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Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, and today I'm

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Speaker 1: talking money truce. You won't hear anywhere else with Len Penzo. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I've always appreciated oddballs. My guest today he fits

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Speaker 1: the description, and he's publicly willing to admit it. If

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Speaker 1: you're looking for generic personal finance content, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to find it in his writings. When I was first

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out how I could contribute to the

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Speaker 1: personal finance community, something I was like really interested in doing,

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Speaker 1: I started off writing on the internet, mostly because TikTok

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Speaker 1: didn't exist yet. Well, Len Penzo allowed me to contribute

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Speaker 1: to his already successful blog. I will not link to

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Speaker 1: that post in the show notes because it's old and bad,

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Speaker 1: but it is a testament to the beautiful community of

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Speaker 1: personal finance nerds and to Len's graciousness as well. Lenn

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Speaker 1: has a new book out. It's called True Money Stories.

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Speaker 1: It's about the intersection of personal finance and family life.

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Speaker 1: So I'm excited to pick his brain today on the podcast. Len,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me.

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Speaker 2: Joel, thank you for having me on your terrific show podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm honored.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you my friend. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: you and I've been corresponding for many years, although we've

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Speaker 1: never had a sit down chat like this, so I'm

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Speaker 1: excited to get to talk to you in a long

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Speaker 1: form way. My first question, though, of course, is going

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Speaker 1: to be what your craft beer equivalent? What does len

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Speaker 1: Penzo like disploy John? Even though he is so you're

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Speaker 1: so smart with your money, You're so thoughtful about saving,

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Speaker 1: investing for the future. But there's got to be something

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Speaker 1: you're like spending a lot of money on now that

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Speaker 1: people think is a little weird.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is weird, probably for most people, but

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Speaker 2: I believe it. I'm a model train buff. I model

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Speaker 2: an end scale and I have a weakness for buying

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Speaker 2: anything related to the end scale model railroad hobby. So

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Speaker 2: I always always splurging on that.

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Speaker 1: Always how expensive of a hobby is this? Uh?

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Speaker 2: You know, it can be very expensive. So if you

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Speaker 2: want to buy just, for example, just a locomotive for

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Speaker 2: example that pools your little pulls the little cars behind it, right,

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Speaker 2: those run over two hundred dollars each.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So and just give you.

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Speaker 2: An I have, I think I have, gosh, I bet

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Speaker 2: you I have twenty five locomotives alone, So you can

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Speaker 2: do that just on the locomotive, so it doesn't count

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Speaker 2: all the modeling, all the models you have to buy,

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Speaker 2: the buildings and the track and the all the electronics stuff.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's thousands and thousands of dollars over time.

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Speaker 1: Would you ever go into like Walt Disney territory and

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Speaker 1: build your own little railroad in your backyard? Is it hobby? Get?

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Speaker 2: What is that has that called? I think that's I

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Speaker 2: can't remember which gauge that is. Is that g or

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Speaker 2: O or it's huge? And I've seen some fantastic have

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Speaker 2: you ever seen on the internet? You can go online

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, so you're getting me all excited here. You

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Speaker 2: can go online and see people's backyard railroads that they

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Speaker 2: built themselves, where they you know, these grown men, these

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Speaker 2: grown old men like myself, can sit on these locomotives

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Speaker 2: and they pull you can pull kids and whatever in

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Speaker 2: the cars behind, and they have beautiful setups in their backyards.

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Speaker 2: Just just just fantastic, just really it's really awesome.

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Speaker 1: I cant of imagine when you get to that point,

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Speaker 1: laying track in your backyard and making you so that

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Speaker 1: they can pull humans it's probably getting it's getting even

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Speaker 1: more expensive though.

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Speaker 2: Oh it's it's out. You know, that would be crazy,

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Speaker 2: And I mean that gets into other stuff like hardscape

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Speaker 2: and landscaping. You know, you're building little bridges made out

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Speaker 2: of stone. I mean it's really fantastic stuff.

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Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, okay, you Lenn Penzil, you had an awesome

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Speaker 1: gig as an aerospace engineer. You're a really smart guy.

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Speaker 1: Why did you start a personal finance blog so long ago?

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Speaker 1: And uh yeah, but just what leads someone who's got

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Speaker 1: this intense day job. You do quite well for yourself

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Speaker 1: to start blogging on the side.

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Speaker 2: Everybody needs a hobby, right And before before I was

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Speaker 2: spending money on my model railroading, I had my son

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Speaker 2: was in Little league and so I had for seven

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Speaker 2: or eight years, and I used to volunteer for the

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Speaker 2: little league. I used to be a coach and a manager,

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Speaker 2: and then I got into the board and I was

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Speaker 2: a vice president and the president and that took you know,

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Speaker 2: that was a forty hour a week hobby for me.

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Speaker 2: On the side, it kept me very busy. Well, my

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Speaker 2: son got out of little league and left me, but

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Speaker 2: you know, I needed to find another hobby, just keep

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Speaker 2: from from running. My wife Crazy's who I affectionately called

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Speaker 2: the honeybee. So I decided, well, you know what, I

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Speaker 2: had been reading some personal finance blogs on the side.

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Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I could you know,

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Speaker 2: I have some thoughts on that myself, So why don't

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Speaker 2: I just try that just just as a hobby. I

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Speaker 2: was just trying to just kill some time. And I

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Speaker 2: started doing it, and lo and behold. I mean, within

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Speaker 2: six months it really became very popular, and it just

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Speaker 2: it just kind of blew up and grew from there.

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Speaker 1: It was like a different era, right, Like you couldn't

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Speaker 1: start a blog today and six months later be super

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Speaker 1: popular on the internet. I mean, I guess you know,

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Speaker 1: substack is, there's that model. Some people are successful at it.

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Speaker 1: But how has blogging changed since you first started?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, blogging is it's like the horse and buggy now

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Speaker 2: to today's you know, compared to the podcasting and you know,

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Speaker 2: doing your YouTube videos and TikTok and Instagram and all

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Speaker 2: that stuff, it's kind of an it's kind of seen.

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Speaker 2: It's it's day is behind it. I mean there's still

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Speaker 2: you can still blog and there are blogs. Mine's still

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Speaker 2: going but it's nowhere near what it used to be.

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Speaker 2: But people have moved on and to bigger and better things.

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Speaker 2: And your podcast, for example, I mean that proves it.

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Speaker 2: That's where people are rightfully so. But back then, back

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Speaker 2: back in two thousand and eight two. I started in

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Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. Back then, blogging was just getting started,

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Speaker 2: and I remember my first my first post, I was

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Speaker 2: just commenting on the on the blogging zyche s they

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Speaker 2: call it. I guess there was at that time. I

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Speaker 2: was there was like nine ours. Technica did a survey

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Speaker 2: and I think they said there was by then, by

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Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, there were already like nine million

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Speaker 2: blogs out there. Wow, but it was still it was

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Speaker 2: still an ascending, ascending medium.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure it's kind of like podcasting, the fact

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Speaker 1: that there are so many but there are so few

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Speaker 1: that put out good enough content and put out content

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Speaker 1: for long enough to gain traction.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure even today that can happen. It's just that

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Speaker 2: there's you just don't get the numbers that you used

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Speaker 2: to get back in the day. You know, there were

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Speaker 2: years where I would get up to two million, uh

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Speaker 2: you know views a year, and those days are long

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Speaker 2: for me, those days are long gone. Part of that

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Speaker 2: is on me because I don't blog as much as

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Speaker 2: I used to. Things have changed, medium has changed, and

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Speaker 2: so that's why I, you know, that was the whole

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Speaker 2: impetus for this book. I had all those articles that

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Speaker 2: I've done, there were many were very popular and they

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Speaker 2: were popular. Reason for that popularity, boy, I think my

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Speaker 2: blog became so popular as it wasn't like your everyday

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Speaker 2: personal finance blog. It was how do I describe it?

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Speaker 2: I treated it like almost like a sitcom or like

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Speaker 2: a like a show.

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Speaker 1: There.

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Speaker 2: I had my family and not just my immediate family

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Speaker 2: my wife and my son and my daughter, but I

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Speaker 2: have my father in law who played a big part

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Speaker 2: in the roles. And there are characters in my life.

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Speaker 2: And I always used stories from that to relate back

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Speaker 2: to personal finance, and they were always I try to

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Speaker 2: make them very you know, there was humor stories, but

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Speaker 2: I always try to end with a lesson on personal

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Speaker 2: finance in each of the stories. And it resonated with

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Speaker 2: the with the Internet, and that's what got so famous

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Speaker 2: that it was really like a running sitcom for many years.

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Speaker 2: So and people became familiar with my family members and

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Speaker 2: that's just what happened, that's how that's how it became

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Speaker 2: very popular.

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Speaker 1: Actually, I think stories are so powerful, right the people

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Speaker 1: can relate to a story, it's it's easier to learn

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Speaker 1: from it. It feels less dogmatic and more approachable, And I

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Speaker 1: think that's certainly a big part of your success. I'm

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Speaker 1: curious too, just you have this kind of fancy job

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Speaker 1: that's for smart people, and how do you think about

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Speaker 1: translating personal finance for people who might not have, you know,

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Speaker 1: a ridiculously high IQ like you, Lenn? Does it take

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Speaker 1: Does it takes superl just but does it take a

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Speaker 1: lot of intelligence to be I've seen it on both

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Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum. Sometimes there are people who are

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Speaker 1: super duper smart and man for some reason, personal finance

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Speaker 1: just does not take with them. They don't seem to

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Speaker 1: get it. And then there are like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: where do you think what's the intersection of intelligence and

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Speaker 1: personal finance?

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Speaker 2: Accumaty, I think intelligence. I think intelligence has nothing to

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Speaker 2: do at all with personal finance management, nothing at all.

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Speaker 2: I know smart, very smart, intelligent people whose personal finances

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Speaker 2: are a mess, absolute mess. I had coworkers back when

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Speaker 2: I was still working before I retired who were in

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Speaker 2: financial difficulties and they actually lost one of them lost

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Speaker 2: their security clearance because they got into financial trouble. Well

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Speaker 2: that's one of the you know, there's a thing with

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Speaker 2: security clearances where it's called adverse information. I mean, if

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Speaker 2: you do get into financial trouble, a lot of times

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Speaker 2: they'll pull your security clearance because they fear you're a danger,

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Speaker 2: you're susceptible to getting money from foreign.

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Speaker 1: Powers for whatever, black bail bribery.

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Speaker 2: It's right exactly. So, I mean, so there's you know

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Speaker 2: that happens, and it has nothing to do with you know,

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Speaker 2: your intelligence at all. It's it's really your organizational skills. Really,

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Speaker 2: I think that's what it comes down to. How organized

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Speaker 2: are you and how detailed you are are willing to

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Speaker 2: be And that's that's I think that that makes the

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Speaker 2: difference between somebody who's good at managing their finances and

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Speaker 2: those who aren't.

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Speaker 1: You build your blog as being the off peat, offbeat

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Speaker 1: personal finance blog for responsible people. Why did you go

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Speaker 1: in that or why off beat and and why is

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Speaker 1: it for responsible folks? Is that that organization key? Is it?

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Speaker 1: Like if you can't be responsible, you're not going to

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Speaker 1: be able to succeed.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's part of it. Yeah, I mean that's part

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Speaker 2: of managing your finances is to me, that's that's part

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Speaker 2: of being a responsible adult, right, I mean if you

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Speaker 2: don't know, if you don't manage your finances, you don't

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Speaker 2: take the time or the care to manage your person,

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Speaker 2: you're not being a responsible adult. I'm sorry, that's just

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Speaker 2: that's my personal feeling. And the offbeat part was was

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Speaker 2: kind of the reason for the popularity in my blog,

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Speaker 2: I believe because back when I started the blog there

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Speaker 2: was there was a lot of personal finance blogs. The

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Speaker 2: thing is they were all they're very straightforward, right, They're

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Speaker 2: very very straightforward with their lesson. I mean to just

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Speaker 2: tell you, okay, here's how you balance a budget, here's

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Speaker 2: how you, you know, manage your finances, here's how you

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Speaker 2: decide whether it's smart or not to buy a house

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Speaker 2: rather than rent. Just very straightforward, wrote writing boring, and

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Speaker 2: I figured, you know what I gotta it probably helped. One,

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Speaker 2: it'd be easier to learn personal finance if you kind

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Speaker 2: of make it funny, offbeat, do something strange, And two,

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Speaker 2: you know, I think it sticks more. So it sticks

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Speaker 2: more in the head. If you can relate a funny

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Speaker 2: story or something to your personal finances, just something, I

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Speaker 2: think it'd be more entertaining, and it helped me differentiate

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Speaker 2: myself from everybody else. So and that's and it ended

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Speaker 2: up being true. That's that's what happened. I think people

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Speaker 2: just gravitated to, Hey, this personal finance blog. But it's

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Speaker 2: not like all the others.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you are very organized, you love spreadsheets. Yeah, see,

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Speaker 1: it's funny you say these things, and I'm like, not

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Speaker 1: like that. I'm still obsessed with personal finance. I'm very interested.

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Speaker 1: I'm not the most organized. I'm not the most detail

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Speaker 1: oriented spreadsheets. I'd rather like play Russian Ulette than get

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Speaker 1: in the mix with some spreadsheets. So yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how I've succeeded at this point, knowing that that

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Speaker 1: you think organization is the key to that, because man,

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Speaker 1: I just I wish I could be more organized, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not. How do you run your household finances? And

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Speaker 1: what does that look like with the honeybee? Like you're

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Speaker 1: the CEO of your household finances, right, but you she's

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Speaker 1: the CFO, is that right? Or how do you Okay,

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Speaker 1: how do you delineate and what does that look like.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the one of the themes throughout

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Speaker 2: throughout my blog whenever I always stress run your household

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Speaker 2: like a business, and we do that in the Penzo household.

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Speaker 2: We do that. As you said, I am the household CEO.

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Speaker 2: My wife is the household CFO. We each have distinct

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Speaker 2: duties that we're responsible for. Mine is more big picture

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Speaker 2: stuff and long term strategic hers is more on the

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Speaker 2: tactical level. So for me, it's handling the investments, the

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Speaker 2: household investments. It's looking at the our household strategic planning

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Speaker 2: for how we're going to save for, for example, their

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Speaker 2: college educations, our retirement, our big ticket items for the

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Speaker 2: house in the coming years. For example. You know, you

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Speaker 2: don't just say, hey, I'm going to buy but most

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Speaker 2: people don't, Hey I'm going to go buy a put

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Speaker 2: a pool in this year. You know, here's somebody and

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Speaker 2: here No, You've got to usually save up and spend that.

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Speaker 2: You know, say that over several years, you get So

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Speaker 2: I'd set out a plan on how we're going to

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Speaker 2: save the set aside money to save for that to

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Speaker 2: big ticket purchases, and then uh, basically what we do

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Speaker 2: is we meet once a month and we go over

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Speaker 2: the individual budget, our household budget, how we're meeting our budget.

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Speaker 2: We go over that spreadsheet that you keep mentioning that

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Speaker 2: I do all the time very restart. So we go

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Speaker 2: over our spreadsheet of our income and our outgo. We

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Speaker 2: look and see if we're meeting our plans and if

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Speaker 2: we don't. And that's my wife, the household CFO. She's

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Speaker 2: the one that handles all that stuff, the tracking the income,

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Speaker 2: the outgo, our expenses. I look it over and then

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Speaker 2: if there's a problem, you know, that's my job to

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Speaker 2: figure out, Okay, what do we got to do to

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Speaker 2: change if we're if we're not meeting our budget, if

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Speaker 2: we're overspending, if we're not meeting our savings goals. That's

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Speaker 2: my job to figure out, Okay, what are we going

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Speaker 2: to do to correct that? How do we fix our

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Speaker 2: monthly income and our outgo to do that?

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Speaker 1: So it's a real joint effort.

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Speaker 2: It is a total joint effort.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that is where some at least from

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Speaker 1: people who have a partner, is that where some of

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Speaker 1: them go wrong. They try to put it all on

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Speaker 1: the shoulders of one person. And and that they're not

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Speaker 1: in it together or yeah, where a couples go wrong

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Speaker 1: in finances.

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Speaker 2: The reason it's it's personal finance, right, and the personal

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Speaker 2: part was it's just everybody's different. There's no one right

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Speaker 2: way to do anything. That's one thing that I've learned,

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Speaker 2: and I've tried to tell people, there's no right way

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Speaker 2: to do it. A big, a big thing you have

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Speaker 2: to do first off is you have first decide, well,

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Speaker 2: your husband and the wife are they the same in

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Speaker 2: the spending category? Is one a big saver and one

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Speaker 2: a big spender. You're gonna run your household probably differently

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Speaker 2: than like me and my wife, for example, who we're

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Speaker 2: both savers. We don't. We're not big spenders. We live modestly,

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Speaker 2: we live way below our means, so it's a lot

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Speaker 2: easier for us to go ahead and do what we're doing.

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Speaker 2: It makes perfect sense for us to do the way

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Speaker 2: we're doing it because we are we're like minded. If

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Speaker 2: you have a big spender and a big savery, it

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Speaker 2: might be totally different. You might decide, for example, we

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Speaker 2: have joint joints checking accounts joint say you know everything's

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Speaker 2: all joint, but I can see if you have a

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Speaker 2: you know, a one's a big spender and one's a

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Speaker 2: big savor, you might have to have separate accounts and

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Speaker 2: figure out how you're going to handle that. How is

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Speaker 2: the inc you have one income or two? You know,

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Speaker 2: how do you handle the income? Uh? You know from

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Speaker 2: if you have a big spender and a big savor,

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Speaker 2: you know, how does that work at? It's totally different.

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Speaker 1: Do you think, Lenn, you like? I think one of

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Speaker 1: the things you're known for is honesty. You you don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily sugarcoat things. Do you think personal finance content has

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Speaker 1: become too nice? Is Is there too much telling folks

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Speaker 1: what they want to hear? I suppose what they need

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Speaker 1: to hear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I do believe that. I And that's another thing

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Speaker 2: that none of my stuff is that way. It's I'm

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Speaker 2: pretty much I just tell it like it is. You know,

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Speaker 2: you've got to face reality, if you know, if you're

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Speaker 2: not willing to come to the truth and say some

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Speaker 2: difficult things, then nothing's going to get fixed. So, yes,

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Speaker 2: I do Joel believe that that sometimes they're a little

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Speaker 2: too nice and you've got to be a little harder,

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Speaker 2: you know, and just tell those hard truths. You have

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Speaker 2: to for kids too. You know, I'm a big I

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Speaker 2: was a big believer in my kids growing they were

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Speaker 2: growing up, to let them fail financially. So I had

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Speaker 2: no problem watching, although it hurt. I mean it hurt

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Speaker 2: to watch, but I purposely let them squander money and

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Speaker 2: so they would learn that, you know, learn the hard

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Speaker 2: way that you know, that's the only way they'd learn

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Speaker 2: is by making mistakes like.

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Speaker 1: The BMX bike episode you relay in the.

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Speaker 2: Book exactly Yes, that's that's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: So tell me about that real quick.

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Speaker 2: So my son he had a bike that it needed breaks,

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Speaker 2: and I told him, fix your brakes, you know, put

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Speaker 2: your money. You have saved some money, so you can

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Speaker 2: fix your breaks. Unless you do, you're not gonna able

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Speaker 2: to ride that bike. Well, one day his finally the

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Speaker 2: bike got so bad that his brakes completely gave it.

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Speaker 2: He had none at all. He couldn't ride them without

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Speaker 2: any breaks at all. So I said, well, okay, let's

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Speaker 2: go buy some Let's go buy get some new brakes

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Speaker 2: for your bike so you can go go ride it.

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Speaker 2: And he said, well, I don't have any more money, dad,

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Speaker 2: And I was like, and my son's down here. I

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Speaker 2: know he can hear me telling the story about it,

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Speaker 2: so he's left. Yeah, So I told him, I go, well,

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Speaker 2: get the money so you can buy your fix your brakes.

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Speaker 2: You're not riding that bike anymore because it's dangerous. And

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Speaker 2: he said, well, I don't have it dan. I said,

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Speaker 2: well why not? He said, because I bought a bb

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Speaker 2: gun with my last of my money, you know. And

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Speaker 2: I was like, what were you thinking. I told you,

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Speaker 2: you know, to take care of those breaks a while ago,

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Speaker 2: and he just he said, well I didn't. And I said, well,

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Speaker 2: guess what. You're not riding your bike anymore until you

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Speaker 2: earn enough money to to to repare those brakes. And

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Speaker 2: he couldn't go anywhere. He was basically stuck at home

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Speaker 2: unless he wanted to walk somewhere. And he was mad.

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Speaker 2: He was so upset. And but anyways, that's that's what

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Speaker 2: I just and I held to my guns until and

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Speaker 2: he had to. I think it took him like a month,

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Speaker 2: at least more than a month to earn enough money

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Speaker 2: to actually be able to go anywhere. He was basically

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Speaker 2: stuck at home, you know. So that's the kind of

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Speaker 2: thing that I let him fail. It is what it is.

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Speaker 2: And you pay the.

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Speaker 1: Project that Lesson did that Lesson take, like, is that

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Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that really? Is that something that

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Speaker 1: he remembers? Now he's obviously downstairs laughing right now as

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Speaker 1: you tell the story. Did that have an impact on

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Speaker 1: his ability to connect the dots as far as personal

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Speaker 1: finances goes? No?

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Speaker 2: Okay, no, And if you go through the book, my

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Speaker 2: son's one of the stars of the book. You know,

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Speaker 2: he's one of the main characters in here. There's so

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Speaker 2: many things that he did wrong. God love him, but

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Speaker 2: you know there were lessons to be learned, not just

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Speaker 2: for him but for anybody reading this book. Things that

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Speaker 2: he did that were amazing. He used to he's quite

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Speaker 2: a precocious teenager when he was fourteen, and there's the

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Speaker 2: stories in this book as well as he actually tried

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Speaker 2: to sign up for a credit card as a fourteen

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Speaker 2: year old and it was Discover, Discover credit card and Discover.

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Speaker 2: Actually he almost got it. And the only reason he

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Speaker 2: didn't get it is because my wife opened the mail

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Speaker 2: one day and saw that Discover had sent my son. Uh,

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Speaker 2: there looked like a bill from My wife was like,

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Speaker 2: what's going on? So she she opened up the bill

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Speaker 2: and and found out that my son, who tried to

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Speaker 2: use a slight alias to his name, but for some

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Speaker 2: reason to think, didn't put his social Security number down.

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Speaker 2: So and that was they were asking, hey, you're one

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Speaker 2: step away, you know, what's your social security You know

398
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Speaker 2: you got your card, you know, and that's when we

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Speaker 2: uh called discover and that's you can listen to the

400
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Speaker 2: rest of the story from the book. But yeah, we

401
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Speaker 2: caught him doing stuff like that, so he's done that.

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Speaker 2: He did. There was another story in there where he

403
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Speaker 2: one day we opened up, went to the mailbox again

404
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Speaker 2: and the wife, I think it was T Mobile at

405
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Speaker 2: the time, there was a bill from T Mobile. Wasn't

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Speaker 2: just your normal bill in one a regular envelope. This

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Speaker 2: this was a bill that was in an eight and

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Speaker 2: a half by eleven envelope and it was about a

409
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Speaker 2: half inch thick. And it turns out this was before

410
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Speaker 2: we had unlimited texting, so my son had just gotten

411
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Speaker 2: his cell phone and the cell phone bill, the texting

412
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Speaker 2: bill was well over one thousand dollars and it was

413
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Speaker 2: a half inch thick. You'd have to see. I actually

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Speaker 2: I actually show part of the bill in the book,

415
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Speaker 2: but it was like a half inch. There was like

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Speaker 2: one hundred and forty one pages long the bill of

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Speaker 2: all the stuff that had happened for that month, and

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Speaker 2: it was I think it was over one thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: So that was fun trying to get that fixed as well.

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Speaker 2: That's just the taste of some of the stuff my

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Speaker 2: son did. We share that kind of stuff in the

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Speaker 2: book for him.

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Speaker 1: You've at one point in the book you say our

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Speaker 1: spending habits reveal our priorities in life. Do you think

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Speaker 1: is it just that some folks don't value financial freedom

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Speaker 1: as much as the stuff that they can get from Amazon, Target,

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Speaker 1: whatever it is. Yeah? Do people just value different things

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Speaker 1: and you are one of those people. Maybe I'm one

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Speaker 1: of those people who value financial freedom and other people

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Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, it's just not really something

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Speaker 1: I care about.

432
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:13,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they're just short term thinkers. I don't

433
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,879
Speaker 2: think they think of the ramifications of spending now and

434
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 2: not saving later. I just they don't really. They don't

435
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 2: look at debt. I like Joel, I know you and

436
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 2: I we both look at debt as slavery almost. It's

437
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 2: it's financial slavery. You're putting chains on yourself every time

438
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,239
Speaker 2: you take a loan out. You're you're you're reducing your

439
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 2: spending power. You know this obviously, you know you're reducing

440
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 2: your future buying power. You're you're basically sacrificing your future

441
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:41,160
Speaker 2: for now. And I think most people don't even think

442
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 2: of it that way. I think most people just think

443
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 2: it's instant gratification and I'm you know, I spent my

444
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:48,119
Speaker 2: mon I'm happy, and they're not even thinking about the

445
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,360
Speaker 2: impacts down the road. And I think the further you're

446
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:53,640
Speaker 2: willing to look down the road, I think, the more

447
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,119
Speaker 2: willing you are to embrace the discipline needed to to

448
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,000
Speaker 2: not to stop doing that. And it's just a way

449
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 2: about how you think about.

450
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: There's also been like a kind of cultural movement to

451
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,879
Speaker 1: make it to normalize. I guess, getting the thing you

452
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: want when you want it as quickly as possible at

453
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 1: the costs or the additional amount of money that you're

454
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: going to pay to get that thing quickly, who cares,

455
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 1: it's fine. But whether that's buy now, pay later, right,

456
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: it's it's well, you actually sign up for this annual

457
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 1: subscription to Target, Walmart and Amazon, and then you'll get

458
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: your stuff in you know, like thirty minutes instead of

459
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 1: even two days. Right, So do you think part of

460
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 1: it is just the normalization that everyone's like, well, that's

461
00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 1: just that's just the way it's done land your old school.

462
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I am. I am old school, And that's funny.

463
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 2: Now we are so spoiled by getting things within a

464
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: day or two. I mean, I remember, I'll do my

465
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 2: old man thing. Now. I remember you'd send away for

466
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 2: something in the mail it would take weeks to get

467
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 2: just via mail you wanted to buy something. And Amazon

468
00:22:58,320 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 2: is so spoiled as you get it within a day

469
00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 2: or the same day for something. It's just crazy. But yeah,

470
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 2: that's how it's just it's just kind of a different world.

471
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 2: But you have to you have to think of how

472
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 2: it impacts you down the road yourself. You know, like

473
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 2: I said, it's those chains dead dead are chains on

474
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 2: your future. And you don't want to do that. You

475
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 2: don't want to shackle yourself. It's easy though, to do

476
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 2: that when you're young. It's just when you're younger, you

477
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 2: just can't imagine being older. You know, you can't imagine

478
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 2: being sixty or you know, I'm sixty years old old.

479
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 2: Now it's like it's some you can't. It's just you

480
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 2: can't fathom it. But once you get here quick, it's

481
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:35,919
Speaker 2: it's very fast, and so before you know it, if

482
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention, it sneaks up on you.

483
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: All Right, I've got more questions I want to get

484
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: to with you, Lenn, including I want to talk about

485
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 1: your aunt Doris and your grandpa, a lot of family

486
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 1: members that make appearances in your blog and in your

487
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: new book. So we'll get to some more questions with

488
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:58,200
Speaker 1: Len Penzo right after this. Right, we're back still talk

489
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 1: with Lenpenzo talking about his new book, True Money Stories,

490
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: and Len's personal finance writings have I've always enjoyed them,

491
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: and Len is very honest in his approach to personal finance,

492
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: which I think is something that is missing in a

493
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,360
Speaker 1: lot of personal finance content these days. I'm curious, like,

494
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: how do you think about And I really don't want

495
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: to get political, and we try to stay away from

496
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: politics most of the time on the show, but it

497
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: is true that like political leaders, legislation, those things have

498
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: an impact on our economy, they have an impact on

499
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: our personal finances. Like that stuff, the things that happened

500
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: at the national and the state level and the local level,

501
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: they trickled down and the impact packed us as consumers,

502
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: and then people around in different parts of the country

503
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: are impacted differently too, Right, I think about like offshoring

504
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: and how that's impacted in particular people in smaller Midwestern towns,

505
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 1: manufacturing towns. And you talk about like there's a tendency

506
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 1: I guess for some folks to blame circumstances for a

507
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: lack of their ability to make progress. But it is

508
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: also true, right that more difficult circumstances do hamper our

509
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: ability to make progress. How do you think about that dichotomy.

510
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 2: Yes, there there are cases where people in personal finance

511
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 2: they run into difficulties and it's through no fault of

512
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 2: their own. I mean, that's just given. And people have

513
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 2: health issues, people have unexpected expenses that come up, natural

514
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 2: disasters come up. It will wipe you out for certain things.

515
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it, But there's also there

516
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 2: still doesn't absolve people of the obligation if at all possible,

517
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 2: to save up for those emergencies. If you can. Again,

518
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 2: I realize there's certain health things you could there's nothing

519
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 2: you could ever do. There's nothing you could ever do

520
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 2: to avoid that, And that's just that's unfortunate, and that's

521
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 2: not on the on people. Where I get rough with people, though,

522
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 2: is when things come up, For example, maybe they get

523
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 2: a car accident and they have damages to their vehicle

524
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: that are you know, fives six eight thousand dollars and

525
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 2: they don't have their insurance or they don't have enough

526
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 2: and they didn't have enough insurance to cover it, and

527
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 2: they don't have their savings, they don't have an emergency

528
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 2: savings account to cover that. You know, that I believe

529
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 2: is on them. I think you're one of your first

530
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: responsibilities is to somehow make sure you build up an

531
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: emergency savings account as fast as possible to at least

532
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 2: be able to handle a new engine in your car

533
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 2: or something like that. You know, you've got to have

534
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 2: a significant amount of emergency savings built up as fast

535
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 2: as you can. And that comes even before you're saving

536
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 2: for your retirement. That has to be the first thing,

537
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 2: in my opinion. And if you don't do that, I mean,

538
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 2: and that's on you. I mean, it's not hard to

539
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 2: set aside. It's not asking a lot to set aside

540
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 2: a small percentage of your paycheck every week, even if

541
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 2: it means foregoing things you have to do it. That

542
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 2: is again to me, your that's a responsible person will do.

543
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: That's what's the biggest barrier you see for most peop

544
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: people from getting to that point where they're like, yeah,

545
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: I probably should do something. My personal finances are not

546
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: headed into good direction. I need to start thinking about

547
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: my future and my near term future because I don't

548
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: have the cash in the bank. What are the biggest

549
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 1: hurdles you see for most people? Or they're like they

550
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: can't quite get there or bridge that gap? What are

551
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: they doing wrong?

552
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 2: Sometimes? I think what they're probably doing is they're just

553
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:26,479
Speaker 2: not willing to forego things that they want that they

554
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: don't need, that they could be saving, sacrificing, Okay, doing sacrificing.

555
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 2: For example, when we first bought the house i'm in

556
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: now currently, I know the honey you be and I

557
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 2: made a terrible mistake before we bought this house where

558
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 2: the honey be wanted to be a stay at home

559
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 2: mom and said, yeah, okay, that's great, so go ahead,

560
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 2: and she quit her job right before we bought this house,

561
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 2: which lowered the amount of income we had for the

562
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 2: house and to get into this house. After that happened.

563
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 2: I mean we were pinch and pennies. Let me tell you,

564
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 2: for at least two years. I mean, we weren't doing

565
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 2: a lot of anything, eating rice and beans, not going

566
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 2: a luxury week weekend for us. Our luxury night out

567
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 2: was going to McDonald's once a month. You know that

568
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 2: for for the first two year poor we were house poor.

569
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 2: I mean, we were house poor. I mean that's an

570
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 2: extreme example. But I didn't run myself into debt despite

571
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 2: that just because said, hey, well we're going to have fun.

572
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 2: We deserve it. Anyways, No, we sucked it up, and

573
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: that again that was partially a mistake on my part,

574
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 2: for you know, we shouldn't shouldn't have shouldn't have her

575
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 2: probably leave her job quite so soon. But anyways, the

576
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 2: point is, I think you just have to be willing

577
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: to suck it up and make some sacrifices for a

578
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: little while just to get to where you need to be.

579
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 2: So that that's that's how I feel anyway.

580
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: So I think probably a much bigger percentage of Americans

581
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: could reach financial independence than currently do. But then there's

582
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: other people who say, I think everybody can reach can

583
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: can chief financial independence, especially in a country like the

584
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: United States, would you agree with that assessment or do

585
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: you think no, Like there's some people who just it's

586
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be possible for them.

587
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's it's harder now, there's no doubt about it.

588
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 2: Gen Z and to a lesser extent, the millennials are

589
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 2: they they're screwed compared to Gen X and the Baby

590
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 2: Boomers and the what do they call the Silent generation

591
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 2: or whatever? They are totally it's it's not fair. It's

592
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 2: it's due to the monetary system. It's just the way

593
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: our debt based monetary system is. It's we're in a

594
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: position now where the way it's set up, they were doomed.

595
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: It was it doomed them from the beginning. Once Nixon

596
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 2: got us off the d anchored US dollar from gold,

597
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: that put us on the path to where we're at now.

598
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: So what do they have to do differently? Young young

599
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: listeners who are like, wait, you just told me I'm screwed?

600
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: What do I have to do differently.

601
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 2: Than well, you're screwed in that it's it's so difficult.

602
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,479
Speaker 2: Now you're not totally screwed. Let me, You've got a

603
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: lot harder admittedly than gen X and baby boomers. You know,

604
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 2: gen X, it was no problem even in the eighties,

605
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 2: you could work at a grocery store. I know this

606
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 2: for a fact. And I have friends who didn't have

607
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 2: They just had regular blue collar jobs and they had houses.

608
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 2: They were able to afford a house in their twenties

609
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 2: with a blue collar job. You can't do that anymore.

610
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: And that's that's the fault of our monetary system basically,

611
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 2: but that's what's made things so much tougher for them.

612
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 2: I look at my kids as well, my gen Z

613
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 2: kids both have good jobs, and they can't afford a house.

614
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 2: They can't afford a house. You know, if this was

615
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: the eighties or nineties.

616
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: Year, also in Southern California.

617
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 2: Admittedly, yes, it'd be easier to afford a house somewhere

618
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: else outside of Southern California. But still it's still difficult.

619
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 2: It's still difficult. So how do you overcome that. Well,

620
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 2: you just have to I know this is not satisfying,

621
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 2: and I don't mean this to sound glib. You just

622
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: have to work harder. It's just harder. You're just gonna

623
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 2: have to do save more, You're gonna have to invest.

624
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 2: You might have to even take bigger risks with your

625
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 2: investments to get bigger returns. The beauty of that is

626
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 2: and this is a mistake I made when I was

627
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 2: younger as well, investing in your twenty The beautiful the

628
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 2: beautiful thing about being in your twenties and thirties and

629
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 2: investing is you have time to make mistakes. You can

630
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 2: take those risks and and survive those mistakes because you

631
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 2: have the benefit of time to recover. Somebody who's older

632
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 2: can't do that. That's why older people have to, you know,

633
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 2: invest in much safer investments because they can't afford a

634
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 2: big downturn. So when you say when you're younger you

635
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: can take bigger risks, when.

636
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: You say take more risks as younger investors, what do

637
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: you mean. Are you saying, like, go all in on

638
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: the latest cryptocurrency len Is that your advice?

639
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 2: Well, one, I'm not big on and I do discuss

640
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 2: cryptocurrencies in my body and precious metals as well. I'm

641
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 2: not a big fan of cryptocurrencies at all, although I

642
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 2: am a big fan of precious metals.

643
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: So what does it look like to swing bigger than

644
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: as a younger investor?

645
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, So make sure you're not putting anything in fixed

646
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 2: income bond. I mean, you got to be invested in

647
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 2: the stock market, and I'm not going to tell you

648
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 2: what to invest in. You've got to do your own

649
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 2: due diligence there. But you do not play it safe.

650
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:27,479
Speaker 2: Do not do any stable value you have your four

651
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 2: O one K, don't do it. Don't put anything in

652
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 2: your stable value fund. If you're in your twenties or

653
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 2: or your thir thirties, I wouldn't and maybe you should.

654
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 2: You know, don't take advice for me this. I'm just saying,

655
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,959
Speaker 2: if I had to do it over in my twenties

656
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: and thirties, I would have been much less risk averse.

657
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: I would have been much more risky with my investments.

658
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: I'd have been much better off. It's your only it's

659
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 2: the only way out. Really.

660
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember when I first started investing, I was

661
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: investing in target date funds, and that was kind of

662
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: what had been recommended to me. And I remember at

663
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,239
Speaker 1: the more research I did, I was like, target day

664
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: funds are great, low cost target day funds through some

665
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: of the Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity. But I'm also really young,

666
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: and I really don't even know that I need this

667
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: sort of bond exposure in my portfolio at all. So

668
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: it wasn't that target day funds are bad. They just

669
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: weren't as risky as I was willing and wanted to be,

670
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: given what I was trying to accomplish. And I say,

671
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: especially in those twenties, the target date fund for some

672
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: people up to you could be a little too risk averse. Even.

673
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think anybody in their twenties and threes right now,

674
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 2: you're losing out to inflation. I mean the bonds are

675
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 2: You're losing money. I don't care. You're not even stable

676
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 2: vesting in bonds just to keep a little bit, you're

677
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 2: losing money. I would stay far away from that and

678
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 2: try to, like I said, be aggressive, do your research.

679
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 2: There are sectors that are doing very well even in

680
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 2: this environment, that are doing much better than others. Be diversified,

681
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 2: but you know, take risks. You have to. You have

682
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: to somehow figure out a way to get bigger returns.

683
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 2: That's all I can say. It's really it's not very

684
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 2: satisfying right now. It's our monetary system has got everybody

685
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 2: over a barrel right now, the younger generations.

686
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: It's terrible talk to me about the other members of

687
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: your family who make an appearance in the book and

688
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: the impact they've had on you. Your Aunt Doris, Grandpa right,

689
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: who else who had an impact on you from a

690
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: personal finance perspective.

691
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 2: One of the characters in there in this book is

692
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 2: my cousin Kevin, and he's mostly in my blind taste

693
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 2: test challenges, So I have a whole bunch of blind tastes.

694
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 2: You're talking about popular things on my blog, one of

695
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 2: the more popular segments in my blog. But he is

696
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 2: an accountant. He's retired now, but he's the one that

697
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 2: really got me thinking about looking at debt as financial slavery.

698
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 2: And he's also very good about being organized and watching

699
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 2: your money and always putting your money to work and

700
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 2: making sure that your money's working for you. So my

701
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 2: cousin Kevin, I think had the biggest impact. But there's

702
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 2: others as well. I have my aunt Doris, who you mentioned.

703
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 2: She's she's passed away ninety four, several years ago now,

704
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 2: but she lived a very she lived well, but she's

705
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:27,319
Speaker 2: a very frugal person and despite her limited income, she

706
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 2: did very well. I don't know, I don't know how

707
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 2: she and if she invested or what she did. But

708
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 2: she just showed me that you know, you can. You

709
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 2: can enjoy life. You don't have to spending money. Is

710
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 2: not all about light. What life is about, right, It's

711
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 2: about living your life and enjoying the things you have

712
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 2: and family and things like that as well.

713
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: So you're making me think about value formation, which is

714
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: something that you talk about some like is is sometimes

715
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: like runaway spending habits and an inability to really figure

716
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: out personal finance? Is it a lack of being able

717
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: to connect your values to what's happening with your money.

718
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: How important is like the like we have this thing

719
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: on on how to money dot com, like people can

720
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: go through the why behind their money. We ask help

721
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: them go through a bunch of questions to figure out

722
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,280
Speaker 1: what they care about so they can link their money

723
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: habits to those deeper values that they that they have

724
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: that they espouse. Do you think that maybe that deeper

725
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 1: step is something a lot of people have missed?

726
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, Actually, yes, you gotta. I think a

727
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 2: lot of people these days, I think they're tied to

728
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 2: their tied to the almighty dollar. Actually, here here's another thing.

729
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 2: I guess I should go back to my indoors as

730
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 2: well as it's really not about I know people have

731
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 2: these dollar amounts that they have. I'm like, oh, I

732
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 2: got to have this much money by this time, you know,

733
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:52,240
Speaker 2: on my life. Yeah, you have to have a target

734
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 2: on there. But again the dollar, it's not just chasing

735
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 2: the dollars, right, It's just about it's your life, your

736
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 2: life experiences, your family. There's more to life than money itself.

737
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 2: That being said, money is required, especially as you get older,

738
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 2: you better make sure you have enough of it to

739
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,919
Speaker 2: at least live modestly. And it really isn't that much

740
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 2: actually my family for example, or even today, I'm just

741
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 2: like we're at right now, this is the end of

742
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 2: September and I've just we just had our review a

743
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, are previous for August, and we had

744
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 2: only burned through I think sixty five thousand dollars my house,

745
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 2: So sixty five thousand dollars through August, So you really

746
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 2: don't and that's with a lot of splurges. And we

747
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 2: had spent some money for us little splurge things on

748
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 2: trips or what have you. It could have been much

749
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: less than that. So I mean that's all Evan, you know,

750
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:50,439
Speaker 2: that's just having a lot of fun, and we spend

751
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 2: only sixty five thousand dollars. You'd be surprised how little

752
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 2: you can get by on as you get older. People

753
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 2: think it you actually kind of spend less as you

754
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 2: get older, most people. I mean, if you're not wanting

755
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 2: to travel all around the world and everything, yeah, you

756
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:05,839
Speaker 2: can spend a lot, a lot less than you might think.

757
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 1: So do you think those commercials about oh, you're gonna

758
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: you need three point two million dollars by the time

759
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,280
Speaker 1: you were tied? Are those overblown? Is an utterly ridiculous Yeah, fanciful,

760
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: over blown.

761
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 2: Okay, they're overblown, totally overblown. Yeah, you know, it all

762
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 2: comes down to you, right what you how are you

763
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 2: willing to live your life? You know, again, we're modest spenders.

764
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 2: We're not big Me and the Honeybee. We don't you know,

765
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 2: we don't do a lot of fun things. We're gonna

766
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 2: go We're gonna go to Cabo San Lucas later this

767
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 2: year for a week. Maybe we've got a Hawaii trip

768
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 2: next year, but that's it. I mean, those are our trips,

769
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,839
Speaker 2: you know, one or two trips a year and and

770
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,240
Speaker 2: then the rest is just living life, being with family

771
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 2: and doing family things. And it's really you know, you

772
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 2: don't spend a lot of money if you and we

773
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 2: enjoy and we have a fun, We have a very

774
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 2: satisfying life. So you know, you don't need a lot

775
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: you really don't.

776
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about retirement and

777
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: one of the most popular maybe maybe the most popular

778
00:38:58,360 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: post on your blog of all time. We'll get to

779
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: a few more questions with len Penzo right after this.

780
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: We're back still talk with my friend len Penzo and

781
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: talking about his his new book which is called True

782
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 1: Money Stories, and it's a compilation of a lot of

783
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: his most successful blog posts throughout the years. And uh

784
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,879
Speaker 1: and he's been blogging for quite some time. And then

785
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 1: on your blog, one of I think my favorite things

786
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,399
Speaker 1: we talk about on How to Money when it comes

787
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:34,240
Speaker 1: out every year we tend to is your annual sandwich survey.

788
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: It's so just like meat and potatoes basic, it's actually

789
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: more like baloney and white bread, I guess.

790
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 2: But it's wheat and the survey.

791
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: Sorry, my bad, bread, My bad. But like, how have

792
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: you had why why did you start writing that? And

793
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: what have you seen? Talk about? Like inflation at the

794
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: grocery store. You know, that's like instead of talking about

795
00:39:58,000 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: the weather, that's what we talk about now as humans.

796
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: How what have you seen like as you've been writing

797
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: this survey over the years. What's the impact?

798
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 2: Well, I started that survey in two thous I started

799
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 2: that the first year I started the blog, and it

800
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 2: was really popular. I mean, it got the I couldn't

801
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 2: believe the first year I did it, I got got

802
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 2: a lot of good feedback on it. I was like, well, hey, okay,

803
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 2: I'll do it. I didn't really plan on it being

804
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: an annual thing. It was just a one time thing,

805
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 2: you know, just check. I wanted to check out the price.

806
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 2: You know, my kids were in school. The price of

807
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 2: a school lunch was I forget what it was way

808
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: back then, a buck, buck in a quarter or whatever.

809
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 2: And I wanted to know.

810
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: If it was a good old piper, But was it

811
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: cheaper to.

812
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 2: Make a sandwich, you know, every day for your kids

813
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 2: and then you know, give them the banana and the

814
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 2: and the little mini bag of chips and is that

815
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 2: cheaper than the school lunch? So that's what started it.

816
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 2: So I said, well, you know, I'll pick ten because

817
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 2: everybody has their favorite sandwiches. I said, well, I'll pick

818
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 2: ten different sandwiches. I'll set up the ingredients for you know,

819
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 2: as a benchmark. You know, you know, so much mustard

820
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 2: and so much mayonnaise, and you know, two slices of

821
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: wheat bread anyways, cheese, whatever. Set up all those benchmarks,

822
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 2: and I'll measure the prices of those benchmarks. I'll assemble

823
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 2: the sandwiches and come up with a price for each sandwich. Okay,

824
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 2: So long story short, there is every year it has

825
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 2: always come out the price of the sandwich in a

826
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 2: brown bag lunch is always far less than a school lunch,

827
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 2: the price of a school lunch. And it's healthier for

828
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: you too. Okay, But what I've searned since then, the

829
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 2: price has gone up, and this price has gone down.

830
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 2: I think back in two thousand and nine, the average

831
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 2: price of all ten sandwiches was about fifty four cents

832
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 2: something like that, and now it's up to a dollar

833
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 2: ten or something like that. As the average price up

834
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 2: a sandwich. Now it's over over it, so it's pretty

835
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 2: much doubled. But in those years the price has gone up.

836
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 2: Right before the pan then it was dropping the pandemic

837
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 2: it made a spike, and then it dropped one year,

838
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 2: and then this year the price went up again. So

839
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 2: this is the prices are as high as they've ever

840
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 2: been on those sandwiches. But there's seventeen years of data,

841
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 2: and if you go to my article, you'll see the

842
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 2: price is over those seventeen years of all the sandwiches.

843
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 2: So it's it's really turned into it's really quite interesting.

844
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: Now.

845
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 2: Well, there's so much data there that it's quite fascinating.

846
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: He has kind of taken on a life of its own.

847
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: Your sandwich survey.

848
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 2: Yes it has, Yeah, Yeah, it absolutely has.

849
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Well, it is fascinating to see it's

850
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: such the lowest common denominator thing. And yeah, it's something

851
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 1: that we're making every day. At least we are at

852
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: my house right for my kids, my kids who are

853
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: all school age, seventh grade, fifth grade, kindergarten, and so

854
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: we're in the we're in the throes of school lunches.

855
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: And yeah, like every once in a while, my son

856
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 1: when it's Hamburger Day, he's he wants to buy, right. Unfortunately,

857
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: I think a school lunch for him is like three bucks.

858
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, once a week for Hamberger that's.

859
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:43,959
Speaker 2: What it is. It's three fifty in our I still can.

860
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: Do that, but most days, yeah, you're gonna eat healthier,

861
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: even if, even if the price discrepancy between the school

862
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,720
Speaker 1: lunch and what we're making at home is like minimal,

863
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 1: which it is when that's the sick because you're doing

864
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: the sandwiches. But then like he slice up some apples,

865
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: apples aren't cheap, like some carrots whatever, try to give

866
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: him a well rounded lunch. It's it is gonna it's

867
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,720
Speaker 1: gonna get pretty close to the price of school lunch.

868
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: But you just at least you know what you're feeding them.

869
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,800
Speaker 1: Then I want I'm curious you still write about personal finance.

870
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: You still have this kind of passion for the subject

871
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: after all these years, starting the blog in two thousand

872
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: and eight, Does it ever bore you? What keeps you

873
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: excited on the personal finance front? Why do you why

874
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: do you keep talking about it writing about it?

875
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 2: Well, I'll be honest, so I'm not quite as excited

876
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 2: as I used to be. Joel. Let's say, you know,

877
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: there's been over three thousand articles right now on that

878
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 2: on the blog. If you can believe that I've I

879
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 2: think i've written about two thousand of them. The book

880
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 2: has what I've considered to be the one hundred and

881
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 2: sixty seven of the most popular blog pieces that I

882
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:43,479
Speaker 2: that I did.

883
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of consistency though, and you've really

884
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: encouraged and helped a lot of people, motivated a lot

885
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,320
Speaker 1: of people, I think, to take charge of their personal finances.

886
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: So I try, and the blog is it. Don't get wrong,

887
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: the blog is still there. It's it's it's you. You

888
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 2: can come over, you can sign up, get my newsletter,

889
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: and I go. We do about five there's always five

890
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 2: articles a week there and I do every Saturday, I

891
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 2: do something called black Coffee. So that's my main that's

892
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 2: the thing I do every every week without fail. And

893
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 2: what I do is that's my personal finance roundup at

894
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,359
Speaker 2: the macro level. So it's not more not so much

895
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: personal finance, but it's what's going on that's affecting our

896
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 2: personal finances in the macrosphere. And I do that. And

897
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 2: it's a humorous thing where I pick up the memes

898
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 2: of the week, funny memes, the best Twitter posts that

899
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:33,479
Speaker 2: I find. Usually there's ten or eleven different things which

900
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,280
Speaker 2: it's topics, which I call credits and debits, I opine

901
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 2: on them, and it's just it's funny. I have a

902
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 2: squirrel cam in there. It's just silly. But I mean again,

903
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: you still there's still things to learn, and it's very popular.

904
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 2: That's what I that's the main thing I do every

905
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: week now with the blog.

906
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: And you, you, sir, you are now a retiree. All

907
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 1: that hard work is paid off. You don't have to

908
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 1: work anymore if you don't want to. What are the

909
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: what are the biggest difficulties of being a retired person?

910
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: Is it mentally difficult to not have a paycheck coming

911
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: in anymore because you've obviously you've done a lot of

912
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: the hard work when it comes to front loading the sacrifice,

913
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that you're you know that you're having

914
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: to make significant sacrifices in order to be okay. Right, So,

915
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: what's what's it like as someone who has you've done

916
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: really well with their personal finances over a long period

917
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: of time to finally hit retirement. What are the things

918
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:26,359
Speaker 1: that like weigh on you?

919
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 2: Gosh, I don't want to be a downer as you

920
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 2: get older. There's things you have to worry about, like

921
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 2: long term care. It's it's like the big expense that

922
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:38,919
Speaker 2: could in theory wipe you out maybe if something bad

923
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, like if a

924
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 2: family member gets Alzheimer's and you can't take care of

925
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 2: them anymore, Well, I have enough money for that if

926
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 2: if that happens.

927
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: The trouble is long term care insurance could wipe you

928
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:53,720
Speaker 1: out too. It's so dang expensive exactly.

929
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 2: And that's something that you know, I had to make

930
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 2: and I'll just come I did the risk assessment. One

931
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 2: thing of being about being in one of the things

932
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:05,320
Speaker 2: we do is risk assessment, and and that's a personal finances.

933
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 2: A lot about personal finance is risk assessment. You have

934
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 2: to make a lot of decisions on risks. You know,

935
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,879
Speaker 2: it is the risk worth taking. So and in that

936
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 2: that arena, I did a lot of a lot of

937
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 2: data gathering and running numbers and crunching, and I decided

938
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 2: that the risk a better risk for me for me

939
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 2: on just as me to not go take the insurance

940
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 2: for that reason, for what you said, Joel, because it's expensive,

941
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 2: and uh, you know that's so so yes, that's to me.

942
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 2: That's the biggest thing, you know, is long term care

943
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 2: some some medical thing that will totally wipe out my

944
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 2: my retirement savings. That being said, you know, I think

945
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 2: I'm not really worried about that. I think I'm comfortable

946
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 2: enough even if that happened that that's not going to happen.

947
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 2: I mean, if I have to pay for it out

948
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 2: of my retirement SAMs, I'll be good enough anyways, because

949
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 2: I did a good enough job saving on the way

950
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:04,240
Speaker 2: up to retire.

951
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: I think, just as someone who you know would like

952
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,800
Speaker 1: to retire in twenty years speaking to someone who is retired.

953
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 1: One of the guys, my friend Wes Moss writes about

954
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: the habits of the like happy retirees, and I'm curious, like,

955
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: have you inculcated any of those, Like what does it

956
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: look like? Because so many people go full bore working

957
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: forty five fifty hours a week to working zero hours

958
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: a week. They just retire all the way. You've had

959
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: other You've got other hobbies. Yeah, are there any any

960
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: secrets to being a happy retiree?

961
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: Well, you just named it. You've got to look, life

962
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 2: is long, and I've I'll probably t off some the

963
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 2: fire people, the people who want to retire at thirty

964
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 2: years old, you know, thirty five forty. Let's say you

965
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 2: retire at forty, You've got another forty fifty years of life.

966
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 2: I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, yes,

967
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 2: you can have hobbies when you're older. It's easy to say, y,

968
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 2: I get a couple of hobbies. That does it. And

969
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 2: usually when you're older, you have grandkids, you have you

970
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 2: have other things to keep you busy. But when you're

971
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 2: in your you know, forties, fifties, you know, that's all

972
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 2: how many how much tennis can you play? How much

973
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 2: golf can you play? Right, you really need to think

974
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: about what you're going to do to fill that time,

975
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 2: or you're not going to be happy. You'll probably want

976
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 2: to go back to work anyways, because you know, that's

977
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 2: a long life and a lot of things going to happen,

978
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 2: you know, so you got to make sure you're busy. Yes,

979
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 2: hobbies is one. It helps if you have, you know,

980
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 2: if you're older and you have grandkids or something like

981
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 2: that to keep you busy too. There's only so much

982
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 2: traveling you can do too. I can't imagine. I can't

983
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 2: imagine people who travel. I mean, there are people who

984
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: enjoy it, but I mean, gosh, you know, life is long.

985
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 2: Believe me, it's really long. It's short, but it's long,

986
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 2: and you got to figure out a way to fill

987
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 2: that time.

988
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: All right, have something to do with those hours if

989
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: you're really aiming to retirely, because you're right, I've seen

990
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: some of those folks want retiring early and then they're

991
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: like they're clawing to get back into some Yeah. I

992
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: don't know how they do it paid labor, you know,

993
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: so I get it. Lenpenzo, this has been a joyful conversation.

994
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today. Where can

995
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 1: listeners find out more about you and your new.

996
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 2: Book Lenpenzo dot com. That's easy. You can always say

997
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 2: check me out on Twitter at Lenpenzo and I'm there

998
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 2: on Amazon, so you can just google True Money Stories

999
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 2: Lenpenzo on Amazon and there it is. You can read

1000
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 2: them more about it there.

1001
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you, Lenn, appreciate it.

1002
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 2: Thank you, Joel.

1003
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: All Right, it's always fun to connect with somebody who's

1004
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:35,720
Speaker 1: kind of an og really in the personal finance space.

1005
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 1: I mean, think about writing this content for almost two decades,

1006
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 1: putting your thoughts out there. Three thousand blog posts. That's

1007
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: quite a feat from Lenpenzo and just cool that he

1008
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 1: gave me a quick start when I was starting to

1009
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: write about money as well. I think my big takeaway

1010
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: from Len and it's kind of the unpopular truth that

1011
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to hear. Yeah there,

1012
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: Lenn talked about problems with the monetary system, and he

1013
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: mentioned the fact that not everybody has the same advantage

1014
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: or starts from the same place. But he discussed the

1015
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 1: necessity to face reality and to sacrifice, and I think

1016
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: that's true that the more you're willing to face the

1017
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,439
Speaker 1: reality of your situation and to make sacrifices to get

1018
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 1: where you want to go, the more likely you are

1019
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: to achieve some of those long term financial goals. And

1020
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 1: he talked about the inability most people have to sympathize

1021
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: with their future selves to think about twenty thirty, forty

1022
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: years down the line. I do think that's probably a

1023
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: place where a lot of people fall short. They're like, yeah,

1024
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,839
Speaker 1: but what am I saving for? And there's a disconnect

1025
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: between the twenty something year old you and the potentially

1026
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: likely to be sixty something year old you. And it

1027
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: just reminds me of what Fidelity found one time of

1028
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,359
Speaker 1: taking a picture of yourself and putting it through one

1029
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: of those apps that make you look a lot older.

1030
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 1: It really did have meaningful results in helping people increase

1031
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: what they were willing to put into their four one

1032
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:13,760
Speaker 1: K or into their IRA, and so find a way

1033
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 1: to think about, hey, what do I want my future

1034
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: to look like? What am I gonna potentially even actually

1035
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: look like when I'm reaching that age? And when you

1036
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 1: can do that, I think it does become a little

1037
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: bit easier to put aside some of the money you

1038
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 1: would have spent today and save it for tomorrow. One

1039
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,760
Speaker 1: of the things Lenn said too that I really appreciated

1040
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:36,360
Speaker 1: he was right there at the end. He was talking

1041
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 1: about risk assessments, and I think that's a really important

1042
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 1: part of personal finance. And it's not just oh, which

1043
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: fund should I choose to invest in because is it

1044
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: gonna Am I going to get twelve percent returns in

1045
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: this fund versus nine percent returns in another? That you

1046
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: know past performance is not indicative of future results, so

1047
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: you you know, that's a really hard thing to do. Anyway,

1048
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: It's an imperfect process to try to figure out which

1049
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:06,879
Speaker 1: funds you should be investing in. But when we're talking

1050
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: about risk assessment and risk mitigation, which was kind of

1051
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 1: the Jeff Bezos framework of like regret minimization for life.

1052
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,760
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way to think about personal finance.

1053
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: My advice to you would be to actually write down

1054
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 1: and think about the risks of different paths you could

1055
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: choose right whether it's the risk of oversaving over investing.

1056
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: Some people really do have that risk, whether they're saving

1057
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: too much or the risk of not doing enough. The

1058
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: trade offs that you're going to make, actually like writing

1059
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: those down and having a conversation with a friend, bouncing

1060
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,600
Speaker 1: ideas off of them, or with your significant other. Like

1061
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: I think doing some more risk assessment work would help

1062
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 1: us make better personal finance decisions. Trade Offs are the

1063
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 1: old clement reality in life, with so many of us

1064
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: make those trade offs without having weighed the pros and

1065
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: cons beforehand. So thank you, as always for listening. I

1066
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,840
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. You'll find show notes, links to Len's

1067
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 1: new book and his website up on the website at

1068
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:18,439
Speaker 1: howtomoney dot com. Until next time, best Friend Out.