Five Signs Your Financial Advisor Might Not Be Great SB1900

"How do I know it's time to fire my advisor?" That question came up over and over at a recent retreat, enough that Joe knew it needed its own episode. Today he and OG walk through five real, specific red flags, not vague warnings about fees, but concrete signs that your advisor might be coasting, out of their depth, or simply not built for where your life is headed. If you've ever sat in a meeting with your advisor and wondered whether you're getting real value or just really good small talk, this one's for you. What You'll Walk Away With Why an advisor who knows your portfolio better than they know your actual life is a warning sign, not a complimentThe real reason a "free" advisor should make you more suspicious, not lessWhy an advisor working with literally anyone, instead of a defined type of client, often means shallower expertiseHow to tell the difference between a collaborative advisor relationship and one where you're quietly doing all the drivingWhy outgrowing your advisor isn't always about more money, sometimes it's about more complexity, and that's worth a real conversationA simple question to ask about fees that costs you nothing and might save you real moneyThe single clearest red flag of all: an advisor who leads with products instead of questionsWhy This Matters Now Most people have no natural way to judge whether their financial advice is actually good, since the whole reason you hired someone was that you didn't have the expertise to evaluate it yourself in the first place. That's not a flaw in you, it's exactly why concrete, observable signs matter more than a vague gut feeling. Knowing what a good advisor relationship actually looks like, real collaboration, a defined specialty, clear communication about fees and process, gives you a way to check in on that relationship without needing a finance degree to do it. From the Basement An Earth, Wind & Fire trivia detour uncovers the real, long-hidden meaning behind "the 21st night of September," and a listener question from someone getting her first-ever 401k at 50 sparks a genuinely useful conversation about target-date funds, Roth versus pre-tax decisions, and the often-overlooked Rule of 55. Resources Mentioned Stacking Benjamins Field Kit https://stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit — the all-in-one budgeting, privacy, credit and net worth tracking toolStacking Benjamins Benjamins After Dark meetups https://stackingbenjamins.com/bad — local in-person Stacker meetup groupsYell Down the Stairs https://stackingbenjamins.com/yelldownstairs — submit a question for a future OG and Anna episode 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

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• 0:35Speaker 01

  What a filthy job. Could be worse. How? Could be raining.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamins Show.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and we've talked a lot about having good help in your corner. But when do you know that the help in your corner isn't really helping? That's right. Today, Joe and OG tackle their top five clues that your advisor might not be the best fit. And if it's Monday, you know what that means. Anna and OG are back with some money basics. What are they covering? You'll have to listen to find out. But I won't leave you hanging on this. Yes, there will be another dose of my incredible, shareable trivia today. You'll want a slice, and that's halfway through today's show. And now, two guys who can never stop halfway when it comes to a bowl of ice cream.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  It's Joe and O-J-J-J-G.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Have you ever tried that, Doug? You ever tried to like have some self-control and stop halfway through? You're like, maybe this is too much. I'm not even a huge dessert guy. In fact, I don't really like desserts that much. I'll always have another steak and potato. But you can't walk away from ice. You can't. If it's in the bowl, it's as good as finished. So you just finish that. Yeah, you've already claimed it anyway. Nobody's getting used to it after it's been in your bowl. You can't put it back. Actually, that's my theory on everything in the cupboard. I bought it. It's eventually going in my stomach. It might as well all go in there now. It's now got my name. It's going to go there sooner or later. It doesn't even have to be in the bowl. It could still be in the box in the cupboard.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Who needs a fork? Nobody. Welcome to the etiquette show. I'm Joe Saul Sehi, talking etiquette and pantry management today. Actually, we got a great show for you. So happy that you're here with us. Sit back and relax. Grab something to take notes because today, my other good friend across the card table, OG and I, we're talking about top five signs your advisor might not be all you would hope. How are you, OG?

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Excited to be here.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  I'm excited that you're here too, because I was just at a Camp Fi. For people who don't know what Camp Fi is, it's a wonderful retreat with, we have 50 people out at this retreat center in Minnesota. And you spend the weekend talking about, what do I really value? Am I going toward that stuff? Am I not going toward it? The big question I got all weekend was this one. How do I know it's time to fire my advisor? Or how do I know that it's time to really lean in? My advisor's great, and I should probably be, you know, leaning on them more than I am. We're going to talk about that today. So, super happy that you're all here with us. We have a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from a couple now, and a couple in the middle of Doug's trivia at the halfway point of today's show. We're going to hear from them.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  And then OG and I diving into our top five signs your advisor might not be great. I'm loving the early emails I'm getting about the Field Kit. And for those of you that have already tried it, you know what I'm talking about. You can get your budget in order, your net worth, your privacy, your credit. It's all in one place. stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit. And by the way, Field Kit users and people wondering how the Field Kit works, we're going to be doing some webinars in the next couple of weeks. So if you get the 201 newsletter, you'll get an email about the Field Kit. stackingbenjamins.com/201 tells you when we are going live on YouTube with a webinar so you can ask all your Field Kit questions. That's coming up. stackingbenjamins.com/201.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  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,

• 5:09Speaker 02

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• 5:53Speaker 02

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• 6:28Speaker 02

  You know, it's so hard, OG, when we get the question, ah, how do I know that my advisor's really a good advisor? Like, I'm really getting quality advice? And it's hard, right? Because there's a certain level of knowledge that you have to have about financial planning in general to know that, okay, this is a good thing. But if you're somebody just really starting out, you have this person in your corner, and they're telling you about some exotic strategy, and you're not really sure how it works. You're like, what do I, ugh, what do I know? So I think this is a really important topic for a lot of people.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll be interested to see how we get through this conversation because I've got a few that popped into my mind. I'm kind of curious to hear what you experienced when you were up north.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I want to talk about one, OG, though, that didn't make my list. And maybe it did make your list. The way the advisor charges did not make my list. And I think that's going to surprise a lot of people. And that is simply because there are some advisors who only get paid commissions. That is the thing that when you go onto online forums, people are like, do not hire somebody that just does commissions. I know some of these people, OG, who are just fantastic advisors. They actually sell stuff when it's needed. They don't sell stuff when it's not needed. So for me, it's very difficult to isolate a good advisor based on their fee schedule.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Well, the problem with anything money-related is, what's the phrase? Show me the compensation, and I'll show you the bias or something like that.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  You totally made that up.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  When you introduce a compensation structure that is differed based on products and not complexity, then you introduce automatic biases. There's no way for a normal human being to say that they don't have a bias if you've got option A and option B, and they're markedly similar, but option A pays you more money than option B does, that you're not going to just kind of maybe tilt a little bit toward option A, even if it's a 51-49% tilt. It's just not possible as a human to do that. So, or not do that, I should say.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's 100% why I brought it up because I do think it's important to know how the advisor is paid. But before we got into our list, and people are like, how come you didn't put how they're paid? It is a bias. I want to know. I just wanted a list of five ways that I know my advisor's probably not great. And that isn't one. It certainly could be one, but it's not always one. So it didn't make my list. Let's do this. Steve's got our British guy ready. Let's do number five. Number five. All right, OG, you want to go first with your number five?

• 9:13Speaker 03

  I can, sure. So my first one is that they know your portfolio better than they know who you are as a person. So your advisor can recite facts and figures about alpha and standard deviation and what the performance is, and, you know, the fund manager and the tenure and all this great stuff about your investment portfolio, but doesn't really know or hasn't paid attention to the fact that you're really stressed about the fact that you got to take care of mom all of a sudden. And that's the thing. But hold on, let me tell you how great your portfolio is doing. I think, you know, portfolios serves the plan. Your investments serve, you know, the overall financial plan. And there's a time and a place to be talking about those numbers.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  But if that's the vast majority of your conversation.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Michaela is not impressed for those of you who get that meme reference.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  I don't. Do you Doug? Vaguely.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Don't know that Michaela is not impressed meme. Oh.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  It's a couple of years old, isn't it?

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Oh, a couple, probably 15 now. It goes back to the Summer Olympics when Michaela Maroney did an amazing job at whatever things she was doing in the gymnastics for the team USA. And that didn't score as high as someone else, despite the fact that it was like, everybody and their brother was like, oh, that's way better than this other person. And she's got this like pouty face where she's just like got her arms crossed and her lips are pursed and like off to the side. And it's just a snapshot of like that.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Just not impressed with the judge.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Michaela is not impressed.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Guess it was a old one.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  My talk at Camp Fi was about what are we really solving for? And a lot of the professors online will tell you, well, duh, you're obviously solving for more money. And yet a statistic that I uncovered recently was that 40% of millionaires are still afraid they're going to run out of money. 40%. And the study also went on to show that by adding more money to the pile, it didn't make that fear go away. What made the fear go away was knowing what you were chasing. And so to your point, if your advisor knows what the portfolio is up to and all the intricacies of portfolio, but they don't know what you're chasing. It's still going to cause a lot of consternation because you're not sure what the money's for.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yep.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  My number five is, and I tried to put these in order from most important to the least. You can certainly have a decent advisor who's a generalist, but I think that a generalist is the first sign that you could probably do better. Somebody who just works with anybody, they have some solid criteria, which is that you can breathe. If you can breathe, they're going to be a client for them. I really want an advisor who works with people like me. I want them to, you know, for me to be somebody who is self-employed, somebody who's in their 50s. Like I want some criteria that makes sure.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Upper 50s.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  That they're, you know, middle 50s, middleish 50s.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  I truly, I truly want somebody who spends their time doing the thing. I don't, you know, and no offense to generalists. Like one of my best friends happens to be my doctor. If I need heart surgery, I'm not going to Troy for that. I'm going to Troy when I have a cold because he handles everything. But man, I want a heart surgeon to do the heart surgery. So.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  And Troy, in your example, and Troy probably knows a really good heart surgeon. So you might go to him and say, hey, you know what? I've got this real big complication and because he's a great advisor, he would say, this isn't my specialty, but I know a guy, I know a gal who I should send you. In fact, let me make the introduction and make sure you get great care along the way.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  And that's the sign of a great advisor to me.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  I think so. Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Not that they know everything, but they are a hub of great information. And if, if they, I don't like the one stop shop where the advisor tells me, hey, in-house, I can do this, I can do this, I can do, you know, a few things, fine. But I really, really want somebody who is connected in my community and connect me to the right people to do the thing for me. Yeah. But that's number five. I really look askance when I've got somebody who just works with anybody.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Did you just, hold on, did you just say? Dropping a line from Hamilton.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 13:29Speaker 04

  I look askance. Are we that podcast now?

• 13:32Speaker 03

  He's quoting lines from Hamilton.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  I've got good words. I've got good words. There's a lot of good words.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Somebody's into show tunes.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Just because I was singing show tunes just before we hit record, you know?

• 13:44Speaker 03

  I get.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Number four. Number four, we're going to do the snake draft thing. OG where we go back and forth. Are we going to? Okay. My number four, a big sign for me that your advisor might not be best. And again, this one also is number four on my list because it could be a good advisor, but it, there's a lot of yellow, orange and red flags here. If your advisor is affiliated with a product company,

• 14:12Speaker 02

  hmm, there's probably a good chance that the sales training that they get, and it is sales training, the sales training there they, they have is going to align whatever your problem is with products that that company sells. And I mentioned that, you know, the fee structure didn't hit my top five, but man, when somebody tells me that they have an advisor who works for an insurance company, I immediately some, maybe not red flags, but deep, deep yellow into orange flags start to go off.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. This isn't on my list, but because I was thinking more big picture than this, but I would, I would, again, back to the incentive thing. Whether it's because of their training or it's because of, that's just where their knowledge level is. Or if it's literally where their bread is buttered from, when everything, what's the phrase? When all you've got is a hammer, everything's a nail. We've been on record over many years of the show saying there aren't bad products. There's just bad applications of products. And you know, you can look at a product and go like, this one's better than that one in that genre.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  And I agree that there's some of those, but I'm saying like, just generically speaking, whole life insurance, annuity, term, whatever, mutual funds. It's not that the product is bad. It's the application of the product usually is the not so good thing. I'm dealing with something right now with a client, just happened to bring it up. His mom had passed away and had two annuities. One was an IRA, one was a non IRA. But basically led the family to believe that they are required to distribute the non IRA over 10 years. And oh, by the way, we just signed this paperwork and you know, we'll give you this money over 10 years. And because the traditional IRA, that is the case.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  But he also led the people to believe that it has to stay with their company to do that. I said, well, it's an IRA. You can have that wherever you want. No, no, no. He said that it's got to stay with them to get the 10 year deal. Otherwise I have to take it all out right now. It's like, not true. Slimy AF is what I would say.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  That's horrible.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  By the way, not over like a $200 million annuity contract either, where this dude's going to make some money. Like literally a $70,000 account that is a $3,000 commission, probably. I get it. It's not zero. He's probably putting some food on the table with it. But you're hosing five family members for the next 10 years for three grand? Come on, man. So not impressed. I know we weren't going to talk about pay, but this is a product situation.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  That's a hundred percent a product situation. And when somebody works for a product company, I think the, the chance that that might come up. Let's put it this way, Doug, I may look askance at that. I may look askance.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Nope. Definitely can't use it twice.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  I had to. It's called a callback.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  My number four is you're the project manager of your own financial life. And what I mean by that is you're the one that's sending emails going, should we be doing Roth conversions? Hey, do you need to look at my estate planning documents? Can I get an analysis on my kid's college funding and where we're at on this? Every so often, if there's some kind of one-off thing that you haven't seen in a while from your advisor or some, some specific analysis that you're looking for, I think it's totally fine. But if you're finding yourself that you're preemptively bringing all of these topics up one right after another.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  And it kind of dovetails into another one that I had, but I think I'm just going to combine them, which is if this sounds like the same meeting over and over and over again. You know, and there's not like a structure to either contemporaneous stuff that's going on or, or a structure to, you know, your financial life.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's getting a little stale.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  You know, I certainly want it to be a collaborative thing. I want to be able to bring information to the, the meeting as a client. I also want to be able to say, hey, I was listening to this podcast and I heard about this. Do you think this affects me? And have the advisor opine. How about that one?

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Oh, he's on it today.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  I'm on, in Fuwago. I want them to let me know if that applies to me or not. So I really want to be involved. But there is a difference between collaborative and I'm driving the bus.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  The advisor does this every day. If I'm telling the heart surgeon, hey, I'm drawing the X on my chest.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Cut here, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash. You're like, doctor, uh, who's the doctor in the Simpsons? 1-800-DOCTOR, the B is for bargain.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  I do heart surgery for $129.95.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Three words that don't go together, discount and heart surgery.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Two not three words I want together. That's a great one.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  Number three.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  I kind of pieced two together, but I was smart enough to bring a bonus one, just in case I needed it. So I'm going to say number three is your other professional CPA, attorney, insurance gal, if you got it. Nobody knows anybody. Nobody knows what's going on. Either you don't want people to be engaged, which is a you thing. Or it's never been prompted of like, how do I interface with these other professionals that you have? So that we can all be singing off the same song sheet. One of the things you said, Joe, was I don't want a one stop shop. I will say that having a one stop shop where one person is like the head cook, bottle washer and you know,

• 19:56Speaker 03

  major D, all at the same time is probably a bad idea. But if the firm itself can support different areas of your financial life with professionals and all those things, I do think it's actually kind of a good thing. And then, you know, like we said before, being able to interface with these other professionals. We don't have a law firm on, you know, a lawyer on staff. It's not legal in the United States for non lawyers to own law firms. So even if I wanted to have a lawyer on staff.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Couldn't do it.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  He or she would have to be affiliated with a law firm that we're not, you know, it's just not, you just can't do it. But we have a great relationship with a law firm that if there's an estate planning need, or frankly, any business slash financial, you know, need as it relates to lawyering, is that the right word?

• 20:41Speaker 02

  I think it's be lawyer.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Lying, lying, lying.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Litigating.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Lit, lit, yes. Well, they wouldn't, they wouldn't do litigation.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Engaging in litigiousness.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Yes. If one were looking askance.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Okay. We went too far.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  That's not right.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Went, went too far.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  We've got a great relationship and we would have that resource for you. I, I always tell people, we're not going to bring you problems with your financial life that we also don't bring you solutions to. And that solution may not be something that we can directly do for you, but it's, but it's carried down the field as far as we can take it. You know, your life insurance sucks, Joe. Period. You're like, okay, so what do I do with that? Like, how much do I need? Where do I go? How much is it going to cost? I want to say, Joe, the life insurance isn't what you, the number that you needed. You need to have 20 year term. Let me tell you how we got there in a $2 million policy. Here's, here's my math. Also, I shopped 50 carriers. I found these three that I think are the best for you. We've taken the liberty to fill out most of the paperwork. The questions I don't know are these health related ones.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Here's the docu sign, fill this out, hit submit, and then let us know how the process goes. Same thing with the lying.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  When you have different advisors and their advice isn't dovetailing, I think that's a sign something's wrong. When, when it's not a collaborative effort between your advisors.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  You know, the other thing that I would say about this too, which is interesting is not always are those people always going to agree.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Right. It's okay that they don't agree.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  But you want them to be collaborative.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Yes. A hundred percent. We've got another circumstance right now where it's like, well, I don't agree with this. But also I'm not a professional. I'm not the one that's signing this deal. So here's my take on it. Here's that person's take on it, Mr. And Mrs. Client.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  It's actually great that they don't agree.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Sometimes.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  I mean, once again, as long as it's collaborative and you can see, and I get these different points of view, or they do agree, OG, and they go, I like where they're going, but here's the Achilles heel. You know?

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Have we considered this as an alternative or, or the case would be? Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. My number three, and I'm only bringing this up because I've seen it way too much. And I know there's people listening who are like, I love my advisor. They don't charge anything. If your advisor does not charge anything, I can assure you, they're not working with you because they're nice. They're not working with you because they're some sort of a saint. They are getting paid and you don't know how they're getting paid.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  It is scary. The number of times I run into people that are like, oh yeah, I don't pay my advisor. No, I got this great advisor. They recommend stuff and yeah, they don't get paid. Are you kidding?

• 23:20Speaker 03

  I have a sales leader. This reminds me of something a long time ago. I had this sales leader at Ameriprise, Joe, you know who it is, where this would be a common, like, why do I have to pay you? Was the common objection. Now, remember when you and I were doing this in the late nineties, the idea of paying for advice was completely for.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Fairly new.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  To so many people.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  It's not a thing. And Ameriprise was kind of at the forefront of that of saying, hey, we're going to charge for financial planning advice. We're also going to manufacture and create a bunch of products, which is one thing we talked about, you know, it's not so great. But we're going to charge for advice. And the sales leader would say, okay, Mr. And Mrs. Client. So, you know, you've got a guy, you've got a gal is going to do this, this, this, this, this, this. He'd like bullet point list out, like the whole process of financial planning. And if you can remember those old offices with the whiteboards and you know, the conference tables and you'd have your little pitch that you'd write on the board and all that sort of stuff. And he would, he would talk, talk with his hands and he's got the marker in his hands and he would go, so we're going to do this, this is, this is all for less than the cost of this marker.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  And he would like slam it right down in the middle of the table and like stand it up there. And you could just see the like, they wash over them, you know, it's a little slimy sales stuff, you know what I mean?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  That there's classy.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  It's a maybe a little, a little more aggressive than things are these days. But it drove the point home. And I think that's the point that you're making with this, which is unless they are like literally billionaires. And frankly, I don't know too many wildly benevolent billionaires anyway, are altruistic ones. So it's like, okay, unless they're independently wealthy enough to like pick you out of a hat and say, you know what, for you, I'm going to do it for free. There is that. We do pro bono.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Other traits of financial planning.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Well, we do do pro bono work from time to time and we think that's part of our role. But it's not what supports the business, right? Like we still have to, you know, all the people that work for me want to get paid. All the vendors that I use, they also want contracts and they want to pay for their services and all this other sort of stuff. So all for less than the cost of this marker.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Oh my God. I'm using, I'm totally using that somewhere.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  You're going to totally use that somewhere.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  I love it. I'll tell you what, Doug, not only getting this for free, I'm throwing in Michael Bolton tickets.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  It's like the time that my mom went down to the campground sales place because it was, they're giving away a free car. And I said, did you win the free car? She goes, no, we were really close though. Our key fit in the door, it just didn't turn. I was like, oh, okay.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  It's so weird. Everybody there was really close.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  And then she's like, in other news, we now have a campground membership.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  You guys want to come camping, right? Like mom.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  When was the last time you went camping? She's like 70, 60, 68, I remember. I just thought it might be fun. Like, do you have a camper? Do you know anything about camping? Can you start a fire? No, no, I don't. I thought you guys might want to. We bought it for the kids, really. Like, okay.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  How long was she a gold tier member of this campground?

• 26:25Speaker 03

  No kidding. I don't even remember. It was, it was.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Did you go camping?

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Never. No one went ever. No one ever went. But she almost did win the car.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Very close, very, very close. That was my number three. Have you done your number three?

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  One, two, three. Yes. Yeah. You're on number two.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  All right. Steve, play number two.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Number two.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  You know, I get that some offices are one person only. And I think they can give good advice if they are one person office. But what I really want from an advisor is I want their brain power. I don't want them answering the phones. I don't want them helping fill in out paperwork that an admin can do. So it doesn't mean they're a bad, they're, they give bad advice, OG. It just means I think I can do a lot better. If the person has support staff. I really want that person focusing on the things that matter to most people. I don't want the doctor answering the phone. I don't want the doctor prepping people for the surgery. I want them doing as many surgeries as they possibly can.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  So I think it's a flag and I think it's a big flag that my advice could be better if they, if she does it all herself. If, you know, going to see this woman and she's doing all this stuff. That's my number two is an advisor without staff.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Okay. I think you'll get some pushback on that one.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  I don't know. See, I thought you were going to go down like some continuity type of, type of route of, you know, it's great if I got one gal, you know, helping me out, but what if something happens and all that knowledge is locked up there?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Like that too. I love the fact that there's a practice continuity, especially if the advisor's older. Remember how, you know, in my career, some people didn't want to work with the younger advisor? They wanted the older advisor. Well, it's great. You're getting somebody who's been in the trenches, but well, what do you do when they retire? If you want to have a relationship with a firm, you really want the older person and the younger person coming in behind them.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  You need somebody with all their heart valves on staff.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. Gray hair, no hair and full hair. Like you just, you want the like sequence of.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  The full, full spectrum.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Or as Doug calls it, the full Monty.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  I worked early on by myself and I know the amount of time I was able to devote to complex, good questions. And it doesn't mean, you know, new advisors are bad. Everybody's got to start somewhere, but man, when I hire somebody, I really want to call Tina to handle my scheduling question because I want to know that there's a complex Roth IRA problem that, you know, Tina's boss is actually solving.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. We call this unique ability teamwork borrowed from strategic coach. And it's really, get a bunch of people who are really good at their specific thing and empower them to do their specific thing all the time really well. If you can do that, then you're developing a really cool team.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  And a question before we get to yours, OG, because people are always like, so how do I know? Ask them. Ask them about their team. Ask them about the roles. Ask them about when I call in.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Phone number and see who answers.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah. But I do want to know more granularly, like if I, you know, who does what? What are the, what does the breakup in roles in your firm? And you'll find out really quick what their answer is.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. That one's pretty good. All right. My number two is a little bit of a play on what you said, maybe for your number three, which is, you know, some products and that sort of thing. I said, you just don't know what you're paying or more specifically what you're getting for it. So kind of in line with what you talked about there. It said, you know, certainly not like fees are bad because advice is worth, you know, whatever it's worth. You know, there's a shelf life to that value. I get that. You save a hundred thousand dollars on a tax problem. I think sometimes advisors look at that and go, I'm good for like the next 15 years. I don't have to do anything. You know, Joe, he's going to remember that I, you know, I hit a home run on the first pitch way back in odd seven, you know, and it's like, no, you still have to provide

• 30:31Speaker 03

  value, you know, year after year, but it's, but it's not a linear type of value. So if you don't know what you're paying or what the process is, or what the experience is that you're supposed to get, I think the advisor may be doing a bad job of explaining that to you, or maybe doing a bad job of delivering it. But I think it's worth a conversation of like, what is this, what is this client experience supposed to look like year after year?

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Either way, I mean, think about what their role is, OG. It's to be an advisor. And if, if you're getting cloudy stuff from your advisor, your advisor's job is to make things cloudier. It's to clarify. It's to help you be able to crystallize. You know what, OG? I don't think this is the issue that you think it is. Here's the real issue. Oh, thank you. You know, get really crystal clear. Somebody to challenge your thinking. And if you're not really sure, if it feels like, you know, smoke and mirrors, dogs and ponies, I got no idea what's coming next. Well, I think there's, there's some problems there. All right. We're at it. Time for the drum roll. You're going to go back to the old days, OG, and do the drum roll. Do the drum roll. Come on.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  I have no recollection of that, Senator.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Look at what happens, Doug.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  That's because he's getting older. He's losing his memory a little bit. That's what happens.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  A little bit of the dexterity, maybe.

• 31:43Speaker 05

  Number one.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  All right. Number one for me is complexity. You've maybe just outgrown them. You're, you know, you started working with a firm or with an advisor. You were 30 years old and you saved a few bucks and, you know, life was good. And now you're the CEO of a big organization and you just had a big stock sale and, you know, you're selling your business for $10 million or $5 million or, and maybe that's a little more complicated than what you think that person should handle. And this one's really tough, I think, because outgrowing somebody because of complexity is different than outgrowing them because of relationship, you know? And

• 32:27Speaker 03

  it's like, I've been with, I've been with George for 20 years. Like he's my guy. It's like, yes, but if their specialty, back to what we were talking about before, is people that have $150,000 saved and are saving, you know, 10 grand a year in their brokerage account, nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly fine specialty to be in. But if all of a sudden you're the unicorn that, you know, you're selling your HVAC company to PE for $17 million, I'm not sure that George is the guy, you know, that might be a little out of bounds.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  This was a big aha for me way, way, way back in the day. In the early years of the podcast, we interviewed Tony Stubblebine, who was one of the creators of an organization called coach.me. They're still around today. They provide all kinds of coaching services. And Tony's big point was, you don't need, it isn't a life sentence with this person. It's, I have this specific need. I plug in the person who's really good at it. And as an example, I hired coach.me to do inbox zero once. I hired him. I got to inbox zero. I learned what it was. A month later, OG, he was gone. He did the job I needed.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, my, yeah, my hope here is, is that over your lifetime, you know, relationship with this team, they are growing in the capabilities and resources as you're growing in capabilities and resources, you know? So you're growing with them. The other thing that's interesting is the inverse of this can happen also. So speaking from an advisor perspective, if the advisor is growing, right? And we want, we as humans want constantly more fascinating and motivating things and projects to work on, right? Like, we want to be challenged. It's just like any other job. You, you want to grow in your career. And so sometimes you grow in your career faster than the people around you grow. And then as an advisor, you

• 34:15Speaker 03

  evaluate and go, geez, I don't know that I'm providing the best support I can for this group of people anymore, because we now are really good at this group of people. We're not really specializing in this group anymore.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  And even though it's painful, maybe in the moment, that's a great, it is a great advisor who admits that though. Says, I love you as people. I'm not your person.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it goes both ways, right? Is what I guess what I'm saying is that there can be a circumstance where an advisor's career growth and practice and like all the stuff that they're working on is growing faster than you are. And that might happen. And they might say, hey, look, I can't work with you anymore because the types of work that I'm doing is this, not this. And it doesn't have to be like more upscale. Could just be like, all of a sudden I found out that I'm really good at working with welders and you're not a welder. I just want to lean into welders because I love them. And I'm really, I'm the best at welders and you're an eye doctor. So you need to go find eye doctors, you know? So it could be something like that. But if you have something like some sort of mega change, you go from making a hundred grand a year and then grandma and grandpa die and

• 35:15Speaker 03

  you get $32 million, you know, it might be worth a conversation anyway.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  My number one is a very easy flag, an incredibly easy flag. And it's this. If your advisor leads with product and not questions about process, really it's very closely related to your number five, OG. If they are talking products, they're not talking process and questions. Here's how we're going to solve problems. Instead, they're just plugging in solutions and they haven't asked you questions. They haven't introduced a process. That's the 100% the wrong advisor. 100% the wrong person. All right. Those are our five. What did we miss stackers? You can share your top five with us in the basement, which is our Facebook group. And to get there, you go to stackyourbenjamins.com/basment. That's

• 36:07Speaker 02

  the quick way to join a lot of our other stackers or our meetup groups around the country may be talking about this. So you can talk to people face to face. I love it when our meetup groups get together and you can find them at stackyourbenjamins.com/bad, which is Benjamin's After Dark, the name of our meetup groups. I think there's a lot of ways to find out if your advisor is good or bad. And I think we tackled a bunch of those today. So I hope we helped a lot of people. All right. Time for your favorite part of the show. Buckle up stackers because Doug, you've got a trivia question today.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and I can hear and feel Joe's mom's upstairs dancing across the living room because it's September 21st, AKA Earth, Wind and Fire Day. You know the song? I mean, it literally opens with, do you remember the 20th was night of September? I never realized how I sound exactly like Maurice White.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's uncanny.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Well, that song made tons of Benjamins referencing today's date, but what was the significance? I'll be back with the answer after I go move some chairs so we don't have an accident like last year. That was a huge carpet cleaning bill.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  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.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  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. An estimated $124 trillion to heirs and charity is expected to be transferred by Americans over the next 20 years.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  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.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  It's incredible at a small company like stacking 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 post even seen at other sites. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need. Reach candidates that meet your specific criteria like skills, certifications, or

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• 42:11Speaker 02

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• 42:46Speaker 02

  Hey there, stackers. I'm furniture mover and beat groover. Well, that rhymes. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Earth, wind, and fire not only stacked a ton of Benjamins, they were inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2000 alongside other classic artists, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, and the Love and Spoonful. Today's question is about arguably their biggest hit of all, the song September. What was the significance of the 21st of September that they referenced to kick off the hit? The answer, for years, the band said there was no significance and 21st of September just sounded great until 2019, when band members reversed course, finally letting everyone know it was the due date of the arrival of singer Maurice White's son.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  His son arrived very early, August 1st, but both mom and son were healthy and lived happily ever after. More good news, you can now share that with your friends right after you hear from OG and Anna.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Hey everybody, it's OG. And it's here too.

• 43:49Speaker 06

  That was kind of scary.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  It's kind of fun. So we are smack dab in the middle of conference travel. Anna and I just got back from future proof. Joe and the rest of the team are at FinCon. We've had sick babies and broken arms and all manner of chaos going on. So we are super gluing together this little episode, not exactly what we had planned when we kind of sketched out the season. But instead we're going to do some Q and A that we had piled up. And as Seinfeld said, we're going to pivot.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Was this, I don't know, it wasn't Seinfeld, it was friends. It was friends. Hannah doesn't know either. So, so just a little Q and A time. So if you wrote in some questions and you thought it might be a little bit, you might get it answered today. All right, you ready? Let's do some Q and A and give the people what they want.

• 44:35Speaker 06

  Yes, this is what they want.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  All right. So the first one that I've got here is from Michael. He's in Arizona and he says, hello, Anna and OG. Hope you can help with this question. My wife and I make good money and we save consistently, but somehow we don't feel wealthy. At what point in time should you actually feel like you're doing well financially?

• 44:59Speaker 06

  I hear this a lot during meetings, especially when we're doing full financial plan meetings. So when we're like really looking at long-term numbers, I hear this, I want to say 80% of the time, like people see their net worth statement and they're so surprised because they don't feel like that's actually how wealthy they are. It's important to be looking at that side of things, like looking at the net worth statement, looking at your total assets, because the reason why things feel tight is probably because you are saving quite a bit and you're having these like passive saving funnels that are happening. And so you don't see a lot of the, the cash that's going into these different channels.

• 45:43Speaker 06

  So I think a lot of people experience this. I don't think you're alone, Mike. And I think that, that what you have to do is just kind of come back to those like monthly check-ins or quarterly check-ins with your family and be looking at where does your net worth actually stand? How have things changed? And if things feel tight cash flow wise, maybe there's some adjustments that actually need to be made, but more than likely that's probably a good thing because it means you're probably saving pretty well.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. The reason your balance sheet looks so awesome is because of the discipline that you have. And so much of the social media and friends and family and stuff makes wealthy feel like I gotta spend a bunch of money. And so it's like, like, I feel like I don't have a lot of money to spend. Well, yeah, because you're saving a bunch, but maybe, you know, you've got a good amount of net worth saved up and now that money can start compounding, you can let off the savings gas just a little bit, maybe to free up some cash flow. Cool. All right, your turn.

• 46:39Speaker 06

  Jennifer from Nashville, Tennessee.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  Jenny Jenny from the block.

• 46:44Speaker 06

  Jenny from the block of Tennessee. I've got about 300 K sitting in cash because the market feels expensive right now. Am I being prudent or am I really just trying to time the market?

• 46:59Speaker 03

  B. Next question.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  I mean, first of all, awesome. I'm having $300,000 in cash. That's pretty flippant. Cool. Setting aside that some of that might be emergency fund and cash reserve money. And if it is, I think, you know, that you got to carve out and say, hey, I'm supposed to have like 50K or 100K. Like, that's my emergency fund. That's my, that's my cash reserve. When you're trying to decide whether or not to invest, every single day looks like the worst time to do it. Because either it's too high, air quotes, too high, or it's too low. Right. It's like, oh, my gosh, the market's down. It's down 30%. No way could I put money in today. Look at what's going on, the chaos. And so the best method is to set up a system and invest the same amount at a regular basis.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  And now that you've accumulated a bunch of money, it's going to feel kind of weird to dump that all in because Murphy's Law will tell you. As soon as you put it in, it's going to go down by 5%. You're going to go, I knew I shouldn't have done it. That was a mistake. You know, whatever. So what I would advise is kind of maybe like a two-pronged attack. So first of all, take half the money that you would invest and invest it today. So you've got your asset allocation. Let's assume that's done. Just get the money in by nightfall. So maybe 100,000 is your emergency fund. You got 200K left over. Invest 100,000 today. The other 100, we're going to decide one of two things. We're either going to say, uh, let's say the S and P is at 7,000 today. We're going to say, all right, if the market does go down from here, at what number do we want to get the rest of the 100 in?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  So let's pick a 10% number. We say, hey, it's at 7,000. At 6,300, we're putting the rest in. So we, we were right. It was high. Now it's gone down. We got a discounted price. Let's get it all in at 6,300. Conversely, which is probably what's going to happen, at what point in time do we say, okay, we were wrong? Let's pick that number to be maybe five or 10% higher. So 7,000 is the S and P right now, maybe 7,700 or 7,350, somewhere in there. You just say, okay, you know what? I was wrong. It wasn't, wasn't high. It was actually low relative to today. And now I got to get the rest in. Because if you look at the chart over a long period of time, you know, stocks go up into the right.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  There are just little periods of time where it goes down and, uh, you know, you just can't pick when those days are. So that's kind of the best of both worlds. If I were telling you what to do, I would say invest it all tomorrow and just be done. But I think a good mix of going, I'm going to do a little today and then have a plan for the other, you know, the other half. Either I'm right or I'm wrong, but I've got a decision to make when I get there.

• 49:33Speaker 06

  Completely agree. I feel like for the last 10 years, completely agree. I feel like for the last 10 years, people have been saying the market is really expensive and it's really high. And, and it's just the same conversation and like, we've changed so much since 2016. So anyways, let's, I'm going to ask you the next question.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Oh, I get another one.

• 49:51Speaker 06

  You get it. Yep. Back to back. Uh, David from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  Michigan.

• 49:57Speaker 06

  Michigan.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Go Grand Valley State.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  There we go. Um, my wife and I are 54 and 52 and retirement suddenly doesn't feel that far away.

• 50:08Speaker 06

  What should we be doing in our 50s that's different than what we were doing in our 30s and 40s?

• 50:14Speaker 03

  This is kind of interesting because if you're like most, let's say, young 50s, maybe you have kids that are now growing or grown and kind of transitioning out of the house and the refrigerator bill, the shopping bill is maybe as high as it used to be. Maybe you're traveling a little bit more. I think the opportunity that you have when you're in your 50s, you know, setting aside the normal, I say, normal things. Like you can save more money in your 401K. You can do catch up contributions, that sort of thing, is really taking stock of what is really important. You know, over the next, let's say, 10 years, like, what do you want to do? Because you're probably in as good a shape and health as you're going to be, right?

• 50:56Speaker 03

  What do you, in a perfect world, what does that look like from a retirement standpoint? Are you thinking I'm going to retire when I'm 60 or 62 or 65 like that? Those are all, you know, things to start thinking about. And then as you're working through your budget and cash flow, paying particular attention to the things that are going to happen in the future. Right? So maybe you're aggressively paying the house off. We have done the studies on this and we know, or read the studies on this, and we know that the happiest retirees don't have a lot of debt, if any. You know, you say, well, but my mortgage is 2%. It's super awesome. It's like, yeah, I know. But we can tell you that people say it's really good not to have a mortgage payment.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  So maybe that's a priority or starting to volunteer more and, and picking up, what are the things that I want the next 20 years to look like? If you're on the back end of the kids thing and, you know, and the kids may be off to college and that sort of stuff. I feel like in your 30s and 40s, you're like hanging on for dear life. You know, it's like kids and you're beholden to the travel schedule of school. And, you know, all that stuff is going on with, with, with the immediate family. And now as you kind of get to that 50s, kind of early to mid 50s time, now it's a little bit more of the expanded family, right? You know, mom and dad are a little bit older. Aunts and uncles are a little bit older. You know, kids are starting to be out of the house. Like, what do you want that period of time in your life to be?

• 52:18Speaker 03

  And then what does that look like from a money standpoint? The good news is that most people in their 50s, this is kind of like your peak earning years. A lot of times people worried about catching up and that sort of stuff. Stick to the plan in terms of investing. Maybe step on the gas a little bit if you have the opportunity to do that. But if you're ahead of the curve or, you know, on pace, don't be afraid to, to explore a little bit and have a little, a little bit more fun.

• 52:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, we've had so many clients who are like so, so good at investing in their 30s and 40s. That 50s actually might be a time where it's like, you still continue to work and pay your bills. But maybe we're actually saving a little bit less on the other hand, because we're focusing now on like that retirement transition and visiting the kids at school and like making that time to spend a little bit more. So I've seen that transition too, where we've, I've talked with clients about, okay, what if we actually let off the gas when we get into this time period?

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, having so much flexibility, building in that flexibility kind of early on.

• 53:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Okay, we got time for Uno Mas. That means one more. One more for Anna. Uh, Chris from North Carolina, great city of Charlotte. My wife thinks we should enjoy, kind of similar question. My wife thinks we should enjoy more of our money now. But I'm always worried about saving enough. We're both reasonable people, but we see money completely differently. How do you figure out how much is enough and when is it okay to spend? So kind of like what we were just talking about a second ago.

• 53:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's what I was going to say. These questions are kind of tied together. I think it's important. So I'm assuming that this client is also probably closer to retirement because they're saying that they are saving, they've already saved quite a bit. I know this is, this is kind of a self, a plug a little bit for us, but also just in general, if you have some sort of plan in place so that you understand how are these changes going to impact us long-term? Like, how does increasing expenses? Because once you get to a certain level of expenses, you're probably going to enter into retirement at that same level. It's not like you're going to go backwards in terms of spending.

• 54:27Speaker 06

  So I think when you do add on, we turn on the faucet a little bit more with the spending. We got to assume that that's going to continue, like indefinitely, more than likely. We're not going to go back in time in retirement. Um, there's always things that are going to come up. So I think it's important to have a plan and know how that spending is going to impact things long-term for you. So that's number one. And I always think that it's, if this is someone who is similar to the previous question writer, it is important to enjoy your money right now. There are so many conversations about how we enter into retirement and we get hit with some sort of illness or disease or something like that.

• 55:11Speaker 06

  Or just shortly into retirement and we are not able to actually enjoy it. So maybe what that actually looks like is balancing, being able to do all these things that you want to do while also working at the same time. So we're not pulling from our assets to retire early to do all that stuff. But we're able to kind of do it at the same time and let our previous savings just continue to grow. So this is something, again, we talk about a ton with our clients. We're like in this stage of life of transition closer to retirement.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  I was going to say, it's a, it's a very common topic of like, model out the worst case scenario for how much, like, worst case in terms of like, how much I spend before the plan breaks? And in conjunction to that, like, how much do I actually even have to work right now? Can I go back? Can I go down to 70% time or 80% time or 50% time? And if I do that, I keep my, I keep my insurance benefits, which is what I want. And I'm only working Monday and Tuesday one week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the next. And, you know, I've got these long weekends and, you know, I'm paying my bills and I don't have to save anything because I've saved for 30 years. And now it's doing its thing. So it's kind of like a mini, like a mini retirement, maybe type of concept.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  But I think in particular, as it relates to the comfort level of, are we spending enough or, or can we spend more? And where's the balancing act? It's really just knowing what that is. And I think most people would be, who have saved are pleasantly surprised to find out like, oh, my gosh, like, I would really have to go crazy in spending and, and go crazy in spending forever to have this be a thing. Because it could, you know, you could say, well, you know, the wife wants to, or the husband wants to, you know, have a trip. It's like, well, you're not going to go to Africa and do a, you know, 15 day safari every single year, probably. So can you do it once and it's 40 grand and, you know, you bring the whole family and it's like a boatload of cash? Yeah, probably. Should you do it every single year?

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably not. You know, if the market does really poorly one year, you know, it's the Paul Merriman thing. The market did bad, so we, we have a lot of staycations. The market did really good, we're going to Europe. You know, it's just, you just kind of plan accordingly and adjust, you know, as time goes on. So, these are really great questions. If you've got more questions for us, I think we like doing these rather than trying to figure out what it is that you guys want to talk about. But if there's something in particular you want us to cover, or you've got a question for me or Anna to answer, [email protected]. You can leave a voicemail, stackingbenjamins.com/voicemail. And if you're, you know, wanting to have these conversations with Anna, or you want to have them with me, you can reach out to us at stackingbenjamins.com/og.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  Just type in stackingbenjamins.com slash, and you can fill in anything else you want after that. Voicemail, OG.

• 58:00Speaker 06

  Whatever you're feeling that day.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Whatever you're feeling that day, just plug that in and you'll probably go somewhere. Well, I appreciate you jumping on today. I think we did it. We're gonna hit end, and we're gonna kick it back over to Joe or Doug, or hell, maybe you're kicking it back to me. I don't even know what's happening right now. So, it's all I've told you.

• 58:18Speaker 06

  We're just kicking it.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  We're just kicking it. See what happens.

• 58:21Speaker 06

  Bye.

• 58:23Speaker 04

  I'm Rocky Lalvani, the Profit Answer Man. And when I'm not helping small businesses stack Benjamins for themselves, I'm stacking Benjamins for myself.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  Hey, guess what, Doug?

• 58:36Speaker 04

  What, Joe?

• 58:37Speaker 02

  We just got a letter.

• 58:40Speaker 01

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

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Doug, you've got the letter. Who wrote us?

• 58:50Speaker 04

  JC wrote us, Joe. And JC says, I've been listening to the show for two years and came to you through Paula's show, Afford Anything. Thank you for all the great information, education, and laughs. Are you JC, Joe?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  I'm JS.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. That's a soft, yeah, okay. I've never had a 401k since most of my work life has been as a business owner, contractor, and freelancer. I have not heard any recommendations for people over 50 who have never had a 401k. Most of the talk is for younger folks and/or people who have had the opportunity to have this savings option throughout a career. A few months ago, I landed a full-time job working for a small and growing company that offers a 401k. What is your suggestion/recommendation for how best I can set myself up to make good use of this opportunity? I am 50 and married. I do have a Roth IRA with Vanguard that I dollar cost average into monthly, and a three-month emergency fund, an investment account and money

• 59:50Speaker 04

  market account, and no debt. My husband and I live small, but not without comfort. We are not big consumers and tread lightly on the planet. No mortgage or car note. The kid is grown and on his own. Therefore, saving more now while I have a steady income can happen without feeling a loss to our daily activities. The company offers a Roth 401k and a traditional 401k. They do not match contributions. I set the deductions up the first chance I got at 8% with a split between Roth and traditional 4% each, with a 1% increase per year. State Street Target Retirement 2030K is the one that the company has set up for employees. I have 60% going into this fund. I know you're not a fan of the Target Date Fund, Joe. These two I picked.

• 1:00:36Speaker 04

  T. Rowe Price Small Cap Value 20%, Vanguard Morningstar Growth Index Institutional 20%, $830 per month total going into these three funds. It looks like there's an advisor fee and a plan administrator fee. Am I being charged by the company? Who do I ask about these fees? If you have thoughts, ideas, twists, or turns you think I would benefit from doing, please do let me know. I'm open to your input and am grateful for all the help you have given me already via your podcast and book. Looking forward to hearing from you. You're the single best person I've ever heard on a podcast ever. Cheers, JC.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  I don't know, JC, but thank you very much, JC, for the kind words. And OG, somebody in their 50s, first 401k ever, are they going to use it differently than somebody who's getting their first job at 25?

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  I wouldn't think so. This is great that you have access to one. Yes, if there's anything I would do differently, I would probably ratchet up the savings a little bit faster. But it sounds like you've got that kind of on autopilot, which is great. Already talked about the fund choices and the Target Date Fund, which is going to be wickedly conservative for somebody who's in their 50s. Not a fan. And frankly, you've already demonstrated that you can pick through a few funds and say, well, I like this growth fund, and I like this small cap fund. What the hell do you need a Target Date Fund for when you pick two of the three you kind of need anyway? Like, just add an international one and you're good. I might change that. But otherwise, no, I like it.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I might swap out that.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  Pre-tax Roth thing, I was gonna say, the pre-tax Roth thing, sorry, is kind of a, is just a guesstimation, right? It's like, how much should I put in each? Depends on what tax rates are today and what they're going to be in the future. So, hard to, hard to say where.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  Let's talk about that. I do think JC, if she's able to put 100% Roth in, like she was already, into a Roth, at this point in life, why wouldn't she just go 100% Roth?

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I can't say I disagree with that. It kind of depends on the total income, household income at this point, and that sort of thing. But I do generally fall on the side of, like, if you can pay the taxes today, it's probably better than paying taxes in the future. But there could be some circumstances where the pre-tax side.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, gee, obviously, I'm with you. She already noted that you and I don't like Target Date Funds because of the fact that they are so incredibly overly conservative. You're going to end up with money in them, most probably, when you don't need the money. And at that point, the fund continually gets more and more and more conservative, and you're sitting on money that's not keeping up with inflation. So, it just does not make sense. Better to make the move when you need the money to reposition it into the bucket that is meant for using it today versus toward growing. So, if she's 20% small cap value, 20% growth index, I would swap out that growth index for the 20% international piece, and then, you know,

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  maybe then 60% into more of just a large company stock fund, like a S&P 500 fund. And again, we don't know enough about JC's life and about when she's going to need the money to make a specific recommendation, but just directionally, that's kind of what I like better.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah, I can get, I can get behind that.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. She talks about the fees. There's an advisor fee and a plan administrator fee. These are when you work for a small company, JC. They're gonna have some fees that get passed on to you because of the fact that they just want to be able to offer this. I think while those fees exist, OG, you know, it kind of is not the end of the world.

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  I mean, the alternative is, don't put money away.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  If you have a seat at the table and you have a sense of how big the plan is, how many employees there are, how much money's in the plan, there's opportunities to renegotiate that as the plan gets bigger. And maybe the company can absorb some of those, or the plan administrator will be able to kind of restructure those, so it's a little bit less. The reality is, there's a bunch of record-keeping that has to happen here. There's a bunch of technology that has to work correctly to make sure that your paycheck and the 401k company are all talking together. There's a lot of people involved. And like we talked about just, you know, a few minutes ago, ain't nobody doing that for free yet. You know, everybody wants to get a paycheck and put food on their table, and, you know, that sort of thing. So, if you've got an opportunity to just say, you know, my favorite question is, is this, and I asked my

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  wife to do this when she went and bought a dishwasher the other day. She, our dishwasher was on the fridge. She had, she knew exactly what she wanted. She researched it all. And I said, hey, do me a favor. When you go to this sales guy, just say, hey, is this the best price? And she was like, no, it's a little, it's like, you know, whatever. I said, just ask. What's he gonna say? Like, you did all the work, right? You walked in.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  If he says yes, you're where you are already.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you know what he said?

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  He goes, well, I think we could probably pull forward the Labor Day sale, knock a few percent off. Is that, would that get it done? She went on August 30th, like, you know, you know, just kind of lining up the stars. Here you go. This, you know, I don't know how the pay schedule works at Nebraska Furniture Mart. But if it was gonna work anyway, it might work like, the end of the month is when I get my commission, right? So, you know, you just say, hey, is this, just ask. If you're in the room and you're a decision-maker, and you're with the person who's doing the 401k, just go, hey, I see there's a bunch of fees here. Is this the best price on all these line items?

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  I saw this with a friend in our adventure show that we do. They were just talking about when they walk into a hotel, they just say, is this the best room I could get, or is there, are there other rooms? And again, you're already in the room, and every once in a while, they go, oh, well, we do have these other rooms we could do. What, you know, what exactly are you looking for? Well, I don't know. I just wondered if there was a.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  I could move you to the corner, further away from the elevator. You know, like.

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  If I did that, the response would be, I don't like your tone, sir. Well, I would lose the room I had.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  It's also, neighbor Doug, out on the, out sleeping in the car again.

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  And that's not even for the person at the desk. That's for Mrs. Neighbor Doug. I don't like your tone.

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  JC, there's one other way to look at this, and that is 401k plans have this rule of 55, and it doesn't apply to all of them. Your 401k has to allow it. Oh gee, if she's looking at a retirement before 59 and a half, she may go the exact opposite way here, which is to use this to build maybe her first money that she spends so that the rest of her money she can keep in growth mode. What do you think about that idea? If maybe she's looking at an earlier retirement?

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to figure out where cash is going to come from already.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the rule of 55, your employer has to allow it. But if you leave the money in this retirement plan, you may be allowed to withdraw it without penalty before 59 and a half. So again, you want to dig into the paperwork about how your 401k works, if it's even eligible for that. I certainly like the rule of 55, if it is available, better than something like IRS Rule 72T, where you're on a periodic payment plan on like a pension type schedule for five years or 59 and a half, whichever's longer. So you could look at it that way. But again, we don't, OG and I don't know when you want to retire. Great question. Thank you for the question. By the way, a better move for JC would have been to call this in. We are building a show coming up, and we do these periodically where we dive

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  into questions. When you call them in, we thank you with Stack Your Benjamins swag. Go to stackyourbenjamins.com/voicemail or stackyourbenjamins.com/ yeldownsstairs and we'll answer your question on a future show. All right, that's going to do it for today. Big thanks to all of you for hanging out with us. If you have an advisor, you know, somebody is looking at their advisor, not sure if it's a great advisor or not, probably good idea to pass this one on to them. It was a big question I got at Camp Fi. Like, what's an episode for this? And after almost 1900 episodes, we have an episode for just about everything that you could be looking for. But this is a good one for people looking maybe at their advisor. All right, that's going to do it. Doug, you've got it from your man. What should we have learned on today's show?

• 1:08:41Speaker 04

  Well, Joe first takes some advice from our top five. Bad advisors leave lots of clues. Great advisors can make you a great investor. So hire wisely. Second, that 401k, jump in. Even in your 50s, a 401k is a great retirement vehicle that can make it much easier to save because of payroll deduction. Even better, you can stop it if things get too tight. You're not locked in. But the big lesson, after seeing Joe's mom dancing in the living room, there is no way I can forget the 21st of September. That's something you cannot see.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  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 Benjamin Show.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  JC says, I've been listening to the show for two years and came to you through Paula's show, Afford Anything. Thank you for all the great information, education, and laughs. Are you JC, Joe?

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  I'm JS.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. That's a soft. Yeah, okay. Details with questions. I've never had a 401k. I wasn't supposed to read that, was I?

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  I know. That's why I just deleted it. I was like, he's gonna read that.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  And he's reading it. Yeah.