8 Tricky Money Decisions: When to Cosign, Stretch, Take the Job, or Walk Away SB1917

Every money decision comes with a basement door. Sometimes you go down and find a great deal, and sometimes you should run. Joe Saul-Sehy and OG run a Halloween game show in which the panel rules on eight real-life dilemmas, including a stock that has tripled, a dream house that leaves almost no cash, and a car loan a parent is asked to cosign. The panel disagrees, and the reasoning behind each answer is the useful part. Veterans Day Giveaway Enter for a chance to win a Solo Stove at stackingbenjamins.com/veterans https://stackingbenjamins.com/veterans. Veterans and active duty service members get three entries, and everyone else gets one. If you’re already in the 201 email series, you get an entry too, and you can earn more by referring friends. What You’ll Walk Away With What to do when your company stock has grown into a huge slice of your portfolio, and why a gains budget beats waiting for the perfect momentWhy optimism about your employer is not the same as a good price on its stockHow much house is too much, and why the bank’s limit is not your limitWhat a thin cash cushion after closing really risks, and when a plan to rebuild it changes the answerHow to weigh a bigger paycheck against a boss who keeps losing people, and the airport layover test for judging a future managerWhy a tax bracket jump does not cost you more than you earnHow to say yes to helping an adult child with a car while keeping the title, insurance, and risk in your own handsWhy many people treat family loans as giftsEmergency fund or great credit? Low fixed expenses or great insurance? High savings rate or diversification? High income or financial knowledge? The panel picks sidesWhy This Matters Now Big decisions rarely arrive with a clean right answer, and the fear of making an irreversible mistake can stall good choices. Hearing smart people disagree, and explain why, builds your own judgment faster than a rule of thumb does. Year-end is a natural time to look at your concentrated holdings, your housing costs, and your cushion. From the Basement Doug arrives in a tin foil hat to resist Federal Reserve brainwaves, the panel shows up as a genie villain, a wreath-wearing leaf pile, and an Oktoberfest regular, and Doug’s trivia asks where “I’ll be back” ranks among the greatest movie quotes ever. He also reports that the Terminator spoke very few words in the whole film and that he once lost an argument at The Sizzler over the senior discount on shrimp cocktail. OG explains his Halloween yogurt policy, and a new traveling trophy with an honest inscription makes its debut. Resources Mentioned Veterans Day giveaway https://stackingbenjamins.com/veterans: enter to win a Solo StoveAFI’s 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movie_Quotes: the list behind Doug’s triviaAfford Anything https://affordanything.com/: a podcast from one of the panelistsPersonal Finance for Long-Term Investors https://bestinterest.blog/personal-finance-for-long-term-investors/: a podcast from another panelist 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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• 0:49Speaker 02

  When the mailbox no longer shuts. When your credit report is a thousand cuts. When investment dreams become nightmares and clerks at stores admonish with glares. You can't afford that, can you?

• 1:20Speaker 02

  When vacationing days are far and gone. When pets disappear into the night.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  That's the time, the witching hour, when all your dreams, your bills devour.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  It's all gone. A nightmare, it seems, but is it? It doesn't have to be because on this night, so dark and weary, the boys on the microphone are making merry like three goofs around the bow. Full of lost balance sheets, lizards and toads. Stirring briskly bubbles, charge cards, maxed and filled. Insurance is never attained. Forgotten wheels. On this night, so quiet and slow. Like a horrible dream.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  It's the Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Live from the scary ass basement of YouTube's headquarters. It's the Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and on today's show, you've seen all the horrifying movies. You've read the terrifying books, but what financial nightmares are lurking in your shadows will shine a light and maybe help you exercise them from your life. But that's not all. It wouldn't be a Halloween party without my ghoulish trivia question now, would it?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Will OG's surge continue or can Paula and Jesse reel him in again? And now a guy who once scared the neighbors dressing up as a financial planner.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  It's Joe Saul Sehy.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  Hey there stackers. Happy Halloween to you. I am your financial fitness structure from the eighties. Jet or Joe Saul Sehy. How's everybody doing? Glad that you're here with us on Halloween. We got a very special episode for you today with a bunch of very scary characters. Boo. Very, very scary. Let's meet the guy who always loves a good game of bobbing for money. Mr. Neighbor Doug is here. He's got tinfoil cap on.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Federal Reserve brainwave transmitters have gotten extra powerful. And so I had to put on my tinfoil cap to resist.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Got to resist.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Mind control.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  Got to resist. You know, Bill Gates is out there infecting people's brains, Doug. You just never know what's going on. It is ugly.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Protected from all of it.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. How are you today?

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Feeling great. I mean, now that I've got my, my defenses up, I feel great. I might just leave this on for a while.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Just it's no longer a costume. It's part of who Doug is.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  Function, function over fashion, Joe.

• 4:42Speaker 04

  And let's meet our next very, very scary guest. She's a woman in Manhattan who lives for the robust game of spin the way you were thinking about your money. Paula Pant is here. Actually, she's not in Manhattan. She is in, it looks like you're in Munich, Germany.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  In Munich, Germany, of course, with the cans of beer. This time it's simply a can of Coke Zero, but.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  You should be carrying like eight of them around and serving them to everybody.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, right. Pint glasses. For the costume to be complete, I would need a bunch of beer steins.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  You know, Paula, when I think of Oktoberfest, I think of short Nepali women.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  First thing that comes to my brain.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, just across the Caucasus Mountains, a little, you know, east to west. Like it's one of the things that unites people from all over the world is, is beer.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Well, you know, who else unites people from all over the world?

• 5:40Speaker 05

  What else? Who else?

• 5:41Speaker 04

  The guy in Rochester, New York, whose favorite game is let's diversify this portfolio. That's what he likes to do on Halloween. It's Mr. Jesse Kramer's here.

• 5:51Speaker 06

  Hey, what's going on? This is a Doug, you look particularly scary right now. Why the three prongs on your tinfoil hat, Doug?

• 6:00Speaker 03

  There's three dimensional brainwaves they're sending, and I've got to fight off all three dimensions.

• 6:06Speaker 06

  That, that does make sense.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  Now Jesse, let's explain your costume because it looks like you went out of your way. You've got either that or there's some, there's some house in your neighborhood that's missing their wreath from the front door.

• 6:19Speaker 06

  There's a chance that I walked around my office building, found a wreath on a public door and borrowed it for the afternoon.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  And said it might be mine. Yes.

• 6:28Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  But actually it's, it's like a Halloween in Hawaii. That's what it is.

• 6:33Speaker 06

  Correct. There's a little bit of that, like autumny Hawaii vibe going on and money doesn't grow on trees. So I'm wearing a wreath of some beautiful leaves that have fallen off the money tree.

• 6:44Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Well, you know who else we got? We also have the guy across the card table from me who's always, always loves a game of pin the tail on the tax deduction. It's Mr. OG.

• 6:57Speaker 07

  How are? Just don't understand.

• 7:01Speaker 07

  Everybody else was, I didn't, I didn't know I was supposed to wear a costume.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  No idea. Okay. Backstage he was telling us that his camera wouldn't turn on. And now we know the emperor.

• 7:15Speaker 07

  Couldn't get it to work. Now it works.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  Yes. How is Jafar doing today, OG?

• 7:21Speaker 07

  Uh, I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. Just trying to track down that rascally Aladdin and get myself a little genie time.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  It is a crazy day in mom's basement, as you guys can all see. We are about to play some financial games because of course it's Halloween party in the mom's basement. We got to play some games. So we're going to get started on those in just a second with Jafar, the Hawaiian, the, the crazy Oktoberfest lady and the conspiracy theorist. And I'm going to put them through their financial fitness paces. But before we do that, we have a couple of sponsors who help us make sure we can keep on, keep it on. And even before we hear from them, remember we have our Veterans Day 201 signup contest. You could win a solo stove. Stack your benjamins.com/201 gets you there. Excuse 201 stack your benjamins.com/ veterans. If you're a veteran or active duty service member, you're going to get three entries.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Everybody else still gets an entry. And if you're already in the 201, you'll get an entry and you can also refer people. So stack your benjamins.com/ veteran is the place to go. All right, we're going to hear from those sponsors and then this crazy cast of characters, we're going to help you play some financial games better. Stack your Benjamin show is brought to you by MOD. MOD prescribes a once or twice daily modafinil drink that can keep you energized, focused and alert throughout the day. Here's the mechanism. Energy drinks with caffeine temporarily block adenosine, the chemical that makes you tired. It builds up and when the caffeine wears off, well, it all crashes down on you at once. Modafinil works differently. It engages multiple pathways in your brain, dopamine, norepinephrine, histamine, and

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• 9:41Speaker 04

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• 11:44Speaker 04

  I gotta change out of those glasses because I could not see in any of my notes. That's when you know you're getting older.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  I think that outfit makes those glasses look better on you. Actually, Joe, it all works.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  They are, those are pretty eighties as well. I think, all right. You guys ready for game number one? Game number one, you know, in all of those scary movies, there's the basement and the door slowly opens on its own. And you have to decide, do we go down in the basement? Or do we exit and run for the hills? So let's ask you the first question here is scenario number one, your employer's stock, your company's stock has tripled. It's now 38% of your portfolio. You know, you're concentrated, but the CEO says the company's years are ahead.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  Paula Pant, do you go in the basement or do you get the hell out of that house?

• 12:47Speaker 05

  Can I say it depends?

• 12:50Speaker 05

  Okay. Is this money that you need for retirement or is this just fun money that has no particular purpose?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Oh, because that makes the difference.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  That makes the difference. If this is money that has, if it's earmarked for retirement, if it's money that you need, then you sell, you get the hell out of the basement, you, you go running for the hills and you whittle that down to 10% of your portfolio. But if this is just fun money, if this is like not part of the plan, then go for it.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Oh gee, do you agree with that? Does it depend?

• 13:27Speaker 07

  I would say it kind of depends, but there is something about momentum that that matters. I don't like 38%. That seems like a pretty high percentage for your overall investment net worth. So that would give me a little bit of concern. I wouldn't sell it to get back to 10. I would just start building off of it. And maybe if it makes me concerned that it's a high percentage and it could go down, you could write some options on it or, or protect it some way, doing something like that. So I don't know that I would sell a stock that was up a whole bunch. And you said it was up triple. Yeah, I don't like paying the tax man if I don't have to. So I would probably let it ride and maybe build outside of it to get the percentage down, but through other, other savings opportunities.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Jesse, I'm assuming that you agree. So I'm not going to ask you for a third. Yes, let's do that. Instead, I'll ask you this, if you're trying to get back down to a number that Paula said 10% or maybe a different number you have in mind, how do you do that? Do you sell it all at once? Do you do what Jafar is talking about and maybe sell some covered calls until it sells itself? Or how do you get it down to five or 10%?

• 14:29Speaker 06

  One of the issues is just trying to balance your exposure to the investment risk versus the very real cost of paying the tax man, as OG pointed out. I'm usually just in favor of keeping things as simple as possible, but no simpler. And most of the time I'm going to, I would recommend someone set a capital gains budget that they have in mind and just be willing to bite the bullet, realize a certain amount of gains on an annual basis and accept the fact that they're going to pay some taxes on that. There can be some exceptions, but that's usually the route that I would recommend.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, Paula, you like that?

• 15:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't think that you should let the tax tail wag the decision dog. So in terms of capital gains taxes, I wouldn't let that be the deciding factor because capital gains taxes are going to be, they're going to be lower than the income taxes you pay anyway. And no one would ever make less income just to not pay taxes. I mean, if you really want to avoid capital gains tax, you could borrow against it, but I really hate that idea.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Let's say Paula, that it's a smaller company and you know, the upper management really well, you know that there's more orders coming in the pipeline, like you can just see it. You don't have any inside information, right? But you're working at the company, you can see it right in front of you. Does that change your decision making at all?

• 15:46Speaker 05

  No, it doesn't. Number one, if it's a publicly traded company, then it necessarily can't be that small. The very fact that it is part of the public markets means it's pretty big. There's going to be stuff you don't know.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  To Paula say, I disagree with the premise. You can't have that premise.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  And you think about Enron, there were only a very, very small handful of people who actually knew what was going on and everybody else, even top management outside of a small handful of people didn't actually know. In addition to that, you tend to have a bias towards like a bit of a confidence bias towards things that you work in because of all of the exposure that you have to it. So you might be unduly optimistic about your own company or your own industry. And so I would factor that into the equation as well. And so all of that is to say, I would rank optimism about the overall industry higher than I would rank optimism about the company specifically.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  So industry optimism might change my answer or might make me a little bit more prone to holding. But overall, I think the, the biggest factor is what role does this amount of money play in your own life?

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Jesse, let's say it's an AI company right now. Paula talking about the industry, does that make you more nervous or less nervous?

• 17:05Speaker 06

  Probably makes me more nervous if it's an AI company, but on the whole, again, it's this is a publicly traded company. There's an argument to be made that the optimism within the company, the optimism that the CEO is, is telling to you as an employee, that that optimism ought to be already reflected in the price of the company itself. And I think a very common mistake that investors make is they conflate the future prospects of a company, which might be good with the idea that the company is a good stock to own at the current price. And those two things aren't always the same because really the argument ought to be if the CEO says, hey, things are really, really good. And if you, as the employee think, oh, things are really, really good.

• 17:47Speaker 06

  And also the stock price happens to be vastly undervalued. That's harder to justify the undervalued part. But um, to make a long story short, just because the CEO thinks that your company has good prospects, it doesn't mean that you ought to own a large amount of that company's stock.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  Oh gee, I want to finish this discussion with you on scenario number one, this very scary scenario. Boo. We, we have to, probably not funny when you laugh at your own sound effect, is it? You mentioned selling options. Is there, do you sell options to protect your downside? Do you sell options to maybe squeeze more money out of it? Like, how would you sell options to maybe exit this position or to bring out some more cash?

• 18:35Speaker 07

  Based on the question that you asked earlier about just kind of starting from that thesis of it's 38% and what do we want to do with it? The only risk that you have isn't that it goes up because that would be a good outcome. It's I guess by definition volatility, but, but it's a good volatility. It's the risk that the market goes down or particularly that stock goes down greater than the market and thus your net worth changes at a rate greater than the overall market changes. So what you can do is you can basically buy insurance on the stock and say it's at a hundred bucks a share and I'm okay with it going down to 85, but I just don't want it to go to 65.

• 19:17Speaker 07

  And so you buy some catastrophic insurance on the stock and you do that through the option market. You are basically taking a little gain off the table moving forward because of that. Now you can also do some more complicated things and Paula was alluding to this, borrow against it to diversify your portfolio with the borrowings, but you add a bunch of complexity there, which may or may not be worth it. But, but it's definitely a strategy that people use, especially those people who have sudden increases in net worth from, you know, a stock. And I'm not talking about it's now 38%. I'm talking about people that, you know, now it's worth, you know, 99% of their net worth, and it's a $20 million position.

• 19:59Speaker 07

  And yeah, I agree, you know, paying capital gains taxes is the lowest rate you'll probably pay on anything. But still, if you're paying 23 odd percent taxes plus state taxes on $10 million position, that's a big number. If there's a cheaper way to diversify them, I'm interested in learning about it.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  All for it. Yeah. All right. Scenario number two, do you go in this financial basement? Here it is. This is your dream house. It's in a great neighborhood.

• 20:27Speaker 07

  Oh, sorry.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  You can technically make all the payments, but after closing, Jesse Kramer, you only have $4,000 left. Do you go in that basement or do you get out of the house?

• 20:45Speaker 06

  I'm going to get out of that house. I think that is too tight of a margin. And again, just thinking about what's, what's this house cost, you know, $500,000, maybe even more. And after all is said and done, you have less than 1% of the value of the house remaining in cash in your bank accounts. That doesn't sound like enough for any sort of emergency fund. Just, I mean, hey, one, one, one big house project totally evaporates your bank account. So I'm going to get out of that bank account. There's just not enough margin for safety.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Oh, Paula, but it's the most beautiful house in the neighborhood. It's been up for sale forever. You've been watching this house. Can, you're so close.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I disagree with Jesse, assuming, because we haven't talked about what the monthly payments on the house are, and if you can reasonably keep up with that as part of your budget. So assuming it has ongoing reasonable monthly payments, and the only hesitation is the amount of cash that you would have left over after closing, then I'm assuming you probably have a taxable brokerage account. There's probably some money in there. You can

• 21:55Speaker 03

  I love the assumptions.

• 21:55Speaker 05

  tax the money that's in

• 21:56Speaker 03

  I assume you have a really rich uncle that's about to die. There's money just waiting to just pour over the mantle into your living room.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  If I assume you know the next six numbers. There's a conspiracy theory there, Doug.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you know, you're generally supposed to spend one to 3% of your home's value on maintenance every year. If you've only left four grand in your account, and even if you have the cash flow on a monthly to make the principal and interest payments, and you wrap your taxes and insurance into that. But if you've got four grand of liquidity left, you're not going to be able to maintain that house. I'm a, I'm running from that basement.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Jesse, let's say you've got access to debt. You've got access to, you know, over the short run, let's say Paula's right, and it's a reasonable mortgage amount. So you can make the payment. And we'll talk about what that means, stackers, in just a second. But let's say it's reasonable. You can also begin building your emergency fund up, and you have access to a Home Depot credit card, let's say.

• 22:53Speaker 06

  Mm hmm. I like how it was the Home Depot call out. Well, I'll say this, and this is where

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Home Depot, if you'd like to sponsor this, and no shade on Lowe's either. If Lowe's wants to sponsor this, that's fine, too. That'll be great.

• 23:05Speaker 06

  Bidding war. Let's go. I like the idea there, Joe. The premise of your question is that the home buyer has this solid plan in place. Who doesn't love a good plan to get themselves, they recognize that they're in a situation that isn't ideal, and their plan is to get themselves extricated from that situation in the next six or 12 or 18 months. Now, I like that a lot more. I still don't love the fact that they're in that situation day one, but I think there is a big difference between someone who finds themselves in a really bad financial situation, or just in a, like a less than ideal situation, and someone who says, well, I guess I'm just in this situation forever, versus who someone says, like, no, no, no, in the next six, 12 months, I'm going to get myself into a much better

• 23:46Speaker 06

  place. That I think is good. And so I don't mind sticking around in the basement for a little while in, in that situation, Joe.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  In that situation, you know, we talked about, oh gee, having a reasonable mortgage payment. Paula mentioned that. What's a reasonable mortgage payment look like? What percentage of your take home would that be?

• 24:04Speaker 07

  You're going to give me a dollar amount. I was like, oh, this is going to be great.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  No, percentage of people using like a rule of thumb, which, because you know, the bank will say, what, 36% I think, is, is the bank's number. And I think most financial people go, that's a ridiculous number.

• 24:18Speaker 07

  Yeah. If you can keep it to under 30 and maybe even under 25% of your gross income, I think that gives you a lot of wiggle room on the monthly living expense world and all that sort of stuff. The bank will lend you 36 or maybe even 42% of your monthly gross income as, as debt service. And the reality is that that just gets really, really tight, unless you have a huge prospect for increasing your income, which I think is the other piece of this. While taxes and insurance are going to increase every year, generally speaking across the country, that mortgage payment is pretty flat. And, you know, for a lot of people, you get a deduction on the interest and that sort of thing. So that has some after tax benefits as well. I don't have a problem stretching for the house if it checks a lot

• 25:02Speaker 07

  of other boxes. I think what's great about our country is that you can literally make a list of 20 different things that are important to you, whether it's the local economy, the environment, the weather, the school districts, the outdoor activities, you can figure out a bunch of stuff, and you might not be able to get all 20, but you can get eight or 10 or 12 of them perhaps. And

• 25:25Speaker 06

  Nice. Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 07

  Whoa, ha, ha, ha, ha. But I think that, um, I don't know what I was going to say the rest of that way. So whatever.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  Sorry about that. I did not mean to distract you with Doug's little comment. For people in the audio podcast, Doug said, I never noticed this before, but oh geez, a naturally evil left eyebrow. You do have a naturally evil left eyebrow.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  It's like raised up a little bit, like is, you know, giving you the, yeah, giving you the evil eye.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, there it is. There it is.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Jafar costume. I didn't realize that was just comes to you naturally.

• 25:55Speaker 07

  It's a, it's a little snug, honestly. It's kind of pulling my face a little bit.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  And now I know why conspiracy theorists don't wear these tinfoil hats out in public because my head is all itchy and sweaty in here. It's, it's rough keeping out all of the foreign government electric waves they're sending my way.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Paula, does the German outfit fit snug like his hat?

• 26:18Speaker 05

  It's actually fairly comfortable. Kind of through the rib cage, it's a little bit snug, but then it flares out. So yeah, overall, I'd say reasonably comfortable.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Is this going to go into the weekly rotation now, this outfit?

• 26:32Speaker 05

  I mean, it might, it might. Like anytime I want to like throw breadcrumbs for the birds, like Hansel and Gretel style, you know, this is clearly what I'm going to be wearing.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I tried on mine too, Paula. It was a little snug in the rib cage. It was pretty, pretty tough. All right. Time for our third scenario. We've talked about saving money, not getting into debt. Let's talk about making money. The job. New job pays $40,000 more than your old job. But the boss you're interviewing with has lost four people in the role in the last three years. Do you take the job? Take the money? Do you go in that basement, OG? Or do you flee the house?

• 27:17Speaker 07

  Do I get to ask the boss why four people have left?

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Well, you worked at the company and the boss just seems pretty demanding on that position.

• 27:26Speaker 07

  Or the people who left, like crybaby losers and didn't really want to work hard?

• 27:31Speaker 04

  Well, you just think three in a row, the probability of that is low. I would think maybe there could be one.

• 27:38Speaker 07

  Can I, can I blast an entire generation? I was going to say, were they all Gen Alphas?

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Wow. Too soon.

• 27:45Speaker 07

  Too soon.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. 9:00 AM doesn't really work for me.

• 27:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm with that. I'm with that. 2 o'clock doesn't work for me sometimes. So I would, I would take the money and also simultaneously be looking for something else.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Immediately make sure the resume is ready to go.

• 28:03Speaker 07

  Yep. Take the cash. Somebody wants to pay you 40 grand more than you're worth? Get after it. Take the cash.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  Jesse, do you concur? Take the money or get out of the house?

• 28:13Speaker 06

  Well, see, I'm worried that the extra income is going to move me into a higher tax bracket, and I'm actually going to lose on the situation. No, I'm just kidding.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  That's how they get you.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  Okay. Why is, why is that funny, Jesse? Because there's some people who don't know why we all laughed at that.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  Sure. Well, it's, it's a good question. And a common misconception is that when you move up in a particular tax bracket, when you move into the next highest tax bracket, the misconception is that all of your money, all of your income is now subject to that higher tax rate. Whereas instead, only the, only the marginal dollars are subject to the higher tax rate. And in about 99% of tax planning situations, the system is set up not to screw you. Once in a while, you'll find something that actually does screw you in that way, but, but almost always it doesn't. See, I don't think I'm going to take this job.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  You're not taking it.

• 29:04Speaker 06

  And I'm doing it half for the entertainment value of opposing OG. I appreciate what OG said, but I do think career wise, if we zoom out to the, the hopefully, you know, maybe the decades and decades you have left working, the idea of running to grab more money and subjecting yourself to the situation where they say people, what do they say? People don't leave good, bad jobs. They leave bad bosses. Is there something like that?

• 29:27Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Okay. Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 06

  So there's something, there's something fishy in the, in the apple cider bowl here. Someone put chewed gum inside of the candy bowl, and I'm not here for it.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  Paula, what do you think? We got one, I don't take it. One, I do take it.

• 29:43Speaker 05

  It would entirely depend on the vibe that I got from that boss. So I would not judge based on the fact that other people left. I would judge purely like, if I'm sitting, you know, you're doing the interview with the person that you're going to be a direct report to. How well do you get along? Like, do you enjoy your, your 30 minute conversation? Would you want to, I, I use the, uh, the airport layover litmus test. Like if you were in an airport, like you, you're going on a business trip, you're at the airport, you get stuck on a layover, you find out you're stuck for 10 hours at like, you know, the Texarkana Airport.

• 30:21Speaker 07

  You and six other people.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Would, would you want to be stuck at the Texarkana Airport for 10 hours with this person?

• 30:30Speaker 04

  You could have just stopped it. Would you want to be stuck at the Texarkana Airport? No, you've, you've been stuck at the Texarkana Airport.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  I have been stuck at the Texarkana Airport. But yeah, I mean, if you and that person, if you and the boss have a good vibe, like if you get along, then it's not really relevant that other people didn't get along with them.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  All right, that's going to do it for the first half. Our first game, the financial basement. And in the second half, we're going to do financial movies. We, we had a scene from a movie in, in the second half of today's show. The game is going to be, I'm going to give you a financial scenario, a movie we're considering, a premise, and all of our contributors are going to complete the movie in the most horrifying way possible. But before that, at the halfway point of every Friday afternoon, you know what we do? We have this year-long trivia competition between these three folks. And Doug, we only have a few weeks to go in this competition. What's it look like? We maybe five weeks, six weeks?

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I could count it up, but we have something like six or eight, depending on any off weeks we might have coming up.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  What's our score?

• 31:37Speaker 03

  OG is kind of re-exerting his dominance a little bit because we, you remember a couple of glorious weeks ago, we were all tied up and it was as exciting as we've ever had it. It's still very, very exciting, but right now we have OG in the lead by two with 12 points and both Paula and Jesse with 10 points.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  I don't know if the bigger idea is that OG's, uh, reasserted his, uh, lead or that Paula Pant is not in last again. I'm not sure, not sure which one.

• 32:07Speaker 05

  I'm tied for last.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  Jesse's running out of time to defend his title. We need a question. Doug, what do we got this week?

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. On October 26th, 1984, one of the greatest horror action movies of all time hit theaters, The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a killer cyborg sent back in time to eliminate Sarah Connor before her son could grow up and save humanity from the machines that were all coming to kill them. It's a horrible premise. Nobody thinks the machines are coming to kill any, I mean, like in today's day and age, it's a crazy thought, right? Nobody's thinking the machines are going to take over. And here's something interesting. Arnold was actually being considered for the good guy in the movie, Kyle Reese, but Cameron met with him and realized he'd make a much better killing machine.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  And apparently a very quiet killing machine. Schwarzenegger spoke just 58 words in the entire movie. 58 words. The guy became an international superstar saying less than I do ordering lunch at the Sizzler. And half of his words weren't even about whether the senior discount applies to the shrimp cocktail. But out of those 58 words came one of the most famous lines in movie history. I'll be back. Now, in 2005, the American Film Institute released its list of 100 greatest movie quotes of all time. And Arnold's three little words made the list. So here's today's trivia question, panelists. Where did I'll be back from The Terminator rank on AFI's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes?

• 33:48Speaker 03

  I'll be back. Right after I practiced my Arnold impression in the mirror, got the accent down.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  I just need to figure out how to make my neck as white as a Buick.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  You sound exactly like him, Doug. Just exactly like him. So this, this movie OG stacked a bunch of Benjamins, but it also stacked up a bunch of accolades, among which the AFI's list of 100 best quips of all time. Where does I'll be back rank?

• 34:15Speaker 07

  Of all time movie quotes, I think, uh, number one has to be frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

• 34:23Speaker 07

  Number two is here's looking at you, kid.

• 34:29Speaker 07

  And probably number three is I'll be back. So I'm going to say that the answer is 19th.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Wow, that took a left turn in Albuquerque. Jesse Kramer, OG says 19.

• 34:45Speaker 06

  I'm just, I'm trying to think of the best way to, uh, drop, you know, get, get some drama in here. I will, uh, split the remaining difference and go with 59.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Number 59.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  All right, Paula, we got number 19 for I'll be back. 59 from Jesse. Tell me you saw this movie. I'm sure you saw this movie.

• 35:12Speaker 05

  I've never seen the movie.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  You've never seen The Terminator?

• 35:15Speaker 05

  No, never.

• 35:16Speaker 07

  You should watch it. There's some similar parallels to 2026.

• 35:21Speaker 04

  OG, do you know what year they're fighting the robots and they come back from? 2027.

• 35:26Speaker 07

  I was, I think it's 2029, actually.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Oh, is it? Yeah, yeah. I know it's coming up. It's, it's, it's scarily, uh, uh, here at that time. Yeah.

• 35:36Speaker 07

  Basically Paula, when do all the robots take over all of the computers in the world? And then decide that the best way for humanity is for all the human, humans to die?

• 35:47Speaker 05

  I mean, likely that will probably happen sometime between 2027 to 2029.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  And that's, yeah, and that was the prediction from James Cameron way back in the day.

• 35:56Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. How about that?

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Sam Altman is probably going to be the target when they go back in time to get rid of whoever started this whole thing. They're going after Sam Altman.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  All right. What do we got, Paula? Actually, it's the humans coming back to.

• 36:12Speaker 05

  So the first thought that came into my head was top 100 quotes were likely to bias towards the beginning because nobody likes to think of their quote as like number 74 in the top 100. The other thought though, that came into my head is that is such a classic quote. To OG's point, I can't really think of many quotes. Well, I can't really think of many quotes, but also I can't really think of many quotes that top it.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  But you know that quote, you've never seen the movie.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  Exactly. ET phone home. Um, what else do I know?

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Do you know the two that OG talked about?

• 36:49Speaker 05

  Uh, oh, I've, I've never watched either of those movies, but I have heard both of those quotes. One is Casablanca, I think, maybe.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  The other is something else.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  That's good. Wow. That's brilliant. Ninja.

• 37:03Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, as a person who doesn't watch movies, what other quotes do I know? I know ET, ET phone home. I know, um,

• 37:12Speaker 05

  I made my parents disappear.

• 37:16Speaker 05

  Okay. I'm going to say it was probably number 16, 17. I'm going to get, I'm good. So I'm, uh, I'm just going to guess 18.

• 37:25Speaker 04

  Number 18 goes with the under from OG. So OG's got 19, Jesse's got 59, Paula's got 18. Who's going to win? We're going to find out in just a minute. We'll be right back. Well, you may know the chaos is the name of the game here in mom's basement. What with guests coming in and out, Cooper the cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. 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 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.

• 38:10Speaker 04

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• 38:52Speaker 04

  For Cheryl and I, factor has been a great way for us to stay busy and focus on family life and beating mom at card games. I use factor and you should too. So let's eat real stackers. Head to factormeals.com/sb50off, use code SB50OFF. And you know what? 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

• 39:37Speaker 04

  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. 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.

• 40:20Speaker 04

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• 40:50Speaker 04

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• 42:17Speaker 04

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• 42:49Speaker 04

  All right. Now, you opened this up by saying 19. I know part of that's gamification. What was really going on in your head? Did you really think it was 19?

• 42:57Speaker 07

  I think it's in the top third, mostly because like Paula said, in terms of recency bias, maybe a little bit and the panache of Arnold. I do think it's maybe inside the top 20. So I was trying to figure out a little gamey place to put it to make Paula have to decide. Well, she decided.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Paula, you thought it's probably inside the top 20. Feeling good?

• 43:22Speaker 05

  I think so. Okay. So it's like, who are you going to call? What? I mean, what other quotes are there? What movies have existed?

• 43:33Speaker 04

  Paula can count the movies that have existed in one hand.

• 43:36Speaker 07

  I think you've already named them all, Paula. I think you said all the movies.

• 43:40Speaker 05

  But before that, there were silent pictures.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  That's right. Not many quotes from those.

• 43:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, I mean, did Wizard of Oz have any particular quotes?

• 43:50Speaker 03

  No place like home. No place like home.

• 43:52Speaker 04

  Sure. Yeah. All right. Jesse, you've got all the top half. So if it's in the 50s, 60s, 70s, you got it. Feeling good?

• 44:02Speaker 06

  I'm feeling good. I'll tell you what, I've got this little system that is pretty good. It's, it's a little like Anchorman. 60% of the time it works every time. That one might be in the top 100 quotes. And, and the system is basically where I watch Doug as the third guest comes in. And once in a while I detect, I detect something. And based on Doug's reaction, I'm worried that the right answer is in the 20s or 30s.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  Oh no. So you're worried that, oh geez, got it?

• 44:32Speaker 06

  Correct. That's if, if I had to guess, I bet you the right answer is, uh, maybe it's 31 in honor of Halloween. That's my guess. That's my current updated guess is 31.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  Let's find out how good Doug's poker face is. Doug, who's taking the win home?

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Hey there, stackers. I'm internationally acclaimed action movie star and guy who was once asked to leave a Planet Fitness for yelling get to the chapa while using the elliptical, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Apparently shouting motivational movie quotes is considered a lunk alarm violation, which is ridiculous. It's motivating everybody, not just the lunks. Before the break, we were talking about the Terminator, the 1984 classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a murderous cyborg from the future. I gotta tell you, the more I think about this movie, the less believable it gets. I mean, I thought it was like a documentary first time I saw it, but now I'm not so sure. A machine from the future that looks exactly like a human being? Fine. Time travel? Of course. But you're telling me that in the

• 45:37Speaker 03

  year 2029, artificial intelligence is so advanced, the machines can take over the entire planet? And they still can't figure out how to kill one person without sending a bodybuilder back 45 years? I'm not buying it. That's like OG trying to eliminate credit card debt by going back to 84 and punching the guy who invented the Discover card. Anyway, Schwarzenegger delivered one of the most recognizable lines in movie history. I'll be back. And it earned a spot in the American Film Institute's list of top 100 greatest movie quotes. So where did it rank? Well, the correct answer was 22 places higher than Jesse's guests, 19 places lower than Paula's guests, and just 18 places lower than OG's

• 46:20Speaker 03

  guests, which means the prince of darkness is today's.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  You mean higher than OG's guess? Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Well, it depends on how you're saying it, but the correct answer is 37. It was number 37 in the, in the top 100.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Oh, I see what you mean. Yes. Yeah, I get, I get you.

• 46:35Speaker 07

  I've got some other ones on here that I think Paula, you might recognize because I looked them up while we were talking. So I'm going to go, go ahead and make my day. No, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

• 46:47Speaker 05

  Oh, that's Wizard of Oz.

• 46:49Speaker 07

  Yep. May the force be with you.

• 46:51Speaker 05

  Oh, that's Star Wars. Never seen it, but I've heard.

• 46:54Speaker 07

  But you know, it exists. Bond, James Bond.

• 46:57Speaker 05

  Oh, that's from James Bond.

• 46:59Speaker 06

  That's Harry Potter.

• 47:00Speaker 07

  No place like home. We already got that one. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and an ice Chianti.

• 47:09Speaker 05

  Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

• 47:12Speaker 07

  Yep. We're gonna need a bigger boat.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  Gonna need a bigger boat. There's a good one.

• 47:16Speaker 05

  Need a bigger boat. Need a bigger boat. I don't know.

• 47:19Speaker 06

  Titanic.

• 47:19Speaker 07

  Jaws.

• 47:23Speaker 07

  Also Titanic.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  All right. Time for our second half game. We could just play the second half of this, play the game of Quiz Paula about her acumen when it comes to these. I think she knows more movies than she thinks she knows.

• 47:38Speaker 05

  Well, I haven't seen any of them. I've only heard the quotes.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  We do have though, Paula, a movie studio. I don't know if you know this in mom's basement, we have a movie studio and SB Pictures just greenlit a new movie. We're calling it, I know what you financed last summer. Very, very scary. Our movie begins with a loving parent. Their 24 year old needs a car. Kid can't qualify. Mom co-signs. Mom said, he's a good kid. He'll make the payments. Freeze frame. You're the director. Write the horror ending.

• 48:15Speaker 05

  Kid takes car, drives off to Mexico, ghosts mom. Initially, I was going to put him in a car accident, but then insurance would cover it. So kid takes car, drives off to Mexico, ghosts mom, doesn't make any of the payments. Mom now no longer knows where the kid is and is on hook for payments.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  And there's no collateral at all. The collateral is missing. Yes. Jesse, you're one of the producers that can make a note on that. You know, in Hollywood, they call it making a note when you want to revise it a little. Would you revise that? Add some notes?

• 48:52Speaker 06

  Well, I liked how Paula, in the spirit of Halloween, how the kid ghosts his mom. That was a good, that was a good touch. If we wanted to make it scarier, uh, rather than he doesn't make it to Mexico, he breaks down outside of Dallas in OG's hometown. And Jafar slash OG comes at him with a chainsaw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre style. And so not only does he not make his payments, but it actually is a gruesome R-rated horror film. It's both. That's my note.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  Crazed financial planner on the loose, trying to make sure that mom, his client, gets her money.

• 49:32Speaker 06

  Bloody CFP.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  OG, some notes from you. Uh, how would you change up that ending a little bit?

• 49:39Speaker 07

  I actually like where Paula was going in terms of the accident because the cars in mom's name kid causes an accident, school bus full of children. And since he has no assets, but the asset is owned by mom, she gets sued for a trillion dollars and is now destitute, living under a bridge.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 50:01Speaker 07

  In an old refrigerator box.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 50:04Speaker 07

  With nothing but a picture of her long lost son, who doesn't call her anymore because he, she doesn't have a phone because she doesn't have any money.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  OG, your clients come to you and they say, I want to co-sign for the 24 year old. What do you tell them? How do you handle it instead?

• 50:20Speaker 07

  I mean, I have this, my, I bought my son a car and it's in my name and I have the insurance and the liability and all that sort of stuff where it needs to be for our family. And I would love for him to make the payment, but if he doesn't, I know that I'm responsible for it. So I don't have a-

• 50:37Speaker 04

  You know what the Achilles heel is at a time going in.

• 50:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, I don't, I mean, I go into it eyes wide open of, I'm paying for this if he doesn't. And in fact, I pay it so that it gets paid. And then if he pays me on time, then that's great.

• 50:51Speaker 04

  Jesse, how do you handle this?

• 50:54Speaker 06

  Well, I like OG's solution, which is like, there's nothing necessarily wrong with, with co-signing a loan or giving money to your kids or supporting your kids in some way. It's just about, as with anything in, in financial planning, it's like know where your risks are and what can you do to mitigate those risks? Yeah, that's what I would do. Now, if your son kind of betrays your trust in some way, that, that really sucks, but you can try to mitigate some of the actual financial risks.

• 51:21Speaker 07

  But the good news then is if they do, it's your car. So you have no, you know, you have all the legal recourse you need to just go get it, you know, it's yours. There's not like this co-signing nonsense of, well, it's kind of ours and, but I'm financially responsible for it. Just leave it yours.

• 51:39Speaker 06

  The car's in Mexico now and there's this big wall.

• 51:42Speaker 07

  I love going to Mexico. Everybody loves a little Mexico time.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Chasing his car down in Mexico. That's the sequel, Paula. OG chasing the car down

• 51:53Speaker 04

  in Mexico, trying to stay sober while he's in Cabo to get long enough to get his car. Paula, do you consider this car then, do you consider it a gift? Like when you're loaning money to a family member?

• 52:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. I generally do not believe in loans when it comes to friends and family. If it exists, it is a gift.

• 52:12Speaker 04

  Yes. Yes.

• 52:14Speaker 05

  You know, I think-

• 52:14Speaker 04

  That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Loaning in the context of family and friends is not a thing.

• 52:21Speaker 04

  Let's move on to our final game of the day. And there always is in, in all these horror movies, of course, there's the woman commonly known as final girl, right? Who does not die, who figures out what the game's all about and manages to escape. So I'm going to give each of you a financial conundrum between two things final girl can use in her financial acumen to get where she wants to go. You tell me which one's a better weapon. All right. Jesse, we're going to have you go first. She can have as her weapon, the emergency fund or great credit? Which one's better?

• 53:03Speaker 06

  Oh, it's a hard one. That's a really good one, Joe. I'm gonna say great credit. I think over the long run, having great credit will provide a bigger monetary benefit than having the emergency fund.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  All right, let's see if these guys agree with you. Paula, emergency fund or great credit?

• 53:21Speaker 05

  Totally disagree. I say emergency fund. Credit only matters if you are applying for an apartment, like applying for a place to live or taking out debt.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  But you could use the, I think Jesse, what Jesse's thinking is you can use the credit is a poor man's emergency fund, right?

• 53:39Speaker 06

  I was under the assumption she had a well-funded taxable brokerage account.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  You never pull that out in the third act, Jesse. If you've ever made one of these movies, you introduce the brokerage account in act one, so it can be used in act three.

• 53:58Speaker 06

  Well, it's, it's a hard one. It really is a hard one because I understand where Paula is coming from. Like if you don't even have an emergency fund, then you, are you in any position to be using credit anyway? I just think to myself, if someone out there is 22 years old and they just got out of college and they have no emergency fund to speak of, and they have really excellent credit. Well, it's like, well, I guess I don't even know if they'd have excellent credit in that way. But I'm thinking to myself, this is a person who might be renting their apartment. They might be buying their first car. They might be saving up for a down payment on a home and having really good credit is going to pay off for them in the long run. But yeah, not having an emergency fund is not a great position to be in either. So.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  That's kind of ageism. How come you think that everybody in Hollywood, final girl is like 20 years old? Final girl could be like 70 in this case.

• 54:46Speaker 06

  Right. Well, I don't know.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  I don't know. I'm just messing with you. I don't know. Jafar, you've got the final, the final, the tiebreaker here. Does final girl need an emergency fund or great credit?

• 55:04Speaker 07

  I think that you will get further in life with great credit than you will with a great emergency fund. I just think there's so many things that it's tied into today. Unfairly so. I don't, I don't agree with why it's tied into it. I'm sure there's some actuary somewhere that created some algorithm that says that these things are all correlated and therefore whatever. But you know, if you don't have great credit, you can't go on a work trip because you can't rent a car and you have to have a bunch of money in cash to be able to rent, you know, it's like, you can't do it. It's just not a thing. And I get the Dave Ramsey folks out there like, no, that's bull crap. You could just do it

• 55:45Speaker 07

  with a debit card. Well, yeah, if you're 40 and you've saved a bunch of money in cash for the last 20 years and you've done all that for, you know, I agree, you can. But if you're that 22 year old that you said is out of college, like they just haven't had the opportunity to do that. I know, like, I remember when we were first married, Lissa went on a work trip, kind of early in her career. She had to call her dad because our credit card didn't have enough limit for the week stay at the hotel for work. And they didn't have like corporate cards. It's just like, you just charged and got reimbursed. And she's like, what do I do? Like, she's like, where she's like trying to check in and like, didn't have a credit card with like a $5,000 limit because that's just not what we had. We had like a thousand dollar limit and she was going to be in Chicago for a week.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Oh gee, I was trying to rent a car to take my very young family, trying to take them to Disney and we were going to road trip it to save money. I couldn't rent a car because I couldn't get enough credit. Same thing. I didn't have enough credit to rent the car.

• 56:41Speaker 07

  It's tied into like, they look at your credit if you're going to get a job, if you have any sort of job that has any level of security in it, whether it's national security type security or just a job security thing, they're going to look at your credit and what's going on there. There's just so many things that are tied into it now that if you had a superpower of like, I got an 800 credit score for the rest of my life, you know, you still have to be responsible for it. It doesn't, doesn't magically make you responsible because you have a great credit score. But it will, it certainly will make your life a lot easier on those day-to-day things.

• 57:13Speaker 04

  Well, I like these though, both great weapons for final girl to use. Let's go to the second one. Paula, we'll have you start. Final girl can choose between two weapons, low fixed expenses or great insurances?

• 57:27Speaker 05

  Low fixed expenses. With low fixed expenses, that, that delta between what you spend and what you earn, that can go pretty wide, pretty fast because there's no ceiling to what you can earn, especially if you are healthy and have a, like a hustle, work hard mentality. And if you've got low fixed expenses, I mean, that gap between income and expense gets big. You take that gap, you invest it, that investment grows and over time, boom, it, it grows big enough that you don't even need insurance on many things. Like, of course you need it on like very low probability, high magnitude events, but you no longer need insurance on a lot of things and, and you can get the highest possible deductible

• 58:12Speaker 05

  on a lot of other things.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  Less risk because you spend less money. Do you agree with that, Jafar?

• 58:18Speaker 07

  A hundred percent. Yep.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 07

  If you can keep your fixed expenses low, the world is wide open to you. When you start having fixed expenses that are high, you run into a lot of, a lot of snuggeness around your, around your budget in a hurry if things don't go exactly according to plan.

• 58:36Speaker 04

  Jesse, you gonna pile on a third there?

• 58:39Speaker 06

  It's hard for me to not pile on. After all, I'm wearing leaves and what do you do with leaves? You pile. I was just trying to think, you know, I'm trying to think of a way in which having great insurance is better than having low fixed expenses. But I really liked, one of the places my mind went to, I think is what's something I heard Paula just say, which is, well, if you have low fixed expenses, you're probably in a position to then go out and afford some great insurance, or maybe you just don't end up needing the insurance in the first place. So I'll go with that one.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  Let's do this one, Jesse. Let's keep you on the hot seat. Diversified investments? She's got two tools here. Diversified investments or a high savings rate?

• 59:17Speaker 06

  Oh, I like this one.

• 59:20Speaker 04

  So then that would, that would mean the high savings rate goes into a not as well diversified, right?

• 59:26Speaker 06

  It does. It does. There are shades of gray as far as how not diversified you are. But I think I'm going to go with a high savings rate here. I truly think the more time I spend learning about all the cool corners of financial planning, I think that cash flow is king and foundational and everything else that matters is a function of your cash flow. And having a really high savings rate is another way of saying you're in a really, really good cash flow position. And so again, if someone were to tell me, you know, a hundred percent of their money's in one stock, eh, that, that's stock, that's not great. But I think you can get away with a pretty big lack of diversification if you're saving a ton of money.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  Let's change it up just a little bit, OG. Let's say that you have a high income, which makes it easier for you to have a savings rate. So final girl can have high income versus having better financial knowledge.

• 1:00:28Speaker 07

  I think high income will get you out of a lot of trouble. I think maybe I'd pick high income over knowledge.

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. Paula, where do you come down on that one?

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  Okay. Initially, it was diversified investments, but now it's financial knowledge.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just twisted it there to change it up after Jesse's answer.

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  Define the extent of, of lack of knowledge that we're talking about. Do we just mean like you're over concentrated in, in your company stock that's at 38% of your portfolio?

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  Generally just doesn't know what they're doing, but they can save a ton of money. OG goes down with high income gets you out of a lot of pickles.

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, it depends on how lack of knowledge we're talking about. But I've seen some people with a real lack of knowledge that went really off the rails for like.

• 1:01:23Speaker 04

  Did they have high income?

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  Middle income.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  But if they would have had super high income, would that have helped the situation?

• 1:01:29Speaker 05

  No, they would have just been stupider faster. Yeah. Stupider with more. Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. High income solved a lot of problems though. When I was a financial planner, it solved a lot of problems. I saw people get themselves into horrible areas, but because they had huge cash flow, didn't really care, you know, they're like, okay, I'll get out of it. Why? Cause I got a monster amount of money that I can screw up next month.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, it depends on how little knowledge we're talking about.

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  Well, that is going to do it for the Halloween party. Thanks to everybody for playing our financial games. Let's find out what's going on this Halloween weekend. OG, tomorrow's Halloween. You've been saying this all week. You're going to serve 2% yogurt, Greek yogurt at your house. Is that really happening for people that want to come to the OG residence?

• 1:02:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, like I said, once a year we, we allow a little granola. So we've got little, little, little cups. It's kind of dealer's choice. You could take the little cups with the spoons in them that we can put in your bag for you, or we can just spoon it into your mouth when you come by.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Happy Halloween, Mr. OG.

• 1:02:34Speaker 07

  Come on over, everybody.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  What spooky stuff is on Afford Anything this Halloween week?

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  I gotta say, I'm pretty sure you should never like take spoon fed yogurt from strangers.

• 1:02:47Speaker 07

  No, it's, it's healthy.

• 1:02:52Speaker 07

  I don't do it out of a van, Paula. It's on my front porch. I just sit there and I just sit there in my normal outfit and I go, who wants some yogurt?

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  The kids come running. The kids come running.

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  All right. Well, on the Afford Anything podcast, uh, you will, I don't know what the heck you're going to find. Well, you're going to find you and me, Joe.

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  Us.

• 1:03:15Speaker 05

  Yes, you.

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  Very scary.

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Um, so, so scary. Actually, we answer a question from somebody who asks, am I unemployable?

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  And we just answer no and hang up on them. No.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  Exactly, exactly. But yeah, we answered a question from a woman who was totally unmotivated by money. She'd made enough that she was no longer money motivated and she was like, what does that mean for me? Am I unemployable? And so we, uh, we answered that question plus a whole lot more. So to hear Joe give his take on financial questions, tune into the Afford Anything podcast.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  That is very, very, very scary. Mr. Jesse Kramer, dressed like fall personified. What scary stuff is coming up on the Personal Finance for Long Term Investors show?

• 1:04:01Speaker 06

  Last week, we published an episode chock full of the best quotes from Charlie Munger. Not, not too many of them are scary, but yeah, maybe one or two, one or two. They're certainly a little, you know, he had a way with words. And, uh, next week we are releasing an episode all about the history of retirement itself, which was kind of a fun, uh, deep dive to go down and learn more about.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  We have a big reveal before we say goodbye to everybody. This is a huge, huge thing that we should have done weeks ago and did not. OG has the current trophy, the traveling trophy that's going around the nation. Well, supposedly it was going around the nation, but Jesse, did you ever get the traveling trophy?

• 1:04:47Speaker 06

  I don't think so.

• 1:04:48Speaker 07

  It has your name on it.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  It does. It says, it says Jesse.

• 1:04:52Speaker 06

  Cool.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  In Sharpie, but the good.

• 1:04:54Speaker 06

  Sure does.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  The good news is, is one of our contributors was nice enough to submit to the jury, Doug and I, a new trophy. There is a new trophy and Paula Pant, who if history repeats itself, Paula, you will never see this trophy.

• 1:05:10Speaker 05

  I will, I will never see it again. That's, that was why I had to donate the trophy so that I could for one glorious moment, hold the trophy prior to donating it to the Stacking Benjamins, uh, institution.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  The brand new Stacking Benjamins traveling trophy. Here it comes. It's like, uh, denotes reading as if any of our contributors, Paula, have ever picked up a book. Have the three of you picked up books before? It is very studious on the top. That's good.

• 1:05:38Speaker 05

  It's a bookworm. See, it's a bookworm.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  It is. It's a bookworm. So, uh, who's the most studious, right? And then check this out, like the world of financial trivia, all of the, you've got math, you've got geography, you've got, man, you've got all kinds of stuff here. And then look at this. It almost looks like real wood, but it is a genuine plastic, everybody. And then at the bottom, it says,

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  you suck the least.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  That is the new Stacking Benjamins trophy. So congratulations, OG, you get to keep that one. We'll send this, uh, to Jesse Kramer. If you want it, Jesse, on your, on your mantle for about a month. But now that Mr. Jafar has gotten three weeks ahead, you might be sending it out very soon. If you don't get on the, the stick fairly soon.

• 1:06:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, we, we can leave it where it's at and, uh, wait and see how this year ends. That's fine with me.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  All right. That doesn't sound as confident as we wanted you, Jesse, but that's going to have to do. All right. Big thanks to everybody who hung out with us today for the making of the special Halloween episode. Thank you to our contributors for dressing up, taking it seriously, even though Doug has a conspiracy that, uh, maybe we didn't take it seriously. I don't know. Big thanks to everybody for giving us your time. And if you know somebody who says they're not really into money, this might be a fun episode to share with them. So pass it along and remember also for yourself, you can get more financial knowledge after this is done by signing up for our Veterans Day giveaway. We're giving away a solo stove, stackingbenjamins.com/veterans and you'll get the 201. Uh, so get more knowledge after the shows and

• 1:07:19Speaker 04

  get our newsletter and maybe win a solo stove. But right now, you know what you're going to win? You're going to win Doug telling us what should we have learned on today's show.

• 1:07:26Speaker 03

  Well, Joe, first take some advice from Jesse Kramer. He said some smart stuff. I mean, I dozed off there for a bit when he was talking, so that means it probably was really intelligent. Also, if you have a kid who's going to bounce to Mexico, mitigate your risks ahead of time. Second, don't forget what OG said about how much to spend on your home. While the banks may tell you, you can spend up to 36% of your income, you may be better off targeting more like 25, 30 ish to give yourself some breathing room. But the big lesson? When Joe's mom gives you a chore to complete, you should never say, I'll be back. It's always, I'll do it right now, madam. Yeah, right away, right away. Otherwise she's described, uh, there will be no future.

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, ma. All right. Threat accomplished.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Thanks to the very scary Jesse Kramer for joining us today. You'll find Jesse's Personal Finance for Long Term Investors show wherever you're listening to us now. We'll also add links in the dead of night to our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Thanks to the wicked Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You'll find her spooky podcast, Afford Anything, wherever you listen to the spookiest podcasts. And finally, thanks to OG for, I mean, Jafar for hanging out with us today. Your money giving you blood curdling scream vibes? Head to stackingbenjamins.com/OG to get on his calendar. This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026 and is created by Joe Saul Sehi.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  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.

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