Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, and today I'm
Speaker 1: talking money truce. You won't hear anywhere else with Len Penzo. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I've always appreciated oddballs. My guest today he fits
Speaker 1: the description, and he's publicly willing to admit it. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for generic personal finance content, you're not going
Speaker 1: to find it in his writings. When I was first
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how I could contribute to the
Speaker 1: personal finance community, something I was like really interested in doing,
Speaker 1: I started off writing on the internet, mostly because TikTok
Speaker 1: didn't exist yet. Well, Len Penzo allowed me to contribute
Speaker 1: to his already successful blog. I will not link to
Speaker 1: that post in the show notes because it's old and bad,
Speaker 1: but it is a testament to the beautiful community of
Speaker 1: personal finance nerds and to Len's graciousness as well. Lenn
Speaker 1: has a new book out. It's called True Money Stories.
Speaker 1: It's about the intersection of personal finance and family life.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to pick his brain today on the podcast. Len,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Joel, thank you for having me on your terrific show podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm honored.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you my friend. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you and I've been corresponding for many years, although we've
Speaker 1: never had a sit down chat like this, so I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get to talk to you in a long
Speaker 1: form way. My first question, though, of course, is going
Speaker 1: to be what your craft beer equivalent? What does len
Speaker 1: Penzo like disploy John? Even though he is so you're
Speaker 1: so smart with your money, You're so thoughtful about saving,
Speaker 1: investing for the future. But there's got to be something
Speaker 1: you're like spending a lot of money on now that
Speaker 1: people think is a little weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is weird, probably for most people, but
Speaker 2: I believe it. I'm a model train buff. I model
Speaker 2: an end scale and I have a weakness for buying
Speaker 2: anything related to the end scale model railroad hobby. So
Speaker 2: I always always splurging on that.
Speaker 1: Always how expensive of a hobby is this? Uh?
Speaker 2: You know, it can be very expensive. So if you
Speaker 2: want to buy just, for example, just a locomotive for
Speaker 2: example that pools your little pulls the little cars behind it, right,
Speaker 2: those run over two hundred dollars each.
Speaker 1: Okay, So and just give you.
Speaker 2: An I have, I think I have, gosh, I bet
Speaker 2: you I have twenty five locomotives alone, So you can
Speaker 2: do that just on the locomotive, so it doesn't count
Speaker 2: all the modeling, all the models you have to buy,
Speaker 2: the buildings and the track and the all the electronics stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's thousands and thousands of dollars over time.
Speaker 1: Would you ever go into like Walt Disney territory and
Speaker 1: build your own little railroad in your backyard? Is it hobby? Get?
Speaker 2: What is that has that called? I think that's I
Speaker 2: can't remember which gauge that is. Is that g or
Speaker 2: O or it's huge? And I've seen some fantastic have
Speaker 2: you ever seen on the internet? You can go online
Speaker 2: on YouTube, so you're getting me all excited here. You
Speaker 2: can go online and see people's backyard railroads that they
Speaker 2: built themselves, where they you know, these grown men, these
Speaker 2: grown old men like myself, can sit on these locomotives
Speaker 2: and they pull you can pull kids and whatever in
Speaker 2: the cars behind, and they have beautiful setups in their backyards.
Speaker 2: Just just just fantastic, just really it's really awesome.
Speaker 1: I cant of imagine when you get to that point,
Speaker 1: laying track in your backyard and making you so that
Speaker 1: they can pull humans it's probably getting it's getting even
Speaker 1: more expensive though.
Speaker 2: Oh it's it's out. You know, that would be crazy,
Speaker 2: And I mean that gets into other stuff like hardscape
Speaker 2: and landscaping. You know, you're building little bridges made out
Speaker 2: of stone. I mean it's really fantastic stuff.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, okay, you Lenn Penzil, you had an awesome
Speaker 1: gig as an aerospace engineer. You're a really smart guy.
Speaker 1: Why did you start a personal finance blog so long ago?
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, but just what leads someone who's got
Speaker 1: this intense day job. You do quite well for yourself
Speaker 1: to start blogging on the side.
Speaker 2: Everybody needs a hobby, right And before before I was
Speaker 2: spending money on my model railroading, I had my son
Speaker 2: was in Little league and so I had for seven
Speaker 2: or eight years, and I used to volunteer for the
Speaker 2: little league. I used to be a coach and a manager,
Speaker 2: and then I got into the board and I was
Speaker 2: a vice president and the president and that took you know,
Speaker 2: that was a forty hour a week hobby for me.
Speaker 2: On the side, it kept me very busy. Well, my
Speaker 2: son got out of little league and left me, but
Speaker 2: you know, I needed to find another hobby, just keep
Speaker 2: from from running. My wife Crazy's who I affectionately called
Speaker 2: the honeybee. So I decided, well, you know what, I
Speaker 2: had been reading some personal finance blogs on the side.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I could you know,
Speaker 2: I have some thoughts on that myself, So why don't
Speaker 2: I just try that just just as a hobby. I
Speaker 2: was just trying to just kill some time. And I
Speaker 2: started doing it, and lo and behold. I mean, within
Speaker 2: six months it really became very popular, and it just
Speaker 2: it just kind of blew up and grew from there.
Speaker 1: It was like a different era, right, Like you couldn't
Speaker 1: start a blog today and six months later be super
Speaker 1: popular on the internet. I mean, I guess you know,
Speaker 1: substack is, there's that model. Some people are successful at it.
Speaker 1: But how has blogging changed since you first started?
Speaker 2: Yeah, blogging is it's like the horse and buggy now
Speaker 2: to today's you know, compared to the podcasting and you know,
Speaker 2: doing your YouTube videos and TikTok and Instagram and all
Speaker 2: that stuff, it's kind of an it's kind of seen.
Speaker 2: It's it's day is behind it. I mean there's still
Speaker 2: you can still blog and there are blogs. Mine's still
Speaker 2: going but it's nowhere near what it used to be.
Speaker 2: But people have moved on and to bigger and better things.
Speaker 2: And your podcast, for example, I mean that proves it.
Speaker 2: That's where people are rightfully so. But back then, back
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and eight two. I started in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. Back then, blogging was just getting started,
Speaker 2: and I remember my first my first post, I was
Speaker 2: just commenting on the on the blogging zyche s they
Speaker 2: call it. I guess there was at that time. I
Speaker 2: was there was like nine ours. Technica did a survey
Speaker 2: and I think they said there was by then, by
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, there were already like nine million
Speaker 2: blogs out there. Wow, but it was still it was
Speaker 2: still an ascending, ascending medium.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure it's kind of like podcasting, the fact
Speaker 1: that there are so many but there are so few
Speaker 1: that put out good enough content and put out content
Speaker 1: for long enough to gain traction.
Speaker 2: I'm sure even today that can happen. It's just that
Speaker 2: there's you just don't get the numbers that you used
Speaker 2: to get back in the day. You know, there were
Speaker 2: years where I would get up to two million, uh
Speaker 2: you know views a year, and those days are long
Speaker 2: for me, those days are long gone. Part of that
Speaker 2: is on me because I don't blog as much as
Speaker 2: I used to. Things have changed, medium has changed, and
Speaker 2: so that's why I, you know, that was the whole
Speaker 2: impetus for this book. I had all those articles that
Speaker 2: I've done, there were many were very popular and they
Speaker 2: were popular. Reason for that popularity, boy, I think my
Speaker 2: blog became so popular as it wasn't like your everyday
Speaker 2: personal finance blog. It was how do I describe it?
Speaker 2: I treated it like almost like a sitcom or like
Speaker 2: a like a show.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: I had my family and not just my immediate family
Speaker 2: my wife and my son and my daughter, but I
Speaker 2: have my father in law who played a big part
Speaker 2: in the roles. And there are characters in my life.
Speaker 2: And I always used stories from that to relate back
Speaker 2: to personal finance, and they were always I try to
Speaker 2: make them very you know, there was humor stories, but
Speaker 2: I always try to end with a lesson on personal
Speaker 2: finance in each of the stories. And it resonated with
Speaker 2: the with the Internet, and that's what got so famous
Speaker 2: that it was really like a running sitcom for many years.
Speaker 2: So and people became familiar with my family members and
Speaker 2: that's just what happened, that's how that's how it became
Speaker 2: very popular.
Speaker 1: Actually, I think stories are so powerful, right the people
Speaker 1: can relate to a story, it's it's easier to learn
Speaker 1: from it. It feels less dogmatic and more approachable, And I
Speaker 1: think that's certainly a big part of your success. I'm
Speaker 1: curious too, just you have this kind of fancy job
Speaker 1: that's for smart people, and how do you think about
Speaker 1: translating personal finance for people who might not have, you know,
Speaker 1: a ridiculously high IQ like you, Lenn? Does it take
Speaker 1: Does it takes superl just but does it take a
Speaker 1: lot of intelligence to be I've seen it on both
Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum. Sometimes there are people who are
Speaker 1: super duper smart and man for some reason, personal finance
Speaker 1: just does not take with them. They don't seem to
Speaker 1: get it. And then there are like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: where do you think what's the intersection of intelligence and
Speaker 1: personal finance?
Speaker 2: Accumaty, I think intelligence. I think intelligence has nothing to
Speaker 2: do at all with personal finance management, nothing at all.
Speaker 2: I know smart, very smart, intelligent people whose personal finances
Speaker 2: are a mess, absolute mess. I had coworkers back when
Speaker 2: I was still working before I retired who were in
Speaker 2: financial difficulties and they actually lost one of them lost
Speaker 2: their security clearance because they got into financial trouble. Well
Speaker 2: that's one of the you know, there's a thing with
Speaker 2: security clearances where it's called adverse information. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you do get into financial trouble, a lot of times
Speaker 2: they'll pull your security clearance because they fear you're a danger,
Speaker 2: you're susceptible to getting money from foreign.
Speaker 1: Powers for whatever, black bail bribery.
Speaker 2: It's right exactly. So, I mean, so there's you know
Speaker 2: that happens, and it has nothing to do with you know,
Speaker 2: your intelligence at all. It's it's really your organizational skills. Really,
Speaker 2: I think that's what it comes down to. How organized
Speaker 2: are you and how detailed you are are willing to
Speaker 2: be And that's that's I think that that makes the
Speaker 2: difference between somebody who's good at managing their finances and
Speaker 2: those who aren't.
Speaker 1: You build your blog as being the off peat, offbeat
Speaker 1: personal finance blog for responsible people. Why did you go
Speaker 1: in that or why off beat and and why is
Speaker 1: it for responsible folks? Is that that organization key? Is it?
Speaker 1: Like if you can't be responsible, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to succeed.
Speaker 2: Well, that's part of it. Yeah, I mean that's part
Speaker 2: of managing your finances is to me, that's that's part
Speaker 2: of being a responsible adult, right, I mean if you
Speaker 2: don't know, if you don't manage your finances, you don't
Speaker 2: take the time or the care to manage your person,
Speaker 2: you're not being a responsible adult. I'm sorry, that's just
Speaker 2: that's my personal feeling. And the offbeat part was was
Speaker 2: kind of the reason for the popularity in my blog,
Speaker 2: I believe because back when I started the blog there
Speaker 2: was there was a lot of personal finance blogs. The
Speaker 2: thing is they were all they're very straightforward, right, They're
Speaker 2: very very straightforward with their lesson. I mean to just
Speaker 2: tell you, okay, here's how you balance a budget, here's
Speaker 2: how you, you know, manage your finances, here's how you
Speaker 2: decide whether it's smart or not to buy a house
Speaker 2: rather than rent. Just very straightforward, wrote writing boring, and
Speaker 2: I figured, you know what I gotta it probably helped. One,
Speaker 2: it'd be easier to learn personal finance if you kind
Speaker 2: of make it funny, offbeat, do something strange, And two,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it sticks more. So it sticks
Speaker 2: more in the head. If you can relate a funny
Speaker 2: story or something to your personal finances, just something, I
Speaker 2: think it'd be more entertaining, and it helped me differentiate
Speaker 2: myself from everybody else. So and that's and it ended
Speaker 2: up being true. That's that's what happened. I think people
Speaker 2: just gravitated to, Hey, this personal finance blog. But it's
Speaker 2: not like all the others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you are very organized, you love spreadsheets. Yeah, see,
Speaker 1: it's funny you say these things, and I'm like, not
Speaker 1: like that. I'm still obsessed with personal finance. I'm very interested.
Speaker 1: I'm not the most organized. I'm not the most detail
Speaker 1: oriented spreadsheets. I'd rather like play Russian Ulette than get
Speaker 1: in the mix with some spreadsheets. So yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know how I've succeeded at this point, knowing that that
Speaker 1: you think organization is the key to that, because man,
Speaker 1: I just I wish I could be more organized, but
Speaker 1: I'm not. How do you run your household finances? And
Speaker 1: what does that look like with the honeybee? Like you're
Speaker 1: the CEO of your household finances, right, but you she's
Speaker 1: the CFO, is that right? Or how do you Okay,
Speaker 1: how do you delineate and what does that look like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the one of the themes throughout
Speaker 2: throughout my blog whenever I always stress run your household
Speaker 2: like a business, and we do that in the Penzo household.
Speaker 2: We do that. As you said, I am the household CEO.
Speaker 2: My wife is the household CFO. We each have distinct
Speaker 2: duties that we're responsible for. Mine is more big picture
Speaker 2: stuff and long term strategic hers is more on the
Speaker 2: tactical level. So for me, it's handling the investments, the
Speaker 2: household investments. It's looking at the our household strategic planning
Speaker 2: for how we're going to save for, for example, their
Speaker 2: college educations, our retirement, our big ticket items for the
Speaker 2: house in the coming years. For example. You know, you
Speaker 2: don't just say, hey, I'm going to buy but most
Speaker 2: people don't, Hey I'm going to go buy a put
Speaker 2: a pool in this year. You know, here's somebody and
Speaker 2: here No, You've got to usually save up and spend that.
Speaker 2: You know, say that over several years, you get So
Speaker 2: I'd set out a plan on how we're going to
Speaker 2: save the set aside money to save for that to
Speaker 2: big ticket purchases, and then uh, basically what we do
Speaker 2: is we meet once a month and we go over
Speaker 2: the individual budget, our household budget, how we're meeting our budget.
Speaker 2: We go over that spreadsheet that you keep mentioning that
Speaker 2: I do all the time very restart. So we go
Speaker 2: over our spreadsheet of our income and our outgo. We
Speaker 2: look and see if we're meeting our plans and if
Speaker 2: we don't. And that's my wife, the household CFO. She's
Speaker 2: the one that handles all that stuff, the tracking the income,
Speaker 2: the outgo, our expenses. I look it over and then
Speaker 2: if there's a problem, you know, that's my job to
Speaker 2: figure out, Okay, what do we got to do to
Speaker 2: change if we're if we're not meeting our budget, if
Speaker 2: we're overspending, if we're not meeting our savings goals. That's
Speaker 2: my job to figure out, Okay, what are we going
Speaker 2: to do to correct that? How do we fix our
Speaker 2: monthly income and our outgo to do that?
Speaker 1: So it's a real joint effort.
Speaker 2: It is a total joint effort.
Speaker 1: Do you think that is where some at least from
Speaker 1: people who have a partner, is that where some of
Speaker 1: them go wrong. They try to put it all on
Speaker 1: the shoulders of one person. And and that they're not
Speaker 1: in it together or yeah, where a couples go wrong
Speaker 1: in finances.
Speaker 2: The reason it's it's personal finance, right, and the personal
Speaker 2: part was it's just everybody's different. There's no one right
Speaker 2: way to do anything. That's one thing that I've learned,
Speaker 2: and I've tried to tell people, there's no right way
Speaker 2: to do it. A big, a big thing you have
Speaker 2: to do first off is you have first decide, well,
Speaker 2: your husband and the wife are they the same in
Speaker 2: the spending category? Is one a big saver and one
Speaker 2: a big spender. You're gonna run your household probably differently
Speaker 2: than like me and my wife, for example, who we're
Speaker 2: both savers. We don't. We're not big spenders. We live modestly,
Speaker 2: we live way below our means, so it's a lot
Speaker 2: easier for us to go ahead and do what we're doing.
Speaker 2: It makes perfect sense for us to do the way
Speaker 2: we're doing it because we are we're like minded. If
Speaker 2: you have a big spender and a big savery, it
Speaker 2: might be totally different. You might decide, for example, we
Speaker 2: have joint joints checking accounts joint say you know everything's
Speaker 2: all joint, but I can see if you have a
Speaker 2: you know, a one's a big spender and one's a
Speaker 2: big savor, you might have to have separate accounts and
Speaker 2: figure out how you're going to handle that. How is
Speaker 2: the inc you have one income or two? You know,
Speaker 2: how do you handle the income? Uh? You know from
Speaker 2: if you have a big spender and a big savor,
Speaker 2: you know, how does that work at? It's totally different.
Speaker 1: Do you think, Lenn, you like? I think one of
Speaker 1: the things you're known for is honesty. You you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily sugarcoat things. Do you think personal finance content has
Speaker 1: become too nice? Is Is there too much telling folks
Speaker 1: what they want to hear? I suppose what they need
Speaker 1: to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do believe that. I And that's another thing
Speaker 2: that none of my stuff is that way. It's I'm
Speaker 2: pretty much I just tell it like it is. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got to face reality, if you know, if you're
Speaker 2: not willing to come to the truth and say some
Speaker 2: difficult things, then nothing's going to get fixed. So, yes,
Speaker 2: I do Joel believe that that sometimes they're a little
Speaker 2: too nice and you've got to be a little harder,
Speaker 2: you know, and just tell those hard truths. You have
Speaker 2: to for kids too. You know, I'm a big I
Speaker 2: was a big believer in my kids growing they were
Speaker 2: growing up, to let them fail financially. So I had
Speaker 2: no problem watching, although it hurt. I mean it hurt
Speaker 2: to watch, but I purposely let them squander money and
Speaker 2: so they would learn that, you know, learn the hard
Speaker 2: way that you know, that's the only way they'd learn
Speaker 2: is by making mistakes like.
Speaker 1: The BMX bike episode you relay in the.
Speaker 2: Book exactly Yes, that's that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So tell me about that real quick.
Speaker 2: So my son he had a bike that it needed breaks,
Speaker 2: and I told him, fix your brakes, you know, put
Speaker 2: your money. You have saved some money, so you can
Speaker 2: fix your breaks. Unless you do, you're not gonna able
Speaker 2: to ride that bike. Well, one day his finally the
Speaker 2: bike got so bad that his brakes completely gave it.
Speaker 2: He had none at all. He couldn't ride them without
Speaker 2: any breaks at all. So I said, well, okay, let's
Speaker 2: go buy some Let's go buy get some new brakes
Speaker 2: for your bike so you can go go ride it.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, I don't have any more money, dad,
Speaker 2: And I was like, and my son's down here. I
Speaker 2: know he can hear me telling the story about it,
Speaker 2: so he's left. Yeah, So I told him, I go, well,
Speaker 2: get the money so you can buy your fix your brakes.
Speaker 2: You're not riding that bike anymore because it's dangerous. And
Speaker 2: he said, well, I don't have it dan. I said,
Speaker 2: well why not? He said, because I bought a bb
Speaker 2: gun with my last of my money, you know. And
Speaker 2: I was like, what were you thinking. I told you,
Speaker 2: you know, to take care of those breaks a while ago,
Speaker 2: and he just he said, well I didn't. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: guess what. You're not riding your bike anymore until you
Speaker 2: earn enough money to to to repare those brakes. And
Speaker 2: he couldn't go anywhere. He was basically stuck at home
Speaker 2: unless he wanted to walk somewhere. And he was mad.
Speaker 2: He was so upset. And but anyways, that's that's what
Speaker 2: I just and I held to my guns until and
Speaker 2: he had to. I think it took him like a month,
Speaker 2: at least more than a month to earn enough money
Speaker 2: to actually be able to go anywhere. He was basically
Speaker 2: stuck at home, you know. So that's the kind of
Speaker 2: thing that I let him fail. It is what it is.
Speaker 2: And you pay the.
Speaker 1: Project that Lesson did that Lesson take, like, is that
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that really? Is that something that
Speaker 1: he remembers? Now he's obviously downstairs laughing right now as
Speaker 1: you tell the story. Did that have an impact on
Speaker 1: his ability to connect the dots as far as personal
Speaker 1: finances goes? No?
Speaker 2: Okay, no, And if you go through the book, my
Speaker 2: son's one of the stars of the book. You know,
Speaker 2: he's one of the main characters in here. There's so
Speaker 2: many things that he did wrong. God love him, but
Speaker 2: you know there were lessons to be learned, not just
Speaker 2: for him but for anybody reading this book. Things that
Speaker 2: he did that were amazing. He used to he's quite
Speaker 2: a precocious teenager when he was fourteen, and there's the
Speaker 2: stories in this book as well as he actually tried
Speaker 2: to sign up for a credit card as a fourteen
Speaker 2: year old and it was Discover, Discover credit card and Discover.
Speaker 2: Actually he almost got it. And the only reason he
Speaker 2: didn't get it is because my wife opened the mail
Speaker 2: one day and saw that Discover had sent my son. Uh,
Speaker 2: there looked like a bill from My wife was like,
Speaker 2: what's going on? So she she opened up the bill
Speaker 2: and and found out that my son, who tried to
Speaker 2: use a slight alias to his name, but for some
Speaker 2: reason to think, didn't put his social Security number down.
Speaker 2: So and that was they were asking, hey, you're one
Speaker 2: step away, you know, what's your social security You know
Speaker 2: you got your card, you know, and that's when we
Speaker 2: uh called discover and that's you can listen to the
Speaker 2: rest of the story from the book. But yeah, we
Speaker 2: caught him doing stuff like that, so he's done that.
Speaker 2: He did. There was another story in there where he
Speaker 2: one day we opened up, went to the mailbox again
Speaker 2: and the wife, I think it was T Mobile at
Speaker 2: the time, there was a bill from T Mobile. Wasn't
Speaker 2: just your normal bill in one a regular envelope. This
Speaker 2: this was a bill that was in an eight and
Speaker 2: a half by eleven envelope and it was about a
Speaker 2: half inch thick. And it turns out this was before
Speaker 2: we had unlimited texting, so my son had just gotten
Speaker 2: his cell phone and the cell phone bill, the texting
Speaker 2: bill was well over one thousand dollars and it was
Speaker 2: a half inch thick. You'd have to see. I actually
Speaker 2: I actually show part of the bill in the book,
Speaker 2: but it was like a half inch. There was like
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty one pages long the bill of
Speaker 2: all the stuff that had happened for that month, and
Speaker 2: it was I think it was over one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So that was fun trying to get that fixed as well.
Speaker 2: That's just the taste of some of the stuff my
Speaker 2: son did. We share that kind of stuff in the
Speaker 2: book for him.
Speaker 1: You've at one point in the book you say our
Speaker 1: spending habits reveal our priorities in life. Do you think
Speaker 1: is it just that some folks don't value financial freedom
Speaker 1: as much as the stuff that they can get from Amazon, Target,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Yeah? Do people just value different things
Speaker 1: and you are one of those people. Maybe I'm one
Speaker 1: of those people who value financial freedom and other people
Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, it's just not really something
Speaker 1: I care about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they're just short term thinkers. I don't
Speaker 2: think they think of the ramifications of spending now and
Speaker 2: not saving later. I just they don't really. They don't
Speaker 2: look at debt. I like Joel, I know you and
Speaker 2: I we both look at debt as slavery almost. It's
Speaker 2: it's financial slavery. You're putting chains on yourself every time
Speaker 2: you take a loan out. You're you're you're reducing your
Speaker 2: spending power. You know this obviously, you know you're reducing
Speaker 2: your future buying power. You're you're basically sacrificing your future
Speaker 2: for now. And I think most people don't even think
Speaker 2: of it that way. I think most people just think
Speaker 2: it's instant gratification and I'm you know, I spent my
Speaker 2: mon I'm happy, and they're not even thinking about the
Speaker 2: impacts down the road. And I think the further you're
Speaker 2: willing to look down the road, I think, the more
Speaker 2: willing you are to embrace the discipline needed to to
Speaker 2: not to stop doing that. And it's just a way
Speaker 2: about how you think about.
Speaker 1: There's also been like a kind of cultural movement to
Speaker 1: make it to normalize. I guess, getting the thing you
Speaker 1: want when you want it as quickly as possible at
Speaker 1: the costs or the additional amount of money that you're
Speaker 1: going to pay to get that thing quickly, who cares,
Speaker 1: it's fine. But whether that's buy now, pay later, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's well, you actually sign up for this annual
Speaker 1: subscription to Target, Walmart and Amazon, and then you'll get
Speaker 1: your stuff in you know, like thirty minutes instead of
Speaker 1: even two days. Right, So do you think part of
Speaker 1: it is just the normalization that everyone's like, well, that's
Speaker 1: just that's just the way it's done land your old school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I am. I am old school, And that's funny.
Speaker 2: Now we are so spoiled by getting things within a
Speaker 2: day or two. I mean, I remember, I'll do my
Speaker 2: old man thing. Now. I remember you'd send away for
Speaker 2: something in the mail it would take weeks to get
Speaker 2: just via mail you wanted to buy something. And Amazon
Speaker 2: is so spoiled as you get it within a day
Speaker 2: or the same day for something. It's just crazy. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how it's just it's just kind of a different world.
Speaker 2: But you have to you have to think of how
Speaker 2: it impacts you down the road yourself. You know, like
Speaker 2: I said, it's those chains dead dead are chains on
Speaker 2: your future. And you don't want to do that. You
Speaker 2: don't want to shackle yourself. It's easy though, to do
Speaker 2: that when you're young. It's just when you're younger, you
Speaker 2: just can't imagine being older. You know, you can't imagine
Speaker 2: being sixty or you know, I'm sixty years old old.
Speaker 2: Now it's like it's some you can't. It's just you
Speaker 2: can't fathom it. But once you get here quick, it's
Speaker 2: it's very fast, and so before you know it, if
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention, it sneaks up on you.
Speaker 1: All Right, I've got more questions I want to get
Speaker 1: to with you, Lenn, including I want to talk about
Speaker 1: your aunt Doris and your grandpa, a lot of family
Speaker 1: members that make appearances in your blog and in your
Speaker 1: new book. So we'll get to some more questions with
Speaker 1: Len Penzo right after this. Right, we're back still talk
Speaker 1: with Lenpenzo talking about his new book, True Money Stories,
Speaker 1: and Len's personal finance writings have I've always enjoyed them,
Speaker 1: and Len is very honest in his approach to personal finance,
Speaker 1: which I think is something that is missing in a
Speaker 1: lot of personal finance content these days. I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: how do you think about And I really don't want
Speaker 1: to get political, and we try to stay away from
Speaker 1: politics most of the time on the show, but it
Speaker 1: is true that like political leaders, legislation, those things have
Speaker 1: an impact on our economy, they have an impact on
Speaker 1: our personal finances. Like that stuff, the things that happened
Speaker 1: at the national and the state level and the local level,
Speaker 1: they trickled down and the impact packed us as consumers,
Speaker 1: and then people around in different parts of the country
Speaker 1: are impacted differently too, Right, I think about like offshoring
Speaker 1: and how that's impacted in particular people in smaller Midwestern towns,
Speaker 1: manufacturing towns. And you talk about like there's a tendency
Speaker 1: I guess for some folks to blame circumstances for a
Speaker 1: lack of their ability to make progress. But it is
Speaker 1: also true, right that more difficult circumstances do hamper our
Speaker 1: ability to make progress. How do you think about that dichotomy.
Speaker 2: Yes, there there are cases where people in personal finance
Speaker 2: they run into difficulties and it's through no fault of
Speaker 2: their own. I mean, that's just given. And people have
Speaker 2: health issues, people have unexpected expenses that come up, natural
Speaker 2: disasters come up. It will wipe you out for certain things.
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it, But there's also there
Speaker 2: still doesn't absolve people of the obligation if at all possible,
Speaker 2: to save up for those emergencies. If you can. Again,
Speaker 2: I realize there's certain health things you could there's nothing
Speaker 2: you could ever do. There's nothing you could ever do
Speaker 2: to avoid that, And that's just that's unfortunate, and that's
Speaker 2: not on the on people. Where I get rough with people, though,
Speaker 2: is when things come up, For example, maybe they get
Speaker 2: a car accident and they have damages to their vehicle
Speaker 2: that are you know, fives six eight thousand dollars and
Speaker 2: they don't have their insurance or they don't have enough
Speaker 2: and they didn't have enough insurance to cover it, and
Speaker 2: they don't have their savings, they don't have an emergency
Speaker 2: savings account to cover that. You know, that I believe
Speaker 2: is on them. I think you're one of your first
Speaker 2: responsibilities is to somehow make sure you build up an
Speaker 2: emergency savings account as fast as possible to at least
Speaker 2: be able to handle a new engine in your car
Speaker 2: or something like that. You know, you've got to have
Speaker 2: a significant amount of emergency savings built up as fast
Speaker 2: as you can. And that comes even before you're saving
Speaker 2: for your retirement. That has to be the first thing,
Speaker 2: in my opinion. And if you don't do that, I mean,
Speaker 2: and that's on you. I mean, it's not hard to
Speaker 2: set aside. It's not asking a lot to set aside
Speaker 2: a small percentage of your paycheck every week, even if
Speaker 2: it means foregoing things you have to do it. That
Speaker 2: is again to me, your that's a responsible person will do.
Speaker 1: That's what's the biggest barrier you see for most peop
Speaker 1: people from getting to that point where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably should do something. My personal finances are not
Speaker 1: headed into good direction. I need to start thinking about
Speaker 1: my future and my near term future because I don't
Speaker 1: have the cash in the bank. What are the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdles you see for most people? Or they're like they
Speaker 1: can't quite get there or bridge that gap? What are
Speaker 1: they doing wrong?
Speaker 2: Sometimes? I think what they're probably doing is they're just
Speaker 2: not willing to forego things that they want that they
Speaker 2: don't need, that they could be saving, sacrificing, Okay, doing sacrificing.
Speaker 2: For example, when we first bought the house i'm in
Speaker 2: now currently, I know the honey you be and I
Speaker 2: made a terrible mistake before we bought this house where
Speaker 2: the honey be wanted to be a stay at home
Speaker 2: mom and said, yeah, okay, that's great, so go ahead,
Speaker 2: and she quit her job right before we bought this house,
Speaker 2: which lowered the amount of income we had for the
Speaker 2: house and to get into this house. After that happened.
Speaker 2: I mean we were pinch and pennies. Let me tell you,
Speaker 2: for at least two years. I mean, we weren't doing
Speaker 2: a lot of anything, eating rice and beans, not going
Speaker 2: a luxury week weekend for us. Our luxury night out
Speaker 2: was going to McDonald's once a month. You know that
Speaker 2: for for the first two year poor we were house poor.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were house poor. I mean that's an
Speaker 2: extreme example. But I didn't run myself into debt despite
Speaker 2: that just because said, hey, well we're going to have fun.
Speaker 2: We deserve it. Anyways, No, we sucked it up, and
Speaker 2: that again that was partially a mistake on my part,
Speaker 2: for you know, we shouldn't shouldn't have shouldn't have her
Speaker 2: probably leave her job quite so soon. But anyways, the
Speaker 2: point is, I think you just have to be willing
Speaker 2: to suck it up and make some sacrifices for a
Speaker 2: little while just to get to where you need to be.
Speaker 2: So that that's that's how I feel anyway.
Speaker 1: So I think probably a much bigger percentage of Americans
Speaker 1: could reach financial independence than currently do. But then there's
Speaker 1: other people who say, I think everybody can reach can
Speaker 1: can chief financial independence, especially in a country like the
Speaker 1: United States, would you agree with that assessment or do
Speaker 1: you think no, Like there's some people who just it's
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be possible for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's it's harder now, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Gen Z and to a lesser extent, the millennials are
Speaker 2: they they're screwed compared to Gen X and the Baby
Speaker 2: Boomers and the what do they call the Silent generation
Speaker 2: or whatever? They are totally it's it's not fair. It's
Speaker 2: it's due to the monetary system. It's just the way
Speaker 2: our debt based monetary system is. It's we're in a
Speaker 2: position now where the way it's set up, they were doomed.
Speaker 2: It was it doomed them from the beginning. Once Nixon
Speaker 2: got us off the d anchored US dollar from gold,
Speaker 2: that put us on the path to where we're at now.
Speaker 1: So what do they have to do differently? Young young
Speaker 1: listeners who are like, wait, you just told me I'm screwed?
Speaker 1: What do I have to do differently.
Speaker 2: Than well, you're screwed in that it's it's so difficult.
Speaker 2: Now you're not totally screwed. Let me, You've got a
Speaker 2: lot harder admittedly than gen X and baby boomers. You know,
Speaker 2: gen X, it was no problem even in the eighties,
Speaker 2: you could work at a grocery store. I know this
Speaker 2: for a fact. And I have friends who didn't have
Speaker 2: They just had regular blue collar jobs and they had houses.
Speaker 2: They were able to afford a house in their twenties
Speaker 2: with a blue collar job. You can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the fault of our monetary system basically,
Speaker 2: but that's what's made things so much tougher for them.
Speaker 2: I look at my kids as well, my gen Z
Speaker 2: kids both have good jobs, and they can't afford a house.
Speaker 2: They can't afford a house. You know, if this was
Speaker 2: the eighties or nineties.
Speaker 1: Year, also in Southern California.
Speaker 2: Admittedly, yes, it'd be easier to afford a house somewhere
Speaker 2: else outside of Southern California. But still it's still difficult.
Speaker 2: It's still difficult. So how do you overcome that. Well,
Speaker 2: you just have to I know this is not satisfying,
Speaker 2: and I don't mean this to sound glib. You just
Speaker 2: have to work harder. It's just harder. You're just gonna
Speaker 2: have to do save more, You're gonna have to invest.
Speaker 2: You might have to even take bigger risks with your
Speaker 2: investments to get bigger returns. The beauty of that is
Speaker 2: and this is a mistake I made when I was
Speaker 2: younger as well, investing in your twenty The beautiful the
Speaker 2: beautiful thing about being in your twenties and thirties and
Speaker 2: investing is you have time to make mistakes. You can
Speaker 2: take those risks and and survive those mistakes because you
Speaker 2: have the benefit of time to recover. Somebody who's older
Speaker 2: can't do that. That's why older people have to, you know,
Speaker 2: invest in much safer investments because they can't afford a
Speaker 2: big downturn. So when you say when you're younger you
Speaker 2: can take bigger risks, when.
Speaker 1: You say take more risks as younger investors, what do
Speaker 1: you mean. Are you saying, like, go all in on
Speaker 1: the latest cryptocurrency len Is that your advice?
Speaker 2: Well, one, I'm not big on and I do discuss
Speaker 2: cryptocurrencies in my body and precious metals as well. I'm
Speaker 2: not a big fan of cryptocurrencies at all, although I
Speaker 2: am a big fan of precious metals.
Speaker 1: So what does it look like to swing bigger than
Speaker 1: as a younger investor?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So make sure you're not putting anything in fixed
Speaker 2: income bond. I mean, you got to be invested in
Speaker 2: the stock market, and I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 2: what to invest in. You've got to do your own
Speaker 2: due diligence there. But you do not play it safe.
Speaker 2: Do not do any stable value you have your four
Speaker 2: O one K, don't do it. Don't put anything in
Speaker 2: your stable value fund. If you're in your twenties or
Speaker 2: or your thir thirties, I wouldn't and maybe you should.
Speaker 2: You know, don't take advice for me this. I'm just saying,
Speaker 2: if I had to do it over in my twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties, I would have been much less risk averse.
Speaker 2: I would have been much more risky with my investments.
Speaker 2: I'd have been much better off. It's your only it's
Speaker 2: the only way out. Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember when I first started investing, I was
Speaker 1: investing in target date funds, and that was kind of
Speaker 1: what had been recommended to me. And I remember at
Speaker 1: the more research I did, I was like, target day
Speaker 1: funds are great, low cost target day funds through some
Speaker 1: of the Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity. But I'm also really young,
Speaker 1: and I really don't even know that I need this
Speaker 1: sort of bond exposure in my portfolio at all. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't that target day funds are bad. They just
Speaker 1: weren't as risky as I was willing and wanted to be,
Speaker 1: given what I was trying to accomplish. And I say,
Speaker 1: especially in those twenties, the target date fund for some
Speaker 1: people up to you could be a little too risk averse. Even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think anybody in their twenties and threes right now,
Speaker 2: you're losing out to inflation. I mean the bonds are
Speaker 2: You're losing money. I don't care. You're not even stable
Speaker 2: vesting in bonds just to keep a little bit, you're
Speaker 2: losing money. I would stay far away from that and
Speaker 2: try to, like I said, be aggressive, do your research.
Speaker 2: There are sectors that are doing very well even in
Speaker 2: this environment, that are doing much better than others. Be diversified,
Speaker 2: but you know, take risks. You have to. You have
Speaker 2: to somehow figure out a way to get bigger returns.
Speaker 2: That's all I can say. It's really it's not very
Speaker 2: satisfying right now. It's our monetary system has got everybody
Speaker 2: over a barrel right now, the younger generations.
Speaker 1: It's terrible talk to me about the other members of
Speaker 1: your family who make an appearance in the book and
Speaker 1: the impact they've had on you. Your Aunt Doris, Grandpa right,
Speaker 1: who else who had an impact on you from a
Speaker 1: personal finance perspective.
Speaker 2: One of the characters in there in this book is
Speaker 2: my cousin Kevin, and he's mostly in my blind taste
Speaker 2: test challenges, So I have a whole bunch of blind tastes.
Speaker 2: You're talking about popular things on my blog, one of
Speaker 2: the more popular segments in my blog. But he is
Speaker 2: an accountant. He's retired now, but he's the one that
Speaker 2: really got me thinking about looking at debt as financial slavery.
Speaker 2: And he's also very good about being organized and watching
Speaker 2: your money and always putting your money to work and
Speaker 2: making sure that your money's working for you. So my
Speaker 2: cousin Kevin, I think had the biggest impact. But there's
Speaker 2: others as well. I have my aunt Doris, who you mentioned.
Speaker 2: She's she's passed away ninety four, several years ago now,
Speaker 2: but she lived a very she lived well, but she's
Speaker 2: a very frugal person and despite her limited income, she
Speaker 2: did very well. I don't know, I don't know how
Speaker 2: she and if she invested or what she did. But
Speaker 2: she just showed me that you know, you can. You
Speaker 2: can enjoy life. You don't have to spending money. Is
Speaker 2: not all about light. What life is about, right, It's
Speaker 2: about living your life and enjoying the things you have
Speaker 2: and family and things like that as well.
Speaker 1: So you're making me think about value formation, which is
Speaker 1: something that you talk about some like is is sometimes
Speaker 1: like runaway spending habits and an inability to really figure
Speaker 1: out personal finance? Is it a lack of being able
Speaker 1: to connect your values to what's happening with your money.
Speaker 1: How important is like the like we have this thing
Speaker 1: on on how to money dot com, like people can
Speaker 1: go through the why behind their money. We ask help
Speaker 1: them go through a bunch of questions to figure out
Speaker 1: what they care about so they can link their money
Speaker 1: habits to those deeper values that they that they have
Speaker 1: that they espouse. Do you think that maybe that deeper
Speaker 1: step is something a lot of people have missed?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do, Actually, yes, you gotta. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people these days, I think they're tied to
Speaker 2: their tied to the almighty dollar. Actually, here here's another thing.
Speaker 2: I guess I should go back to my indoors as
Speaker 2: well as it's really not about I know people have
Speaker 2: these dollar amounts that they have. I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: got to have this much money by this time, you know,
Speaker 2: on my life. Yeah, you have to have a target
Speaker 2: on there. But again the dollar, it's not just chasing
Speaker 2: the dollars, right, It's just about it's your life, your
Speaker 2: life experiences, your family. There's more to life than money itself.
Speaker 2: That being said, money is required, especially as you get older,
Speaker 2: you better make sure you have enough of it to
Speaker 2: at least live modestly. And it really isn't that much
Speaker 2: actually my family for example, or even today, I'm just
Speaker 2: like we're at right now, this is the end of
Speaker 2: September and I've just we just had our review a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, are previous for August, and we had
Speaker 2: only burned through I think sixty five thousand dollars my house,
Speaker 2: So sixty five thousand dollars through August, So you really
Speaker 2: don't and that's with a lot of splurges. And we
Speaker 2: had spent some money for us little splurge things on
Speaker 2: trips or what have you. It could have been much
Speaker 2: less than that. So I mean that's all Evan, you know,
Speaker 2: that's just having a lot of fun, and we spend
Speaker 2: only sixty five thousand dollars. You'd be surprised how little
Speaker 2: you can get by on as you get older. People
Speaker 2: think it you actually kind of spend less as you
Speaker 2: get older, most people. I mean, if you're not wanting
Speaker 2: to travel all around the world and everything, yeah, you
Speaker 2: can spend a lot, a lot less than you might think.
Speaker 1: So do you think those commercials about oh, you're gonna
Speaker 1: you need three point two million dollars by the time
Speaker 1: you were tied? Are those overblown? Is an utterly ridiculous Yeah, fanciful,
Speaker 1: over blown.
Speaker 2: Okay, they're overblown, totally overblown. Yeah, you know, it all
Speaker 2: comes down to you, right what you how are you
Speaker 2: willing to live your life? You know, again, we're modest spenders.
Speaker 2: We're not big Me and the Honeybee. We don't you know,
Speaker 2: we don't do a lot of fun things. We're gonna
Speaker 2: go We're gonna go to Cabo San Lucas later this
Speaker 2: year for a week. Maybe we've got a Hawaii trip
Speaker 2: next year, but that's it. I mean, those are our trips,
Speaker 2: you know, one or two trips a year and and
Speaker 2: then the rest is just living life, being with family
Speaker 2: and doing family things. And it's really you know, you
Speaker 2: don't spend a lot of money if you and we
Speaker 2: enjoy and we have a fun, We have a very
Speaker 2: satisfying life. So you know, you don't need a lot
Speaker 2: you really don't.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about retirement and
Speaker 1: one of the most popular maybe maybe the most popular
Speaker 1: post on your blog of all time. We'll get to
Speaker 1: a few more questions with len Penzo right after this.
Speaker 1: We're back still talk with my friend len Penzo and
Speaker 1: talking about his his new book which is called True
Speaker 1: Money Stories, and it's a compilation of a lot of
Speaker 1: his most successful blog posts throughout the years. And uh
Speaker 1: and he's been blogging for quite some time. And then
Speaker 1: on your blog, one of I think my favorite things
Speaker 1: we talk about on How to Money when it comes
Speaker 1: out every year we tend to is your annual sandwich survey.
Speaker 1: It's so just like meat and potatoes basic, it's actually
Speaker 1: more like baloney and white bread, I guess.
Speaker 2: But it's wheat and the survey.
Speaker 1: Sorry, my bad, bread, My bad. But like, how have
Speaker 1: you had why why did you start writing that? And
Speaker 1: what have you seen? Talk about? Like inflation at the
Speaker 1: grocery store. You know, that's like instead of talking about
Speaker 1: the weather, that's what we talk about now as humans.
Speaker 1: How what have you seen like as you've been writing
Speaker 1: this survey over the years. What's the impact?
Speaker 2: Well, I started that survey in two thous I started
Speaker 2: that the first year I started the blog, and it
Speaker 2: was really popular. I mean, it got the I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe the first year I did it, I got got
Speaker 2: a lot of good feedback on it. I was like, well, hey, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll do it. I didn't really plan on it being
Speaker 2: an annual thing. It was just a one time thing,
Speaker 2: you know, just check. I wanted to check out the price.
Speaker 2: You know, my kids were in school. The price of
Speaker 2: a school lunch was I forget what it was way
Speaker 2: back then, a buck, buck in a quarter or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to know.
Speaker 1: If it was a good old piper, But was it
Speaker 1: cheaper to.
Speaker 2: Make a sandwich, you know, every day for your kids
Speaker 2: and then you know, give them the banana and the
Speaker 2: and the little mini bag of chips and is that
Speaker 2: cheaper than the school lunch? So that's what started it.
Speaker 2: So I said, well, you know, I'll pick ten because
Speaker 2: everybody has their favorite sandwiches. I said, well, I'll pick
Speaker 2: ten different sandwiches. I'll set up the ingredients for you know,
Speaker 2: as a benchmark. You know, you know, so much mustard
Speaker 2: and so much mayonnaise, and you know, two slices of
Speaker 2: wheat bread anyways, cheese, whatever. Set up all those benchmarks,
Speaker 2: and I'll measure the prices of those benchmarks. I'll assemble
Speaker 2: the sandwiches and come up with a price for each sandwich. Okay,
Speaker 2: So long story short, there is every year it has
Speaker 2: always come out the price of the sandwich in a
Speaker 2: brown bag lunch is always far less than a school lunch,
Speaker 2: the price of a school lunch. And it's healthier for
Speaker 2: you too. Okay, But what I've searned since then, the
Speaker 2: price has gone up, and this price has gone down.
Speaker 2: I think back in two thousand and nine, the average
Speaker 2: price of all ten sandwiches was about fifty four cents
Speaker 2: something like that, and now it's up to a dollar
Speaker 2: ten or something like that. As the average price up
Speaker 2: a sandwich. Now it's over over it, so it's pretty
Speaker 2: much doubled. But in those years the price has gone up.
Speaker 2: Right before the pan then it was dropping the pandemic
Speaker 2: it made a spike, and then it dropped one year,
Speaker 2: and then this year the price went up again. So
Speaker 2: this is the prices are as high as they've ever
Speaker 2: been on those sandwiches. But there's seventeen years of data,
Speaker 2: and if you go to my article, you'll see the
Speaker 2: price is over those seventeen years of all the sandwiches.
Speaker 2: So it's it's really turned into it's really quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Well, there's so much data there that it's quite fascinating.
Speaker 1: He has kind of taken on a life of its own.
Speaker 1: Your sandwich survey.
Speaker 2: Yes it has, Yeah, Yeah, it absolutely has.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Well, it is fascinating to see it's
Speaker 1: such the lowest common denominator thing. And yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: that we're making every day. At least we are at
Speaker 1: my house right for my kids, my kids who are
Speaker 1: all school age, seventh grade, fifth grade, kindergarten, and so
Speaker 1: we're in the we're in the throes of school lunches.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like every once in a while, my son
Speaker 1: when it's Hamburger Day, he's he wants to buy, right. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I think a school lunch for him is like three bucks.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, once a week for Hamberger that's.
Speaker 2: What it is. It's three fifty in our I still can.
Speaker 1: Do that, but most days, yeah, you're gonna eat healthier,
Speaker 1: even if, even if the price discrepancy between the school
Speaker 1: lunch and what we're making at home is like minimal,
Speaker 1: which it is when that's the sick because you're doing
Speaker 1: the sandwiches. But then like he slice up some apples,
Speaker 1: apples aren't cheap, like some carrots whatever, try to give
Speaker 1: him a well rounded lunch. It's it is gonna it's
Speaker 1: gonna get pretty close to the price of school lunch.
Speaker 1: But you just at least you know what you're feeding them.
Speaker 1: Then I want I'm curious you still write about personal finance.
Speaker 1: You still have this kind of passion for the subject
Speaker 1: after all these years, starting the blog in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, Does it ever bore you? What keeps you
Speaker 1: excited on the personal finance front? Why do you why
Speaker 1: do you keep talking about it writing about it?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll be honest, so I'm not quite as excited
Speaker 2: as I used to be. Joel. Let's say, you know,
Speaker 2: there's been over three thousand articles right now on that
Speaker 2: on the blog. If you can believe that I've I
Speaker 2: think i've written about two thousand of them. The book
Speaker 2: has what I've considered to be the one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty seven of the most popular blog pieces that I
Speaker 2: that I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of consistency though, and you've really
Speaker 1: encouraged and helped a lot of people, motivated a lot
Speaker 1: of people, I think, to take charge of their personal finances.
Speaker 2: So I try, and the blog is it. Don't get wrong,
Speaker 2: the blog is still there. It's it's it's you. You
Speaker 2: can come over, you can sign up, get my newsletter,
Speaker 2: and I go. We do about five there's always five
Speaker 2: articles a week there and I do every Saturday, I
Speaker 2: do something called black Coffee. So that's my main that's
Speaker 2: the thing I do every every week without fail. And
Speaker 2: what I do is that's my personal finance roundup at
Speaker 2: the macro level. So it's not more not so much
Speaker 2: personal finance, but it's what's going on that's affecting our
Speaker 2: personal finances in the macrosphere. And I do that. And
Speaker 2: it's a humorous thing where I pick up the memes
Speaker 2: of the week, funny memes, the best Twitter posts that
Speaker 2: I find. Usually there's ten or eleven different things which
Speaker 2: it's topics, which I call credits and debits, I opine
Speaker 2: on them, and it's just it's funny. I have a
Speaker 2: squirrel cam in there. It's just silly. But I mean again,
Speaker 2: you still there's still things to learn, and it's very popular.
Speaker 2: That's what I that's the main thing I do every
Speaker 2: week now with the blog.
Speaker 1: And you, you, sir, you are now a retiree. All
Speaker 1: that hard work is paid off. You don't have to
Speaker 1: work anymore if you don't want to. What are the
Speaker 1: what are the biggest difficulties of being a retired person?
Speaker 1: Is it mentally difficult to not have a paycheck coming
Speaker 1: in anymore because you've obviously you've done a lot of
Speaker 1: the hard work when it comes to front loading the sacrifice,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that you're you know that you're having
Speaker 1: to make significant sacrifices in order to be okay. Right, So,
Speaker 1: what's what's it like as someone who has you've done
Speaker 1: really well with their personal finances over a long period
Speaker 1: of time to finally hit retirement. What are the things
Speaker 1: that like weigh on you?
Speaker 2: Gosh, I don't want to be a downer as you
Speaker 2: get older. There's things you have to worry about, like
Speaker 2: long term care. It's it's like the big expense that
Speaker 2: could in theory wipe you out maybe if something bad
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, like if a
Speaker 2: family member gets Alzheimer's and you can't take care of
Speaker 2: them anymore, Well, I have enough money for that if
Speaker 2: if that happens.
Speaker 1: The trouble is long term care insurance could wipe you
Speaker 1: out too. It's so dang expensive exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's something that you know, I had to make
Speaker 2: and I'll just come I did the risk assessment. One
Speaker 2: thing of being about being in one of the things
Speaker 2: we do is risk assessment, and and that's a personal finances.
Speaker 2: A lot about personal finance is risk assessment. You have
Speaker 2: to make a lot of decisions on risks. You know,
Speaker 2: it is the risk worth taking. So and in that
Speaker 2: that arena, I did a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: data gathering and running numbers and crunching, and I decided
Speaker 2: that the risk a better risk for me for me
Speaker 2: on just as me to not go take the insurance
Speaker 2: for that reason, for what you said, Joel, because it's expensive,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know that's so so yes, that's to me.
Speaker 2: That's the biggest thing, you know, is long term care
Speaker 2: some some medical thing that will totally wipe out my
Speaker 2: my retirement savings. That being said, you know, I think
Speaker 2: I'm not really worried about that. I think I'm comfortable
Speaker 2: enough even if that happened that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I have to pay for it out
Speaker 2: of my retirement SAMs, I'll be good enough anyways, because
Speaker 2: I did a good enough job saving on the way
Speaker 2: up to retire.
Speaker 1: I think, just as someone who you know would like
Speaker 1: to retire in twenty years speaking to someone who is retired.
Speaker 1: One of the guys, my friend Wes Moss writes about
Speaker 1: the habits of the like happy retirees, and I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: have you inculcated any of those, Like what does it
Speaker 1: look like? Because so many people go full bore working
Speaker 1: forty five fifty hours a week to working zero hours
Speaker 1: a week. They just retire all the way. You've had
Speaker 1: other You've got other hobbies. Yeah, are there any any
Speaker 1: secrets to being a happy retiree?
Speaker 2: Well, you just named it. You've got to look, life
Speaker 2: is long, and I've I'll probably t off some the
Speaker 2: fire people, the people who want to retire at thirty
Speaker 2: years old, you know, thirty five forty. Let's say you
Speaker 2: retire at forty, You've got another forty fifty years of life.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: you can have hobbies when you're older. It's easy to say, y,
Speaker 2: I get a couple of hobbies. That does it. And
Speaker 2: usually when you're older, you have grandkids, you have you
Speaker 2: have other things to keep you busy. But when you're
Speaker 2: in your you know, forties, fifties, you know, that's all
Speaker 2: how many how much tennis can you play? How much
Speaker 2: golf can you play? Right, you really need to think
Speaker 2: about what you're going to do to fill that time,
Speaker 2: or you're not going to be happy. You'll probably want
Speaker 2: to go back to work anyways, because you know, that's
Speaker 2: a long life and a lot of things going to happen,
Speaker 2: you know, so you got to make sure you're busy. Yes,
Speaker 2: hobbies is one. It helps if you have, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're older and you have grandkids or something like
Speaker 2: that to keep you busy too. There's only so much
Speaker 2: traveling you can do too. I can't imagine. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine people who travel. I mean, there are people who
Speaker 2: enjoy it, but I mean, gosh, you know, life is long.
Speaker 2: Believe me, it's really long. It's short, but it's long,
Speaker 2: and you got to figure out a way to fill
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: All right, have something to do with those hours if
Speaker 1: you're really aiming to retirely, because you're right, I've seen
Speaker 1: some of those folks want retiring early and then they're
Speaker 1: like they're clawing to get back into some Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know how they do it paid labor, you know,
Speaker 1: so I get it. Lenpenzo, this has been a joyful conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today. Where can
Speaker 1: listeners find out more about you and your new.
Speaker 2: Book Lenpenzo dot com. That's easy. You can always say
Speaker 2: check me out on Twitter at Lenpenzo and I'm there
Speaker 2: on Amazon, so you can just google True Money Stories
Speaker 2: Lenpenzo on Amazon and there it is. You can read
Speaker 2: them more about it there.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you, Lenn, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Joel.
Speaker 1: All Right, it's always fun to connect with somebody who's
Speaker 1: kind of an og really in the personal finance space.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about writing this content for almost two decades,
Speaker 1: putting your thoughts out there. Three thousand blog posts. That's
Speaker 1: quite a feat from Lenpenzo and just cool that he
Speaker 1: gave me a quick start when I was starting to
Speaker 1: write about money as well. I think my big takeaway
Speaker 1: from Len and it's kind of the unpopular truth that
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to hear. Yeah there,
Speaker 1: Lenn talked about problems with the monetary system, and he
Speaker 1: mentioned the fact that not everybody has the same advantage
Speaker 1: or starts from the same place. But he discussed the
Speaker 1: necessity to face reality and to sacrifice, and I think
Speaker 1: that's true that the more you're willing to face the
Speaker 1: reality of your situation and to make sacrifices to get
Speaker 1: where you want to go, the more likely you are
Speaker 1: to achieve some of those long term financial goals. And
Speaker 1: he talked about the inability most people have to sympathize
Speaker 1: with their future selves to think about twenty thirty, forty
Speaker 1: years down the line. I do think that's probably a
Speaker 1: place where a lot of people fall short. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what am I saving for? And there's a disconnect
Speaker 1: between the twenty something year old you and the potentially
Speaker 1: likely to be sixty something year old you. And it
Speaker 1: just reminds me of what Fidelity found one time of
Speaker 1: taking a picture of yourself and putting it through one
Speaker 1: of those apps that make you look a lot older.
Speaker 1: It really did have meaningful results in helping people increase
Speaker 1: what they were willing to put into their four one
Speaker 1: K or into their IRA, and so find a way
Speaker 1: to think about, hey, what do I want my future
Speaker 1: to look like? What am I gonna potentially even actually
Speaker 1: look like when I'm reaching that age? And when you
Speaker 1: can do that, I think it does become a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to put aside some of the money you
Speaker 1: would have spent today and save it for tomorrow. One
Speaker 1: of the things Lenn said too that I really appreciated
Speaker 1: he was right there at the end. He was talking
Speaker 1: about risk assessments, and I think that's a really important
Speaker 1: part of personal finance. And it's not just oh, which
Speaker 1: fund should I choose to invest in because is it
Speaker 1: gonna Am I going to get twelve percent returns in
Speaker 1: this fund versus nine percent returns in another? That you
Speaker 1: know past performance is not indicative of future results, so
Speaker 1: you you know, that's a really hard thing to do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's an imperfect process to try to figure out which
Speaker 1: funds you should be investing in. But when we're talking
Speaker 1: about risk assessment and risk mitigation, which was kind of
Speaker 1: the Jeff Bezos framework of like regret minimization for life.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way to think about personal finance.
Speaker 1: My advice to you would be to actually write down
Speaker 1: and think about the risks of different paths you could
Speaker 1: choose right whether it's the risk of oversaving over investing.
Speaker 1: Some people really do have that risk, whether they're saving
Speaker 1: too much or the risk of not doing enough. The
Speaker 1: trade offs that you're going to make, actually like writing
Speaker 1: those down and having a conversation with a friend, bouncing
Speaker 1: ideas off of them, or with your significant other. Like
Speaker 1: I think doing some more risk assessment work would help
Speaker 1: us make better personal finance decisions. Trade Offs are the
Speaker 1: old clement reality in life, with so many of us
Speaker 1: make those trade offs without having weighed the pros and
Speaker 1: cons beforehand. So thank you, as always for listening. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. You'll find show notes, links to Len's
Speaker 1: new book and his website up on the website at
Speaker 1: howtomoney dot com. Until next time, best Friend Out.