How to Save Your First $25,000 -- The Roadmap Most People Get Wrong (SB1838)

Well, hey there, Stacker. Today we're talking about one of the hardest things in personal finance, not investing, not retirement, not even figuring out what the heck the Fed's doing this week, just getting your first real pile of money saved, that first $25,000. Because once you've got momentum, you already know if you're somebody who's done this, everything begins to change. But before that, it can totally feel like you're stuck, like no matter how hard you try, something keeps pulling you back. There's always, always another frustrating thing that happens as you try to get it rolling. But man, when it does, it's so, so good. So today we're diving into a roadmap that challenges a lot of the advice you usually hear, why cutting small expenses isn't enough, why your biggest wins come from a handful of big decisions, and while, quote, I'll save more when I make more, is probably something that's holding you back. So we're also going to hit a couple headlines that might get a little, let's say, animated about financial advice and who should you actually trust with your money? A topic that I think is important for every stacker who's trying to grow their team, put the right people on it. And here's the part that surprised me coming back to this episode, which is this conversation originally happened years ago. We just pulled it from the vault for Greatest Hits Week. And you know why? Because even though you're going to hear a few references that are clearly from another moment in time. Markets, news, maybe even a take or two that feels like a throwback. Here's the thing. These core ideas, I'd love to get your take, but for me, the reason I wanted this one is because it holds up better now because today I feel like saving that first $25,000 actually feels harder than it did when we produced it. Of course, it always feels harder, but cost are higher, decisions feel riskier, and it's easier than ever because of all those things to feel stuck more before you even get started. And that's exactly why this conversation matters. So as you listen, I'd love for you to ask yourself, if I actually nailed that first 25,000 bucks, what would change? So let's get into it. First of all, we've got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. And the first one, I even have running in the background as I record and I work today. And it is, it's so amazing. I didn't even know this company existed until we started discussions about them sponsoring our podcast. And now I can't get enough of Granola. And let me tell you how Granola works. If you've ever been in back-to-back meetings all day, you already know the struggle that I'm about to explain. 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Once again, you can try it for free at granola.ai. All right, we have one more sponsor here and then a couple more in the middle of Doug's trivia halfway through today's show. And that's it. We'll hear from them. And then our episode featuring Scott Trench. And back in the old days, we had our headlines first and then the second half we had Scott. So I think you're going to enjoy the discussion about financial advisors and also Scott Trench. Here we go. They're dogs and they're playing poker! Live from Joe's mom's half-finished basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show! Hey everyone, I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and today we're talking about saving your very first $25,000. I remember when I saved my first $25,000. It was 1996, and I just signed my name on this paperwork that gave me $25,000 to go to college. Well, the joke was on them because I never went. Actually, why does that Sally Mae keep calling me saying she wants her money back? That's weird. Anyway, on today's show with an alternative way to save your first $25,000 from BiggerPockets, Scott Trench. Also, in our headline segment, we'll talk about bad financial advisors. We'll also throw out the Haven Lifeline to a lucky listener, answer some mail, and still have time for my amazing trivia. And here they are, two guys nearly ready for the primetime, Joe and O-J-J-J-J-G. Hey, hey, and happy Monday. I am Joe Salci. Hi, Average Joe Money on Twitter. And we're back. You found us. Welcome back to the Stacking Benjamin Show. Across the table from me again. the one and only other guys we call him OG. It's always sunny in the basement on a Monday. I always think it's funny that people think when I say we're sitting at a rickety card table, they think we're not. And then for people that are in the Stacking Benjamins basement, which is our closed Facebook group, we posted pictures. And what were the lines? I think Scott said, oh my God, it is a card table. It is a card table. Yeah. And Roger Whitney said, because as you know, he was just here. Yeah, he was just here. Yeah. Roger said, and it's unstable. And you will say that too. That's an unstable tip. Oh, yeah. You should see the chair. The chair's all duct taped because you won't let us buy a new chair. Don't you love how I always give you that one? Well, you know. Yeah, good stuff. Speaking of good stuff, Scott Trench. I totally believe what he's here to talk about. First $25,000 OG. That is, man, getting some money saved is the hardest thing. That is the hardest, yes. We're going to conquer that mountain in a second. But first, we've got some awesome headlines, so let's move. Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. Boy, two frustrating kick-in-the-gut headlines today. This one comes to us from Bloomberg. Why you still can't trust your financial advisor. This is by Ben Steverman. Your new financial advisor is a well-decorated office, a firm handshake, and a bright smile. After an hour-long meeting, you leave with what you think is a state-of-the-art investment portfolio. You feel financially secure, taken care of. It's also possible you've made a huge mistake. A wave of research over the past few years has documented serious problems with how Americans get financial advice. Susan Schaefer, a 70-year-old retiree in near-birth Pennsylvania, learned this the hard way. When she hired and fired multiple advisors over two decades, one chose inappropriate investments, including small-cap stocks. Another put her into funds with huge back-loaded fees. How are small-cap stocks inappropriate? But go ahead. The third promised to charge just $500 a year than stuck her with thousands of dollars in commission costs. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Boy, did this make me angry. The article that this happened to this woman or the article itself? The article itself made me just livid. I was going to say, go ahead. You fire your salvo and then I got a good one. Well, mine will be short. You know what people are going to get out of this? Don't hire a financial advisor. which the smartest people that I worked with were amazing people that could do it themselves. But you don't tell a football player not to have a coach. You don't tell a rock star not to have an agent, a management company. You don't tell smart people who are like a rocket making money at one thing to not have great people in their corner. This person's problem is the same. I don't know this woman that he's talking about in the article. I don't know her. I will tell you, based on my 16 years in the trenches, that the problem is as much hers as it is the advisor's. It is every bit as much hers as it is the advisor's. I'm going to take a little off the gas on that as far as totally laying the blame at her feet or 50-50 because there are bad apples, right? And here's the problem that I had with the article. He didn't get to the spot yet, but I read it too. And the author wrote, quote, with an industry awash in misconduct. I don't think that that's terribly accurate. I mean, could we not say that medicine's awash in misconduct or law is awash in misconduct? Of course, there's bad doctors and there's bad lawyers and there's bad financial professionals too, bad bankers and bad police officers for crying out loud. There's bad everything. but to generalize it right out the gate and say, every advisor's a crook. And to your point, under no circumstances should you ever hire an advisor because for crying out loud, you're going to get ripped off with inappropriate investments like small cap stocks. They're the ones that produce the greatest return. How are they inappropriate? I would read this article and I'd be afraid. I would be so afraid and I would do completely the wrong thing after I read this article. Because you can even go through this. You're like, oh, stocks and funds are bad, right? I mean, you could just, they don't say this in the article. That's just the next domino. It says some 38% of those misbehaving advisors later go on to hurt even more clients. So again, this is just a uselessness in statistics, right? So you read that the untrained ear or the untrained eye when you read it or hear it, you just heard the word 38%. And did you just think to yourself, wow, 38% of the advisors are bad? That is a pretty big number. That's not what it says. It says 38% of the bad advisors go on. They go on to do what? Redo bad things is basically what they're saying. Recidivism rates are very high in the financial services industry. What have we talked about? Do your homework. If you're hiring any coach, to use my analogy from before, does a football player just go play for whatever team? I mean, don't get me wrong. They get drafted and they, you know what I mean? But when they're choosing- But not in high school or not in college. In college, right. They go to a college. They got to believe in the program. They decide that's where they're best, right? They go tour the campus. They know everything about it. They know what the pluses, the minuses are of that particular program versus others. And you do that. If you're hiring an agent in your corner, I mean, wouldn't you find out if the agent is screwed over other people ahead of time? Why do you walk into somebody's office and go, oh, OK, yeah, you sound good. All right. I'm signing on the deadline. I've done zero homework. I haven't asked any questions. I didn't go to FINRA's broker check. I'm asking to get taken advantage of by an idiot. it's just it's no different than any other any other thing i mean shoot you can take your car in for an auto repair and get swindled for a grand or you can go to the next to say okay i'm gonna get a second opinion i'm gonna get a second opinion i guess i finally find out ah it's just a little filter that needs to get fixed here it's an 80 fix look at this highlighted part this is highlighted bold print in the article clients very rarely know what's going on or what it's costing them well shame on you if you hand your money to another human being and say hey i'm gonna put the blinders on. I don't want to know anything that you're doing. I just want you to magically take care of it. You're an idiot. You are a total idiot to have somebody do that. No matter what it is, you have to be able to look at your professionals and know how to, like, how do you know if your professional is doing a good job or a bad job if you don't have a clue what's going on? Yeah. Are you kidding me? The fact that clients very rarely, according to this thing, know what's going on or what it's costing them. Oh, my God. You're hiring the wrong people, folks. You're hiring the wrong people. There are good people out there. They're all over the place. But we're going to insist on talking about the losers in this industry. It's so sexy to write about them, too, isn't it? Bad news. Good copy. All right. So you got all fired up on about that one. I can't wait to hear what the next article is. Ready for the next one? Well, what's funny is about this one, usually I take the other tack with this one. This comes to us. You're doubling down. This comes to us from Investment News. Capital Group, the sponsor of American funds, sued for self-dealing in its 401k. By its own employees, probably. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just like the Ameriprise suit. They're all the same. Yeah. The plaintiff claims roughly 95% of investment options offered in the plan since 2011 were, quote, unduly expensive proprietary funds that led to less retirement savings for participants. We talked about this off and on, right? Yeah, this is, and by saying we talk about this, I always bring up the fact that another company is being sued. Their 401k is being sued. And you have to look at, and usually it's the target date funds, right? In this case, they're saying that 95% of the funds, which were American funds, that 95% of American funds were too expensive. And they could have gone with a cheaper option that would have made them more money. I am calling BS on that one, too. because American funds, not cheap. Give me that. American funds, not cheap. But holy cow, OG, have you seen the track record of American funds? And like just as an investment company, like the standard of how that company does business, maybe not your favorite fund company. They charge commissions to get in if you buy them retail, you know, so they're used to working with advisors. American funds are not screwing over their clients. They're not. I mean, they've been around a really long time, have really great products, have a long track record, nice corporate governance. And so let me get this straight. Their employees have to eat their own cooking. Right. Yeah, that's kind of weird, right? Like, wouldn't it be more weird if your advisor said, hey, I've got this really great investment portfolio for you. It's all in American funds. It's so awesome. They go, well, how's your money invested? Oh, mine's in Fidelity. why so we don't get sued what yeah i believe that a lot of this now again back to the other article about there's bad apples there are bad retirement plans right there are ones that have terrible fees and it's all nickel you know it's all moving money from one pocket to the other and different organizations and layering and all that sort of stuff well and that's a lot of this that's what I said. Usually when you and I have this discussion, I come down on the other side. I'm like, oh, I think there's a lawsuit here. I think this is a good idea. This one smells to me. But there's more and more of these things. This is just blood in the water. Oh, it totally is. Chum. This is chum in the water. And there's a handful of enterprising entrepreneurial attorneys that go, well, this is an easy case. We'll just pull all the 401k plans in the world and go after 80% of them. Much of the time I read what the company spokesman says and I kind of roll my eyes, right? I'm like, yeah, you don't get it. But listen to this one. Capital Group spokesman Tom Joyce said the complaints without merit. The funds offered to employees are recognized in the industry as having among the lowest fees in their peer categories and superior investment results. I don't know about the fee comparison thing. Well, American Funds has historically been a tad lower cost. And when I was at another company before I was independent. You probably remember this for your company as well They didn play the we going to pay you money to get on your platform game Right They were the ones that were like nah our stuff good enough. We don't have to pay Merrill to get sold by Merrill guys. We don't have to pay Morgan. We don't have to pay Merrill price. We don't have to pay LPL. They said, nah, we're not, we're not paying. We're not. They called that shelf space, right? Like to get on the preferred list at such in such a company, you had to pay a fee, usually in the $20 to $50 million range to get on the list. Right. Well, the company that I was at, and I know your company as well, they're like, yeah, we're not paying that. We think our products are so good that your advisors are going to buy it, even though it costs them $100 every time to do it. You can say a lot of stuff about American funds that I will agree with. This one, I just went, really? That's a dumb lawsuit. that just... Yeah, well, and they'll settle, and that'll be that. Yeah, I don't know anything about the actual specifics of the lawsuit, so I probably shouldn't say it's a dumb lawsuit, but man, I'm first blush. Come on, people. Let's take some personal accountability. I am surly today. This is usually... Yeah, that's okay. That's all right. This is a positive podcast. Now we're going to have somebody talk to us about trying to save freaking $25,000. And you're going to go, let me start with... Let me say this. how can you save 25 000 is not possible to save or it's way easier or whatever you know whatever they've got all those candy bars and stuff in the checkout aisle at the store how can i save 25 grand i can't do it i think our lesson number one is uh lesson number one is you need to take responsibility for your stuff right i mean berm me once shame on you berm me twice shame on me I think that's, listen, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 on this. All these articles put together. Totally agree. Shame on what? You've never heard that? Heard which one? Burn me once thing. Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me. Yeah. Is there a joke at the end of that? Well, there could be a joke. Maybe there's a famous person that's said this same thing. Let's listen. There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee. that says fool me once, shame on, shame on you. If you fool me, we can't get fooled again. Scott Trench is a guy who saved a lot of money. He's a vice president in charge of operations, at this little known enterprise called Bigger Pockets. You familiar with them? I have. For those of you that don't know the Bigger Pockets Empire, if you're interested in real estate, they're a great place to go. But they also have a publishing house. And Scott has a book that I've absolutely loved called Set for Life, where he details how to save money. We're going to talk to him about the early part of the book, which I know is interesting for most people listening, OG, which is how do you just get started? And Scott's got some great opinions. a little opinionated on how to get started. So let's say hello to Scott Trench. And author Scott Trench joins us. Welcome to the party, man. Thanks, man. It's great to be here. It's a great basement. Well, glad you could bike all the way this way. Although I love this discussion you had. You were just on Cheddar TV and it almost didn't go well. No, I had to bike to the office and I have an e-bike. And I like to use that to help me get around faster and not arrive sweaty. And I arrived a little later than I should have because my battery had died and a little way more sweaty than I should have for the interview. So luckily there was a big story this morning at the day we're recording this, which was Amazon is buying Whole Foods. So I got kicked out a few minutes anyways. So I was able to recover in time and talk about real estate and mortgages and all that stuff. Yeah, that's funny stuff. Yeah. The good news is that nobody can see you sweating down here in the basement except me. It's kind of creepy for me, but not bad for everybody else. It's nice and dark and cool in here. That's right. Well, let's talk about riding your bike because part of the thing that you talk about, about making that first $25,000 is you have to have some frugality. Is that riding the bike part of your frugality? Yeah, absolutely. So the three biggest parts of the average American's budget are housing expenses, commuting expenses, and food. And between the three of those, they make up two thirds of the average American's budget. So that's where people are spending their money. And if you're trying to cut back and be frugal and save money, and you're doing that by cutting out your latte in the morning or your happy hour with your friends or by going out to the movies, you're doing it wrong because that's only about five to at most 15% of the average American's spending patterns. Your money is really going in those other three categories and transportation is absolutely a critical component of that. Biking to work can save tons of money and give you some exercise in the mornings. Yeah, it gives you, it gets the heart pumping. And I know that when I exercise, I feel like I'm just so much more on when I get to work, which does the other part, which is increasing your income. It's funny because a lot of gurus talk about, you know, you've got this blue sky, right? I can increase my income, which is blue sky. I can't frugal my way to wealth. Can I? You know, I think that frugality is a stepping sewn to wealth. And obviously it's inefficient to exclusively save your way to early financial freedom or a significant amount of wealth. Obviously you should be going after income production as well. But I would argue that frugality actually makes these more achievable. And it does that in two ways. First of all, it enables you to accumulate cash with which to invest. And second, it's not really like you're being cheap. It's like you're being efficient. And if you're efficient with your day, you're planning out how you're doing things. your biking to work, which forces you to plan by having a change of clothes, a lunch, a computer, all the stuff in your bag. You're setting yourself up for a day of success right from the beginning. And you're not going to go out and buy unhealthy food at the fast food store or something like that. It's just setting you up to be efficient. And that exposes you to more and more opportunities. If you're feeling good, you're planning out your day, and you're accumulating wealth with which to invest and then begin exploiting opportunities. I don't want to get too, you know, foo-foo about this, but they're also, what I'm hearing between the lines a little bit here, Scott, too, is there's just this healthy respect for a dollar that when you're frugal with your money and you're respecting the way you spend that money, then as you're trying to grow your wealth and grow that income, you're actually going to pay attention to where the hell you put the money once you get it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that if you're just focusing on income, you're going to lose respect for the dollars that are leaking out of your budget in various places when you're not paying attention. And financial independence is the primary input in solving the financial independence equation is your lifestyle design. And the reason it's the primary input is because lower expenses enable you to accumulate more capital more quickly, and it reduces the amount of financial runway that you need to accumulate in order to survive for a year without work. So for example, if you're spending $50,000 per year and you want to be able to have a one year financial cushion saved up in liquidity, you need to accumulate $50,000. Oh, and by the way, you're spending, you know, for 4,500 a month, which is going to hurt your ability to do that. Now, if you can cut your spending back to $25,000 per year, all of a sudden you're able to, on the same income, you're able to save twice as fast and you need half as much to kind of have that year of financial runway. And that financial runway as to me of the utmost importance. It enables you to leave a job and pursue a new opportunity. It enables you to make a significant investment without kind of fearing for your personal financial position. I just believe that extending that is the primary financial aim in life until you achieve early financial freedom. When it comes to the different steps that you have in your book, step number one is getting to $25,000. And you say that that's by far the hardest one. A, why is it the hardest? And B, how'd you pick 25,000 is that first rung? So it's the hardest because going from a standing start with a entrenched lifestyle is very difficult because, you know, people are spending, they've made choices. They've backed themselves into a situation where they have a housing payment, a car payment, lifestyle choices they're making with their kind of their habits, their food, what they spend for fun, where they're spending usually up to about 80, 90% of their incomes. And so backing away from that is really difficult for folks. You're saying it's a bear to change your habits. Exactly. Yes. It's a bear to change your habits. And even if you do change your habits, usually people's habits aren't the things that are making a big difference in their budget. It's the large fixed expenses in their lives, like their car payment and their homes. Again, between housing and transportation, you're looking at 50% of the typical American's household spending. So that is what's holding people's spending back. And those are hard decisions to chain. One, you can't change your lease if you're locked into a lease for six more months right away. So it takes time. It takes maybe a year or two to really develop an efficient lifestyle in the big ways. And I'm not, I would say I'm not frugal in the, you know, the department of going out for happy hour or having fun with my friends. I'm frugal because I'm able to get to work for free and I'm able to live for free and I don't eat out needlessly. Gotcha. So just to be clear, the habits are important, but you're talking about these huge decisions like moving. Exactly. Yes. If you want to be seriously expediting your path to financial freedom, then moving your housing is absolutely, you know, it's foolish to ignore the third, this third of your budget that's holding you back. And I understand how that's a little bit, you know, more difficult for someone that's a little older with a family. But if you're a young single person and you want to achieve this goal, if you move for the first few years, you'll see an enormous leapfrog, a leap forward on your journey to financial freedom. Yeah, we did a story recently about these people that moved to Alaska specifically because there wasn't anything for them to buy in this little town that they lived in. I mean, there were no opportunities to spend money, so they didn't spend money and they ended up saving a bunch of cash. And sometimes I think it's those hard choices that people have to embrace. I got respect for that move, but that's a little bit more than I would be willing to do. I live in Denver, and Denver's got a nice climate and great town. And so I try to live for free here in Denver. And that was the purpose of me actually accumulating that first $25,000. And by the way, the second part of that question you asked me a minute ago was- Yes, why 25 grand? Why $25,000? And the reason for that is I believe that with intelligent lifestyle design, with low housing and transportation expenses, Your normal millennial can live a lifestyle that's about $2,000 per month and be very happy. If you're spending $500, $600 in rent, maybe a few hundred dollars in transportation for fun activities, but your commute to work is mostly by biking or walking, and you're spending reasonably on food, you have $1,000 in spending money per month to enjoy life. And so I think that most people can enjoy a very happy lifestyle on that amount of spending. And if you're spending $2,000 a month, $24,000 is one year of financial runway padded by a thousand. You got 25,000. So that's kind of why I picked that number. When somebody is just starting out saving then, so you've got this extra money, you've no idea where to save it. Where do you start saving that money? So I think that there's a blended approach because I feel like if you're listening to this podcast or you're interested in early financial freedom and you're starting from scratch, I know because I've been there that you're itching to invest, right? You're itching to begin producing some investment returns. So there's a blended approach that I think kind of a good middle ground, which is you got to have some cash in the emergency fund so that you can get through your day-to-day month-to-month expenses. So if your monthly expense is $2,000, you know, put two, four, $5,000 in the bank as you're getting started. But then after that, I think, you know, I threw all my money into index funds. And I understand that that money in my kind of reserve there could go down. The market, in the worst case in history, lost like 50% of its value. I understand that. And that's a risk I'm willing to accept in return for the opportunity to kind of see those historical 7% to 10% stock market returns on my cash rather than 0% in the bank. You know, I built my first year of Financial One Way by putting everything above that about $5,000 into index funds. And I was comfortable with that decision and the risks of that. I was surprised to see. We think that, oh, gee, my co-host on the show is crazy because he's like, listen, man, all stocks get rid of bonds. And then I'm reading through your stuff and you're on that train, man. You say that stocks are less risky than bonds. Absolutely. And it depends on your definition of risk here, right? I'm 26 years old and I plan to live to be 100 years old, right? I think that planning to live a shorter life would be foolish because I might run out of money. So I'd be a bear, by the way, if you showed up at like 75 and you planned on that and you just spent your last dollar, like you put your last quarter in the Coke machine and you don't die. Like that's a crappy day. Yes, absolutely. And I think that while I'm working towards early financial freedom, why would I do something that's going to lower my probability of building long-term wealth? Now, on average, over 30 years, I don't think stocks have ever lost to a bond investment over that type of time period. So again, 26. In 30 years, I'll be 56, right? Why would I put my money into bonds right now when I know with almost statistical certainty that I'm going to be poorer than if I put that money into stocks? So that's kind of how I look at risk. Risk is, to me, not the probability of losing part of my investment. Because I'm investing the money forever and never plan to touch the principal and only the returns of my investment, I feel very comfortable putting my money into long-term investments that will likely produce more return relative to their alternatives. And for that reason, I think that index funds stocks are a better option than bonds in this case. But I actually focus on real estate with the majority of my- Well, and that's exactly where I was going next, Scott, because you're a real estate guy, you're a bigger pockets dude, which means real estate's a core part of your portfolio. Does that enter into the equation during that first 25,000 or is that later? Yeah. So when you look at housing, the primary reason for that $25,000 is actually to finally eliminate that housing component of the equation, right? If you have no wealth, then the best you can do, unless you're going to move in with your mom in the basement like you. Easy, easy. There's the best you can do. I'm sitting right here. If you're not willing to do that or you don't have that option, then the best you can do is really live with a roommate in a reasonably cheap apartment, right? There's not really much more advice we can give you there. Right. But once you accumulate that first $25,000, this option called house hacking presents itself. And that is a huge, huge lever that is accessible to employed median income earners in this country that can, again, take another giant leap towards financial freedom. So what I did is I took that first $25,000 and I put $12,000 of that down on a $240,000 duplex. I lived in half of it and I rented out the other half. Now, each unit was two bed, one bath. My mortgage was $1,550. And the one side rented for $1,150. And my roommate paid me $550. So if you're following this, I was getting $1,700 in rent on a $1,550 mortgage payment. So I was collecting about $150 per month. And if you count the operating expenses of the property, I was probably breaking around even, maybe paying a little bit to live. And that is great because I've just completely eliminated my cash outflow for housing, which again is really huge, important in my ability to accumulate cash. And I'm experiencing all the benefits that homeowners experience in terms of wealth building, in terms of loan amortization, paying down the loan, and then appreciation, the opportunity for appreciation. And I could do some work on the property to fix it up because I bought a place that needed a little bit of that. And so all these ways are ways that I could add value, eliminate my housing expense entirely, make money on housing. And by the way, I was able to do that pretty close to work so I could continue biking. And I've been repeating that process. So regardless of whether you want to build a big real estate portfolio, I think this is a really smart way for someone to buy their first home. You don't have to live there forever. You don't have to rent out to tenants next door forever. But if you do that for the first one, two, three properties over three to five years, I think that you can really make a huge stride toward financial freedom, build hundreds of thousands of dollars in wealth, build some passive income and not have a major life disruption. This isn't something that I thought we'd get into a little bit, but I'd like to. How much of that work do you do yourself? Or are you like me where you started off doing some of the work just so you knew the people wouldn't rip you off? And then later on once I know what these contractors are going to do then bring in other people to do it for you The general question there is do it yourself or hire it out right Yeah right And I think that depends on what your time is worth So if I started out making $48,000 per year, and at that wage, I absolutely did everything myself. I started out with $3,000 in the bank after graduating college, which is fantastic. I didn't have student loan debt, but $3,000 in the bank, and then I made $48,000 per year. So my time was absolutely worth less than the contractors on a dollar by dollar basis. So I did as much of the work as I could myself to get started. Now I've got two duplexes and significantly more wealth and my career is going well. So now I'm starting to hire out some things and do others myself. But I think even though, I mean, and I get your point. I love this idea of valuing your time, but I also like the experience factor because now, you know, when you talk to a contractor, if they're full in your head, full of crap. Like I've had contractors tell me stuff before and I'm like, yeah, you're not right there. Like that is, that is so wrong. Like I was born at night, but not last night. And I think it's, I think that part of the computation, it's tough to do the, what's my time worth. You know what I mean? Cause you're getting an education. Absolutely. And I think that when you move from being like a tenant, you know, I was 24 years old. I had never really done much work on the house except for helping my dad with a few things here and there. I had no tools. I was a wuss. So when I started doing this and everything was a challenge, like every time I wanted to do a repair. I have to go to Home Depot and come back and then, oh shoot, I bought the wrong component. I can go back to Home Depot and come back. They know you, they know you by name after a weekend, right? It's horrible. And nowadays I find that stuff like pretty easy. And it's just, it's not because it's because I did it a little bit and yeah, you're absolutely right. When a contractor comes and I had a contractor try to bill me $2,000 to patch some holes in the soffit underneath my roof one time. And I was like, this is a three hour operation. I get the materials for 120 bucks. So I bought a friend lunch and a couple of beers. He was interested in real estate. And together we patched all these holes in about two, three hours. And it cost me about $220 to do this project. And that was absolutely worth my time. I don't make $600 an hour. So that's the kind of stuff that you're exactly right. If you can do some of the stuff yourself, you'll save thousands and thousands of dollars. And that's a big advantage, by the way, of investing in your backyard rather than somewhere out of state. Yeah, right, right. And man, I wish we had time to get to that. I want to bring up a few of these points that you make at the very beginning of the book. You should start by saving the next thousand dollars, not earning the next thousand. So back to your point originally, start off with frugality. I think that's what you're saying. Yep, absolutely. So like if you earn a thousand dollars and you're like me when I was in that first stage, you're probably at a tax bracket of about 30 percent, 33 percent. So if you earn that extra $1,000, you're only going to get to keep about 666 of that, right? If you save $1,000, all of that is after tax. If you don't spend it, you get to keep it. So it's tax-wise much more efficient. And second of all, saving that money, again, if it's a monthly recurring cost, you're reducing the amount of financial runway you need to build and saving that money. So again, it has a double impact on your finances. Gotcha. I want to go over a lot of these. So just give me one or two sentences on each. Okay, great. you should spend more, not less on entertainment and fun. That was cool. Everybody likes having more entertainment, more fun. Why that one? Well, spend less on housing, transportation, and your ridiculous eating out expense, and then spend more on the beers with your friends and the fun stuff. That's what life's all about. I'm hanging out with you. Third, student loan debt is rarely worth it. So going back to school for an advanced degree, if you aspire to early financial freedom, can be a real drag on your goal there because you're going to accumulate a lot of debt. And while you will make that up over the course of a very long career, the goal here is to have a short career or have the need for a short career and make work optional. Got it. Buying a house or worse, a condo in the best part of town will slow you down in your path to early financial freedom. I think we killed that one. We covered that one. Stocks less risky than bonds. You need to spend less money to earn more money. We covered that. Developing a specialty is far more risky than being a jack of all trades. So I believe that in today's economy, every job that exists that humans do kind of repetitively is going to be outsourced at some point in the future. So if your specialty is in a very niche field and a breakthrough comes in that makes you irrelevant, you're kind of up a creek without a paddle. So I believe that the key to survival in today's economy and then success is the ability to adapt and adapt rapidly to change. Your value is not in your ability to operate a specific software. Your value is your ability to learn quickly and produce value and then automate yourself and move on to the next thing. I'm totally with you there. And people don't realize the speed at which that's coming, by the way. That is coming way quicker than we think it is. The last one, and this is the area that maybe I should have brought this up earlier because this is the area where we may disagree. Contribute less, not more to your retirement accounts and be ready to withdraw from them early. Is this because you're looking at a FIRE lifestyle, at a financial independence retire early lifestyle? Yes. Remember, my audience is going to be a little younger. So the goal is not to retire at 65 with several million dollars in wealth. The goal is to replace your need for wage income early in life, 30s, 20s. And if you're doing that and your money is in retirement accounts, you're not going to be able to use that money to make key life decisions or significant investments without getting very creative. And I do understand that there are lots of ways to get creative with your retirement accounts. And I have an entire section in the appendix that discusses that. It's very technical. There are ways to withdraw from them early. Take the match. I'm a very big fan of taking free money and the match, but I do not max out my retirement accounts. I keep most of my wealth building after tax that I can spend today. Well, and if you're starting early, you don't need to max out that account. I mean, you really don't. You look at the compounding value of money. I mean, over time, you can get the match. You'll probably have plenty for after 60. So I guess we don't disagree. That's annoying. I hate it when we agree on all these different points. I don't want to. The book is called Set for Life. Where can people get it? You can buy it on BiggerPockets, biggerpockets.com slash setforlife. That's F-O-R, not the number. And then you can also check it out on Amazon. You can Google it. Awesome. Scott Trench, thanks for hanging out, man. Thanks so much. It's great to be here. Hey, everyone. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Welcome to my trivia segment. So check this out. Joe and OG were talking shop earlier today, and they were throwing out some really weird phrases like self-flushing and biodegradable. I know they're just trying to show off. Well, joke's on them because this guy knows how to Google. Here's the question. Another term they used seemed a little bit like a money phrase. So here's your question. What is the financial term munibond short for? I'll have the answer for you. hopefully my internet connection works right after the break as you hear this i just got back from keynoting the millionaire money mentors conference in florida i'm sure i had a great time even though i haven't gone yet as i record this but i know wherever any stacking benjamin's people are it's always a party isn't it but what makes it even better party is the fact that when you see pictures of me, those clothes came from Quince. I've been getting intentional lately about what I wear day to day and on stage and leaning in more into pieces that feel easy, that are comfortable, that I can travel with and still look put together. It just makes getting dressed simpler, whether I'm at home or on the road. Quince has been my go-to. The fabrics feel elevated the fits are clean everything just works without needing to overthink it quince has all the wardrobe staples for spring think 100 european linen shorts and shirts from 34 dollars lightweight breathable and comfortable but still look put together and clean 100 pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt their pants also hit that same balance relaxed and comfortable, but still polished enough to wear pretty much anywhere. Everything's priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find as similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the markup between the pants that feel so incredibly comfortable. And my favorite is still that first cashmere sweater that I got. It is so nice. It's great to feel good because you know that your wardrobe looks good and it didn't cost anywhere near what I thought clothing that looks like that would cost. It should be the same for you. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash SB and because you're a stacker you'll get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash SB for free shipping 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash SB. Hey, trivia fans. Welcome back. I have some good news and I've got some bad news. I always believed in bad news first. Why leave things on a sour note? So here we go. The bad news is that self-flushing is irrelevant to the show. Hey, Steve, can you take out that part where I said in the first part of the trivia about self-flushing? Yeah, just rip it out. Just flush it. See what I did there, Steve? Just flush it. Okay. Hey, I'm back, folks. Thanks. And now for the good news, your trivia answer. Before the break, I asked this question. What is the financial term muni bond short for? The answer? When I looked up this one, you'll be as frustrated as I was that you didn't guess it right away because a muni bond is short for municipal bond. A little sleuthing turned up the fact that municipal bonds are issued by state or local governments and their agencies. Muni bonds help raise revenue for anything from roads to airports. Investors like them for another reason. You'll probably get a federal tax break on the bonds and may even get a state tax break as well. Who knew? Time to continue my research into all these words I don't know. I'll make sure I'll let you know if I find any good ones. Big thanks again to Scott Trench for coming down to the basement. And OG, man, just do it. Just get started. Get her done. Absolutely. Hey, let's throw out the Avon Lifeline and tackle some of life's most important questions. I'm throwing out the Lifeline to Harlan. Say hello, Harlan. Hey, Joe and OG. Question for you guys. Over every long-term period I can see with index funds, international has underperformed the U.S. This underperformance hasn't led international stocks to become cheap like you'd expect. The P-E ratio for total international is over 20, according to Vanguard. So after what time period of underperformance does an investment stop being a good idea? 50 years? 100 years? If somebody had like 50-50 U.S. international over the last 20 years and they are retiring soon, their international investments would have underperformed bonds. I mean, that's pretty bad. I'm scared to invest internationally because I'm worried there's something fundamental causing these lower returns. I know the market's supposed to get efficient, but it just doesn't seem that way here. Thanks. Awesome. Great question from Harlan. So international, OG, let's go there because this is fun. Great question on international investing. It is completely different than U.S. investing. Part of the reason that I like international and emerging markets, and I separate those two, generally speaking, emerging markets are up and coming countries. Like so India or sometimes Russia gets thrown into that category. Smaller countries that have really small economies would also get thrown into there sometimes. And then developed international, which are kind of like your Western European countries and Japan and that sort of thing as a separate category. The great thing about international investing and emerging markets compared to the U.S. is the fact that they're what we call non-correlated. So they zig when other things zag and it provides a great opportunity for rebalancing. So I think that the one piece that's impossible to, well, it's not impossible to measure, but when you look at like kind of a 20 year track record is the impact of rebalancing your portfolio as other things have become overweighted or underweighted as time has gone on. For example, just recently, small company stocks did really well in the United States for about six weeks right after the election. that caused them to be overweighted and you had too many of them. So if you rebalanced in your portfolio, then you ended up buying the thing that was underweighted, which happened to be emerging market at the end of last year, the beginning of this year. Number one performer so far year to date. Now I know we're only six months into the year, but this again will help with the rebalancing. Number one performer, emerging markets. So it just provides a great rebalancing tool for your overall portfolio to kind of yin and yang and zigzag, so to speak. I also think we're looking at this, Harlan, at a certain point in time when you look at the one year, the three year, five year, 10 year, where you say, okay, under none of these circumstances from today back, had it made sense. But there have been points in my career where you look at those one, three, five, 10 year track records and you're like, I should have been more in international. I'm with you. It's not as often as looking at the core U.S., but I think that part of what's killing us right now, OG, is especially when we look at large-cap international, is just the point where we're sitting right today, right now, which to me, and this is just me, says opportunity. It doesn't say opportunity like let's go bet the farm on it, but it also says that reversion to the mean is alive and well, and I want to make sure I've got some international in my portfolio because of that. And you know what a fan of emerging markets I am. And you're pointing out a very interesting piece here, which is the last 10 years, nay, the last seven or eight anyway, the U.S. stock market has trucked everything else. I mean, just especially U.S. large company growth funds, right? S&P 500 has destroyed almost everything else over the last eight years, 70 years. So it's kind of hard to use that as a measuring tool. I think if you like to your point, if you go back and go, well, what did it look like in the 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 year periods in 2007? It looks a little different. Here's the other major thing when it comes to reporting. We have really good data on stocks in the United States since 1926. That's kind of like the generally accepted time period that we measure things from. In the international world, however, those records didn't exist as well until like the late 60s. So a lot of times when you look at international time periods, you really are only looking at, you know, from 1970 till present, 1975 till present, which is still a long time, right? 40 years, but not nearly as long as a 90 year track record like the U.S. market. And some places like Jeremy Siegel and his book stocks for the long run, he's got data all the way back to 1802 on the U.S. market. So some of that has a little selection bias, I guess, right? Like we just happened to be looking at a time period in international that was kind of a little funky and weird spots, right? The Japanese market was kind of funky for a while. You had the Russian market in the late 90s. That was pretty funky, too. So to your point, not betting whole hog, but a great diversifier and provides a great opportunity, right, to to balance the portfolio out. And I don't know that you're 50-50 anyway. Back to Harlan's point. I don't know that you're 50% U.S., 50% international, 60-40, 70-30 maybe. Well, you know, yeah, I'm traditionally in the 30-35% range in my portfolio. But it depends on your goal, right? It depends on your goal, your risk tolerance. You're definitely going to, I say definitely, well, if you add more emerging markets, you're going to increase standard deviation. You're going to increase the up and down in the portfolio. So it's going to be more of a roller coaster. depends on what kind of ride you're looking for, right? Strap in, baby. Or do you want the nice and easy? Which is what... No, I won't go there. I almost did it again. Thanks for the question. If you've got a question and would like us to throw out the Haven Lifeline to you, it's really easy. Here's what you do. You head to stackingbenjamins.com forward slash voicemail. Just click that button and start talking. And as long as there's a microphone on your computer, Bam, you got it. You're done. They're on your phone. Really easy. Stacky Benjamins forward slash voicemail Doug also brings down the mail And today we going to read the letter from our friend Taylor Taylor says hey Joe I been listening to the podcast pretty frequently for almost two years now and don't think I've heard this topic discussed. I was wondering your and OG's thoughts on using money from your IRA to buy your first home. Are there any situations that make sense to do this? What I can think of is if you plan to rent the house out in the future for an amount that provides a higher rate of return. Also, it could be an option if you use that money to meet the 20% down payment to help avoid PMI and then make monthly deposits back into your account before you file your taxes. Obviously, with this strategy, you risk losing market gains, but the PMI percent on the loan would most likely be more than the gain from the market. For example, assuming 1% PMI and $100,000 loan would be $1,000, whereas the average market return of 7% on $10,000 would be $700. bucks. So avoiding the thousand, he says is better than, uh, than the 700. Interesting. Take their Taylor. What do you think, man? Uh, no, this is a terrible idea for a whole host of reasons, mainly tax issues, right? We're going to pay income taxes on the distribution, which is going to smoke whatever your PMI number is, uh, in terms of the cost, there's no penalty. So you can use some of your IRA earnings, right? To, uh, to use on your house down payment. That's an exemption to the 10% penalty. But here's a major problem with what your plan is there to repay the money, so to speak. You can only do that once every 12 months and the money has to be back in 60 days. So you can't do it over the course of a year. You've got to put the money in in 60 days. So arguably, yeah, you could go short term. I need 10 grand, take it out. 45 days later, I put it back in, no harm, no foul. But remember, now you can do nothing else with any other IRA. You can't move it from one brokerage company to another. You can't take the money out. Again, you have to wait 12 months to do all that stuff. And because you can't do that, people often think that still the cost difference here, you know, you look at $10,000 and then it's $700 that you would have made versus $1,000. And that's not- But you're going to pay $2,500 in taxes. Yeah. Well, and that's also not the entire computation because of the fact that you probably won't be able to pay back the $10,000 in a 60-day period. What you're really looking at is the compounding interest on that $10,000, which, you know, the rule of 72, let's say that you think you're going to earn 8% on that money every seven years. That money would have doubled. Nine. That would be the rule of 56. That's right. I like your rule better, by the way. That's so funny. But arguably, we have to use the rule of 72. too. Math is not my strong suit. Math me good at, number me likey. Wouldn't that be horrible, be a financial platter, be that bad at math? I get talking so fast, my brain's not keeping up. But you're right, every nine years, right? Every nine years, that money would have doubled. So, man, that's a lot of retirement money you're giving away for 10,000 bucks. If it was a really short-term thing, though, what do you think about that? It's like, hey, I got a bonus coming in. It's guaranteed. I know it's happening. I know I'm going to get 10 grand. I need 10 grand to close on my house. Bonus is coming in 30 days. You take the money out of your IRA and go, I'll just put it right back. Would you do that? Me? I've seen so many things go wrong. Roger Whitney and I were talking about this when you were gone last Wednesday, which is that- Wait, what? You cheated on me? I love what you sat on the table under the microphone. I knew it was coming, right? Yeah. Don't get too comfy. He said, Roger, don't get too comfy. Oh, gee. That was pretty- He thought that was funny. I thought that was funny. and of course he immediately spilled his beer all over it but anyway not that we not not that we have beer at 7 a.m when we record these things but anyway we're just finishing up having beer at 7 a.m right you know we're done by then roger and i wrap it up around 5 30 in the morning we're talking about the difference between financial planners and the average person i think the average person would do that financial planners have dealt with larger numbers of people and the amount of times we see screwy bad stuff come out of left field it was amazing to me once i started working with more people so no i wouldn't do that i would just wait until you have the damn money in your hand and do it that way figure out a different way to borrow the 10 000 ask mom and dad for it and pay them back head to the casino yeah or yeah or take 100 bucks to the casino you only got to win right what is that about eight hands of blackjack in a row by uh doubling each hand that's easy. That's so easy. That's the easy button. They got that easy button. That's the key. That's the rule of two. That's my rule. I call that the rule of two. Right. How long does it take you for you to take all of your retirement savings and either retire or become penniless? Two hands of blackjack. How many pieces of clothing do you come back with? Two. That's the rule of two. And they're not the ones you want to come back with. It's like your left. How many dollars do you have left in your bank account? Two. And the only reason you got two is because the ATM won't let you pull out the $2. Yes, so bad. Yeah, because you're already maxed out all the credit cards, too. But, hey, I'm good for it. I'm good for it. And the good news is, OG, you got the free buffet, so it's like having your last meal, right? Yes. Yeah, good stuff. All right, if you've got a note for the show, I would encourage you to have us throw the Haven Lifeline out to you. stackingbenjamins.com forward slash voicemail or write us a letter. Head to stackingbenjamins.com and it says question for the show. Click that link and you'll see both Haven Lifeline and the way to write us a note. Or you can just send me one, Joe at stackingbenjamins.com. Thanks to everybody who's done that. Also, thanks to everybody who's left us a review. You know, reviews are the way people know what they're getting into when they hear about the show. So thank you very much. 352 people have done that so far. and we thank you very much if you're one of those people kind enough to take a few minutes and help us out. And lastly, for those of you that know you need tons of help and you're not sure where your next stop is, guess what? OG's taking clients. So if you're looking for professional help in your corner, stackingbenjamins.com forward slash letter O and letter G to find out more. That'll take you right to OG's calendar and you can talk about what it takes to get them in your corner. All right, that's it, man. Thanks again. Well, yeah, I always start off doing this, and I know that Doug's about to do that. Doug's drumming his fingers in the corner going, ahem. Stealing my thunder. Stealing it. All right, Dougie. Thunder from down under. If you know what I mean. What should we have learned today? So what did we learn today? Well, first, switching from financial advisor to financial advisor. Maybe the problem isn't that all financial people stink. Maybe you need a better approach to find the right person on your team. Start with your goals, find personal recommendations, and check out an advisor's complaint file at the FINRA BrokerCheck website. Second, trying to save money? While you can't frugal your way to riches, Scott Trench made a fantastic point. By respecting dollars early on in your saving career, you'll save faster when money comes in, and you'll also have more money available for those meaningful events in your life. But the big lesson? It turns out that when you're Googling phrases about money, the terms money fight and money shot have way different meanings. I tried looking those up on Joe's mom's computer and that got awkward. A big thank you to Scott Trench for taking time to visit the basement. You can find more on his work at biggerpockets.com or, of course, at our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. This show was created by Joe Salcihai, produced by Richie Rudder-Reese, and engineered by the amazing Steve Stewart. Kathleen Selman's handles design newsletter and classroom opportunities. If you'd like to learn more, head to stackingbenjamins.com forward slash classes. Online, visit us on Twitter at at SBenjaminsCast or on our Facebook page. Shannon Cowan is our community manager and social media guru. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and I'm going to go buy you drinks until you find me attractive. SB Podcasts may receive payment on the show from sponsors and guests in the form of books, giveaway items, discounts, or other remuneration. There's no way you would take advice from these dorks, but like Joe's mom always says, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. And before making any financial moves, consult with a real financial advisor. special thanks to Dave Ramsey for dropping by the basement unfortunately we ran out of time for his segment maybe next time Dave Thank you. Welcome to the After Show, part of the show that doesn't exist. We do things in the After Show that have nothing to do with money. So if you're here for more money chatting, see you later. We'll see you next show. Occasionally. Everyone's doing money. Yeah, you're right. Sometimes we do. Usually spending it. We spent so much time and energy today, though, really ranting about we're ranty. As we is. I know you did. I sat here and. Is ranty a word? Ranty? Yeah. He was feeling ranty today. Yep. Sure is. Yeah. I listen to a bunch of podcasts, but I generally listen to the same ones over and over. You get hooked on podcasts and you get attached. You get attached to a certain podcast. And if it's good, you just keep going. So, you know, my ability to try out new stuff. Like as an example, S-Town, have you listened to S-Town? Never heard of it. Huge podcast. A lot of people talking about it. And I haven't even had time. Jimmy Fallon has been talking about S-Town. And I haven't had time. How do we get Jimmy Fallon to talk about Stacking Benjamins? I know, really. Come on, dude. Talk about that. Maybe we should get him on the show. Versus us? Yeah. I don't know. Jimmy Fallon? It's kind of lowball. No, I'm kidding. Okay. So there went our offer to Jimmy Fallon. We'd love to have Jimmy Fallon on the show. But I was reading something that a writer I really like was talking about and mentioned that they'd moved to Great Britain. and we're talking about some podcasts that got them through not knowing anybody, living in a new country. And so they were British podcasts. And there was one that I'd heard about before that I'd like to talk about here on the show. British humor. Do you like British humor? Is it any different than American humor? It is a little different. Is it still funny? It is very funny. Well, then sure, I'd probably like it. It's also very wry. It's not always as straightforward. forward and sometimes oh are you saying that i'm a pretty like i'm a simpleton i've got to have it handed to me on a silver platter to get it i didn't man did you all of a sudden get defensive holy cow where did lighten up there geronimo we i don't even know what that means i've never even heard that no me neither i think i just made that up but it rolls off the tongue but i don't think it's good so this podcast has a name that i had heard before and i thought oh gee this was going to be a certain kind of podcast. And it turned out it kind of is, but it is so absolutely funny. By the way, if you're easily offended, you're not going to want to listen to this next part. There's not going to be any swearing, but they are talking about a topic that some people aren't very comfortable with. And this podcast is called My Dad Wrote a Porno. James, Alice, thanks very much for doing this with me. No problem, Jamie. There aren't that many people I would want to be sat around a kitchen table with reading out my dad's erotic literature. I can't believe we made the cut. Well, we go back a long way, Alice. What can I say? I can't trust this sort of material with my new friends. So guys, this podcast is going to be pretty simple. It's basically going to be me and you two. And I'm going to be reading a chapter a week of my dad's porno novel. What's it called? Well, do you want the full title? Yes. Because it is called Belinda Blinked. Belinda Blinked. Belinda Blinked. Is that her name? Belinda's her name. Hot. Yeah, it's a sexy name, isn't it? I think dinner lady. And then I think, what's she going to do? What's she going to serve up, this sexy dinner lady? I don't know whether he's confused winking and blinking, because blinking isn't the most sexy. No, that makes me think, like, ophthalmic issue. It's just very alluring, isn't it? I think cataract. To blink at someone. and maybe just because of the alliteration he wanted it to be B and there's no other word that begins with B so blinked but the real title to give it its full title is Belinda Blinked 1 a modern story of sex, erotica and passion how the sexiest sales girl in business earned her huge bonus by being the best at removing her high heels at removing her high heels that's the title I thought that was the blurb No, that's the title. He's used up a lot of his word count there, hasn't he? He just couldn't get that on Twitter. I don't know how I feel. You can't get that on Twitter. I have to tell you, I have listened to five episodes of this podcast, and I've laughed my head off. And by the way, you think my dad wrote a porno that this is going to be something that is, you know, really is erotic and has erotic stuff going on. And every time that his dad, who, by the way, is in his 60s, And mom is horrified that her husband has written one of these things and is marketing it and gave it to his son to read. Right. And son now, of course, is made a podcast of it. That it every time there's anything that should be titillating, I think is the word. It's not. It's horrible. This whole thing is an absolute train wreck that this guy's written. And I've laughed and laughed and laughed. Now, if you don't like sexual topics, if you don't like some of the bad words that are out there, you probably want to stay away from this podcast. But for me, holy. It reminds me of the book that I read some years ago called S-H star T. Right. So I'm spelling it out. Right. So that's how it's written. My dad says. My dad says. Yes. Like stuff my dad says, but with the S word. It is very much in that same vein where you just can't believe that. And the dad all of a sudden like steps into these sexual situations that aren't sexual at all. And then the way he describes them, it's just gross. Like exactly how a 60-year-old dad would describe it. Oh, it's horrible. You're like, oh, man. So I was at Lowe's picking up some lumber. Yes. And then all of a sudden. Yeah. He talks about this woman sitting and sweat is dripping down her right thigh. And the woman, Alice, on the show, she's like, boy, that's sexy. Sweaty woman sitting, dripping sweat. Nothing. He needs to go back to adjective school. Like, change them up just a skosh. it's absolutely horrible and and they're talking about a private part and about how a lid opened and the one guy goes i don't know anything about this particular part of the body like lid like lid uh alice and she's like i never thought about my body part as if it were a tupperware dish i can't stop cheryl and i listened to it and neither one of us at first are like really dad wrote a porno? I don't think so. Listened to it all the way home from Dallas to Texarkana recently. And oh my goodness. Oh, I laughed my head off. And now, by the way, five episodes in, Cheryl's like, okay, this is just the same thing over there. She goes, it was really funny at first, but now they're just laughing about the same stuff. And it is the same stuff. I mean, it is a bad, bad, bad novel. So if you don't want more of the same, listen to the first four or five episodes and you're done like Cheryl is. But for me, my dad wrote a porno. Just so amazing. So that's my review. How about that? Is that the second time, I think? I think we reviewed Betty and this guy with the suitcase was the only other one we've done. All right, guys.