in the world through money.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  It's wild taking your budget and turning it into an art project. It's so fun. A charitable gift.

• 36:07Speaker 07

  Oh, that's a good one. I'm thinking about my, my buddy Dave, really into like adaptive skiing, where they can buy all this equipment for people that maybe don't have a leg or they're missing, you know, something, wheelchairs on skis. And so that, I would say that's for you in the sense that Dave like lights up thinking about raising money to just get more of that gear for people.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  A 50 cent donut.

• 36:34Speaker 07

  Man, that started it all, you know, but that was just for me. Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  We'll get into that.

• 36:40Speaker 07

  I wanted it and didn't think I could have it. Yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  We'll get into the 50 cent donut in a second, but I like to make most of our questions, make sure most of what we're talking about is for people if they're single or if they're married, Jesse. But sometimes, you know, in that list that we just had, a couple disagrees. In which of these areas do you find couples most disagree? And is the disagreement a good thing? Or is that friction?

• 37:04Speaker 07

  Oh, I think at first it's a good thing because the friction, I mean, that's information, right? You're like finding out you disagree is good information. Now, can you from there work toward agreeing or just agreeing to disagree? And that might be totally okay also. Like, can you just do it in a way that's productive and communicative and honest? Then I think you're good to go. But just disagreeing is just a point to be like, oh, we've, we've just found something out. Let's little archaeological, you know, let's brush it away and figure it out a little bit.

• 37:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think so too. I think sometimes the MMA cage match, you know, where we're just gonna go ahead and disagree is a great thing to figure out what are our shared values look like.

• 37:47Speaker 07

  Yeah. And what's interesting about those cage matches is the wrong with your metaphor. In the moment, they turn it on and they're going. And then so much of the time, I mean, they're doing, they're putting on a show, obviously. But so much of the end of it, they're both just like, hey, don't we love doing this? Right. It's like fist bumping. Like there's a respect there. There's a camaraderie in that. I mean, there are very few people that have the same understanding that those two have.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Rhonda Rousey and Gina Carer hugging it out after they totally wasted our time with that 30 second.

• 38:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. Sometimes those are a little disappointing. You're like, all that buildup. And there it was, you know?

• 38:21Speaker 05

  Let's talk about that. But let's talk about that donut because you were studying accounting. You and Julie were being intensely responsible. You're saving for a baby and a car and you couldn't bring yourself to spend 50 cents. I teed up that story. Tell us what happened.

• 38:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, I was standing there. People don't know this, but if you take one of those old fashioned donuts and you microwave it for 10 seconds, it's just pure heaven. I think it absorbs into the bloodstream quicker. Like everything's good about it. I was walking past on my way to class and I was a hardworking diligent student, new husband, like I was giving it my all. And I just see it. It's 50 cents. There wasn't even tax, I think, because it was on the university. You're sitting there like, oh, I can't even have that. We're doing everything right. We're saving up for, you know, I think we had just bought the new car partially with wedding money that we had been given. We had bought a laptop with wedding money because we didn't have a computer before we got married. I mean, we were just scraping and scraping.

• 39:22Speaker 07

  And I just thought, here I am supposed to be like, good at this. And I feel like money is just this source of endless anxiety for me. Yeah, it was a realization. I didn't buy the donut. And then I came home that night, pretty whiny for a little bit with Julie. It's just like, we can't, I can't breathe, you know? Now Julie grew up, not, I don't want to tell too much of her story, but it was like, if you open the fridge, you hope there's food, like, single mom, teacher. So Julie's natural ability to just get by with virtually nothing was sky high. Mine? No. And I was just feeling like I was suffocating. So I go to her and we, we kind of, and I'm like, I just, this is too tight. Like, there's just no room to move.

• 40:07Speaker 07

  And so we decided like, okay, well, let's take some of this money. And like, kind of make it our own, in a sense. And that was where we said, okay, we're going to do a date each week. And one of those weeks each month, we got to get a pizza. That was how tight things were.

• 40:21Speaker 05

  This is where the for you kind of came from.

• 40:24Speaker 07

  Absolutely. And then like, we knew going to the gym was important. And so we're like, we're going to do a gym membership. We're, we're just gonna, we're gonna do it. There was another one that I can't think of off the top of my head that was just kind of like, our claim on some of our money. And once we claimed a little bit of it and just said like, no, no, money, we work hard for this little bit of money we get. We get to say a little bit what it's for. In doing that, it just bought us a, just enough breathing room. We each got five bucks a month to spend on whatever we wanted, which mine was mostly donuts and hers, she just wouldn't spend. That'll get you 10 donuts. That's a pretty good gig.

• 40:58Speaker 05

  It is a good gig. It makes the gym feel even more worth it.

• 41:01Speaker 07

  It does. Yeah, you gotta do something about it. So that was the beginning of it. And it was us recognizing, we decide, we are just doing even what good books are telling us to do, right? Being uber responsible and intensely responsible, you'd said. We, we weren't letting enough of us come into the decisions.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  As I was reading this, I was thinking, okay, if 50 cents felt unsafe, like, what amount of income would have felt like enough? You know, or is it an income or other people's expectations or my own expectations? What would have made that feel safer?

• 41:38Speaker 07

  My first salary job out of school at a big accounting firm was $45,000 a year. And but rent was 900 to give people contact. That'll help them quickly do some computation like, oh, okay, they could still make things happen, you know? But I remember even then, you know, we get this steady, stable, safe job. All those are air quotes the whole time. I remember we wanted to buy a couch. Well, Julie wanted to buy a couch and I was okay sitting on the floor for a long time. Cause we again felt like, is there enough? We can't do this, you know? We were super excited about getting a washer and dryer in the apartment. That became this penny pinching moment where Julie had to kind of call me back again. We were making way more money than we were at that donut story. Same, same worry, same consternation.

• 42:23Speaker 07

  And then Joe, I talked to people making ear curling amounts of money. And when you get them talking long enough, especially to me, because they feel like I'm like a safe.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 42:35Speaker 07

  I don't know, like I'm like a priest or something where they're like, I can confess this to you.

• 42:38Speaker 05

  You've seen it so many times, you're not going to blink.

• 42:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't blink at all. And you hear the worry in their voice and we're talking about people that are making, I'm not overstating millions of dollars a year. And they are worried because they, they haven't sat down and said, well, what are these millions of dollars for? You know, like, what are they really for? And man, you get someone that's making that kind of income to bring intentionality, not just to earning it, which they're killer good at. But also to how they allocate spend, distribute all of that. That's a powerful thing. And I think they know it. I think they know that there could be something there for them.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  It is so interesting because tying your money. I had never thought about it until this conversation and this book. I had never thought about it in terms of my day to day budget, but I had thought about this in terms of your goals. Like the effectiveness of tying your assets to specific goals. Makes it so you don't chase returns, you're not chasing the next index, you're not comparing yourself to stupid stuff. You're just, I'm going after this thing that I want. Now, if I begin with what I really want. And then I work backwards, it makes this whole thing much easier and you tie it all the way back into your daily spending. And it's, it's so powerful.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  Let's end by going back much, much further. We asked you for a story you almost never get to tell, and you were telling us about seventh grade Jesse. And I just, seventh grade Jesse, you organized a grassroots skating competition with these brand donations and about 100 competitors. Like, what could go wrong there, Jesse?

• 44:21Speaker 07

  Nothing at all, unless you talk to the principal of the elementary school where we held it without permission in the parking lot. Good old, good old Mr. Hammond. I was a year out of elementary school, went one through six in there. And then I was in seventh grade, and I was into this very niche thing. You talk about, you know, niches that go deep. I don't think this one went deep, but aggressive inline skating, you know, guys sliding down rails, half pipes, stairs, and the whole thing. I was so into it with my little friends, and we thought we were just so, we were so cool. Who am I kidding? We were so cool. We got in our heads where we wanted to hold a competition to see who was the best aggressive inline skater

• 45:00Speaker 07

  around. And I don't know what it was, but I tend to kind of be a galvanizer. If you're using like Lencioni's Wonder, you know, framework. Yeah, I just tend to kind of promote. I think I have a little enough ego and a little bit, you know, like enough pride. You just kind of be like, this is important for everyone to know about. So we started procuring ramps and, you know, like half pipes that you would kind of bring on trucks. We had older boys that could drive vehicles helping, you know, which is a big deal to have a vehicle that you could use. And we ended up setting up this whole course.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  It's also a big deal to have a 16 year old that will do your bidding when you're in seventh grade.

• 45:40Speaker 07

  That is true. Well, they were, they were entering in the competition, and there were prizes at hand. So the half pipes, everything we get there in the parking lot. But prior to that, I needed prizes to attract people. So I formed an organization in the moment. I called it the Arizona, uh, something, something association, you know, inline skating association. And I wrote letters, uh, because that was what you did back then to these, these brands. And I really was just wanting to score like free gear, you know? And they called me. I remember one time at dinner, the phone rings and my mom's like, Jesse, it's for you. It's hyper. And they were like, they would make wheels. And she's like, so I have to pretend I'm like older.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 46:21Speaker 07

  And I'm part of this associate hello, you know, and I don't think I did puberty yet probably at seventh grade. So I don't know what they thought, but they were like, yeah, is this I said, yeah, we're doing this competition. They sent boxes. They sent banners, wheels. I mean, I probably got a thousand dollars of gear from Hyper Wheels alone. Bless their hearts. And then at that point, I was like, well, I can't. I thought I would get some free gear, but they had given me so much. I was like, I, I have this obligation to make this competition legitimate. Like they're acting like it's the gym. I need to make it legit.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 46:52Speaker 07

  So instead of this, this kid just being like asking for freebies. So we plaster flyers everywhere. Word gets out. I think probably through pagers is how it was spread, you know, back then. And we get a hundred kids in there and we're judging it. And there are parents coming. A lot of people have never seen people do stuff on roller blades like what these kids could do. And then Mr. Hammond arrives. We were at, you know, peak competition. And he rolls up and he knows me. I mean, I was in his school the year before, you know?

• 47:23Speaker 05

  But okay, wait a minute. I want to know if this is omission or commission, right? Did you just in your checkboxes in seventh grade? I could see you just not realizing, oh my God, I didn't realize I would need permission to do it here. Cause you know,

• 47:36Speaker 07

  That is exactly.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  We just play around or was it, I bet I can get away with this on a Saturday or?

• 47:40Speaker 07

  No, I was too naive to even think that it was a big deal. It's an empty. It was on a Saturday. I'm like, no one's going to be parked there.

• 47:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:47Speaker 07

  So that's just clear. Like that's asphalt. That's a public good, right? Like this is like the Boston Commons here. Anyone can use this for anything. So that's, yeah, we just set it all up. And by that time it was going, I mean, we had crowds, like adults, like cars stopping and just watching. And you have a hundred attendees, but then you have probably 200 in the crowds milling around. And I just regretted not selling water. At that point, I was like, we could have made some money on sodas or something cold.

• 48:15Speaker 05

  Concessions.

• 48:16Speaker 07

  But Mr. Hammond's like, who's in charge? And I'm sure his eye level was going high. And he was just totally missing the five footer that was like, hey, it's me, you know, down here. So.

• 48:27Speaker 05

  Get it. All the parents.

• 48:28Speaker 07

  He was so cool about it.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  Was he?

• 48:30Speaker 07

  This is a, yeah, this is the thing that's cool about an elementary school principal. And I think I'll bet they're all like, they read kids. He got to read on me so quick. And I think what he did in there with, and that was so awesome. He comes up to me. He's like, Jesse, this is amazing. One, he complimented me. He's like, this is amazing. Next time you do this, make sure you get my permission. And I was like, okay, yeah, we will. I just think that's such a cool thing for him to do. He read the room or the parking lot. And I don't know, I've always been grateful to him for not just shutting it down. He could have, maybe, maybe there's a lawyer listening that's like, he should have, you know, Mr. Hammond's crazy.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  But what an educator, right? I mean, what an educator. If you would have shut it down, you wouldn't learn anything. Like, my obvious follow up question is, so, knowing you for almost a decade now, I mean, not well, but I've known you for about a decade. Like, what part of the person that created YNAB was created that day?

• 49:27Speaker 07

  I think there was something in me that likes to get people together. And you, you know, you see that with YNAB, like, YNAB has this crazy, strong community. It's like,

• 49:36Speaker 05

  We've talked about it before. It is, you know, in the best way possible, we have called it a cult, right? My buddy here in Texarkana, people don't remember the last time you were on the show. So for the few people that might have heard that, I'll say it again, sitting next to this friend of mine who barely knows what I do, new friend, our, our kids went to school together. I start telling him about our podcast because he asked, and, and he goes, oh, my God, I use this thing called Y. It is amazing. It is just so amazing. And there's so many cool people that use it. And I'm on the forums all the time, and it is great. And I, I literally, Jesse, rolled my eyes because

• 50:13Speaker 05

  because I love the cult so much. It is so awesome, but it still is. I knew for the next 20 minutes, he wasn't going to shut up about how amazing, not just your product is, but getting these people together with these shared values.

• 50:27Speaker 07

  Was he a vegan CrossFitter too? Because that's the end of the joke.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  He was.

• 50:31Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 50:32Speaker 05

  Well, then I wouldn't have been sitting next to him.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  No, but he could have had a donut, then we would have been.

• 50:39Speaker 07

  Could have had a donut. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  Oh, man. The book is called Never Worry About Money Again. It's available everywhere.

• 50:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, everywhere. We self-published this one and I say that because we got to do something really cool. We got to make it as short as we wanted to make it and publishers don't let you do that. They're like, you gotta hit, I don't know, 180 pages or something. I cut things from that book, whole chapters that we had written and one of them I actually really liked was I was like, I need to make an essay out of it or something. But the book is a tight read. There's like, we're not wasting people's time. I want you to get in there and see how we have you think about money as a, as an extension of you. And then that money is meant to be spent and only, that's the only thing it can do. And then you just have to know, okay, how, how is that money to be spent? And the book

• 51:32Speaker 07

  walks you through it quick. So I hope it's an accidental full read for people where they just are like, oh yeah, I got it. And no fluff in there. I'm really proud of the fact that we could give someone, give people something tight and not, I don't know, not just bloated. I shouldn't say that. There are a lot of great books, you know, by publishers that don't do that. I was, I was excited to like, kind of do this on our own terms and at least in that one way.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  Well, what I think is amazing is there's no fluff. We just spoke for 45 minutes and we just skimmed the surface. And it's a short read. So there's how packed it is, stackers. Again, the name of the book, Never Worry About Money. Again, we'll link to it on our show notes. Thank you for mentoring our stackers again, Jesse. So great to catch up with you. Let's go have a donut, watch F1 together.

• 52:16Speaker 07

  Absolutely. Sounds great. Thanks, Jeff.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and it was on today's date in Cleveland, Ohio that a miracle occurred.

• 52:30Speaker 05

  Cleveland? I see what you did there.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, now that I know that they're spelling it wrong, I'm only going to pronounce it Cleveland. It's just, it's the right thing to do. That's right, stackers. It's the apocalypse because I'm doing a second piece of trivia about Cleveland in a three week period. Time to gather up the kids head for the storm cellar because the end of days is nigh. You have the green light, which in the world's worst segue brings us to today's trivia question. It was in Cleveland back in 1914 that the first electric stoplight rolled out. How many colors did it feature? I'll be back right after I green light Joe's mom making more brownies. Those things are addictive and I need something to get all this Ohio taste out of my mouth.

• 53:16Speaker 05

  Well, you may know that chaos is the name of the game here in mom's basement. What with guests coming in and out, Cooper the cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. The holidays make it even worse because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge, huge bookends? Well, that's where Factor comes in. Factor is made with high-quality ingredients that you recognize and trust with over 175 banned ingredients. You always know you're eating something that's good for you, even when you don't have time. It's ready in two minutes, whether it's lunch between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping.

• 54:00Speaker 05

  Factor requires zero prep, cleanup, or effort from you or mom, so you can focus on everything else in your day. Factor even has heart smart options like the Green Goddess Baramundi with tomato, rice, peas, kale, and green beans, or the enchilada-style chicken and sweet potatoes. Those are so good. They're crafted with lean proteins, fiber-packed fruit and veggies, and healthy fats. Try those out. Your heart and your taste buds will thank you. For Cheryl and I, Factor has been a great way for us to stay busy and focus on family life and beating mom at card games. I use Factor, and you should too.

• 54:44Speaker 05

  So let's eat real stackers. Head to factormeals.com/sb50off. Use code SB50OFF. And you know what? You're going to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until December 31st, 2026. That is code SB50OFF at factormeals.com, SB50OFF at factormeals.com. See website for more details. There is a financial conversation that's coming to millions of American families, and there's a pretty good chance nobody wants to be the person who starts it. Inheritance. And here's why that matters.

• 55:23Speaker 05

  An estimated $124 trillion to heirs in charity is expected to be transferred by Americans over the next 20 years. It's an extraordinary amount of money, but Kiplinger's research found that 51% of adults and their parents, get this, never talk about money. And there's a pretty big disconnect. 47% of parents expect to leave a meaningful inheritance, while only 24% of adult children expect to actually receive one. Nearly 30% of parents don't even have a will in place. Maybe it's time we talked. Kiplinger calls it "the trillion dollar talk," a conversation about inheritance, estate

• 56:03Speaker 05

  planning, wills, and the questions families should be asking before those decisions become urgent. Because knowing what your family wants and having a plan for it can be one of the most important financial conversations you will ever have. Ready to start yours? Visit kiplinger.com to learn more about the trillion dollar talk and what this historic wealth transfer could mean for your family.

• 56:28Speaker 05

  It's incredible, at a small company like Stack and Benjamins, how one, one hire makes all the difference in the world. If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Hoping the right people see your job posting isn't the best growth strategy. When the pressure's on, you need the right hire. This is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed, sponsored jobs is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent. When workplace chaos hits and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts even seen at other sites. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need.

• 57:09Speaker 05

  Reach candidates that meet your specific criteria like skills, certifications, or locations. Sponsored jobs boost your job post on search results so you can reach the people that can help your business thrive. Plus with Indeed sponsored jobs, you only pay for results. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, listen to this. Companies like yours have made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. And sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. So spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the

• 57:53Speaker 05

  chaos, that's a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And guess what? Our stackers are going to get a $75 sponsored job credit. That's you to help get your job, the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support stacking Benjamins by saying you heard about Indeed in mom's basement. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Michigan lover and guy who uses the word Ohio to bring a pox upon your family. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Ah, Cleveland. It's weird that the electric stoplight inventor put the first one in Cleveland because if you look at a map, you'd see Cleveland isn't anywhere near the edge of Ohio. Shouldn't the first stoplight been like right at the border, warning you that you're about to enter the Buckeye State? Well, they messed that up because it was at the corner of Euclid and East 105th Street that the first electric stoplight was erected. But here was today's question. Elected is a funny word.

• 59:09Speaker 05

  You are 11 years old.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Here's today's question. How many colors did it have? While today's has three, the first one had only two. That's such an Ohio move. It had a red one that said, stop, and a green one that illuminated the word move, and a buzzer to tell you the light was about to change colors. Of course, we've now traded that buzzer for the yellow light to remind people to speed up. Just kidding. Yellow means caution allegedly, because you might be driving into Ohio. And now, back to two guys so happy they're in Texarkana, Joe and OG.

• 59:53Speaker 05

  It is always an adventure when we go near Ohio stuff. Especially OG, that's getting close to football season. I mean, we're, we're there. Time to do some Buckeye bashing.

• 1:00:05Speaker 06

  Is there a time not to do that? I'm unsure.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, is there ever an expiration date on that?

• 1:00:10Speaker 05

  Do we need football season for that? Uh, we don't. Uh, big thanks to Jesse Meekum for joining us today. I love this idea. What's the money for? The one question. What's the money for?

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  That's what the money is for.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's headlines.

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Our headline today comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. And you know, OG, people think they gotta get all fancy. They gotta get fancy to get millions of dollars stacked. Well, it turns out that is not the case. I was so pleased to read this piece by Sarah Nassour. Sarah writes, "He earns $33 an hour as a Costco cashier. Now he's a millionaire." Guess how he did it, OG? He just put the money-

• 1:00:59Speaker 06

  Saved a little bit all the time for a long time?

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  Pretty incredible, huh? "Long-tenured workers like cashier Tony Barzar are reliable, experienced, and able to speed shoppers through a checkout line. Costco's willing to keep them around." This piece is actually written for business owners, but I want to talk about the fact that Tony didn't do anything fancy at all, OG. There was, there was nothing. He used the power of automation. He put money away for 30 years. And he looks at his account and as a Costco cashier, and a damn good one reading this piece, by the way, which is why Costco works hard to hold on to him. And we'll get to the business owner piece of this in a minute.

• 1:01:41Speaker 05

  He's, he's a millionaire. You mean, you didn't need Kelsey? He didn't need to jump on DraftKings?

• 1:01:48Speaker 06

  Lose 20% on SpaceX?

• 1:01:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, didn't need to do any of that.

• 1:01:51Speaker 06

  Too soon, too soon. I mean, I've seen a lot of this stuff lately, which I find kind of interesting. And it's a, it's a great thought experiment, just to kind of wrap your head around it. But the amount of time it takes you to save to get to 300K is half the distances it takes for you to save to get to a million. If you're saving a thousand a month and your portfolio grows to 300K, you're halfway there. And it just doesn't seem that that's logical because you'd say, well, you know, 500,000 would be halfway to a million, but because of the value of the compounding. And I'm sure you could do that for all sorts of numbers to 2 million and 5 million and whatever. And whatever your goal is, it seems really impossible to get to.

• 1:02:33Speaker 06

  I don't care what the number is that you're trying to reach or where you are. Unless you measure backwards on trying to get a sense of what your progress has been. The idea of compounding in the future, just it's very hard to comprehend. And it's very hard to believe. It's very hard to experience in real time. And no matter where you are in that process, it can feel pretty discouraging. It's not until you have done it for a while and then look back to be able to go, oh, wow, I remember a time I had a hundred grand, now I have 300, like, holy crap. That's awesome.

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  Doug, while we're talking about this, can you pull up the guy in the basement? Or is that where you're going? You already did.

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  Way ahead of you, Joe. Yeah, it's stacker Mark who said, now this goes back a couple of weeks, but he said, OG was talking about years to double your investments. I'm one of those folks who has all my financial data in Quicken back to the 90s. So I did a check to see how long it took for each year's end of year balance to double. It is surprisingly consistent for a while, even with the financial crisis in there. Yeah. And then he posted kind of a quick, you know, whatever grab of his of his screen to show when it doubled.

• 1:03:47Speaker 05

  In the early years, it actually doubled quickly, but that was because it was his contributions. He was just starting out.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Speaker 05

  So obviously, you know, he puts in $5 this year, puts in another $5 next year. Bam, he doubled it. So the first couple of years, it's one year to double, then two years to double. But then later on, these later years, it's like, what is it? Six years, six years, seven years, six years, seven years.

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:04:10Speaker 05

  Pretty powerful stuff.

• 1:04:12Speaker 06

  And what's profound about that, even where that person is right now, so maybe he has $4 million and in the last seven years, it's doubled for $2 million, right? If you said to him or her, you know, you got $4 million today, I really think that there's a pretty strong chance that you'll have $30 million sometime in your lifetime. They go, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're, you're, no, no, that's not happening. It's like, why not? Why would it all of a sudden stop working?

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  Because.

• 1:04:40Speaker 06

  If it's worked this, your whole lifetime, like it's just now going to stop? It's the same thing and it doesn't matter, you know, and people that are listening are saying like, well, yeah, if I had $4 million, I wouldn't worry about anything. It's like, okay, I got you. But at 100 grand, you've already demonstrated how to make $100,000. This is the thing that I think people just really have to just internalize. It's like, whatever the balance is that you have, you've already demonstrated how to do that. So why would you think that suddenly you can't do that again?

• 1:05:15Speaker 05

  And I love the idea, and I want to get back to this because you talked about SpaceX, but people think they got to get fancy. I got to get these hedge, I got to do what hedge funds people do. I got to do what private equity does. This guy didn't do any of that. He didn't do anything. In fact, it's funny. I found a TikTok video that I'm surprised that I missed because people know my love affair with Robinhood and how much they help you.

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  And how wonderful they are.

• 1:05:38Speaker 05

  By the way, the first broker to get the first of the quote, major brokers to get into predictive markets and betting, guess which one it was, the one that quote, helps you the most, Robinhood. Oh yeah. Now you can bet. It's crazy. I thought, I thought that, well, people made me feel like I was like Don Quixote with windmills. Turns out, uh, there's a guy that many of us know, who said the same thing a few years ago, and I just totally missed it. This is the late, great Charlie Munger, talking about his feelings about Robinhood.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  I don't think allowing all the swimmers in the world to act as though their banks is a good idea. Which maybe we should talk about Robinhood and some of the areas. Robinhood is beneath contempt. Why? Well, it's a gambling parlor masquerading as a respectable business. And the pushback on that is always, this is a way of getting average people into the markets. Well, of course you don't want to say you're, it's a gambling parlor, but it is a gambling parlor. It's not encouraging people to buy a very, very, very low cost index fund at hold for 50 years. I will guarantee you that you will not walk in there, get that advice. Instead you'll get advice on how you can trade options and they'll tell you that. It's telling people they aren't paying commissions when the commissions are simply

• 1:06:57Speaker 03

  disguised in the trading. It's basically a sleazy, disreputable operation.

• 1:07:05Speaker 05

  I love it when, when, and the other voice you heard, of course, was, uh, Charlie's buddy.

• 1:07:10Speaker 06

  When I say it, I'm the a-hole.

• 1:07:13Speaker 05

  I know, I know.

• 1:07:14Speaker 06

  I just need to be 95 and, and also worth $65 billion. And then all of a sudden people will be like.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  Everybody keeps coming at me about my dislike of Robinhood. Turns out, yeah, I've got some pretty good company there. Let's flip to the other side of this, which is on the employer side. For our stackers that own businesses, OG, the point this piece makes too, is the cost of training a new people, a new person is really hard. So work hard to keep people like Tony in this piece so that he gets a great career. You don't have to train somebody new. The customers get somebody great. Like, I think that there's some employers out there that don't think hard enough and long enough about the cost of losing some quality people.

• 1:08:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, as a business owner, it's exceptionally difficult to hire, train, recruit, hire and train people. You spend all this time and energy, all this money on recruiting people and, you know, having teams of recruiting and all that sort of stuff. And then, and then you don't give them the resources and support to stay. And this is evidenced by when your people go to, you know, say, hey, I'm going to go take this other job. And then you find out why, well, it's because they got a pay raise of like 10 grand. And you're like, if you had asked me for 10 grand, I would have given it to you. It's like, well, why weren't you proactively doing that to begin with? Why weren't you going to your employers, employees and saying, hey, we've done some market research.

• 1:08:44Speaker 06

  We know that new people in this field are getting paid X. And the reason is, is because inertia is very powerful. And if you pretend that you care about employees, or you pretend that you care about your people versus actually caring about them, eventually it shows itself out, right? I mean, you're going to eventually see, and it's not always about money. It's about other things as well. But money's a great barometer for your display of value received and value created.

• 1:09:11Speaker 05

  What also works, I've found, is two Fridays a quarter. Just get some like Little Caesar's pizzas and bring those in. People.

• 1:09:20Speaker 06

  You're a big fan of pizza Friday?

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  Who needs a raise? Who needs a raise that you can get pizza Friday?

• 1:09:26Speaker 06

  Five dollar footlongs, those are.

• 1:09:28Speaker 05

  That's proof that your boss loves you is because they bring in pizza. Listen to this, OG, to really illustrate Doug, your sarcastic comment, but even more than that, OG, what you just said, this is what Sarah wrote. Costco has long paid more than most US retailers they compete against to help keep turnover low, a strategy company founders believe reduce costs. I'm going to pay them more to reduce my cost.

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Think, think about how contradictory that sounds until you truly think about what does it cost to train a person versus to keep them there? Yeah, I'll link to this piece. I did not flag this for that second discussion, but certainly great for employers to read. And then for all of us, you don't got to go do Robin Hood stuff to make your dreams come true. Set it and forget it. And you can be like Tony Barzar, who is a Costco cashier and a millionaire. We kind of melded today, our back porch segment in by shining a light on stacker Mark. By the way, Mark, thank you for sharing that. That was fantastic. Loved it. Also stacker Doug was saying that we need more story hour with OG.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  And by the way, Steve, nice job of laying the music underneath OG's story hour. That was fantastic. You can hear just a few weeks ago, OG's story hour. If you just go back through recent episodes.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  And I doubt anybody's confused by this, but that was not this stacker Doug asking for more OG story hour.

• 1:11:01Speaker 05

  That was not, yes.

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  It was definitely not.

• 1:11:04Speaker 05

  Please know. All right. Speaking of Doug, this is where we turn it over to our Doug. Doug, what should we have learned on today's show?

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Well, Joe first, take some advice from Jesse Mecham and solve for one question. What's your money for? That'll clean up your budget and make life far more fun. Stack in a million dollars? You don't have to be fancy about it. A good 401k can get you there, just like our featured Costco cashier. But the big lesson?

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  Don't tell OG you gave Joe's mom the green light to make more brownies. He'll give you the red light to climb the stairs and try one until he's ahead of you. Seriously, OG, this is a horrible game.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  Thanks to Jesse Mecham for joining us today. You'll find his new book, Never Worry About Money Again. We'll also include links in our show notes at stacking benjamins.com. Also, thanks to our Ohio friends for joining us. Actually, some of our favorite stackers are in Ohio, which we can't figure out why, but hey, you know, that means Joe's mom says, nobody's perfect.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. You'll find out about our awesome team at 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 Benjamins Show.

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  Maybe it's time we talked. Kiplinger calls it the trillion dollar talk, a conversation about inheritance, estate planning, wills, and the questions families should be asking before those decisions become urgent. Because knowing what your family wants and having a plan for it can be one of the most important financial conversations you will ever have. Ready to start yours? Visit kiplinger.com to learn more about the trillion dollar talk and what this historic wealth transfer could mean for your family.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from a regional Medicare loan, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.