Harvard’s Robert Waldinger on What to Spend Your Money and Time On to Be Happier SB1910

Ask a room of young adults what they want most from life and about eight in ten will say “get rich.” The longest scientific study of adult life, now following the children of its original participants, found something different about what pays off. Dr. Robert Waldinger leads the Harvard Study of Adult Development, and he explains why one kind of spending keeps making people happier long after a flashy purchase fades, why career achievement doesn’t predict a good life, and the habit he now treats the way he treats the gym. Along the way come a rundown of what SECURE 2.0 changed and a listener question about saving for retirement from overseas. What You’ll Walk Away With What a generation named as its top life goal, and what the data says about chasing itThe kind of discretionary spending that keeps paying off in happiness, and the kind that doesn’tWhere money really moves the needle on wellbeing, and the point where it stopsWhy “happiness” is the wrong target, and what the researcher measures insteadWhat a couple from one of Boston’s poorest neighborhoods can teach about a rich lifeWhy introverts aren’t at a disadvantage, and whether purposeful friendships beat casual onesThe subway experiment: why strangers who were told to talk ended up happier than they predicted“Social fitness”: the weekly habit that works like exerciseA quick gratitude exercise for a bad mood, built around one question: what if I hadn’t had this? Why money you’ve set aside is retirement money even if the account doesn’t say so Why This Matters Now Most of us keep score with a number. Waldinger’s research points to a more useful scoreboard: who shows up when it matters and whether your days have a purpose. If you’re saving diligently and quietly wondering whether you’re chasing the wrong things, or you feel behind every time you scroll past someone else’s highlight reel, this is permission to build the plan and the life at the same time, not one after the other. From the Basement This one comes out of the basement vault for Greatest Hits week. Doug’s trivia is about the first photograph ever taken of a person, a Paris street so busy that only two men holding still, a customer and a shoe shiner, made it into the picture. OG is also accused of being a curmudgeon, and he does not enjoy it. Resources Mentioned Robert Waldinger https://robertwaldinger.com: Dr. Waldinger’s site and TEDx talkThe Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness https://publishersweekly.com/9781982166694: the book by Waldinger and Marc SchulzLifespan Research Foundation https://www.lifespanresearch.org: the nonprofit Waldinger co-founded, with more on the study 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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• 0:45Speaker 02

  Hey stackers, Joe Saul, C-Hi. What if you're doing everything right with your money, but you're chasing the wrong stuff? You're saving, you're investing, you're making progress toward retirement, but is all that work actually making you happier? Today, we're going to revisit one of my favorite conversations with Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Waldinger. He leads the longest running study of adult life and happiness that has ever happened. I'm writing a new book that's going to partly encompass this and a bunch of what you're going to hear today is a part of my work. And so I'm super happy to replay this. His team did just ask people, by the way, what they think makes them happy.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  They follow people throughout their lives to find out what actually did. And some of their discoveries about money, success and relationships are definitely going to surprise you and changed my mind about really what we were chasing. This aired the first time, January 9th, 2023. We pulled it from mom's basement vault for greatest hits week. One fun part about going back is that we talk about this new legislation, Secure 2.0. It was brand new and I love that we get to teach you about changes while they're happening so you can put them to work. And speaking of that, there's two things you've got to know right now. First of all, if you're over age 65, there's a year end Roth conversion opportunity that

• 2:14Speaker 02

  I think's worth exploring. For example, some married couples with very little taxable income could convert as much as $47,500 from traditional IRAs to Roths and they will owe zero federal income tax. Now, we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago on the show, but I just want to make sure that if you're over age 65 and have no other income, you're going to either check it out online, go back to our show, talk to your financial advisor, whatever, just get that done. Now, if you're on the other side and you have student loans, the student loan payment

• 2:54Speaker 02

  programs changed radically this year for a lot of our stackers who are borrowers. If you auto enroll in one of the new programs that you just got put into, remember you've got a free 1% off your interest rate. So if the interest rate was seven and it goes to six, that's, that's 1-7. That's better than 1%. I mean, that is, that's a chunk, but 1% off your interest rate if you use auto enroll and automatic payments. So for both of those things, you have until December 31st to get them done. That's going to be here before you know it. By the way, we cover strategies like this all the time and you get emails from us all

• 3:38Speaker 02

  the time on it at, on our guides, stackingbenjamins.com/guides. All right, we cleaned up some of the old references in today's replay, but the Secure 2.0 stuff loomed large then. And while some of the specific numbers have changed, I think it's really important to know how the Secure 2.0 stuff changed the game and how it could apply to you today. Obviously you're going to want to make sure that you've got updated numbers for whatever strategy you have today, but these rules still, still, still looming large in your financial plan. All right, let's head back to mom's basement to discover what decades of research reveal about living a happier life. Turns out the answer might not be another zero in your retirement account.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Let's get on it.

• 4:24Speaker 03

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

• 4:39Speaker 03

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and whoo, am I happy to be here because today we're talking what causes happiness? I'm guessing corn dogs and chili fries, but here to tell us what the longest study on happiness says, we welcome clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Robert Waldinger. For our Tik Tok minute, we look at why you might want to change your voicemail greeting when you're job hunting. In our headlines, new legislation called Secure 2.0 has passed into law. What's new? We'll dive in. Plus we'll throw out the Haven lifeline to Maggie, who's looking to get her retirement back on track after moving abroad. And then I'll happily share some trivia.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  And now two guys who wish you happy trails on the way to your retirement. It's Joe and O-J-J-J-G.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  And a happy Monday to you stackers. You're here, you're with us. Welcome to another episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe Saul, C-Hi, Average Joe Money on Twitter and across the card table from me today, the Whistlin Bandit himself, Mr. OG here with us. How are you?

• 5:55Speaker 04

  The Whistlin Bandit.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Better than the Wet Bandits from Home Alone, which I've seen 600 times in the last six weeks.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  The Wet Bandits. Yes, the worst nickname on earth. We got a great show today. Dr. Robert Waldinger joining us, OG. He is going to tell us from Doug, as you said earlier, the longest study ever on happiness. They studied people all the way through their lives. And then now they're studying the children of those first subjects to find out exactly what makes us happy.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Does that mean Dr. Waldinger is like 190 years old?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  It either that or he didn't begin the study. He just got the handoff and now he is taking up the study. We'll talk to him about exactly how they did that, but we got some new legislation, OG. Congress apparently before they said bye-bye, did something, not the craziness going on that we're seeing on the news every day. Instead, we had craziness of passing Secure 2.0. We'll talk about that. Tik Tok minute, what else could we do? You know what else we could do, Doug? I know what else we could do. How about if we do this? I'm sure everybody was super excited about that. It's way excited. All right, Dr. Robert Waldinger waking upstairs with mom.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  I'm just so happy I didn't bite.

• 7:19Speaker 02

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• 9:24Speaker 05

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

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Well, Congress actually got the wheels of government moving and secure 2.0 is a thing, OG. Just overall, as you've looked through this legislation, what do you think?

• 9:42Speaker 04

  I like that they're extending the required minimum distributions, although that doesn't affect a whole bunch of people and certainly does affect those who are on the upper end of the income scale or savings scale. But I think keeping the government out of your pocket for an extra year, two or three is a pretty cool thing, no matter what age you are. I think the biggest win is being able to put your contributions, your employer contributions into a Roth. It's going to be taxed differently because companies still deduct that. So it's got to be like a little, there's got to be some tax ramifications there. But again, back to the keeping the government out of your pocket for a little bit longer. I think that's, that's probably the better news out of all of it.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So let's walk through many of these provisions and have you look at them one at a time. The first one you already mentioned, it's on this Forbes list that I have. By the way, if you want to follow along, we'll link to it in our show notes at stackyourbenjamins.com. Currently, of course, requirement distributions just last couple of years went from 70 and a half to age 72. Now, as you mentioned, it's age 73. That age is going to be bumped progressively until it reaches 75 effective in 2033. So to your point, OG.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Quite a ways away.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. But here's, here's the question, you know, does this just kind of go along with longevity increasing generally in the population?

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, that's part of the reason why I think it makes sense is because you've got more and more people that are working into their late 60s and 70s and they don't have to be burdened by this excess withdrawal thing. Now, again, like for most people, this is kind of a non-event, right? If you have the luxury to delay your IRA distributions because you have so much money elsewhere in retirement, you know, this is really just kind of a top quarter percentile type deal of people probably. But, you know, there's some trickle down effects there, I think, that helps secondary generations and that sort of thing.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the penalty for not taking a requirement of distribution, some of you listening may not know that there has been a 50%, five zero, not 15, hear that correctly, 50% penalty. If you don't take your RMD, your requirement of distribution on time, that's the amount you have to take out.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Plus taxes.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Plus the taxes do, if you would have taken it out.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  That is just the penalty. Starting in 2023, that penalty falls to just only, only 25%. Still a monster penalty. I don't understand why they did that one, actually. I mean, if they're going to make it a penalty, just go ahead and make it a huge penalty because 25% is still big. Why, why do you think they have this change from 50 to 25?

• 12:32Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't, I don't see that one.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  That seems like if I'm, if I'm running a business, I just keep it at 50 because nobody cares. Oh, you got a big penalty? The number could have been 100. Catch up contributions are changing. Good news. Right now, people age 50 and older can make catch up contributions of $7,500.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Hey, that's you guys.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  2023. Yes. That bumps it up to 10,000, starting in 2025. However, this is only for those between 60 and 63 years old.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  So there we go.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Kind of sort of a top, a top tier income bracket folk, right? That, that's, that's like, not only can I do my 22 and a half, but then I can also do 7,500 and an extra 2,500.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  This is what makes me angry about it.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  That's good.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I agree. But this is what makes me frustrated with this stuff. It increasingly, one step at a time, makes all this garbage more complicated, OG. Now, at age 50, I can catch up, but only to a certain point. And then starting at age 60, I get another bump up. Now we've just taken this easy to remember catch up contribution. And we've now made it two steps. Before we know it, it's going to be five steps. I mean, every time we do this stuff, we just make it more complicated. I don't understand why they didn't just make it for everybody, one set number.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. And like we've advocated, why not just make it one set number? That's really big.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  For everybody.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Into whatever freaking account you want to put it in.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Just do it.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Don't even care. Just save it. If your 401k allows you to put it in there, put it in your 401k. If you don't have a 401k, which I know is one of the other things that secure 2.0 did, put it in your IRA. Like who cares? Just have an aggregate total of, you could do 50 grand or you can do 150. I mean, who cares what the number is? Let, let people save money.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  This Forbes piece makes a good point of what if inflation runs away again between now and then? Well, luckily this provision allows the number to be adjusted for inflation. So while it's $10,000 in 2022, it might be higher if we don't get any inflation out of control by 2025. So that, that number can now change. IRA catch up contributions will also be adjusted for inflation, uh, starting in 2024. Let's talk about 401k enrollment changes. Two things, we now have an automatic minimum contribution of 3% effective in 2025, OG. So this idea of mandated, government mandated,

• 15:08Speaker 02

  opt in instead of opt out is a real thing. If you go to work for a new company, you'll be opted in at a 3% rate to your 401k. What do you think about that?

• 15:17Speaker 04

  It's great. Yep. Inertia.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Well, and I'm going to take it, why don't, why don't I be the, take the OG curmudgeon role? You know what I don't like about it? If you're going to opt people in, make it a meaningful number.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  Hold on. What's the OG curmudgeon role? I've never heard of this. I have a role of being a curmudgeon?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  I should, I should act on that a little bit more. If, I mean, if we're rewriting storylines and, uh,

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Oh, this is new to you?

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, apparently is this a new, I must've missed the meeting where we turned OG into a curmudgeon. I don't.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Well, let me just, let me just say this. If you're going to opt people in OG, let's make it a meaningful number. 3% really? Really?

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. I hear what you're saying. 3 is greater than zero, though.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  It is. Now, the good news is this, as an employee.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Hold on a second. Yeah. Doesn't this also have an automatic escalation? You know, the 3% thing is lower. Companies have the option to make that higher. They can, they can make that mandatory minimum number higher and they have to increase it every year up to at least 10%. So like within 1% increment. So, so if your company, Joe, you decide, hey, 3% sucks. We're going to do five. That's cool. You can auto enroll at five and do a mandatory 1% every year up to 10. And you can go all the way up to 15. So.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  So I will get there.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. Which is, you know, the way to do it. I mean, who was the person that we had on a couple of months ago that was talking about spending, being in like different tranches of your life? When you're 22 and you get your first job, you don't have any, any real expenses other than rent and food. You save like crazy. You have the opportunity to. And then when you're like 38 with three kids, a mortgage, a home equity loan, two cars, you know, you're like savings rate plummets. And then, you know, you kind of get out of that and, you know, your income catches up and all that other sort of stuff. So it makes sense to like have these small adjustments. It makes it a lot easier to aggregate all of that savings.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  If you're a part-time employee working for a company with a 401k, it actually, this legislation makes the process quicker to get you eligible for the 401k. Took it from 1,000 hours to 500 hours or more for the last three consecutive years, starting in 2021. So your eligibility increased. Roth accounts eligible for matching, OG, you already talked about this one, that now Roth accounts can be matched, although you did say there's going to be a little tax tweak there.

• 17:52Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Listen to this. Companies can match student loan debt payments. If you're paying off student loan debt, often people are worried about, do I save into my 401k? Or do I pay off my student loans? Well, now you can kind of do both by paying your money towards student loans and your company now matches that student loan repayment as a 401k contribution.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Helps. Yep. Absolutely. But doesn't match into the student loan?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  They're not additionally paying off your student loan. They're putting a contribution into your 401k as if you were contributing to your 401k. Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Right. So they're making the four, part of, you know, what would be some 401k contribution. So it helps you solve that problem of which do I do? You focus on the student loans, get that paid off. 529s. How about this one, OG? If you've got money left in your 529 plan after college, I think, I think we had some callers just a few weeks ago, asking us about this question. If we had a problem there, you can now roll excess money out of your 529 plan into an IRA. This is after 15 years and it's a Roth IRA. You roll it into Roth IRA after 15 years and it's for the beneficiary, not for the person that put the money

• 19:10Speaker 02

  in. The beneficiary now can take it as a Roth IRA instead.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Up to the contribution limit of, you know, this year $6,500 and you can go up to 35k per person. And it's got to be, you're basically pulling forward those contribution amounts for the next couple of years. Kind of like you do with a 529, you know how like in a 529, you can say, well, I want to pull, I want to put a whole bunch in today and it counts as like a five year contribution. You can't do anymore for five years. It's kind of the same deal for, for the Roth. My devil's advocate side of this one. Sorry. My new role of being a curmudgeon is.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  I actually think, well, I'm just trying to, I mean, I've missed the meeting, so.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Lean in, just lean into it.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Lean into this new, new OG.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  See if it comes naturally.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  May not come as naturally as you guys think. The, I can't even say that with a straight face. I think leftover 529 money is way better as a 529 for the next generation than it is to give it to the current generation in Roth. Because there's some chance, a very good chance that you're back to being 25 and you know, not really the smartest with money generally. There's a really good chance that that 25 year old goes, yeah, I'm going to use this money. I'm going to use it. And you know, the biggest issue with 529s and Roths, in my opinion, is that they're so multi-generational in that you can like, literally create this education trust that in two generations from now has tens of millions of dollars that'll be tax-free forever.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  And, and the IRS is kind of scared of that potentiality. So they go, oh, well, let's just let them take it out and then see if they do dumb stuff with it. So I don't know. It's better than leaving it. Like if you don't have any, you know, next generation people to give it to or whatever. It's better than paying a penalty. That's for darn sure. So it could be a good way to kickstart your kid. You know, hey, graduate college and there's 35K there. You know, I wonder from a planning standpoint, if that's going to change people's planning assumptions of, I don't want to have enough for college. I want to have enough for college and 35 grand. Because you know, you put 35 grand in a, in a Roth IRA for a 22 year old. Any ideas how much that is at 62?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  A lot.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  Correct. That is the exact answer.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  That's 600,000 bucks. So, you know, give or take.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Good start.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Well, and this is OG, I think, another problem being solved that wasn't a problem at all, to your point. I think that, you know, a lot of guests we have on here talk about families not thinking enough about building intergenerational wealth in the 529. If you used it the way that it was used to be, it was designed to be intergenerational. It was designed so that if you put too much money in it, it went to the next generation and could become the family quote, education trust.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Not the case anymore. I mean, could still be the case, I suppose, if you decide to do that. But now you've got the option to take it sooner. And what do we know about people? They take it sooner.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Able accounts, able accounts have big changes. Used to be able accounts you could set up if you had your disability before age 26. That is now changed to 46. I think that's a, that is a big, big, big change to able accounts. Emergency savings, we talked about this one last week, OG. You can now contribute to Roth for your emergency savings. The maximum savings amount in a year is $2,500. You can make four withdrawals a year now from your Roth. What could possibly go wrong there?

• 22:49Speaker 04

  I just sigh, sigh emoji. Better than nothing, I guess.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Yes. But all in all, and we'll link to this again, and also we'll talk about strategies. Kevin will have strategies in the 201 for everybody. That's our free newsletter tomorrow. StackYourBenjamins.com/201 to subscribe to our free newsletter. He's going to talk about strategies and all these areas. He curates some of the best spots around the internet that have talked about all of these things. But OG, all in all, big net positive for people looking at saving.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Overall, yeah, absolutely. I like it a lot.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Time for our Tik Tok minute. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a Tik Tok creator, either doing something brilliant or hashtag brilliant. Now we know what OG thinks about these. So Doug, we're going to you. Is this one going to be brilliant or hashtag brilliant?

• 23:39Speaker 03

  You know, I, I think you want to get this year started off correctly, Joe. You want to make people think that we're actually sharing useful knowledge with them. So I think we're going full on academically brilliant.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  I think Doug, you might've nailed it because this guy has a lesson, I believe, for all of us.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  I've been applying for jobs and some have called me back and I just realized I haven't changed my voicemail greeting since I got my first iPhone.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  What up, what up? Thanks for hollering at your boy. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you or hit me up on MySpace. Oh, shizzle.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Hit me up on MySpace. Oh, shizzle. But seriously, I have, I, I realized listening to this, that I have not checked my, my voicemail greeting on my iPhone in forever. You guys checked your, what the hell you're saying on your iPhone?

• 24:38Speaker 03

  No, no. But I mean, with a voice like mine, would you have changed it in 20 years?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  But knowing you, you said something like out there, you would've said MySpace. Hit me up on the MySpace.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  On the MySpace.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  There's a chance.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  On the MySpace or the Facebook? Facebooks, the Facebooks.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  The Facebooks.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  There's a chance.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  I found, I found, I had one friend on MySpace. This is how much I use MySpace. My friend's name was Tom.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Remember Tom from MySpace? Who was your automatic first friend? Hey. No?

• 25:14Speaker 03

  No.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Wasn't a thing for me.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Did MySpace come automatically preloaded on the Zune that you owned or on the Windows phone?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Easy. I'm, I'm right here, right here.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  I know it didn't come on my Palm Pilot.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  How about the BlackBerry? BlackBerry was the thing.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  One of those too. I've got a whole case of these.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. The drawer pagers.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  I have a friend who's still buying them off of eBay or wherever he can find them because he insists on having a physical keyboard. It's a bizarre attachment he has, but he is, I don't even know if you can still, will they connect to any networks?

• 25:51Speaker 04

  They call those laptops.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  I can type text messages from my computer now. I don't even have to have a phone.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  He's got a giant holster that attaches to his belt for his laptop.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Dragging his leg.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  That's how he got his disabled parking space, right there. Yeah. Not good. Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, co-founder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. He's done a thing, biggest thing he's done though, is come down to the basement to talk about happiness. He's got a brand new book where he talks about happiness and what truly makes us happy from the longest study on happiness in history. He took over the study a number of years ago, and we're going to hear from him about what truly makes us happy.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  But Doug, before we get there, I think you've got a little pontification on happiness.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  I've got something that'll make everybody else pontificate. Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and I bet I know what makes people happy. Let me see, leaving scathing Yelp reviews after an unexpectedly bad meal at a bowling alley? Probably. Seeing the disappointment in a pigeon's eyes as you eat the bread crust yourself. Or when the barista turns their back at the moment you're supposed to tip. That's the best. Yeah, good times. What seems to make the kids happy these days though, is taking selfies because that's all I see them do. On this day, the iPhone was announced in 2007, one of the first phones with a camera. Also on this day, the first photo of a person was published, but it definitely wasn't posted

• 27:36Speaker 03

  on Instagram. My question is, what year did that happen? Was it 1738, 1838, or 1938? I'll be back right after I find my light, tilt my head forward and slightly to the side and purse my lips, but you know, not too much.

• 27:58Speaker 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.

• 28:42Speaker 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.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  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.

• 31:11Speaker 02

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• 32:38Speaker 02

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• 33:14Speaker 03

  Hey there stackers. I'm grouper model Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. The first photo of a human actually looks like an empty Parisian street, but that's because most things like trams and walkers and mimes were moving too fast to show up. Only two, did you catch the joke there with the mimes moving? Anyway, only two men, one holding his foot up on a shoe shine board and the other shining his shoes remained visible in the shot. Those were the first two people to be published in a photo. So what year was it? 1838. That's the day that capturing happiness was born. Wonder how many years it took before people realized that true happiness was taking photos of every meal you ate. And now to

• 33:56Speaker 03

  help you capture your true happiness, let's say hello to Dr. Robert Waldinger.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  And Dr. Bob Waldinger joins us. How are you?

• 34:05Speaker 07

  I am good and I'm really glad to be here, Joe. Thanks for having me.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Well, I'm happy you're here too. Obviously, anybody talking about happiness, that's what we're all after. I want to begin Bob with this 2007 survey of millennials that you have in the author's notes, right at the beginning of the book. Cause I think especially for a money show, this really frames what we're after, maybe what we're not after. Can you, do you remember that study? Can you tell me about it?

• 34:33Speaker 07

  Oh yeah. They surveyed thousands of millennials and asked them, what are your major life goals? And about 80%, eight out of 10 said that their major life goal was to become rich, not just to get their material needs met, but to become rich.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  What's interesting is they follow them? Or have you seen the same thing in your bigger studies that people, when they're young, that's the main goal?

• 35:01Speaker 07

  Yes. And some people, even when they're older, the financial bottom line is the only metric they can imagine for having a meaningful, good life. And so that's what they stick to, but especially young people. And I think it's because we get these messages all day long from the culture that, you know, if you have lots of money, if you buy these things, life will be good.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that's what was frustrating to me was that it was also not just being rich, Bob, it was the trappings of being rich, right? You guys looked into that.

• 35:31Speaker 07

  Oh yeah. Material things. What we found actually was that when you use your discretionary income to buy material objects, you're less happy for less long than if you use your discretionary income to have experiences, particularly with other people, you know, going on a vacation with your family or tickets to a basketball game with a friend. Any of those things makes you happier for longer than buying the next flashy car or the next big screen TV.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Well, let's dive into exactly the project that you're involved because this, this project is a hell of a lot older than you are. This project is, this project has been around for a good long time. Tell me about the project you're involved in.

• 36:15Speaker 07

  It's 85 years old. It started in 1938 and it's the longest study of the same people that's ever been done. Started with teenagers and followed them all the way through to the end of their lives to look at what helps people thrive and what things don't make people thrive so much. And now we've expanded to all their children. So we're talking thousands of people over 85 years.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Is it not an accident that this began during the Great Depression time? Because it seems like that time, when you say 1938, it seems like there was so much sadness then. Was that intentional at that point that we really need to see what makes people happy?

• 36:58Speaker 07

  There was a lot of doom and gloom in the culture, but in addition, one of the arguments of the founders of this study was we've spent so much time and so much money studying what goes wrong with people. Why don't we study what goes right with people? And so it was this kind of flipping it on its head to study normal development.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  You write also in the author's notes, Bob, that a good life is a complicated life. And really defining a good life is complicated. Tell me, how is it complicated?

• 37:31Speaker 07

  Well, what we know from all these life stories is that everybody has hard times. Everybody has hardship. Everybody struggles with things. The reason why it's important to name that is that it's easy to look at other people, especially if you look at their social media posts and say, oh boy, everybody else is always at a beautiful beach, or they're always about to dive into a beautiful plate of food, right? And everybody else has life figured out except me. And what we can tell you from studying thousands of people is not true. Everybody struggles. Life is filled with hard times and we would argue that's part of what makes life richer and more interesting for most of us.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  It is so, it is so interesting that I'll go on social media myself and I find myself almost universally depressed afterwards. These beautiful people doing beautiful things all the time. And you know, I'm sitting in my house, which is, man, it's a nice place and I have a nice life, but turning that thing off, it seems to be so much better for me. You tell some great stories throughout the book of some of the subjects. Early in the book, you tell a story about Henry and Rosa. Can you, can you give me a little snippet about them? Cause I think this is just a good glimpse into the average person that you talk about, Bob?

• 38:53Speaker 07

  Sure. Henry and Rosa were from the poorest neighborhoods of Boston in 1938. They were from actually one of the most disadvantaged, troubled sets of families.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  And which then Bob, and not to cut you off, why initially think when you say that for that first couple of sentences, I think these people are going to be more unhappy. They're going to struggle more in their life, right? So their happiness meter is going to be way less if they're from this really poor upbringing.

• 39:22Speaker 07

  Exactly. And Henry and Rosa are a great example of a couple who had a wonderful life, had a really rich, fulfilling life. And a lot of it had to do with their connections with each other. They had a very solid marriage and their connections with friends and family. And that what we find over and over again in studying thousands of people is that the people who had the warmest, richest connections were happiest, healthiest, they were also most successful at work.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Wow. So relationships really, would you say, you know, the millennials said it was riches was number one, being rich. Would you put relationship then as number one? If you had to look at your study so far?

• 40:07Speaker 07

  I would, I would say if you're going to do one thing in your life to try to have a good life, it would be invest in your connections with other people, that it has huge payoff.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Does this mean that the introverts have it harder, Bob?

• 40:23Speaker 07

  No, but it's a great question. So in fact, introverts just need fewer people. They actually find being with lots of people exhausting, but they need people. They just need a smaller number of people and that's not abnormal. It's not a problem. In fact, it's just fine.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  On that note, we already opened up with one myth about happiness. This idea that money brings happiness. What are some other myths that you found over the years are associated with happiness that may or may not be true?

• 40:57Speaker 07

  Well, another big goal of those millennials that they surveyed was to become famous. Being famous doesn't make you happier. It doesn't make you less happy either. It's just neutral.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  It's there.

• 41:08Speaker 07

  And similarly, people thought that, boy, I need to achieve a lot at work. And one of the things we find is that work achievement doesn't predict whether you're going to be happy. In fact, when, when people were in their 80s, we said, look back on your lives and tell us what you most regret. And a lot of the people looking back on their lives said, I wish I hadn't spent so Much time at work and I wish I had spent more time with the people I care about.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  Boy, that's big, especially for a show like ours. I feel like our listenership sometimes need to hear that because people obviously listen to a money show, money oriented. Know that spending more time at work sometimes can equate to more money. Tell me about correlations though with money and happiness. Where do the correlations actually lie there? Are there some?

• 41:57Speaker 07

  There are some. So what we know is that you need to have your basic material needs met in order to be happy. So below, one survey said $75,000 annual household income. Below that, people are less and less happy. The lower you go below 75K, the less happy you are. But the, the higher you get above 75,000 and the, the amount may vary a little bit. But the high, the more money you make, your happiness doesn't really go up very much. So yes, you need your basic material needs met and beyond that, money doesn't correlate with happiness.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Find it in other ways. What is the relationship between health and happiness?

• 42:45Speaker 07

  Strong relationship. So the other big finding of our study was that if you take care of your body, you're happier as well as obviously healthier. So what that means is getting that healthcare that you need to get, going for those checkups, getting regular exercise, not becoming obese, not abusing alcohol or drugs. All of those things really matter to keeping you both healthier and happier.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  That's interesting. So is longevity then also tied to happiness?

• 43:18Speaker 07

  Yes. People who are happier on average live longer. No one person can say, gee, if I'm happier, I'll live to be a hundred. But on average, the people who have a greater sense of well-being stay healthier and therefore live longer.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  We've seen studies before, Bob, about people that like feel like they have a mission in life, right? That they have something that they have to do. I'm thinking especially about one study where in a nursing home, half of the people living there were given a plant and they had to take care of the plant, make sure the plant stayed alive. The other half were just left to themselves to do whatever. The people that had to take care of the plant lived longer on aggregate than people that just were left to their own. Is there a connection then between purpose and happiness?

• 44:07Speaker 07

  There is. And there's a connection between purpose and longevity. As you said, you know, that the people who say, this is why I get up in the morning. This is what my life is about are happier, stay healthier, live longer. And that could be anything. It could be taking care of a plant or a pet. It could be taking care of grandchildren. It could be mentoring your younger coworkers at the office. There could be so many purposes, but you want to have some sense of what means something to you and whether you can live out that purpose day to day. One of the big questions that retirees ask is, do I still matter?

• 44:50Speaker 07

  And what we know is that everybody wants to feel like they matter somewhere, somehow to somebody.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  That's amazing. It seems like too, for the older people in your life, uh, just telling them they matter. Like having those discussions, I think could be great for you and great for the older people in your life. I was wondering, you know, we, we began by talking about the importance of relationships and about how relationships are number one. And we just talked about purpose. It would seem to me then that purposeful relationships, like working on building this purposeful relationship more important than one that's just a get together and play cards. Is that true or not at all?

• 45:27Speaker 07

  Not at all. It turns out you can have all kinds of different relationships, right? So yes, purposeful relationships, like together, we're going to work on this project. Great. It's actually one of the things that brings people together, you know, volunteering for a political campaign or to combat climate change or whatever your passion is. But there are also relationships where we just play cards together. You know, we just go on hikes together. Those are absolutely as important, as impactful, as beneficial. There are all kinds of ways to have connections with other people and they all work.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Which goes back to complication, right? The how complicated having a good life really is that a fabric, I guess, of a real fabric makes a good life.

• 46:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, to emphasize that point that different kinds of relationships are really helpful. So we have some relationships that are for fun. We have some relationships where we help somebody or they help us. We have other relationships where we share our most important secrets and concerns. All kinds of different relationships are useful to us. And, and in many ways, what we want to be sure of is that we have a collection of different kinds of relationships in our lives, if we can manage that.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Is the word happiness too broad?

• 46:54Speaker 07

  You know, I think happiness is really a momentary feeling. If we think about, you know, am I feeling happy right now? Yeah, I'm talking to you. It's fun. We're having a good conversation. But an hour from now, I might be really annoyed at something. I won't be happy. I won't be happy right then. So happiness is like an up and down thing. So I like to think about well-being, this kind of bedrock of things are okay. I've got the ingredients in my life that mean that things are generally okay, even when I'm annoyed, even when I'm having a bad day. It's a kind of safety net that we build that can make happiness more likely moment to moment.

• 47:36Speaker 07

  But that expecting to be happy all day long is a complete pipe dream. Nobody's happy all the time.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Much more about this overall satisfaction. I like your term well-being. I think, I think way better. Is well-being then more of a mindset? I guess if I'm optimistic about my well-being and about the fact that things are going to be okay. Have you seen that that optimism actually breeds more contentment?

• 48:05Speaker 07

  Optimism does breed more contentment and it's not clear that we can control whether we're optimistic or not. Some of us are born more optimistic temperamentally, right? And you know, some of us are tiggers and some of us are Eeyores, you know, some of us are kind of gloomy and we see the glasses half empty all the time. And so we can't totally control it, but there are ways to reframe things. So one of these we know is that a gratitude practice actually makes us happier and feel better about our lives. So if I'm in a bad mood, but I think, okay, well, what do I have to be grateful for?

• 48:47Speaker 07

  It's really helpful to call those things to mind. Like, you know, my wife, like what would life be like for me if I hadn't met my wife? Well, it wouldn't be so good. What would life be like for me if I didn't have my close colleague, Mark, who I wrote this book with? Well, our research wouldn't have been nearly as good. So you think of the what if, what if I hadn't had this in my life? And it can make you start feeling really grateful for your life. And that's a helpful exercise, especially when you're feeling kind of crummy about things.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  You've done far more research than I have on this, but I've had this thought recently, looking back on my life, that the more gratitude I feel, the more grateful I am, the more riches seem to follow me. And maybe that is just a sense of well-being and happiness. Cause as I realize that I have friends around me, I have people around me, I have people that would take care of me if things go badly, that then I feel this well-being, which makes me feel a richness. I don't know if there's anything there scientifically, but it certainly what you're saying rings true.

• 49:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. And there is, you know, if you think about it, if you smile at people, they smile back. They might make conversation. They might, you know, if you walk into a room frowning, maybe, maybe just because you're concerned about something else going on in your life. But you're, you walk into a room frowning, the message is, eh, don't come near me. If you walk in and you're smiling, you're giving off that kind of energy, people respond. And so I think what you're saying is that you can kind of give off messages of come approach me, or you can give off messages to stay away. And that makes a big difference in how easy it is for us to connect with other people.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  It's funny, you saying that reminds me of another question I wanted to ask you that I nearly forgot, Bob, which was, there's a fascinating study you talk about, about a stranger on a train. And the setup for everybody is, is that you and I are sitting across from each other on a train. Do you make conversation or not? Or, you know, even on an airplane. And generally, by the way, if the person next to me on an airplane starts talking, I'm like, oh God, no. Oh, please, please, please, please, no. But this study showed something a little different and it's not the same thing we were talking about, but a little related. Can you, can you talk about the stranger on the train?

• 51:08Speaker 07

  Absolutely. Some researchers got two groups of people who were about

• 51:14Speaker 07

  To take a subway train and gave them an assignment randomly. Some of them were assigned to do what they usually do, which is to keep to themselves. Look at their phones, listen to music, read the paper, whatever they did. Other people were assigned to talk to a stranger while they were on the train. And they asked people, how, how much do you think you're going to enjoy this assignment we've just given to you? And the people who were assigned to talk to strangers uniformly said, we're not gonna like this. Zero. This is not gonna be fun. So then they went through, they did their assignments and afterwards they asked them again, how much did you enjoy your train ride?

• 51:53Speaker 07

  The people who had to talk to strangers were way happier at the end and enjoyed it much more than the people who kept to themselves. And it's, it's, it's an indication that we're not always so good at anticipating what's gonna be fun, what's gonna make us happy. And that's useful to remember.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  I love that because it brings up this, these surprises in life, these things that where you don't expect to get happiness and then it's there. And I think about all the great conversations I've had on airplanes with strangers, even though I hate doing it, go in. I've, I've met some phenomenally interesting people on planes. Which brings me, I think to my, to my next question, which is you've obviously done this, not just this amazing project that the two of you have done with this book. But obviously the project that envelops so many more years. What has surprised you most, Bob? What has been the thing that's been the biggest, wow, I didn't see that coming.

• 52:51Speaker 07

  Well, first of all, the importance of connection. I did not see that relationships would turn out to be so powerful. You know, that loneliness would be as bad for you as smoking or obesity, right? So I didn't see that. I think the other thing I didn't see was how much people can change, how much our lives can change as we go through life. You know, you think, you see somebody's on a certain path and oh, their lives are going to be on this path the whole time. And then people make all kinds of changes, even late in life, even in their sixties and seventies and eighties. You know, they might find love or they might find a whole new hobby or a whole new group of friends late in life.

• 53:36Speaker 07

  So I think that one of the take home messages that I find most hopeful is that we don't know how life is gonna turn out. Even if we think we know, and that all kinds of changes can happen throughout our lives.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  I love this idea of the magic of a pivot, that things can change at any point. And it's never a time when you should, you know, pack it in and give up like the train is running out, out of the station. My last question today, what's, what's the biggest takeaway? I asked you the biggest surprise, what's the biggest takeaway? Or maybe a non-obvious takeaway that you hope people get from this book?

• 54:16Speaker 07

  Biggest takeaway is to be active in taking care of your relationships. Think of it like you would think of physical fitness. You don't go to the gym today and then say, okay, I'm done. I never have to do that again. Think of social fitness in that way. Think of taking care of your relationships as something you do every day, every week. Rather than spending yet another weekend afternoon on my laptop, doing my research work. I've started calling up friends and saying, let's go for a walk. Let's have coffee, that it's that active engagement with the people we care about that really pays off.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  The book is The Good Life: Lessons From The World's Longest Scientific Study Of Happiness. And it's available everywhere, I think.

• 55:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, hope so.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for talking happiness here with us early in the year, Bob. I really appreciate it.

• 55:15Speaker 07

  Joe, this was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. This is Scott from California. When I'm not hiking at national parks, I'm stacking Benjamins.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Big thanks to Dr. Waldinger for joining us. Doug, I don't think it was a mistake, by the way, getting back to your trivia before we talk about happiness, that the iPhone with its camera came out the same day that the first photo of a human came. I think very seriously, I think Apple planned that on purpose. I think Steve Jobs planned that on purpose. I do think that was.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Very seriously? You think this very seriously?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  I do.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  He's thought about it very seriously.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  No, I think that they did it on purpose. It was like their marketing thing, you know what I mean? Hey, we're reinventing the camera, so we're going to do this on the same day. Like they could have picked 364 other days. Why'd they pick today? It was because of this.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  And that's the one feature of all of the things that that iPhone could do in oh seven that were just absolutely groundbreaking. That's the one feature they decided, we're gonna line this up, not the day Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  And also didn't tell anybody.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Well, because it was a, it was a big day for cameras. I mean, the fact that we took a picture of a person. No, you don't think so.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Right, Joe.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  I, I think I am right.

• 56:27Speaker 03

  You nailed it.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Look that up for your next trivia there, Doug. But let's, let's move on. Oh gee, not a surprise that people that were in less wealthy families as happy, if not happier, than people growing up with wealth their entire life. Not really a huge aha for you and I, but maybe a lot of, maybe a huge aha for some of these people though, that are chasing Benjamins because they think it's gonna make them happier. Not the case.

• 56:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, just chase it because it makes you angrier. Does that, does that fit the narrative?

• 57:03Speaker 02

  It probably doesn't.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  I'm still trying to nail it. I don't, trying to exactly hone in on this new character, curmudgeonly character.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  The funny thing is, he's low key curmudgeon about being curmudgeonly.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Can't you hear it?

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  He's trying to mask it and sort of put a veil of jocularity around it, but he's so pissed off. That we're calling this out, which makes it better.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  But I love this idea. I love this idea that if you're just in the moment, I think it's much more OG about being in the moment that makes you happy. Don't get me wrong, you know, he still talks about the fact that you need to get to a certain level, that 70, 80,000 number level after inflation is probably much higher now. But you still need to get to a certain level where it can make you happier. But it's much more about just being present, me being with you two makes me joyous.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  My presence is your present.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Let's throw out David Lifeline. I don't know where to go and tackle some of life's most important questions. Today, we're gonna throw out the Lifeline to our new friend Maggie.

• 58:13Speaker 05

  Hi, Joe, Gee and Doug. My name is Maggie. I'm a long time listener and first time caller. My partner and I moved abroad for his job in late 2021 and I've been unemployed ever since due to unforeseen circumstances. I'm nervous about losing out on a year of saving for retirement in the usual methods, but will be back in the US for three weeks in late December and can hopefully sort something out. I'm thinking of just throwing $6,000 into a Vanguard brokerage account and mentally treating that like retirement account. $6,000 because we can make that work and that is the Roth IRA max this year. I have a Vanguard Roth IRA from previous employment, but I don't think I can do much with that right now due to having no income. I will be working in 2023, thankfully, so this is just a 2022 problem.

• 58:58Speaker 05

  Also, my partner and I are not married, so there's no spousal contribution option. Any guidance on what you would recommend I do would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Thank you for the call, Maggie. You know what's funny, OG, is I'm listening to her call as she's talking. I'm thinking, well, the good thing, you can do the spousal and she goes, and my partner and I are not married. And I go, oh, and there it goes.

• 59:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, tell that slacker to put a ring on it.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Be easier for taxes.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, what if Maggie doesn't want that ring though? Maggie's like, no, thank you. Who knows?

• 59:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe not, but what does she do, OG? What does she, where does she go with this?

• 59:37Speaker 04

  This is the best of the worst case scenario, I think, right? I mean, when you contribute for retirement, you have to have earnings to put money in a retirement account, whether it's a 401k, a 403b, Roth IRA, any of those things. And if you don't have a, any earned income, you can't contribute to a retirement account. The reality, however, is that everything's a retirement account until you designate it something else. Having a whole bunch of money in a Roth is a really good idea, but having money in a pre-tax account is a good idea too. And having money in a brokerage account for retirement is a great idea also. So there's nothing wrong with having retirement money not in a retirement sheltered account. You're gonna want to have some flexibility anyway.

• 1:00:20Speaker 04

  So the fact that you're able to put away some money for last year is fantastic. If it can't go into a retirement specific account, that's okay too. No big deal. So cool. Put it in a brokerage account and move on with life.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  And there it is. I don't think it has to be complicated, I think is your answer, OG.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  No, I mean, money is to be used however you decide to use it, just because it's not in a, you know, an account that says retirement on it, doesn't mean it's not for retirement. I have clients that have rental properties that they consider their retirement. I'm gonna sell this when it comes time to retire. That's a retirement account.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  And this is why, by the way, Maggie, people like accounts like, and we don't have any relationship with Ally Bank, but they like the Ally Bank High Yield Savings because, OG, you can set up these different buckets. So people sometimes say, hey, I like the IRA, the Roth IRA, because it says to me right on the statement what it is. And I know that Ally Bank High Yield Savings, because I use it, you can separate that into separate buckets. We do have a relationship with Cube Money and I like using Cube Money because when I deposit my check, I can put it into a grocery cube. I can put some into my board game cube. I can put it into all these different cubes for different things. So even though there isn't a government sponsored program like a Roth IRA available,

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  you can still find accounts that do that, or you don't even need to rely on Ally or, or Cube. You just make it whatever you want to make it. Thanks for the question, Maggie. If you've got a question for us, head to stackingbenjamins.com/voicemail, and that will lead you to our little program that records a message to us and you could have OG answer your questions succinctly like he did Maggie's today. And because she was brave, we're also sending Maggie out a Haven Life Greatest Show on Earth Circus t-shirt, which is Maggie, very comfortable and glad you've been with us for a long time. Thanks for hanging out with us. Well, that's going to do it for today. If you are somebody that hasn't hung

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  out with us for as long as Maggie has, you may not know that we work on many different platforms, not just on audio, but we also do lives on Instagram. And we also have the newsletter we mentioned earlier called the 201 that does deeper dives into all the topics. We talk about trying to make these things as usable as possible so that you can go out and stack Benjamins. But if you're concerned more about the market and chatter about recessions and all the craziness going on, OG and his team have put together a free guide that shares eight moves to make in a down market. This guide will help you plan more and panic less, no matter what the market does. So head over to stackingbenjamins.com/guide and get this helpful free guide from OG,

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  stackingbenjamins.com/guide. And I think we all want to panic less. I liked last week, let's over commit less. I also like Dr. Waldinger today. Let's be happy more. Let's be in the present more. Can't wait for you guys to see what we have next. Yeah. But Doug, you got it from here, man. What should we have learned today?

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Dr. Waldinger. Looking for happiness? Well, don't wait until you build your stack to try and have some fun. Set milestones along the way to enjoy the process. Second, Secure 2.0, I think it's time to get to know this new legislation and maybe tweak your plan to fit the new guidelines. But the big lesson? Kids today take the selfie for granted. Back in my day, we had to hold still for at least half an hour to show up.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  Thanks to Dr. Robert Waldinger for joining us today. Find his work and TEDx Talk at RobertWaldinger.com. We'll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. This show is the property of SP Podcasts LLC, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Saul Sehadi. Our producer is Karen Repine. The show is written by the brilliant Paulette Perhatch with help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest Podcast. Take a deeper dive into all the topics we cover on each episode by checking out our newsletter, the 201. You'll find the 411 on all things money at the 201. Just go to stackingbenjamins.com/201.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Tina Eichenberg makes the video version of this show. And once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want to chat with friends about the show later? Mom's friend Gertrude is our social media coordinator and the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement. So say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the basement fun with other stackers, type stackingbenjamins.com/basement. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. Not only should

• 1:05:31Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

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  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.

• 1:08:21Speaker 03

  Oh, I finished Terminal List last night. I forgot that I had one episode left and I saw the safe room that was in that amazing house they filmed in. I wonder if they build those into retro fit houses.

• 1:08:36Speaker 04

  Which one was that one again?

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  Terminal List. Chris Pratt. It's the one I didn't love it. You were the one who recommended it to me and we laughed at it at first and it got better. And I just had to finish it because it was nagging on me. It was one of my 2023 goals. It's to finish Terminal List. So check that box.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  Bam. We finished Wednesday. Wednesday was really good.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Everybody's talking about that.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Wednesday was really good. If you like the Harry Potter stuff and Sabrina was a little darker, but still equally as campy, that kind of thing. Tim Burton did a really good job. Like, I feel like Tim Burton hasn't done a good job of something in a long time. And this was, was super. It really is just a detective story around the Addams Family, you know, the characters of the Addams Family. So Fred Arnison playing Uncle Fester.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  I could see that.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  Later on is totally good. Catherine Zeta Jones is, plays mom and yes, plays Morticia. It is, it's campy, good time. Like, that's, that's really good. So now we're starting on Jack Ryan. And I binged the first three episodes last night and holy crap.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  I started watching Jack Ryan yesterday in my office. Well, I generally watch stuff at lunch because I've got like 20 minutes. I can just do 20 minute sections, right? I can just sit there and eat and watch on my phone. But I put a TV in my office for obvious reasons. And so then I was like, oh, I could just watch this. I can just have this while I'm working. And after two hours, I was like, yeah, I can't, I can't. Maybe I'll just do a little work while I look up from time to time. But I was, I was just sitting back in my chair, just watching TV in my office, basically. Like, this is stupid. I should go and look at my phone and watch TV. But I got through episode eight, dude. I watched eight episodes yesterday.

• 1:10:29Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. That's the whole season.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Eight hours of TV.

• 1:10:32Speaker 04

  No, it's eight episodes long. I don't know. Well, I think they're 50 minutes. I don't think they're, I'm trying to keep myself.

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy. Sorry. I didn't mean to overstate anything.

• 1:10:42Speaker 04

  Easy cowboy. They're like 51 minutes each episode. And then you fast forward through the, through the, through the intro part and it's like down to 47 or something. But no, it's not done because I stopped last night at nine. I was like, I'm going to bed. But I must have one more to go. Maybe I got through seven and I'm watching eight. I don't even know. I just think it's definitely not done. I can assure you. I thought it was. There's a part where you go, oh, okay. Hey, saves the day.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  It only shows eight episodes on Amazon.

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

  Well, then I must have watched seven. I must have eight.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  He's watching an entirely different series.

• 1:11:16Speaker 04

  So let's wrap up this recording. I got work to do.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  Oh, deal. Okay. Okay. Let's wrap it up. Wrap it up. Stop. Stop.

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  Hey there, stackers and a happy, happy Monday to you. What the hell are you doing, dude? I haven't introduced you yet.

• 1:11:33Speaker 04

  I was just wondering if you knew that song.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  If I knew what song. Happy Trails?

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  Why are we doing that? We're just starting.

• 1:11:40Speaker 03

  Are you allowed to live in Texas and not know that song? Isn't that part of the citizenship test?