The Stacking Benjamins Show

What’s important to you? Owning a car? Family time? Retirement? No matter what your goals are, they’re always intertwined more with the goals of those around us than we may think. For Gigi Gonzalez, culture was everything when it came to working toward her goals. When she began shoveling money toward her own non-family goals, it created rifts in her family. Did she think she was too good for them?...

Ever wonder how where you live and work could affect your ability to reach your financial goals? More specifically, is living in a big city making you poor? Here to discuss this topic on today's special roundtable episode, we're happy to welcome Maggie Tucker from the Inside Out Money podcast. She joins Len Penzo and OG to tackle this important topic and extract key lessons that Stackers can apply...

Amy Minkley is a woman on a mission. Sometimes, she admits, the mission is WAY over her head. She's an overachiever by nature, coming by her work ethic out of a need for independence when her dad left the family when she was young. From that beginning (which she says she's grateful for), Amy has gone on to big things, including creating the FI Freedom Retreat in Bali. Amy joins us for a wide-rangi...

The founder of one of the nation's most loved budgeting tools says he dislikes the term "budget." Why? Because most of us see a budget as restrictive and limiting. The good news? Jesse Mecham from budgeting program YNAB to dive into how to make your money go further and align with your goals. We'll share thoughts about giving every dollar a job before you earn it, "aging" your money like a fine wi...

What are some rules to live by to make your 2024 the best year ever? Our very own OG, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Len Penzo from LenPenzo.com, and Jonathan Clements' article served as the inspiration for today's topic. New year, new you, amirite? We dive into mantras whose adoption could benefit you for the long term, not just until you lose your New Year's resolution motivation. We touch on...

Maybe the holiday season got away from you. Maybe it's been a bigger, longer issue that you've been trying to solve. Maybe you have manageable debt, but you'd love to see it gone. Even less likely, maybe you have no debt, but wonder how to counsel those around you to help them pay off their loans. No matter, today we go to the overlords--AKA the computer--to ask AI how to solve debt issues. Chat G...

Last week we were all about focus and goal setting. Today? We'll teach you how to tenaciously grip those goals when times get tough. Jenn Drummond knows what it takes to work through adversity. She was the first woman to scale each of the Seven Second Summits, the second tallest mountain on each of the seven continents. These mountains are considered more technical as a group than the Seven Summit...

Ever wish a cheap plastic toy from Walmart could tell you the future? We sure do! And we try every year. It’s our annual Magic 8 Ball episode today with Paula Pant, Len Penzo and OG. Each year, we ask the Magic 8 Ball (yes, really, the one you can buy at Walmart) riveting questions for the upcoming year then reflect back on those questions at the end of the year. Today, we run through the answers...

Many of us struggle with goals. Maybe it's the words we use around them, like "legacy" and "purpose" that freak us out. For whatever reason we look into the future... ...and we freeze. Jon Acuff was one of those people. After struggling through college with "purpose" and spending lots of time wondering "what am I supposed to do next?" he found a solution. The solution worked. Today he dives into h...

So many distractions. You can't even read this title without thinking about your social media accounts, can you? That's okay. Neither can we. So, to help ourselves AND our Stacker community, we invited Eric Qualman to join us. He embarked on the Focus Project where he just tried focusing on ONE THING for two hours a day. How'd it work out? We'll share all, including his tips on New Year resolution...

We wrap up our Best of 2023 week-long extravaganza by revisiting our first roundtable episode of the year, where Len Penzo's Magic 8-ball made some bold predictions...take a listen for yourself. Every year we ask a magic 8 ball that Len Penzo purchased at Walmart to predict the future. In the early years the ball was spot-on. Lately…not so much. But we do learn a lot about not falling into “curren...

Join us today for a very special installment of our Best of 2023 Week!!! Crypto? Huge profits? Taking advantage of people? Has that ever happened before? It turns out that it has, in the wild, wild west, which roped in celebrities like Wild Bill Hickok and many others. Today, we’ll tell their stories and rope the lessons around to today with master storyteller and host of the Legends of the Wild W...

On today's special "Best of 2023" episode, we revisit a conversation Joe had with Dr. Julia DiGangi. How much of your own emotions and energy go into your financial decisions? Dr. Julia DiGangi joins Joe to chat about how to master your emotions and maximize your energy. She teaches us how to recognize stress triggers so you can control your emotions and energy before they get out of hand. What pr...

On today's best of 2023 episode, we revisit an exclusive interview that Joe had with superstar runner Kara Goucher who shared her experience of abuse while on the elite Nike running team. This episode originally aired on March 15, 2023, so please ignore any mention of current events. For the original show notes, visit Kara Goucher on Abuse, Money, and the Elite Nike Running Team FULL SHOW NOTES: h...

In our inaugural Best of 2023 episode, we revisit a Top 5 episode all about moves to make to win at the money game. Joe and OG dive into their top five moves to become a champion at all things money. We’ll talk about everything from motivation to tactics during our feature segment. This episode originally aired on February 8, 2023. Disregard any mention of current events. The original show notes c...

On today's special roundtable episode, our panel members share what money lessons we should have learned in 2023. Joining us on the year-ending roundtable are Paula Pant from Afford Anything, OG, and .....NEIGHBOR DOUG. What are some of the most important things that happened in 2023? From Taylor Swift to Charlie Munger to inflation and rising interest rates, we cover the year's hottest topics in...

LOTS of incredible events happened this year. What should we have learned from a big bank collapse? From Bitcoin resurging? From the stock market moving up (along with interest rates)? We asked about all of these and more to Today Show Money Editor and host of the Her Money podcast, Jean Chatzky. Jean shares great tips on your budget, investments, money in bank accounts, and more. But that's not a...

One snowy Christmas Eve in Texarkana, Neighbor Doug settled into bed in his snazzy Superman Footie PJs (Amazon affiliate link), still buzzing on Joe's Mom's eggnog... Today's special holiday episode recounts a completely original tale of Doug and the money lessons learned when he's visited by three ghosts—past, present, and future. Make peace with your past, clean up your past mistakes, and learn...

Is retirement, as we know it, dead? Should the idea of retirement itself be retired, and should we all aspire to be like Betty White? Will all those decades of toiling away for The Man (and dutifully contributing to your personal retirement savings accounts, as well as you and your employer throwing in 6.2% each of your salary to the payroll tax, a.k.a. Social Security) pay off in the end when you...

Do you want to be a great investor? We're going to dive into a few ways...including how rich people view investing and money in a much different light than non-wealthy people. To kick things off, during today's headline we'll share a list of mistakes that new investors make all of the time. We've made these mistakes ourselves and lived to tell about them. Now we're going to help YOU avoid those mi...

How many times have you seen someone try to make their big money move and it fizzles out? Often it's because they started at the wrong place or didn't pay attention to the fundamentals. We're going to help you build your BEST launching pad today with financial whiz and host of the Journey to Launch podcast, Jamila Souffrant. Before Jamila though, our headline from CBS News warns about new and even...

What's the best safe withdrawal rate for your retirement plan? What the heck is a safe withdrawal rate? On today's special roundtable discussion, we dive into the deep end of this important topic: understanding what you're investing in, what different financial terms mean, and if they're important for you. We're thrilled to welcome our special guest, Bernadette Joy, to our roundtable panel. She's...

What is the best "next move" for your career or your passion? Keep moving. Dr. Mike Massimino knows how to achieve unlikely goals. He not only applied to be an astronaut three times before being accepted as a candidate, the third time he applied he was medically disqualified. Yet, he still found a way to work about two different space missions, was the first person to tweet from space, and act on...

Whether you're leading your family, a department or work, or heck, "managing from the middle," every one of us has leadership potential inside of us that's untapped. And it's this time of year, when we're thinking so much about what we value and need in our lives that the topic of leadership is so important. That's why we asked Chuck Wachendorfer to be our Stacker mentor today. He met Joe and OG w...

What are the most common ways people shoot themselves in the foot (financially-speaking)? Here to tackle that very question is our expert panel of contributors: from Afford Anything, we're joined by Paula Pant; from the aptly named award-winning blog LenPenzo.com, Len Penzo joins us; and from across Joe's card table, the man, the myth, the legend OG makes an appearance. Will Len lock secure victor...