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StackingBenjamins.com | Money Podcast | Cumulus Podcast Network

Named the Best Personal Finance Podcast by Bankrate.com and Kiplinger, The Stacking Benjamins Show features a light and friendly tone. Hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG aim to make financial literacy fun for all as they sit around the card table in Joe's Mom's half-finished basement and talk with experts about personal finance, saving, investing, and important money trends. As Fast Company once wrote, the Stacking Benjamins podcast "strikes a great balance of fun and functional." So join Joe and OG every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as they read your letters, discuss major headlines, and throw in some trivia and laughs for free.

The Stacking Benjamins Show

What would you ask about money if you had the mic?

Live from Texas A&M Texarkana, Joe Saul-Sehy, Paula Pant, and financial educator Jay Davis take questions from students facing real-world money decisions—like choosing between passion and paycheck, avoiding lifestyle creep, investing safely, and building a financial future from scratch.

If you're in your 20s—or wish you could do them over—this episode is packed with the advice we wish we knew earlier.

Plus: Doug climbs into the rafters (again) for a trivia showdown you won’t forget.

💡 What We Cover in Today’s Episode

 
Passion vs paycheck vs peace: How do you actually choose a career without regretting it later?

 Why “follow your passion” might be terrible advice—and what to do instead

 How to avoid lifestyle inflation when your income jumps

 The easiest way to “hide money from yourself” (and why it works)

 The real difference between 401(k)s, IRAs, stocks, and gold (finally explained clearly)

 What “safe investing” actually means (hint: it depends on time)

 The biggest money mistakes college students make—and how to avoid them

 Why systems beat discipline every single time

 Smart ways to manage student loans after graduation

 The underrated power of an emergency fund (aka your freedom fund)

 How networking—not your resume—can shape your financial future

🧠 The Big Takeaways

 You don’t need perfect discipline—you need better systems

 Your first few years out of school can change everything financially

 “Safe” depends on when you need the money

 The earlier you start, the more your money works (hello, compounding)

 Most people don’t fail from lack of knowledge—they fail from lack of action

🎤 Special Guests

 
Paula Pant – Host of the Afford Anything Podcast

 
Jay Davis – Executive Director of Financial & Entrepreneurship Engagement, Texas A&M Texarkana

Thank you to Red River Credit Union for underwriting this live show! 

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/live-q-and-a-with-paula-pant-1830

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

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The Best Money Advice We Wish We Knew at 20 (Live from Texas A&M - Texarkana) SB1830

The same mental patterns that cause investors to panic-sell during a downturn, chase validation through status purchases, or freeze up when facing big financial decisions -- those are the exact patterns performance coach Jim Murphy has spent decades helping elite athletes overcome. His framework isn't about trying harder. It's about getting aligned. And today he brings it down to the basement to help Stackers apply it to the one game that matters most -- the one you play with your own money and your own life.

What You'll Walk Away With

 The three pillars of extraordinary performance -- belief, freedom, and focus -- and why chasing results instead of these three things is costing you more than you know

 Why the score, the portfolio balance, and the quarterly statement are all distractions -- and what elite performers focus on instead

 The resonance framework that helps you recognize when you're making decisions from alignment versus anxiety

 Four daily goals that reorient your attention from outcomes you can't control to the process that actually produces them

 Why the same ego patterns that derail pro athletes -- always comparing, never satisfied -- show up identically in how most people handle money

 The homeless harpist story: what Jim did with his last $100 when he was $90,000 in debt -- and what happened next

 Why retiring from a career you've tied your identity to can feel exactly like getting cut from a team -- and how to prepare for it before it happens

 Five questions to ask yourself before any high-stakes decision to know whether you're operating from fear or from genuine conviction

 The AI warning hiding in this episode -- why an assistant that never disagrees with you might be the most financially dangerous tool in your arsenal

 What a cancer diagnosis in January taught a performance coach about what the best possible life actually looks like

Why This Matters Now

In your 40s, the financial pressure is real -- but so is a quieter kind of pressure that rarely gets named. Am I building the right life? Am I making decisions because they matter to me, or because of what other people will think? Jim Murphy's work sits at the intersection of those two questions, and the answer he keeps arriving at is the same one the best investors, the best athletes, and the most contented people share: stop optimizing for the scoreboard and start arranging your days around what actually makes you feel fully alive.

From the Basement

Jim Murphy joins Joe and OG to walk through the framework behind his new book, The Best Possible Life -- including the desert solitude, the FedEx job, the homeless harpist, and the cancer diagnosis that field-tested everything he teaches. Joe and OG close out the episode with a Psychology Today headline on AI and financial trust -- and OG's story about nearly committing accidental tax fraud because Claude was being extremely encouraging about a box he absolutely should not have checked. Doug arrives with McDonald's trivia in honor of Tax Day and Ray Kroc's first store. Whether the basement scoreboard survived the week is a question best answered with your earbuds in.

Resources Mentioned

 The Best Possible Life by Jim Murphy -- available wherever books are sold

 Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy -- also available wherever books are sold

 Jim Murphy on Substack -- live Q&A coaching sessions and weekly newsletter; find him at interexcellence.com

 Jim Murphy on Instagram -- @InterExcellence

 Mental Toughness Training for Sports by Dr. Jim Loehr -- referenced by Jim as a foundational influence

 Psychology Today article on AI and financial trust -- linked in show notes at stackingbenjamins.com

 Stacking Benjamins Guides -- updated monthly at stackingbenjamins.com/guides

 Stacking Benjamins Vault -- budget and net worth tracking at stackingbenjamins.com/vault

 Stacking Benjamins Meetups -- find a group at stackingbenjamins.com/bad

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/achieve-your-inner-excellence-with-jim-murphy-1829

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

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The Mental Game of Money: What Elite Athletes Know That Most Investors Don't (SB1829)

Oil prices up. Tariffs in the headlines. Markets bouncing. Your phone serving you a fresh reason to panic every 10 seconds. This week Joe Saul-Sehy and OG break down why everything you're feeling right now is normal, why acting on it is the mistake, and how to think about your portfolio when the world feels like it's on fire. Plus CFP Anna Allem joins OG for the basics segment, walking through the three-bucket investing framework that makes it easier to ignore the noise.

In this episode:

Why volatility is the price of admission, not a warning sign, how the news business and your investing strategy are working against each other, why a broadening market is actually a healthy sign, and the foundation, bridge, engine framework for goals-based investing.

Biggest takeaways:

In a normal year the market drops 14% from its high watermark at some point during that year. Then it recovers. That's not a crisis. That's Tuesday.

The media's job is to keep you on the platform. Your job is to stay in the market. Those two goals are not compatible.

When you tie your money to a specific goal with a specific timeline, the day-to-day noise becomes almost irrelevant. Know which bucket your money is in and why.

Resources mentioned:

The Stacking Benjamins scorecard: stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard
The Vault: stackingbenjamins.com/vault
Stacking Benjamins guides (taxes, college planning, HR): stackingbenjamins.com/guides

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-manage-geopolitical-risk-1828

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Geopolitical Risk Is Spiking. Here's Why You Should Do Nothing. SB1828

Most people don't start thinking seriously about retirement until their forties. If that's you, the good news is you're not behind. You're normal. And this week three CFPs, Jackie Cummings Koski, Roger Whitney, and OG break down exactly what to do, in what order, starting right now.

In this episode:

Why panic is the enemy of a good retirement plan, the first place your money should go before anything else, why your savings rate matters more than finding the perfect investment, and the one investing mistake people make when they feel behind.

Biggest takeaways:

Give yourself grace first. This stuff isn't taught in school. The two years Jackie spent just processing her situation before taking action weren't wasted. That clarity is what made everything else stick.

Increase your savings rate by 1% every six months. Going from 3% to 13% over five years feels like a non-event the entire time. Automation makes it invisible.

Simple beats clever. Index funds, low cost, diversified, and boring. When you feel behind, the temptation is to swing for the fences. That's exactly when boring saves you.

Real estate and dividend strategies are tactics. Tactics come after you have a strategy. For a 40-year-old starting from zero, the strategy is build the habit and save more.

Resources mentioned:

Jackie Cummings Koski's book Fire for Dummies and podcast Catching Up to FI at catchinguptofi.com
Roger Whitney's Retirement Answer Man podcast at rogerwhitney.com
The Stacking Benjamins scorecard: stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard
The Vault: stackingbenjamins.com/vault

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-start-saving-for-retirement-at-40-1827

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201

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No Retirement Savings at 40? Here's Exactly What to Do First (SB1827)

Retirement expert Jamie Hopkins has spent 20 years helping people plan for retirement, and his most counterintuitive advice stops most savers cold: in the final years before you retire, putting more money away might actually be hurting you. This week he joins Joe and OG to explain why, and what to do instead.

In this episode:

Why financially prepared retirees still end up miserable, how to practice spending before you retire, the home bias that quietly tanks your portfolio and your quality of life at the same time, and what to actually do with all that home equity when the time comes.

Biggest takeaways:

The last three to five years of extra contributions barely move the needle on your retirement portfolio. Working six months longer matters more. So does learning to spend. Take that money and actually use it, so you're not hitting retirement having never practiced.

Retirement isn't a math problem, it's an identity problem. The people who struggle most aren't broke. They never figured out where their purpose and community would come from once work disappeared.

Over half of Americans are forced into retirement earlier than expected. You need a plan for that scenario now, not when it happens.

Resources mentioned:

Jamie Hopkins' Retirement Sketchbook wherever books are sold
The Stacking Benjamins scorecard: stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard
The Vault: stackingbenjamins.com/vault
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why You Should Stop Saving for Retirement 3 Years Early (SB1826)

A Kiplinger study of 1,000+ everyday millionaires found four traits that kept showing up. None of them involve a big salary, a hot stock tip, or a lucky break. This week Len Penzo, OG, and Joe dig into what those habits actually look like in practice, how to train yourself to spend with intention, and how to find a financial advisor who does what you actually need.

In this episode:

The "Midwest millionaire" traits anyone can adopt, why becoming a great saver can make you a terrible spender, the monthly money habit that takes 20 minutes and changes everything, and exactly what to say when you're interviewing financial advisors.

Biggest takeaways:

Frugality without intention is just suffering. The millionaires in this study were the last to spend on themselves and the first to give generously to others. Not cheap. Intentional.

Set a money goal big enough to compete with impulse spending. Once you have a real why, "I deserve this" stops winning.

When looking for a financial advisor, lead with exactly what you want in the first five minutes. A real professional will tell you if it's not their specialty.

Resources mentioned:

Len Penzo's blog and book True Money Stories at lenpenso.com
The Stacking Benjamins scorecard: stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard
The Vault (budget and net worth tracker): stackingbenjamins.com/vault

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-live-like-a-midwestern-millionaire-1825

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You Don't Need a Huge Income to Build Real Wealth SB1825

Most of us were never taught this stuff. So, where do you actually start?

Thirty-nine states now require a personal finance course to graduate from high school. That's real progress — and it still might not be enough. Because financial education isn't a one-time event. It's a living curriculum that has to grow with you, stay connected to your actual life, and — crucially — help you get out of your own way when things get emotionally charged.

This week, Joe and the crew build that curriculum from the ground up. Whether you're 22 or 52, there's a starting point here for you.

Rubin Miller — Financial advisor, founder of Peltoma Capital, and author of the Fortunes and Frictions blog. Came from the investment world before financial planning, which means he sees the whole game differently and isn't afraid to say so on LinkedIn.

Paula Pant — Afford Anything host, behavioral finance truth-teller, and the person who goes on record this week with a very confident guess about the trivia answer.

OG — The basement's own financial planner, father of a teenager who wants to day trade, and enthusiastic opponent of giving the government any money he doesn't absolutely have to.

On building the foundation:

 Why the first step in any financial plan is an honest accounting of where everything actually stands: income, spending, assets, debt, all of it

 What's coming up in the next three to five years and why that question matters more than any abstract retirement calculation

 Why teaching a 17-year-old about mortgages probably doesn't stick and what actually does

 The one thing traditional savings accounts do really well (hint: it's great for banks, not for you)

 Why your behavior matters more than your math and what to do about it

On protecting what you're building:

 The insurance mistake most people make: spending too much protecting low-probability events and too little protecting high-probability ones

 Why disability insurance is more expensive than life insurance and what that price difference is actually telling you

 When improving your credit score should not be your priority (this one surprises people)

 Why debt is never really "good," just occasionally less bad

On growing your money:

 What an investment philosophy actually is and why you need one before you pick a single fund

 The behavioral biases — recency bias, loss aversion, the availability heuristic — that make smart people do dumb things with their portfolios

 Why nobody ever thinks they're panicking. They just think the circumstances changed.

 Why taxes are a year-round event, not a February problem

The financial media teaches you to chase. New strategy, hot sector, better fund. But the research keeps landing in the same place: most investors' biggest obstacle isn't information. It's themselves. The curriculum that actually helps isn't the one that covers the most ground. It's the one that connects to your real life, your real timeline, and the emotional triggers that quietly blow up even the best-laid plans.

Start there. Everything else builds on top.

Rubin joins the crew for the first time and immediately plays trivia on Jesse Cramer's behalf — which feels both generous and karmic, given that Jesse and his wife Kelly just welcomed a new baby into the world (on Jesse's birthday, no less). Doug brings the Eddie Murphy birthday trivia energy. Paula goes on record with a very confident guess. OG applies his usual ironclad logic to arrive at his number. Someone wins. Someone absolutely should not have said what they said out loud before the answer was revealed.

MENTIONED / RESOURCES

 Rubin Miller's blog: fortunesandfrictions.com

 Peltoma Capital: palomacapital.com

 Rubin on LinkedIn: search Rubin Miller

 Paula Pant: Afford Anything podcast, wherever you listen

 OG's calendar: stackingbenjamins.com/OG

 Wall Street Journal piece on personal finance requirements by state

New to the basement? Subscribe so you never miss an episode — and if this one made you want to finally build your own financial curriculum, that's the whole point.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/looking-at-your-money-report-card-1824

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Building Your Personal Finance Curriculum (At Any Age) SB1824

Markets are down. Social media is loud. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a voice is asking if you should do something. That voice has cost investors more money than any bear market in history. Joe and OG dig into what actually separates disciplined investors from everyone panic-refreshing their brokerage account -- and how to build the guardrails that keep you from making the one mistake that derails everything you've built.

What You'll Walk Away With

 Why the average intra-year market decline is 14% -- and what that means for how seriously you should be taking a 5% dip right now

 The real reason financial news channels make you feel like you need to act -- and how understanding their business model changes everything

 How to build a simple investment policy statement that removes emotion from the equation before the next market drop hits

 Why setting arbitrary calendar dates to review your portfolio might be the single most underrated investing strategy available to anyone

 The case for checking your portfolio less often -- including a real example of how last April's market chaos looked completely different depending on how often you were watching

 How to set automatic triggers that tell you when it's actually time to rebalance -- so you're never guessing in the middle of a storm

 A powerful perspective shift: look at your tax returns from 2003 or 2010 and then look at your balance today -- what that exercise does to your decision-making in volatile markets

 Why your only real job as a long-term investor is to not interrupt the compounding -- and how systems make that easier than willpower ever could

 A four-factor framework for calculating exactly how much emergency fund you actually need -- built around your income, job stability, reemployment risk, and expense flexibility

 Why the standard three-to-six month emergency fund rule is the wrong starting point -- and what a personalized risk-based approach looks like instead

Why This Matters Now

If you're in your 40s and you've been building toward something -- a retirement account that finally has real weight to it, a financial plan that took years to assemble -- a volatile market feels personal. Because it is. The stakes are higher than they were in your 30s and the noise is louder than ever. The investors who come out ahead aren't the ones who reacted fastest. They're the ones who had a plan written down before things got uncomfortable.

From the Basement

Joe and OG work through what a real investment policy statement looks like in plain language -- rules, triggers, and all. OG and Anna return with the second installment of the financial planning basics series, this time tackling exactly how much emergency fund you need using a four-factor framework that replaces the three-to-six month rule of thumb with something actually built around your life. Doug arrives with insurance trivia that is technically about premiums and practically about Joe's unregistered vehicle situation in Texarkana. Whether the basement scoreboard survived the week is a separate matter entirely.

Resources Mentioned

 JP Morgan Guide to the Markets -- monthly research report tracking S&P 500 returns and intra-year declines (Google "JP Morgan Guide to the Markets" for the latest edition)

 Stock Market Maestros by Claire Flynn Levy and Lee Freeman-Shor -- referenced throughout; available wherever books are sold

 SSA.gov -- Social Security earnings history lookup, referenced as a tool for tracking long-term financial progress

 Stacking Benjamins Scorecard -- rate your overall financial strategy at stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard

 Stacking Benjamins Vault -- budgeting and net worth tracking tool at stackingbenjamins.com/vault

 Stacking Benjamins Voicemail -- share your investment policy statement questions at stackingbenjamins.com/voicemail

 Stacking Benjamins Meetups -- find a group near you at stackingbenjamins.com/bad

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-protect-your-money-for-when-times-turn-bad-1822/

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What to Do With Your Money When the Market Is Scaring Everyone Else (SB1822)

Willpower has a terrible track record with money. It works until it doesn't, and then your good intentions are the first thing to go when life gets busy. The investors and savers who actually make consistent progress aren't trying harder. They've built systems that keep running in the background whether they're paying attention or not. Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, Paula Pant, and Jesse Cramer break down the small, repeatable habits that quietly move the needle -- and why simpler usually wins.

What You'll Walk Away With

 Why motivation fades and willpower fails -- and the structural shift that keeps your finances moving forward anyway

 The real debate between starting small and going big with savings -- and how to know which approach actually sticks for your personality

 A practical framework for automating your finances so progress happens whether you're paying attention or not

 When tracking every budget category helps -- and when narrowing your focus to just one creates faster, more lasting wins

 How to dump a year's worth of spending data into an AI tool and get back a categorized breakdown that surfaces forgotten subscriptions and leaks you've stopped seeing

 The surprising relief that comes from consolidating accounts -- and why mental buckets sometimes matter more than the actual number of accounts

 Why brand loyalty and fewer cards aren't just convenient -- they quietly reduce the decision fatigue that erodes financial consistency

 The "joy budget" reframe that changes how you think about spending -- and makes it easier to spot what's actually worth keeping

 The shift that changes everything -- from cutting spending to aligning spending with what actually matters to you

 How small habit changes, repeated without fanfare, compound into financial progress that eventually surprises you

Why This Matters Now

In your 40s, mental bandwidth is the real scarce resource. Work, family, and a hundred competing priorities mean complicated financial systems tend to break down exactly when you need them most. The edge doesn't come from trying harder -- it comes from simplifying, automating, and setting up defaults that keep working on your busiest days, when you're not thinking about money at all.

From the Basement

Joe, OG, Paula Pant, and Jesse Cramer trade strategies on building better financial habits while the crew debates whether you should start small or go big -- and nobody agrees. Doug arrives with a Beatles trivia question that shifts the basement scoreboard in ways the current leader did not anticipate. Whether the points hold or the margin call changes everything is a question best answered with your earbuds in.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/diving-into-the-all-weather-portfolio-with-paul-merriman-1821

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stop Relying on Willpower (Build This Instead) SB1821

The best investors in the world are wrong -- a lot. Researchers Claire Flynn Levy and Lee Freeman-Shor spent over a decade studying elite money managers and found that being right about stock picks isn't actually what separates the winners. What separates them is what happens after the pick. The discipline, the rules, the willingness to act when the data changes -- and the ability to remove emotion from decisions most people make entirely on feeling.

What You'll Walk Away With

 Why top investors can be wrong more than half the time and still dramatically outperform -- and what that means for how you evaluate your own strategy

 The critical shift from obsessing over what to buy to building a repeatable process around what you do next

 Three behavioral tribes investors fall into when a position moves against them -- and which one quietly destroys long-term returns

 Two distinct ways investors handle winning positions -- and why the more comfortable approach tends to leave serious money on the table

 How elite investors use predefined rules to decide when to sell, trim, or hold -- and why removing emotion from that decision is the whole game

 A real-world example of a rules-based system built around earnings surprises and data-driven holding periods -- one you can actually learn from

 Why planting tiny "seed" positions can preserve massive upside while keeping risk almost invisible on the downside

 The hidden cost of a pattern so common it barely registers -- holding losers too long while cutting winners too early

 What makes China's market behave unlike anywhere else -- and how one maestro built an entire strategy around it

 The AI cautionary tale hiding inside this episode -- a real advisor, a real client presentation, and math that was off by a factor of 12

Why This Matters Now

For investors in their 40s, the goal quietly shifts. Finding the next big winner starts to matter less than building something that actually holds up over time. Markets feel noisier, AI tools feel more powerful, and the promise of faster answers has never been louder. But long-term results still come down to behavior, discipline, and repeatable systems -- the same unglamorous edge the pros have been using all along. Knowing that changes how you listen to the noise.

From the Basement

Joe and OG press Claire and Lee on what a decade of studying elite investors actually reveals -- and the answers are more behavioral than most people expect. The crew then turns to AI in financial advice, and OG shares a story that should give every advisor and DIY investor pause before they hit send on anything they haven't personally verified. Doug arrives with a trivia question that somehow connects Michael Jackson's moonwalk to one giant leap for your bragging rights. Whether the basement scoreboard sticks the landing is best discovered with your earbuds in.

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/diving-deep-into-stock-market-research-1820

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You Don't Need a Huge Income to Build Real Wealth SB1825

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