Len Penzo: The 18-Year Sandwich Survey That Predicts Recessions (SB1883)

Every year, Len Penzo prices out the exact same ten brown-bag sandwiches, using the exact same methodology, at the exact same time of year, and turns it into one of the most oddly reliable inflation trackers around. This year the numbers are ugly: double-digit jumps across the board, an 80% spike in one ingredient alone, and a genuinely surprising twist involving the humble bologna sandwich that Len says has quietly tracked economic downturns for nearly two decades. Then, a headline that should make every family pause: how one daughter used a single signed document to quietly drain nearly a million dollars from her own father. What You'll Walk Away With Which sandwich ingredient jumped a jaw-dropping 80% this year, and why it's not the one you'd expectThe strange, long-running correlation between bologna sales and economic recessionsSimple substitutions, buying whole meats and block cheese instead of pre-sliced, that can meaningfully cut your grocery billWhy "nominally the highest price ever" doesn't always mean "the most expensive it's ever really been," once you adjust for inflationHow a single signed power of attorney document led to nearly $1 million disappearing from a vulnerable parent's accountsThe real difference between what your estate plan says and what your actual account beneficiary designations say, and why that gap can undo your entire planA billionaire's surprisingly simple family money ritual that keeps inheritance conflicts from tearing families apartWhy This Matters Now Grocery prices are one of those slow, quiet costs that are easy to underestimate until you actually look at the numbers side by side. At the same time, the legal documents meant to protect aging family members, like power of attorney, only work as intended when there's real transparency and real trust behind them. Both stories point to the same underlying idea: the clearest financial protection usually isn't a clever trick, it's paying close attention to the details that are easy to assume are already handled. From the Basement A story about a backyard grill fire escalates into a genuinely useful (and slightly panicked) lesson on fire extinguisher use, corrosive foam and all, proving once again that the best financial lessons in the basement don't always come from a spreadsheet. Resources Mentioned LenPenzo.com https://lenpenzo.com — Len Penzo's full 18-year sandwich survey and price historyHow Kenn Ricci Runs Family Wealth Meetings https://www.wsj.com — the Wall Street Journal piece on transparent family net worth meetings, referenced in the discussionStacking Benjamins Field Kit https://stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit — the all-in-one budgeting and financial tracking tool 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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• 0:32Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  We are back. We are back. We are getting Doug back.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  And we're the three best friends that anybody could have. We're the three best friends that anyone could have. We're the three best friends that anyone can have and we'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave each other. We're the best three friends that.

• 1:14Speaker 00

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

• 1:29Speaker 00

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and how do you measure inflation? Well, we measure it by asking, how much does a sack lunch sandwich cost today versus a year ago? That's right. On today's show, Len Penzo is back with his famous school lunch sandwich survey. How much has the price of bologna gone up? Or the bacon in that BLT? We've got answers. In our headline segment, one woman stole over a million dollars after a family member signed a pretty important document. What was it? We'll share because there's a chance you've signed this document as well. And then I'll help you sign your name to today's

• 2:12Speaker 00

  trivia winner list. You'll get this one. It's interesting, yet easy. And now two guys who think finance is interesting and often easier than people make it out to be. It's Joe and old Chia Chia G. Interesting and easy is so much better than uninteresting and easy or uninteresting and hard.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  Because if they get it wrong, their, their whole life, they're just going to be questioning themselves.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  But you're not going to have to stacker because you've got this one. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Stack Your Benjamin Show. I am Joe Salsey. Hi. Happy Wednesday to you. And we are raring to go today because today's show is sponsored by the letter A, A for affordability. Have you ever heard of that word, OG affordability?

• 3:00Speaker 05

  No, that's not a, that's not a word I use.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  I don't know the meaning of the word.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Could I have a definition, please? Could you use it in a sentence? Affordability, the sack lunch. He's back. Len Penzo, every year, if you're new to the stacking Benjamin show, comes down to mom's basement and does the best way to measure inflation. I'm so excited. Doug, what's your prediction? We're going to have BLT be more expensive or less expensive than last year?

• 3:30Speaker 04

  What am I, an idiot? Of course it's more expensive. Prices don't go down, especially not for bacon. It's like saying.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  We've had some years where prices were pretty moderate, where, you know, the cost of bacon wasn't a big deal.

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Speaking of prices, I know you guys were waiting with bated breath. Carvana's offer was 2,000.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 3:49Speaker 05

  So $63 more than Kelly Blue Book.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  OG is wondering how to sell his vehicle and looking at Carvana.

• 3:59Speaker 05

  Yes, I think people figured that out.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Carvana, if you want to sponsor this episode, the sponsor spot is coming up in just a second. So you're going to hear whether Carvana sponsored today's show. I know that's what you're all worried about. We're going to hear from them. And then Len Penzo, if you don't know Len, Len is the proprietor of award winning lenpenzo.com. He's won so many awards with that site from CBS Money Watches Award for Best Blog, the Plutus Award for Best Single Author Blog, two times. He won that award, I believe. Of course, Len frequently appears here on stacking Benjamins, but maybe the tippy top of Len's work is on his annual sandwich survey and the way he measures inflation. And we're happy to

• 4:46Speaker 00

  shine a spotlight on that today. So we're going to hear from our sponsors here and at the midway point during Doug's trivia, while you try to get the answer, although you might not need the whole sponsor spot to get this one. Hopefully not, but if you do, then hey, we're going to give you an opportunity there. So we're going to hear from them. And then the Len Penzo back in mom's basement. Stackers, it's open. Finally, Field Kit is here. If you've ever wondered, how can I not just balance my budget or track my net worth like I do in other apps, but also check my subscriptions, have them automatically canceled for me, keep me off those private black lists where you get all your email and physical mail in your mailbox? How do you get on those lists? Well, we know how to get you off of

• 5:31Speaker 00

  them and protect your credit. It's all in the Field Kit. You want to live your life on adventures. You don't want to think about every single money move. Field Kit's got your back. Head to stack your benjamins.com/fieldkit for Field Kit Finance to check it out. 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, huge bookends. Well, that's where factor

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• 7:52Speaker 00

  And I'm super happy this guy is back and he's back with the best way to measure inflation. Len Penzo's here. How are you, man?

• 8:01Speaker 06

  My pocketbook's lighter after going through getting all these sandwich items. Let me tell you, it's a, what a surprising, not, I guess it isn't surprising.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 8:10Speaker 06

  I guess it isn't, but.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Foreshadowing, a little foreshadowing here.

• 8:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, but no, I'm doing well, Joe. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on again.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Let's talk about for people that are brand new stackers, Len, and haven't been to lenpenzo.com and seen this every year. When you started publishing this and I saw it, I barely knew you then. I was like, oh my goodness, can we, can we please do this on the show? You've been nice enough to not only publish it at the site where people can really dive in, but also to share it with us every year. How did this all start? How did you decide to begin measuring the cost of a sandwich?

• 8:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, this is the 18th year. Unbelievable. I just thought of that. 18 years of doing this is just crazy. But 18 years ago, when my kids were small and I was pinching pennies and I wanted to know, well, is it cheaper to just give them the school lunch? Or is it, should I, you know, do the brown bag thing? So that's what I started doing. I said, well, what's the cost of a brown bag lunch for my kids?

• 9:04Speaker 00

  That was the initial thing that started it all off.

• 9:06Speaker 06

  Basically, I think I started with bologna and peanut butter and jelly. So well, let me just take those. And then I was thinking, it's like, gosh, I should just do a whole, all the sandwiches and let's see. And we can make a, you know, back to time the blog, blogging was big still. And I was like, that'd be a great blog post.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Can we say something about that, though? And I don't know if this is why you decided to do all the sandwiches, Len, but I know from your initial findings that the delta between the cost of a school lunch at school and the brown bag was huge. Like, there was this big, big price difference between the two and the nutritional value. I mean, go into that.

• 9:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, but well, it was huge. And now it depends where you live. And I can get into that. But back in the day, it was, um, the nominal savings over these 18 years haven't changed much. It's still roughly for, you know, assuming you have two kids, it's like, $1,200, I think, for two kids, basically.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  $1,200 a school year.

• 9:59Speaker 06

  A school year. Yeah. Uh, let me see here. Yeah, 1,260. And that number's gone up and down just a little bit over the 18 years nominally, nominally, right? And of course, $1,200 18 years ago bought a lot more than $1,200 today.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  And don't think, by the way, stackers, if you don't have kids, that we're not talking to you, because I went through periods, Len, when I started packing the brown bag lunch and the sandwiches, and I did it for a while, and then I get lazy and my, I drain my bank account, then I go back to it. Like, this is a lot less expensive, too, for you going to work every day.

• 10:31Speaker 06

  That's true. I would go into work, too. I packed my lunch, too, because it was cheaper than going work, especially with your coworkers. They're like, hey, let's go out to, you know, they won't go to these expensive places for lunch. It's like, I'd be like, nah, you know, I didn't want to do that. So I'll go back to the schools. I will say this, in California now, and I just found this out this year, California, apparently, school lunches and breakfast are free for all kids.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 10:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, regardless of your income.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Just for food security for some of the kids.

• 11:03Speaker 06

  Yeah. So in a way, maybe you might say, well, that's irrelevant, because I live in California. Well, maybe so. But what I can't speak to is, you know, the quality of those lunches that the school's giving out compared to, you know, I don't know if it's junk or what it is. I remember back when my kids were little, those lunches didn't look very good or appetizing. So what if it's free? I think it's still better for you to make your meals at, at home, your lunches for the kids.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  My mom would let us have the pizza. She would give us some money so we could get pizza, pizza day. And I remember, Len, to the point of how good is it? It was always fun to lick the grease off the pizza before you ate it. Like, that's how bad, that's how gross the pizzas were.

• 11:45Speaker 06

  Hey, sometimes a little grease is okay. But yeah, they can definitely overdo it where it's pooling in the middle. And then you're really getting, it's getting kind of gross. Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  So you ended up with a bunch of different types of sandwiches, 10 sandwiches.

• 11:58Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I was struggling for a while. I was like, for a while, I only had nine sandwiches. And I couldn't think, I was stuck on that. I was like, God, I gotta get 10, you know, any good list has 10 of something, right? And I couldn't think of it. And then one day, we were, the wife, honeybee was saying, you know, hey, what do you want for dinner tonight? And I was like, I don't know. And she was going, I was thinking BLTs. And I was like, there you go. BLT, there's sandwich number 10. And the rest is history. So that's one of our 10 sandwiches.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  You will appreciate this, knowing that we had this coming up and waiting on the results. I had BLTs last week, just specifically because of you.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  You know, in the summer, Joe, we alternate in the Penzo household in the summer. It's BLTs one Friday, and then the next Friday, it's pizza. So speaking of pizza that you were just mentioning, that's the Fridays in the Penzo household in the summertime.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  I've had Italian food at Penzo House, though. You're not licking the grease off the top of a.

• 12:54Speaker 06

  No, there's no grease on. No, no, it's, no, no, not at all. No, that's right. And thank you, Joe. Thank you.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Delicious Italian food at the Penzo household. All right, let's dive in. So we've got peanut butter and jelly, which last year was number one.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  It was the champion.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  Bologna last year was number two, salami was number three. These are in terms of lowest cost. American cheese, which is borderline child abuse. How many years have we been doing that joke now? Somebody told us that American cheese sandwiches were borderline child abuse. And then we're like, have you ever heard of a grilled cheese sandwich? Come on. What are you talking about?

• 13:25Speaker 06

  Happens every year, Joe. Happens every year. It's also, that goes right up there with the people complaining, why don't I pick strawberry jam instead of grape jelly, you know, in my sandwich? Those are the two biggies.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  That's a hill to die on.

• 13:36Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Number five, like, I don't care about your politics. I don't care about any of that. Strawberry jelly, who are you? Egg salad, sandwich number five last year, ham and Swiss, number six, turkey and Swiss, number seven, roast beef and cheddar, there's a sandwich, number eight, and tuna salad, which I think last year was a big mover, but, but that wasn't the big mover.

• 13:59Speaker 06

  No, it was salami, Joe. Salami went from number seven in 2024 to number three, the third least expensive, or I should say, most affordable brown bag sandwich in 2025.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  And then BLT at number 10. And BLT, by the way, to be clear, has BLT been the most expensive of the 10 sandwiches most years?

• 14:19Speaker 06

  Every single year. It has never been out of that number 10 slot.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 06

  It's a special sandwich. I mean, it's still healthy for you. Yes, it's the most expensive sandwich year in and out, but it's probably one of the most, it's probably one of the healthiest, I think. And yes, even if, even though it has bacon on it. And let's always keep in mind that the most expensive sandwich on this survey, the BLT, is every year always cheaper than the average price of a Big Mac in the United States.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Which is incredible. And it also, by the way, is why I also like this survey better than the Big Mac survey that I hear about every year. I'm always like, that's trash.

• 14:58Speaker 06

  Yes, that's my chief competition. Let's not mention that too much, Joe.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  I know, I know. But seriously, who wants to go to, I went to McDonald's on Monday, it almost killed me. And I'm not kidding.

• 15:09Speaker 06

  There goes that sponsor.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  There, there is a, well, it wasn't McDonald's, actually, that was the problem, but we don't need to go into that.

• 15:16Speaker 06

  Too late.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Let's chat about your methodology, because it's important that you have the same methodology every year, looking at all these different ingredients. How do you try to ensure that you get pricing that is consistent?

• 15:31Speaker 06

  Okay. My philosophy throughout all this is, if I'm pinching panties, and I'm always concerned about affordability, I'm always going to buy whatever's the cheapest at the store regardless. So there's multiple types of peanut butter. There's Skippy and Jif and the store brand and, you know, on and on and on. I always buy whatever the cheapest is in terms of servings per container every year. Okay, that's the goal. It's just what is the cheapest type of that? I also maintain that I keep all the, obviously, the ingredients stay the same. And I always try to do the survey within one week, one direction or the other, same time every year. It's either the last week in July or the first week in August, every single year, year in and year out, to try and get rid of seasonality issues

• 16:16Speaker 06

  that might occur, especially with like the lettuce and tomato.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Right, right. So there we have it. That's the setup, everybody. It's time to dive in. Let's talk about prices that actually went down or stayed the same.

• 16:30Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  What went down?

• 16:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, not a lot. So there's 18 items on this, on my sandwich survey ingredients list. 18. Four of them went down. Four. That's it. Not much. Two of those were the condiments, mustard and mayonnaise. The third one was eggs, which I will say, eggs are more affected, that's a regional thing. So egg prices in one area of the country can be low while others could be high, because the eggs are dependent on the local flocks. So if, if you've got some local flocks that aren't producing, maybe there's a, some flu bird, the flu that went through, through them and reduced their production, you know, you're

• 17:12Speaker 06

  gonna, it's going to be more regional. But anyways, eggs, the mustard mayo, and then the only other thing that dropped, and it barely dropped, was bacon, 3%. So not a lot to scream about there.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  You had a few that stayed the same as well.

• 17:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, peanut butter, jelly, American cheese. Uh, there was no change at all. And then Swiss and cheddar cheese barely crept up 3%.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  And the jelly, again, is strawberry.

• 17:39Speaker 06

  Strawberry. Yeah. Sorry, folks. I like strawberry jelly. That's just the way it is.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  I just get angry every time you say it. I'm kidding. I truly, I'm an equal opportunity. I love them all. Strawberry, grape, both favorites. The rest of them went up.

• 17:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, they went up and they went up, not just up, but we were kind of talking before we went on and you were mentioning, there's a lot of red there.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  I did. When you first sent these to me, that was my first comment back to you.

• 18:04Speaker 06

  Yes. Here's the thing. Yes, there's a lot of red, but there were years, many years where there was a lot of red on the board. But in this year, there is a lot of double-digit increases of the red items. And I mean, not just barely double digits. I'm talking 30, 40, 50, 80% increases in ingredients this year. I mean,

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Let's start with the 80%. What's the biggest offender at 80% increase from last year?

• 18:30Speaker 06

  It's ham. Ham this year, up 80%. Now, to be fair, this is the, in nominal terms, it was a dollar per serving for the ham. A dollar. So before you even throw the bread and the condiments on, your ham sandwich is a buck. That's a dollar in nominal terms. To be fair, in 2012, adjusting for inflation, this is the inflation adjusted price, it was 99 cents. Okay. It was actually 70 cents back in 2012, but you adjust for inflation using the CPI, it was 99 cents. But that's the only other time that ham was even close to being this expensive. So.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Have you generally, over the 18 years, seen huge fluctuation in the price of ham?

• 19:10Speaker 06

  Not this huge. No, no. It would go over like two or three-year period. It would run up maybe 30% and 20% and 10. You know, you'd get 80% over a three-year run, but not 80% in a year. Just absolutely jaw-dropping.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  When you and I have talked before, I think the one that is the most volatile pricing, isn't it the tuna, the Albacore tuna? That generally is the most volatile?

• 19:31Speaker 06

  Tuna is wildly volatile. It went up 90. Okay. So what is it this year, Joe? I'm not looking at the number here.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  It's $3.

• 19:38Speaker 06

  It's $3 a serving?

• 19:40Speaker 00

  On the nose.

• 19:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, it went up 44% this year. $3 a ser- So again, there's tuna, just for a tuna, you're $3 out of the gate for tuna this year. In 2022, tuna itself went up 97% in one year, almost doubled over in one year.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  I was gonna ask, is that the biggest jump you've seen in your time doing it?

• 19:59Speaker 06

  I think it is. I don't think something's ever more than doubled. So yeah, that has to be the, probably the biggest jump ever. But again, it's volatile, right? So it went up 97% in 2022, and then over the next two years, the price retreated 90 cents. So I don't know what that is in percentage terms.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 20:15Speaker 06

  And now, here we go again. The last two years, it climbed 44%. That's after rising 30% last year. So tuna's a big mover. It swings in wild directions. And I don't know what the, I guess that's just, you know, it's, it all depends on how they're doing out there fishing, how the tuna, the tuna, what is it? What are they? Schools?

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Community?

• 20:36Speaker 06

  The tuna community is doing. Yeah, I don't know. However, the fishermen.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Tuna Village?

• 20:41Speaker 06

  Yes, the tuna villages, how they're doing out there in tuna land. So yeah, but yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Well, that is the number three. So ham at 80% is the most egregious rising price. 44% with tuna, with tuna, rather, is number three.

• 20:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  The good news is, we can stay away from tuna if we want. We can stay away from ham if we want. We could go with that strawberry jelly. We could do a bunch of other things. The bad news is, number two, Len, we can't do anything about it. If we're gonna have a sandwich.

• 21:10Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  It's, it's defined by number two.

• 21:12Speaker 06

  Yep. It's the bread. Another, this is another 50% increase in the price of bread this year. So that means everybody, right off the bat, your main component in any sandwich, the bread, or it's the most, most critical, it went up 50%. So you're, we're already behind the eight ball, just starting off getting the bread on the table.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  And think about, when you go to a restaurant, you know, when I go to a restaurant lately, I'm sure you and the honeybee are the same way, Len. I'm like, are you kidding me? Every time I get the bill, I'm like, are you kidding me? I feel like an old guy, but man, the prices are so much higher. But think about how ubiquitous bread is.

• 21:44Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Every restaurant, every sandwich you eat.

• 21:47Speaker 06

  So I'll give you a little history on the bread. So again, the bread was 24 cents a serving this year. So 20, you want to get your sandwich, you're starting off at 24 cents. That's the most expensive ever, 24 cents a serving. However, in 2011 and 2013, bread was actually more expensive in terms of current purchasing power.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Purchasing power.

• 22:09Speaker 06

  Yeah. So in 2011, it was 20 cents a serving. And if you adjust for inflation, that's 29 cents in today's dollars. And in 2013, it was also 20 cents. That's 28 cents in today's dollars, using the CPI. So yes, it's high. It's incredibly high, but it's not unprecedented. And it's actually, in terms of purchasing power, it's been more expensive in the past.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Been here before. Okay. Uh, next, next down the list is the tomato at a 33% jump.

• 22:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's an outie. Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  Salami back up 25% from, of course, a big time low.

• 22:42Speaker 06

  Giving away all the gains it made last year. Yes.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  That's not surprising, though. I mean, that could have been a point in time. And so the rebound, that doesn't surprise me. Turkey up, up 20%. Roast beef then up 14%.

• 22:56Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, these are still, those are huge increases here. It's just jaw-dropping.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is a monster number.

• 23:01Speaker 06

  Yeah. So you're losing out to inflation.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  Let's put it all together in terms of sandwiches. We know that the BLT is the most expensive sandwich on the list, but how has that changed from last year?

• 23:12Speaker 06

  The good news is, is it actually, it's in the top three amongst least amount of change, I guess we could say. It still went up, but the price went up 8%, which is not too bad for the BLT. Not too bad at all, especially compared to all the other sandwiches. There's only one sandwich on the list that actually fell this year.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  What is it?

• 23:30Speaker 06

  It's the egg salad, down 18%. That's, I mean, if you want to, you know, make up for last year and gain some ground on last year, eat egg salad sandwiches all year long.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  But again, that's gonna be maybe the most regional.

• 23:43Speaker 06

  That's correct. Absolutely right. I'm sure some of you are in, I'm in Southern California, maybe some of you are, who knows, another part of the country going, you know, you're crazy, Penzo. Egg prices have gone through the roof. It's like, well, here in Southern California, they've, they've actually fallen quite a bit.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. So your mileage may vary.

• 23:58Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Number nine on the list is the tuna salad sandwich. How does that look versus last year?

• 24:05Speaker 06

  Well, of course, we just mentioned how the price has just gone crazy. It's, went up 37% this year. So $3.42 for the cost of a tuna salad sandwich this year, $3.42.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Wow. Wow. A third higher.

• 24:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  All right. Number eight on the list, it was also number eight last year, roast beef and cheddar.

• 24:24Speaker 06

  Correct. At $2.29 per sandwich, it rose not too bad compared to, relatively speaking, still kind of gets your attention. It was 13% higher than last year.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Right. If you told me 13, a price of a sandwich went up by 13%, I would have said, oh, that's probably in the top three, you know?

• 24:40Speaker 06

  Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We don't usually get these kind of increases, not this many anyways.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  All right. The price of ham up the biggest, the price of bread up second biggest, ham and Swiss, oh, this is gonna be ugly, I bet.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  Yep. Up 44% this year. Ironically, it only fell one position from six to seven this year, but it's at $1.68 a sandwich. Still fairly reasonable, but you can get three of the cheapest sandwiches for the price of one ham and Swiss.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  We should give you stackers the real numbers on these, by the way. Len's cost of a BLT is $4.55. A tuna salad, $3.42, so more than a dollar less. And that's been fairly steady. There's a big difference between BLT and everything else. But still, you think about it, a quality sandwich like a BLT, $4.55. Again, on Monday, I had a Big Mac. It was a lot more than $4.55.

• 25:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. And you know what? Yeah. I don't know about you, but I feel a lot better when I eat a BLT than after I eat a Big Mac.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  100%.

• 25:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Roast beef and cheddar, $2.29.

• 25:43Speaker 06

  Hey, I'll be bringing something up real quick on the roast beef and cheddar. My, I was in Indiana and southwestern Michigan last week. And I have, my nephew has a little store, a little out there in the new Troy, Michigan. He specializes in sandwiches. He makes his own bread and makes his sandwiches. So he made me a, one of his roast beef and cheddar sandwiches. And he put grilled onions on it, and it was fantastic. I never even thought of that before. Just absolutely fantastic.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Let's go right now. He's almost turned into a Philly beef, you know, sandwich.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  Almost, almost. But it was delicious.

• 26:18Speaker 00

  It's a great thing. Now, the reason I brought roast beef and cheddar early, roast beef and cheddar, by the way, up 13%. Starting with ham and Swiss, though, Len, all of the rest of the sandwiches on this list are still less than $2.

• 26:30Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, let's put this all into perspective. Compare this to fast food or somewhere. These are all bargains. This is all good stuff. It's just, but if you're ranking them all compared to each other, obviously, we have to rank them. So, but yeah, these are all still great deals, all of them.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  So ham and Swiss went up one spot to $1.68, passing by turkey and Swiss, which is $1.41. What happened with turkey and Swiss?

• 26:55Speaker 06

  Well, they swapped positions. The price of the turkey only went up 20%, but the cheese didn't budge at all. So 3%. It managed to hop above ham, which we just mentioned, ham is just, the price of ham went crazy. So turkey and Swiss slipped back into the number six spot this year.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  And turkey by itself already less expensive than ham. So next up, it went all the way from number six to number three, back to number five at 93 cents, salami.

• 27:21Speaker 06

  Salami's back. Still a great deal, up 29% this year. Last year, there was only four sandwiches under a buck. Ironically, this year, there's five sandwiches under a buck, even though the price of the average sandwich rose 17% this year. So.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  17 was the average.

• 27:39Speaker 06

  17. But if you take all the price of all the sandwiches and you divide by 10 and you compare that to the previous year, yes, the price went up 17%. But ironically, we have five sandwiches under a dollar. Now, you know, there was only one year that was worse, that the average price of all 10 sandwiches, that was in 2022, where it went up 27%. Okay. So and we all know what happened.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Big inflation year.

• 28:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, that was the pandemic and all that and a lot of things. So, but yeah, that was the only worst year where prices went up higher.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Egg salad then, 89 cents. American cheese.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  Maybe I should just call this the grilled cheese sandwich. You know, maybe we should just do this. Change it to grilled, grilled cheese. I know everybody's wincing every time you say American cheese.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  I wonder if that person is still listening and hears us crack the joke every year. It's just.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  If you're going to give us criticism, think for just a second. It's okay to give me criticism, but think for a moment.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  And now this leaves us to the final two, which by the way, have been the perennial number one and two in one position or the other for all 18 years of the survey. Okay. So

• 28:50Speaker 00

  drum roll.

• 28:50Speaker 06

  If it's not one, it's the other. So, and, and we will say this, usually the baloney sandwich is usually a indicator of recessions. So actually baloney use actually goes up during recessions because it's so cheap. You know, the, the, the old wives tale is baloney is a very expensive meat, you know, but it's actually not when you can, looking at it from the sandwich perspective.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Wow. I didn't know any of that.

• 29:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  And I, and I wonder if, have you seen over the past 18 years, like the price of baloney fluctuation do anything in terms of correlation with the stock market at all?

• 29:24Speaker 06

  You know what? I don't, I don't know. Actually this year, the price of baloney was 28 cents a serving. This is hard to believe, but that the nominally, that's an all time high. In 2012, it was way more expensive in terms of inflation adjusted. It was 27 cents a serving back 14 years ago, which comes out to 38 cents today of inflation adjusted.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 29:50Speaker 06

  I don't know what was going on in 2012, but yeah, price of baloney went up. It's, yes, it's high. It's the highest ever nominally, but we can't hold a candle to 2012.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  So baloney, uh, number two at 60 cents, which means number one

• 30:05Speaker 06

  was PB and J. That's two years in a row now. It is the, uh, most economical sandwich. And it's only the fifth time in 18 years that baloney did not have at least a share of the crown. So, I mean, and it was still a mild upset, but there you go.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  It tightened slightly though.

• 30:25Speaker 06

  Tightened a little bit.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  18% versus up 15% for baloney.

• 30:27Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  52 cents wins the day.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  Still not too shabby for a pretty good tasting sandwich.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Yep. For a sandwich that I enjoy every time. I don't have them enough. I could eat those all day. I generally don't have one. I will have one and then I'm like, you know what? I gotta go back and have a second one. So there it is. A dollar four for me.

• 30:45Speaker 06

  Oh, I love, and a big glass of milk to go with that.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Oh, Evan, any big takeaways either this year or just in general, Len, from the, the survey?

• 30:54Speaker 06

  Yeah. Well, from the survey, yes, prices are up to all time highs nominally. Some items are a little cheaper. They're not, uh, they've been more expensive in the past, but there's no doubt about it. If you think your grocery bill has not been going down, it probably hasn't. I mean, this was quite a year in terms of inflation on sandwiches.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  I'm thinking of terms of tactics and takeaways because you always have some good tactics and takeaways as well.

• 31:20Speaker 06

  Well, one of the, the biggest, and this remains true. And you know, Joe, I've been doing the store brand versus name brand taste test challenges. You know, people tend to think, don't get the store brand because it doesn't taste as good. That's not always true. Sometimes it tastes better. So you can keep your prices down by focusing on store brand stuff. You can, when it comes to ham and turkey, buy it whole and slice it yourself. That will greatly reduce the price. My pricing is on sliced stuff right out of the deli counter. I mean, prepackaged stuff. I mean,

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 31:48Speaker 06

  These numbers could, will drop even more. If you buy like a whole turkey breast, or you buy a, a canned ham and you do the slicing yourself, these prices would be even less. Same thing with block cheese as well. Instead of buying the sliced cheese, the pre sliced, buy the block cheese, slice it. You're going to save a lot of money. Of course, grow your own tomatoes. Who, who doesn't like a homegrown tomato? I mean,

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Even the vegetables, like the carrots that you'll put on the side sometimes. You know, it's funny. I didn't pay any attention to that until you and I were friends and now Cheryl still will go over and buy the pre-cut stuff. I'm like, what are you doing? I can cut a watermelon. Like, why am I buying a pre-cut watermelon?

• 32:26Speaker 06

  That's really expensive. Yeah. And they put that front and center in the produce section, all that pre-cut stuff. Yeah. It's, it, yes, absolutely.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  There is plenty more and I'll bet, I will bet you money that you may have written about this someplace where our stackers can go back and can, uh, find all the results of this year's study.

• 32:44Speaker 06

  Yes. It's the persistent itch.com.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  AKA Len Penzo.

• 32:51Speaker 06

  Lenpenzo.com. Yes. It's all there for you. You can look at all the dirty details. I, I have the per serving costs of all the sandwiches by year from 2009 to 2026 for you to look at if you really want to get into that kind of pain, but it's all there for you. So you can dissect it, you know, six ways to sundae.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Super. Not only save a bunch of money on the lunch, but also get your, your closet spreadsheet geek on.

• 33:16Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Len, thanks for mentoring us again this year on inflation. I super appreciate it.

• 33:23Speaker 06

  My pleasure is all. I always look forward to this every year. It's always fun.

• 33:28Speaker 05

  Hey, this is Pete, the planner, USA Today money columnist and host of the Ask Pete the Planner podcast. When I'm not fixing the weirdest financial situations you've ever heard of, I'm stacking Benjamins.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. And it was on today's date back in 1981 that IBM released the first personal computer. It was an amazing machine that featured a whopping 16 kilobytes of memory, which is about what Joe's mom says I have left. Hey, don't laugh, Len. She says you got 14, man. Here's today's trivia question. IBM is one of the great companies of our time, but what do the letters IBM stand for? I'll be back right after I go look up the answer, you know, because I can't be wasting what memory I got left on trivia.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  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

• 35:10Speaker 00

  between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping. Factor requires zero prep cleanup or effort from you or mom. So you can focus on everything else in your day. 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.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  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 and there's a pretty good chance nobody wants to be the person who starts it. Inheritance.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  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. Kiplinger calls it the trillion dollar talk, a conversation about inheritance,

• 37:16Speaker 00

  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.

• 37:42Speaker 00

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• 39:09Speaker 00

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• 39:45Speaker 04

  Hey there stackers. I'm professional memory filler and guy looking to clear his cash. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. It's funny. Some of the most iconic companies of our time use initials. UPS is untied parcel service. AMD is advanced micro devices. Some are more fun. BMW is, actually, I don't think this is right. Bavarian Motor Works. That's definitely what it was originally called. A and W is short for Alan and White. Founders Roy and Frank's last name. How about 3M Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing?

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Which is funny because they don't mine anymore. Maybe my favorite though is IKEA, which is short for, this is, this is going to be awesome. Ingvar Kamprad Elm Tared Agunarid. Nailed it. Ingvar Kamprad is the founder. Elm Tared was his family farm. It's like I'm on Game of Thrones or something. Agunarid was his hometown. He just put them together to make a name that's as understandable as the instructions to put the furniture together. But today's a little bit easier. What does IBM stand for? Of course, that's International Business Machines. And now back to two guys who are machines at podcasting. Joe and OG.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  I was maybe just a year younger than I am right now when I found out that IKEA was an abbreviation, that it actually was those four letters put together.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Did Doug say that UPS stands for untied parcel services?

• 41:32Speaker 00

  Untied.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Okay, just wanted to.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  Pretty sure that's it.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Nice catch. Yeah. But did you guys know IKEA was a, was an abbreviation?

• 41:41Speaker 05

  I know that it's crappy furniture that you have to put together yourself. Also that you get lost in the store.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  The definition of crappy furniture is anything OG's got to put together himself?

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, anything that requires him breaking a sweat.

• 41:55Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Because you end up with like 32 screws left in a two by four. And you're like, I don't understand why, why is this chair all wobbly?

• 42:05Speaker 04

  I was super skeptical of IKEA and, and then we got our first piece because we had gotten a cottage and we just needed to get some furniture in there.

• 42:12Speaker 05

  Got our first piece. Like he's at Sotheby's. Like, we've acquired our first piece for our up north home.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  It's called the helm of.

• 42:21Speaker 05

  Our lakefront establishment. We've acquired a piece.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  You know, look, it's still furniture you put together.

• 42:27Speaker 05

  667 then. To the gentleman in the back.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  It isn't 667. If you've ever been to IKEA, it's 667 through 672.

• 42:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Don't forget all these parts you're needed by.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Got to buy the four different boxes.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  You said we acquired a piece. That's funny.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  It's better than you'd expect. It's, it's probably the best put together furniture you could buy. It's the Cadillac of put it together yourself furniture.

• 42:53Speaker 05

  Solder desks, IKEA. One's just one notch above. Got it.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  I've got a nice bookshelf in the office. That's an IKEA bookshelf. And to your point, Doug, not that hard to put together, but man, to OG's point, what a pain in the ass.

• 43:09Speaker 05

  When you have to put together the drill that then you have to plug in, you have to, you need, you need electrical work.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  You gotta wait 12 hours to plug the drill in.

• 43:17Speaker 05

  A hammer with steel and fire and like a kiln and everything. It's intense.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  OG's got to plug the drill in because he uses it once every three years, whether he needs to or not.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  That's why it's hard for you. Using muscles you've never used.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  Let's do a headline.

• 43:33Speaker 07

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

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Our headline today comes from, man, we're talking about Cleveland a lot lately.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  Not on purpose.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Cleveland19.com, Channel 19 Cleveland. This is a scary story. Mom sent this one to me, guys. Woman accused of stealing nearly $1 million. Guess who she stole it from?

• 44:00Speaker 05

  Me again.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:03Speaker 05

  This is about my mom.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  She stole it from her dad. This is actually originally out of Omaha, Nebraska. A woman in Nebraska accused of stealing nearly $1 million from her own father after dad signed a form. OG, guess what the form is?

• 44:20Speaker 05

  I'm going to say the power of attorney form.

• 44:23Speaker 00

  Power of attorney. Her dad gave her power of attorney and apparently she's never read King Lear, where the kids just steal all the stuff and leave dad out to dry. Patricia Dacey, 60 years old, booked on charges of abuse of a vulnerable adult and theft of more than $5,000, slightly more than five grand. Wow. So her dad was in a memory care facility.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  FYI, that's the cutoff in Omaha, apparently. $49.99, steal away.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  That's the rule of thumb. If you live in Omaha, only steal $49.99.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  That's given out, that's just us giving out more good, useful information that you can use every day.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Dad was living in a memory care facility. It was pressured into granting her power of attorney. According to an affidavit, Dacey retired shortly after, of course. So dad gives her power of attorney. She retires almost immediately with dad's money. And a relative noted her lifestyle improved dramatically, Doug. Can you believe it?

• 45:26Speaker 04

  I wonder why. That's, what's the correlation there?

• 45:29Speaker 00

  It is so strange. Listen to how kind she is. She began giving away large sum of money to select family members. So, you know, buying favors.

• 45:39Speaker 04

  Just a giver.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  She bought new houses, cars and pools. She took her kids on expensive vacations and bought one of her daughters a new carpooling house. How could they even tell that she was living a different lifestyle? I, I don't know. About $770,000 in withdrawals were made over four months from her father's account. A family member said.

• 46:00Speaker 05

  That's spendy. That's even more than I could pull off.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  After other family members were denied access or given only partial access to the trust account. Investigators met with the dad and believed he was a vulnerable adult suffering from memory impairment. And they said that the father expressed shock. OG, this power of attorney document, this is a dangerous thing. You've really got to think long and hard before you hand power of attorney to somebody. And, and yet in some cases, you really do need to use this document. So how do you draw this line in a way so that a family member doesn't use and abuse it?

• 46:36Speaker 05

  I mean, that's the crux of the issue is you need to have somebody that you can trust that will handle your affairs in a proper way. But it's hard to have a backup to the backup. You know what I mean? The solution that we have in our plan for our estate plan is we actually have two people who are kind of in charge of the money with a third, as a tiebreaker, an independent third party trustee, who is kind of the third tiebreaker person. What we've done anyway is talk to people in our trust that would be in charge. This is a little different than power of attorney, but still same concept. People who would be in charge of the money for our kids while they grow up and said, here's, you know, what we'd like to have happen.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  But when you get older, you know, I mean, who, who are you going to trust more than your daughter? Like, I mean, that's the, I've had that happen to me, you know, when you're talking to somebody who's thinking about being a client. They go, well, look, I would love to work with you guys, but my son is in the business and you know, I know he's new, but I, you know, I want to support him. I gotta support my kid. And you go, yeah, of course. You know, my mom supported me when I was starting. That's how sometimes this stuff starts, right? So who are you going to trust more than your family? You know, so it's an awful situation.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  I like the idea of the independent trustee, somebody who's not beholden to the family. They're not emotional about the family. They can just look at things with an objective eye. The pushback that people always have, of course, OG is twofold. Number one is the overstepping independent trustee. We've seen where the, the stuff is written in a way that the independent trustee then can just charge a bunch of fees is uncontrollable themselves. So how do you?

• 48:21Speaker 05

  Most notably, the story here in Dallas of the wife of the American Airlines CEO who passed away. And, you know, had hundreds of millions of dollars in trust at Chase Bank and they wouldn't, they purposefully rigged, if you guys don't remember this story, this is what, maybe 10 years old now at this point? They purposefully rigged the families against one another. So the families would fight, which would

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Increase their fees.

• 48:45Speaker 05

  Trigger a clause in the trust document that said, nothing can be done until all the families agree. But all the families were fighting. But the whole purpose of this was so that Chase could keep billing their, you know, 2% management fee on hundreds of millions of dollars. While the wife of the, you know, had no access to, couldn't pay the property taxes on the house because she had no access to the hundreds of millions of dollars that her husband left her when he passed away because everybody was fighting. It was all orchestrated. They got sued and lost a billion dollars or something like that in a judgment, but it took 10 years.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  And that brings up both of my questions. Number one is how do you make sure that doesn't happen in writing? Like, how do you, how do you ensure that doesn't happen in your trust? And then number two is, you know, people often look at the fees associated with the independent trustee, even if they do the right thing. And they're like, I just don't want to pay somebody to, to do that. Talk about both of those things.

• 49:35Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, when money's on the line, it makes people go crazy. Doug and I were just talking about this. We've got a family situation, kind of extended family situation that we're talking, that we're loosely affiliated with in our family. From the bleacher seats watching it, you can see how this thing is transpiring, right? The people who have never had any money can literally smell blood in the water. Grandma's gonna die. So it's time to, everybody sharpen the knives because, you know, I gotta make sure I get mine, you know, which is just awful. And it's really, really bad to see. So is that preemptive education? Is that conversation with your kids ahead of time? Is that like making sure that everybody's on the up and up? I was reading a story, is this the Wall Street Journal story with

• 50:20Speaker 05

  the guy who started Flexjet? Is he the one that says that he does a family net worth meeting every year?

• 50:26Speaker 00

  That's cool.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  I don't know about that.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  That sounds like a great idea to be that open.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  I think this is him. I thought this is where I heard this, but you know, he's got adult children and they set financial goals and business goals for themselves. They all have their own businesses and families. And then at the end of the year, he goes through and goes, hey, how did you do? What was your goal? Did you achieve it? What did you learn? Whatever. And then he discusses the family net worth from his perspective. And that's when he does his gifting and, you know, that sort of stuff down to his kids. And, and he's been very clear, and he was public on this Wall Street Journal article or interview that he said, each one of my kids aren't going to be equal. They all have different needs and different stuff. And it's, you know, we're not dividing this by three. They know it. And that is what it is. Like, that's how we've decided to do it. So I think all of this starts early on. If you're the type of person that hides money under a bushel

• 51:15Speaker 05

  and you're, I think, I think it's always fun to see those stories, right? When, or interesting to see the stories. Or it's like, you know, the librarian donates $11 million to church, you know, and they go, I didn't know that.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  The custodian at the elementary school.

• 51:29Speaker 05

  At the school or whatever, right? It's just kind of an interesting thing. And I suppose if you're by yourself, you don't have any relatives, that's probably how that turned out. But if you think that the best solution is to not tell your family about money, or at least your immediate family about learning about money, this is what happens. You know, and I'm not saying that this, this guy's fault because it sounds like this woman's a psychopath and deserves to be in jail for a long time. But because she thought a million dollars was a lot of money and it would never run out. And, you know, it's like, some of that is education, some of that's upbringing, some of that's not being exposed to that stuff over a long period of time. So I think part of it is that, to answer your question, Joe. I think some of it is having checks and balances as best you can.

• 52:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you need to read the, you know, a lot of times we hire attorneys to write this stuff, which I think is really important. You want to choose a good attorney and have discussions with them about what you really want. But I think you also need to read it. Next week, we're going to have legal week here on the show and I'm really excited about that. But our guest on Monday, Leo Mann, next week is going to dive into this a little bit, that we sign so many things that we don't think about it. Man, your estate plan, you want to know how that works. You want to know what you're signing up for with the independent trustee and think, what could the Achilles heel be in this thing that I'm agreeing to?

• 52:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, if you're a state plan, you can write whatever you want in there.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  You can, yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 05

  I've seen some things where people say, if you disagree with this, then you get cut out.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Wow. Wow. By the way, I looked up the Wall Street Journal piece. His name is Ken Ricci, R I C C I. And Ken says, and I'll link to this in the show notes, I start the meeting by showing my net worth and I show them where the assets are, what companies we own, what liquid money is, all the stuff you talked about, OG. But what I like is what you said next. I have all them expose their net worth and then they tell their siblings what they invested in and what they're spending their money on. And typically then at the end of that meeting, he will, he and his spouse then pass on some of their wealth to their kids at the end of that meeting. But everybody's very transparent. Very, very, very cool.

• 53:31Speaker 05

  Helps to have a couple billion dollars to like be transparent about.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  I don't know. But does it matter? I mean, seriously, if you're going to give your kids a couple hundred bucks, you could still have that meeting and then have a couple hundred bucks that you give them.

• 53:43Speaker 05

  No, I think it's really important to make it that there's no surprises. I mean, we uncovered this issue with a family member last fall. This family member said to me, he said, hey, I got a question for you. Money question. Are you on the clock? And I said, yeah, sure, whatever. He says, why do I keep on getting letters from Fidelity that says I don't have a beneficiary on my IRA?

• 54:03Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  I'm pretty sure I did that. And I'm like, well, fidelity's pretty sure you didn't.

• 54:12Speaker 05

  No, no, no, I didn't. It's like, no, you didn't. They're not in the habit of sending forms to people, you know, to psych, just kidding, we got it.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  It even could be you did it, but fidelity never received it.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, you didn't hit submit or you hit submit, internet glitched.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  I did it because I did an estate plan with my attorney. Well, that doesn't mean fidelity got it. That like, that's two totally separate things.

• 54:33Speaker 05

  Actually, Doug, that was the argument. A lot of times, financial transactions or financial things require two sides of the, of, of transaction, right? Just because you went and got your estate plan done and your estate plan says, hey, this is how I want all my stuff to be distributed. I want to create this trust. I got this beautiful plan. You have to tell the people that have your money, the beautiful plan. And there's a way to do that. You make the plan, the beneficiary. So you make your trust the beneficiary. You can't just say, well, no, no, my estate plan's already done. Fidelity will do what my estate plan said. No, fidelity has their rules that are governed by what the courts say and what the government says. And in this case, this, this family member was remarried, each side

• 55:15Speaker 05

  had adult children and so on and so forth. And it was like, well, no, my plan is that my money goes to my kids. It's like, well, fidelity's plan is if you die, your money goes to your wife. It's like, well, no, no, she knows that it goes to my kids. I'm like, that's, there's not a mechanism for that transfer. You know what I mean? Like, you can't give, give a million dollars of IRA money to some rando person absent a withdrawal and tax. Like, it's a big, big mess. Anyway, we got it solved. But.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  So as usual, I opened up a can of worms. Does that mean that the beneficiary designation on any of certain accounts takes precedent and priority over what you might have in your real estate or your real estate plan, your estate plan?

• 55:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Your beneficiary designation is the gold standard. It's whatever it says. If you have that listed as I want this money to be distributed to my kids, it's going to your kids.

• 56:06Speaker 04

  Hold on, let's be a little more specific. Your beneficiary designation with the organization that's holding on to the money, because you've got two different beneficiary designations. I've got one in my estate plan that my attorney helped draft up.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  But there's also beneficiary designations with my 401ks and my IRAs and real estate. I keep saying real estate. Why is that on my mind? My life insurance, et cetera.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  I mean, I wouldn't say that you're.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  Beneficiary designations.

• 56:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, I don't use that term in my trust. Those are, well, I guess maybe they are trust beneficiaries. Yes. Where the money is, is what takes precedent.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  On your 401k, what you write at fidelity, your 401k holder, whoever it might be, that takes precedent over what you did.

• 56:50Speaker 05

  Your brokerage account, the 529s, the life insurance, whatever that says is what happens. And if you wanted to like dovetail into your estate plan, then you need the beneficiary at fidelity and Ally Bank and Schwab and whatever to say, go look at my estate plan. And there's a way to do that.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Next week, we're going to dive into that way to do that. We're going to talk more about your estate plan.

• 57:15Speaker 05

  That's called a tee up, Joe. See what we did there?

• 57:17Speaker 00

  It's just so awesome. All week next week, we normally only have one mentor a week. We have mentors on Monday and Wednesday as we take you through contract law on Monday and then on Wednesday through estate planning rules. So going to be a fun week.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  I'm glad that you pointed that tee up out, OG, because what I've noticed is you've got to tee it up a little higher sometimes because it's easy to whiff if you don't have the ball teed up a little bit taller. Like you stand up through your swing and you swing right over the top.

• 57:44Speaker 05

  Like you probably, I've seen you golf.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  Joe's like, what the hell are you talking about, man?

• 57:49Speaker 00

  It sounds very much like a personal attack. I have no idea what just happened. Let's move on to the back porch where we talk about some of the cool things our stackers are doing. And man, there's some exciting stuff. It seems like one member of our basement community, our Facebook group, The Basement, you can join that at stackingbenjamins.com/basement. One person's having some very vivid dreams.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  Let's be honest, Joe and everybody, at this point, don't we assume everybody's having dreams about me?

• 58:20Speaker 00

  I, when I, when I read the top of this, I was like, oh my goodness. Normally we would have Doug read this stuff, but I'm going to read this one. And by the way, before we even get to that-

• 58:32Speaker 04

  Doug's blushing right now.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  We got some great feedback on our five days a week, week. Thank you very much for that. We had a lot of fun putting it together. I also liked though what stacker Eric said, though it's not sustainable. Eric is a hundred percent right. We will, don't be expecting, while we will have special weeks from time to time, we will not be going five days a week, uh, nonstop. But Jennifer says, I really hesitated to post this, but it's too weird and funny not to. And I know this group are appreciated. I had a dream about neighbor Doug. No, not that kind of dream. Oh gee. Neighbor Doug handed me a stack of cash, mostly tens hidden in a rolled up newspaper. He said they were asking loyal stackers to balance their books for them.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  Inside the newspaper was also a stack of dot matrix paper with a list of people that owed them money. Which by the way, you know, this sounded really exciting and young Doug. And Doug's ego was really attached to that until Jennifer, you said dot matrix paper. And that Doug had dot matrix paper showing Doug how old she thinks you are. So-

• 59:36Speaker 04

  That one hurt a little bit, Jen.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. I have no idea where this came from, but I'll blame the heat and some long distance traveling. I want my brain to decide to throw neighbor Doug in there. Get out of my head, Doug. Jennifer, thanks for sharing that. It was pretty good. Dylan said that was not a dream. Doug's actually hit me up with the same offer. Marcia said, uh, I hope it's not a recurring dream.

• 59:59Speaker 04

  You don't need to get hateful, Marcia. Come on. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Mika says, I just need Doug to know that you can now ask for your fries at Culver's Extra Crispy. And Culver's now is the perfect fast food restaurant. I can't, even this goes off the rails in the basement, Doug.

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  Well, first of all, uh, it's Mika, not Mika.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Mika.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  You're welcome. You're welcome, Mika. And I did know that I have not, I've only done that once. I usually forget because I've got my order stored in my app. And it's just like order favorite and it, you know, it knows no mayo on the burger and et cetera. Like it knows how I like everything. I need to change that to crispy fries because I did that once. It is lovely.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. Shout out to stacker Andy, who also has a fun piece that says, a family's money on travel ball, $200,000. Oh gee, they spent on travel ball finally paid off with their son's $500 college scholarship.

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. That's about right.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  All that travel ball-

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  That math checks.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  Finally pays off. It wouldn't be funny if it weren't so damn true, right?

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  Thanks to all of you for some fun conversations lately and to our friend Jesse Kramer for kind of stirring the pot as well. In mom's basement. And how many windows are in your house? Oh my goodness. We had quite the discussion on the number of windows in your house. Hey, if you're a member of our meetup groups, make sure that you check the local Facebook pages for those, because we are doing our quarterly members only meetup group on the official frontier later this month. But to make sure you get signed up and you know when it is, head to the local meetup group. And by the way, if you're not in one of our local groups, go to stackingbenjamins.com/bad, Benjamin's After Dark. So it's stackingbenjamins.com/bad to join us for that. All right, Doug, you've got it from here, my friend. What should we have learned on today's show?

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  Well, Joe first takes some advice from Len Penzo. Pack a lunch. Sure, prices are going up, but it's still much cheaper and probably healthier than that cafeteria lunch at work or school. Second, power of attorney. Yeah, you may need it, but make sure you read it and be careful who you give it to. But the big lesson, speaking of careful, always share today's show results with Joe's mom. You got it. It's BLT night in the basement. Hashtag winning. Look, I know what I'm doing here, people. Thanks to Mr. Len Penzo for joining us today. Want to see the whole sandwich survey? Of course you do. You'll find it at lenpenzo.com. We'll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026 and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. You'll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

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• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. What happens in the after show stackers stays in the after show. So, uh, we don't talk about it. But, uh, oh gee, you've got some after show material and we have special guest Anna Alum today with us for the after show. What's up?

• 1:06:32Speaker 05

  I was just curious for you guys, when the last time is that you used a fire extinguisher?

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  I've never used a fire extinguisher, but I recently just checked all of my-

• 1:06:47Speaker 07

  Fire extinguishers. I have a document where I go and check all of my like,

• 1:06:54Speaker 07

  fire alarm, carbon monoxide, all of the things.

• 1:06:57Speaker 00

  Doug, our fire guy every fall. Steve would send Anna a gold star.

• 1:07:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, he would. That's a much better episode than you would expect. It's worth going back and listening to.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  There's a piece of this that is like, good writing. I was watching and Doug, you're going to appreciate this. I finished season three of The Night Agent. I liked it every bit as much as I love season two. This show just, great show. Absolutely loved it. I think season one was the worst season. You still haven't gone back to it? I would strongly advise you to go back to it. It's so good. But in the last episode, one of the characters notices that there are these tanks that are clearly flammable. And I paused it and I said, you don't have a character look at the tank without later blowing up the tank. Like, these tanks are clearly going to blow up because she stops to look at them. So, OG,

• 1:07:53Speaker 00

  why did you ask about using a fire extinguisher?

• 1:07:55Speaker 05

  Well, I was just curious if you guys have ever, have you ever used one? Anna's never used one. Have you guys ever used a fire extinguisher?

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  Once.

• 1:08:03Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:08:04Speaker 05

  And your experience was?

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  Not good. Like, there's the foamy crap all over the, yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:08:10Speaker 07

  OG, did you have to do that this weekend?

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  Just wondering if Doug wants to participate in this conversation. I'm getting the sense, no.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  I said, no.

• 1:08:18Speaker 05

  First of all, I don't know that I've ever used a fire extinguisher until yesterday. And it is not pleasant. I would not advise it. It makes a giant mess. It's also very hard to breathe. I know why firemen wear those little mask things now. It turns out, fire extinguishers are meant to like suck all the oxygen out of the area. So, that was cool. It gets everywhere and I learned that it's corrosive. So, that's fun.

• 1:08:50Speaker 07

  Can you back up and tell us why you had to use a fire extinguisher?

• 1:08:54Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  That's the story.

• 1:08:56Speaker 05

  We started a small fire meant to cook steaks and turned into a big fire that was meant to cook a house.

• 1:09:04Speaker 07

  Are you talking about on a grill or on a bonfire?

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  No, no, on our grill. Yeah. Yeah. So, light the grill. Everything's fine. You know, got to heat it up and then we're going to air fry some potatoes and cook some steaks. And I'm sitting on the couch and my grill is new-ish. It's probably, I don't know, less than 10 years old, I think. It's a little built-in thing. But there are parts that need to be replaced now. And I was, I was paying attention to that and I was thinking, now might be the time. I don't really want to spend the money, but it is what it is. And I literally had the page open to buy the new bricks. It's like got a little thing that the bricks set in. And Joe, you know our grill.

• 1:09:44Speaker 00

  It was like 2020, you got it, I think.

• 1:09:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe. It sounds about right. So, maybe it's only six years old. Anyways, so I'm like sitting on the couch and we're talking about what kind of potatoes we're going to make. And, and Lisa says, well, when are you going to put the steaks on? I said, I don't know, like five minutes. I'm just going to heat the grill up. And she kind of peers over her shoulder. She goes, whoa, that's a lot of smoke coming from the grill, which is never, there's never any amount of smoke coming from a grill that's good. If you can picture our backyard, Joe, because Doug, I think you've been there too. So, like you go out the back patio, the grill's on your left and there's like kind of where the fireplace is, a little, you can't see the pool. That's how much.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness. Oh, my.

• 1:10:24Speaker 05

  Oh, boy. So, I go outside and obviously there's a fire to, now, I'm pretty sure it was a grease fire. But the gas, so we have gas that's pumped in from the main line to the house. So, there's no, like, it's under the grill. I'm not turning that thing off. You know, with a fireball going. Burn the heck out of my fingers. So, finally get the gas off to the burners. Fire is shooting out of the burner knobs, like five feet, you know, like, whoa.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:10:55Speaker 05

  I go, boy. So, anyways, long story short, a little fire extinguisher love and a hose and some American ingenuity, got that all squared away. So, I would advise cleaning your grill from time to time. That is the moral of this story. So, you guys should do that. There are two types of learning in this world. Anna knows this phrase that I say. There's your learnings or there's other people's learnings. Learn from other people's learnings right now and go clean your grill.