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You're going to end up eating a steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the
river.
Live from Joe's mom's basement ends the stacking Benjamin Chug.
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and get ready to take your Memorial Day desserts
to the next level. Here to inspire us with her story and skills is the brains behind
the cupcake collection stores, Mignon Francois. In our headlines, why can't some public employees
receive Social Security? We'll share the reason, plus how that might affect your planning.
We'll also throw out the Haven Lifeline to lucky listener James, who wants advice on
structuring his investments. And then I'll smother you all in some sugar-filled trivia.
And now, two guys who know how to make personal finance delicious, Joe and Oh, J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J.
Hey there stackers, sit back and relax because you're about to have an hour of financial fun.
We are here, we're ready to go, and Mr. OG across the table. Last sip of the, what is this,
evaca before you launch into this beautiful Wednesday? Just a vodka neat. That's how I roll.
Hey, we're lucky he put it into a glass, Joe. We totally are instead of the brown bag over the
gray goose, right? We got a... That's not gray goose. I wouldn't be ashamed of drinking gray
goose from the bottle. It's the pop off. It's me or not. Mad Dog 2020 that's coming out of the
brown bag. It's Mad Dog 2020 vodka. I didn't know it was a vodka. No, it's a whole difference.
That's just a vague, it's just alcohol. It's just his generic, it's just alcohol. It is.
Flavored booze. Walt liquor, I think, is what it is. You can always tell it's leading up to
Memorial Day when number one, we have Robert Niles on Monday. Number two, we have a fantastic
baker or chef on Wednesday. And number three, oh geez, got the brown bag. Ready to celebrate the
coming summer. And Jan Francois is here, man, her cupcakes. Just, I just, I love cupcakes. You
guys about cupcakes? You can even say words. I can't. I am. There are very few times when I can't say
words, but all you got to say is cupcakes. And I'm like, oh, glass of milk. I'm good to go. We got
that. We got a great headline. But you know what, before that, I think new stackers, especially,
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I suppose that applies to veteran stackers as well. I was going to ask, why just new stackers?
I don't know. I panicked. All right. Too much pressure for a weds bag.
Just a segue game is off. Here we go. We got a great show. Let's get rolling.
Hello, doggings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin's
headlines. Our headline today comes to us from investment news. This is written by Mary Beth
Franklin. Mary Beth writes, why some public employees can't collect social security.
Social security is many rules, she says, are certainly perplexing, but none spark more anger
and confusion than the offset rules that reduce her eliminate social security benefits her public
employees who also receive a pension based on a job at which they didn't pay
FICA payroll taxes. Welcome to the bizarre world of the windfall, elimination provision,
and the government pension offset rule. While, gee, I am not going to go into that for the
point three percent of listeners in stacky Benjamin's world who this applies to.
By the way, have you ever had a client who's this applied to? No social security?
Yeah, it happens a lot in education space where they don't contribute to social security, but instead
are mandated to contribute to their like an additional pension amount, which is kind of like
the teacher version of social security in some states that can get pretty complicated too,
because from a planning standpoint, you just kind of always assume that they're so security.
And if you're not paying attention, if you're a planner and you're working with somebody
who has a public service job or has been employed by public service for a long time,
you have to get a social security statement from your client because you may be assuming,
hey, you're like everybody else. You're going to get social security. Oh, look, and you have a
pension. Life is good. And then it gets really close to retirement to find out, oh, we don't get
social security. I only get this mention. Changes that cash flow a little bit, as I say.
Yeah, slightly. Well, that's a lot of money over your retirement years. And the reason I bring
it up. Yeah, the reason I bring that up is not at all because of the fact that this affects
everybody. What I bring it up for is exactly what you mentioned, OG, which is that if you've got a
new job on the horizon, big statistics lately have a ton of people the last three years changing jobs,
looking at new opportunities, doing new, exploring new careers. When you do that, you can't just
look at what the salary is going to be. If you're taking on a new job and this seems like it's a
fit and you don't have any social security benefit, you're going to need to know that for
your financial plan. But it's also the same if you don't have disability coverage or you don't have
life insurance coverage, whatever it might be. If it comes with a pension and you didn't even know it,
you might look at a company that has a pension pays a little less than one that doesn't have a
pension and go, that's not as good an offer. Maybe it is as good an offer.
There's a lot of questions going on right now about social security and solvency and
what does that look like? There's some attitude I think that some people have which is,
give me my money. I'm withholding 6.2% of my paycheck for social security. Give it to me.
I don't need to give this to the government. I can manage it on my own.
And yet statistically, we know that that's not even the ballpark of being accurate
for the vast majority of people. You're lucky that there is social security.
To force you to basically save this 6.5% or 6.2% your entire life,
because if without it, you would not save this. So be careful what you wish for. I know that
social security is far from perfect. But it's like they say social security is the worst form of
retirement planning, except for all the other ones. I mean, that's a paraphrasing of,
who was that? What's the name? Dude, smokes. That one guy. The one guy.
1492. Two was around 1492. Oh, now you can get it right. Now you know the right.
Winston Churchill. Churchill. There you go. Yes. I just had to flex that.
Yeah. After the basement, correct? Did you? I found a piece on this from Matthew Zane at zippia.com,
the career expert talking about some of the benefits that you want to look for in a
comprehensive benefit package and you want to dive into. You want to evaluate paid time off.
That's a big one. How much work flex that you're going to have.
What is the retirement plan? How much matches there to your point, oh, gee, is there a pension?
The health insurance is, you know, health insurance can be all over the place. You might pay next to
nothing for health insurance and you might be paying a good portion of your salary back in
to help cover your health insurance. Dental and vision, alternative health care options like an
FSA or an HSA. Life insurance, disability coverage, possibility of bonuses, some good stuff. Do you
get a company car? Doug, Doug, Doug Zell Camino is our company car. You're in the basement.
Yeah. And everybody is using it. It's not like my company car. It's the company car.
That's why we call it the company car. Sucks. A company car is there to be used.
Hey, Joe, I don't want to put too fine a point on that list you just rattled off. But on PTO,
if that's something that's important to you and you're also thinking about it in terms of
compensation, I know some people consider how it accrues and whether or not, you know, how much
you can carry over and how much can get paid out if you leave the company. If I'm not mistaken,
companies have moved to unlimited, flexible time off because that does not accrue and they do not
have to pay that to you when you leave. Is that why? Yeah. I wonder why so many companies were going
to that. I'm like, that's kind of cool. It also puts a little pressure on you, right? Yeah.
To go, do I take time off? Do I not take time off? Where's if a company says, oh, yeah, you know,
you get two weeks to start and then you get another year or another week after five years or whatever
it is. And that's the more traditional where if you don't use it, there's a dollar value to that
time. Yeah. And when you leave, they've got to pay that out. That is not necessarily the case with
unlimited PTO that companies have jokes on them though, because they'll end up with an unlimited
paycheck on the on the last. You'll just have a infinity paycheck. Well, I've unlimited vacation
time and you owe it to me. I'm just going on vacation for the rest of my career times five years.
And the other thing is that study after study have shown that people are taking far less time
off when it's unlimited than if they say they've got three weeks for the year. People usually find
a way to use those three weeks, not the case with unlimited. There are some other pieces here,
which people don't think a lot about like, you know, the company car thing.
Tuition assistance can be a big one. Employee discounts, not a big one, but a very interesting
one that I know talking to tons of HR people. HR people tell me like nobody takes advantage of
the discounts that we get it, you know, places like Costco or the fin turn. Just let me know that
he gets Bridgestone tires at cost. And of course, he just let me know that about three months after
I bought new snow tires for the truck. That would have been really good to know, fin turn.
Could have helped a little earlier. Could have helped. Yeah, a lot. Those are expensive.
Hate parental leave could be a big one. Flexible scheduling. But I like the last one on here.
Severance packages. I dare somebody to say during their interview process. So what's your severance
package? Tell me about what happens when you want to fire me in about six to eight months.
Cause it's coming in about to six to eight minutes. More like it. Yeah. We, of course,
will dive even more into comparing benefits in our newsletter, the 201, which is free,
comes out every Tuesday and Thursday. It's a great curated list of deeper dives into the
topics that we talk about. Stachybejubins.com slash 201 gets you to the 201 sign up page.
And Yom Francois is just an amazing woman. Not only does she have one of the premier cupcake
companies in the nation with locations in both Nashville and in New Orleans, the cupcake collection,
she was down to her last $5. I'm not going to spill that story. We're going to have her tell her
amazing story. And of course, because it is the week leading up to Memorial Day,
we always ask our celebrity chef that we invite on the show this week to share some best recipes
to make the family outing, the picnic, the get together, the barbecue a little bit better. So
Minyan today's also agreed to share some, some cupcake recipes. If you're not going to go to the
cupcake collection or, or order them from her, but before we get there, I think we have some
cupcake related trivia, Doug. Sure, dude, Joe. Hey, there stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor,
Doug. I'm somewhat of a baker myself. Since today's all about cupcakes, I've got just the
thing to go with it. You may be thinking milk, but no, it's an ATM. Yep, that's today's perfectly
paired trivia. In 2012, this company, founded by a former investment banker, opened its first
cupcake ATM after two years of testing. The ATM held up to 350 of their signature red velvet cupcakes,
making them a cupcake innovator. What sea cup company was the first to create a cupcake ATM?
I'll be back after I find the special ingredient for my brownies. It's stashed around here somewhere.
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slash match. Hey there stackers, I'm backless apron wearer and see cup aficionado Joe's mom's
neighbor Doug. We're talking about the perfect thing to go with cupcakes. You know, besides fish
sauce and ATM. This company founded in 2005 created not only the first cupcake ATM but also
the first purpose built cupcake bakery and the cupcake truck. I've never said the word cupcake
so many times. Anyway, so what company founded by former investment banker Candace Nelson created
the first cupcake ATM in 2012. It was none other than sprinkles. And now a woman who has innovated
her way from $5 to just over $6 million with her company, the cupcake collection,
Vignon Francois. And here she comes down to the basement. Vignon Francois is here. How are you?
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to tell your story
to our stacker community. Things have not always been this good for you. I want to open up
this conversation cut for you open up your new book Vignon, which is there's a knock on your door.
And it's your neighbor. And she's got like this great offer, but you're not happy about this
great offer. Can you can you share this story with everybody? Yes, my neighbor comes over. I'm
sitting in my house doing the Dave Ramsey babysat plan in the back of my house with no electricity
because we can't afford it. And we're running our house on a generator. And so I sit in the house
in the dark or go away from the house all day to save up the gas in the generator so that when
the children come home, they can have normal sleep. I'm also at this time in my life,
filling the bathtub with water so that my children can take back. So oftentimes we're warming water
over a fire in a pot and pouring that little bits at a time into the tub. And so I have no electricity,
I have no running water. And I'm doing the Dave Ramsey babysat plan when I realized all I have
is $5 and I haven't even fed the family for the week. When my neighbor knocks on the door and says,
Hey, I have a great idea. You should make cupcakes for all of my clients for the season. And I will
buy them from you. That's great. She probably miss. She doesn't know that I'm sitting in my house
with no electricity. And I only have $5. So she sees the perplexity in my face and says,
listen, I can't pass them all out at one time. So as you make them, I'll pay you. And you know,
sometimes people mean that they'll pay you in 30 days or they'll pay you when they get an invoice
or they'll pay you by Friday. And if I was going to take this deal, she was going to need to pay me
when I gave her products, which was going to be today. Like I need to get paid today. And so,
okay, so what you're saying is you're going to pay me today. And she said, yes. And so I was like,
okay, I'll take it. And I shut the door and I began to have a come to Jesus moment with God,
like God, why would you give me this opportunity when I only have $5? And God said, but I feed birds
and they don't toil or storm and burn. So how much more will I do for you who looks like me? And I
say, okay. And I test him to see if he's real. And I go around the corner to the Kroger and I buy
everything that I could buy with that $5. And I turn it into 60 that night, because like she
says, she would, she paid me. And so then I took the five back that I started with, and I put that
back to this case, everything goes wrong. And I turned that into 600 by the end of the week. And
I've been flipping that same money for 17 years to the tune of No Debt. I own the house now where
the cupcake collection lives. It was the same house that we were losing to foreclosure on the day
that we opened the store. And I did it with no knowledge of the business. And what a lot of
people don't know is that I didn't know how to bake not even out of a box, which offered me this
opportunity. It was because I had decided that I wanted to be out. Right. And so when you,
when you decide that you want to get out of the situation that you're in, you got to figure out
what does outlook like for you. Well, out for me meant that I would be able to have electricity
on a regular basis. And I had been going around the neighborhood because Dave Ramsey was saying
you could get out of debt by having a bake sale or a garage sale. And my thought was, well, I guess
all we can do is have a bake sale because we don't have anything we can sell because we sold everything
we had just to get here to Nashville, which as I'm sitting here talking to you about it,
I was a gambler with my life. You truly were. And I'm wondering, you're following the Dave Ramsey
plan. You talk in your book about how you you're using the envelope system. And of course,
there's old, there's five bucks put in an envelope at that time. How did you get to that point though?
How did you get to the point where there was just five bucks there?
Yeah. So I was a stay at home mom. And so, you know, as a stay at home mom, your job is to manage
the resources of the finances of the family. Well, I had a husband who didn't feel like his priority
was to bring me all of the money first and then let me part it out from there. So what he would do
was give me whatever was left after he was done using it. So what I would have to do would then
to be start stuffing cash and hiding money and collecting it over time to sort of build up enough
in order to pay off anything. You said your kids said red beans and rice again.
You can hear him growing as you were making it.
Yes. We're from New Orleans. So red beans and rice is a very inexpensive meal and ours wasn't even
going to have meat in it. It was just going to be vegetarian red beans and rice. Well, it made me
laugh as I because I have a personal connection to red beans and rice. My father-in-law, who was my
best friend when he was alive, just a wonderful man. And he was a health addict. And he thought
that red beans and rice was the cure for everything. So when my twins were like four, I would have to
take them out to dinner after they went to Papa Dave's because he tried to get them to eat red
beans and rice every day. So my kids at least had the opportunity. Yours didn't. Yours had
sucked out of the red beans and rice. That's all they could do.
Yeah. Well, we're from New Orleans. So red beans and rice is not like a consolation prize or anything
like that. It's kind of like, okay, but just not every day, mom.
Right. It reminds me of the time growing up. I don't know what happened. There was a sales
been that came through and we had hot dogs and they mistakenly bought too many hot dogs. So
every day we had macaroni and cheese and hot dogs or we had rice and hot dogs and we had
there was hot dogs and everything we had and amazing. That is so funny that you said hot dogs,
though. I was going to say the other thing we did have that I don't think I mentioned in the book
is hot dogs. And that was because they're like to this day, like my children mostly will not eat
hot dogs because my son always tells this story of how we had a whole box of hot dogs that we got
for free from like some rep or something like that at one point. And all we had to eat was hot dogs.
So it was just like either hot dogs or red beans and rice. And he was like, I never want to see
a hot dog again. And my daughters will not eat hot dogs. And by the way, for everybody listening,
obviously this is a difficult time in your life and I'm not making fun or making light of it. But
it certainly is great that we can sit and laugh about it now, right? Because like everything and
for people listening, you will get through this. If you're in a similar situation, I mean,
we're here to prove that you will get through this and someday you'll be laughing about it too.
Before this, a cupcake collection, and I just I go to your website and I start like Pavlov's dog
start salivating. I just I just want to if I was your next door neighbor, I think I'd weigh 700
pounds because I'd be consuming all of your I couldn't work. Guess what? You wouldn't gain
any weight. Actually, you'd be like me and you lose 50 pounds eating them every day. You know why?
Because we put a lot of love in our product and we believe that it love
conquerors all it has got to include calories. That's that's fabulous. Well, then I would want
to go. Yeah, let's go. I'm going to send you my resume as soon as we're done. But you said this
wasn't the first business you'd started. You tried to start businesses before this one.
What made the cupcake collection stick where the other businesses had not?
Because I was a sick and tired of being sick and tired. B, I was afraid of God and I'll explain
that part to you. But three, A, B and three, it was just that I had always started. It was finishing
that I had a problem with. I would always start businesses and I think I would find fun in starting
but there was you know as soon as I would hit a rock, you know, or a hard place or hit a place
where I had to go out and sell myself or you know be outgoing, I would quit. And so my problem was
is that I was a quitter and the first thing I had to learn was to quit quitting. And the reason I
was afraid of God was because I was being awakened every night at 3 17 exactly by the clock. Really?
There was no alarm clock but when I'd wake up my eyes and pop up open it was 3 17. And I thought
it was to go check the stove in the oven and I found out that that's not what it was about.
That God was trying to speak to me and this was the only time I would be silent. So the first day
that I came to say, okay God well how do you hear your voice and please don't talk though because if
I actually heard it, I might just pass out and not live or die right now. And you know so I decided to
open up the Bible and go to chapter 3 and verse 17 and in that day I got my first set of instructions.
And so I was being awakened like this every night and I would show up into my living room and sit on
the sofa and open my Bible and just go through the whole Bible starting at chapter 3 in any book
and ride through until the sun would come up. One of the last verses I read was between Deuteronomy
30 chapter 19 and Joshua I believe it was 1 and 9 and it said, I'm setting before you life and death,
blessings and curses. Choose life so that your family can live and if you do not turn to the left
or to the right from anything that I've shared with you today, you will be prosperous and successful
in everything that you do. And so the reason why I say I was afraid of God is because I had had
God ideas before, not just good ideas, I had had God ideas before and because I believed these were
my ideas, you know, because we're so arrogant to believe that anything we come up with is ours
anyway. At least that's my thought. God was saying to me it was my idea in the first place and I'm
the one that gave it to you. So when you think that you're responsible for the success of it,
you're not. I just need you to be consistent and show up to it every day. And so when God was
awakened to me and then he says, okay, now here it is, you've gotten everything. I had been writing
feverishly in a journal every night until the sun would come up. Anything that will pop into my
head because I learned scientifically ideas go away if you don't write them down. Have you ever
had one of those ideas, Joe, that just like, oh, I'm gonna write that down. Yes, or I wake up in the
middle of the night and I think, oh, that's fabulous. But I write it down tomorrow morning.
And the next morning, I'm like, that idea was so good and it's gone. It's just completely gone.
Yes. So I learned to write all the ideas down and when he stopped waking me up, I have
filled an entire journal book and it was all the instructions that I was going to need to open up
the cupcake collection and make it successful. You know, it's funny for entrepreneurs and people
who are artists, well, heck, people even in their everyday job, if we suffer from procrastination.
I've been, I've been reading Stephen Pressfield's The War of Art, which I don't know,
Mignon, if you've read this book, but he talks about in the middle chapters about how there's
something spiritual going on and about how he said that we have this ego that thinks that we're the
one creating. And he said, the magic happens when you realize that it's already there. You just
got to wake up and bring it into existence. So it's funny how you and Stephen Pressfield
talking off the same, same song sheet. Yeah, because I believe that is so true. And I love that. I
haven't read it, but I will go and get it today. Oh, you'll love it. This person is speaking my
language. Oh, he completely is. And you know, so many of us procrastinate and he just breaks through
that procrastination. Let's talk about really a symbol for you to make sure that you were successful
because that day, that first week, you also put out a sign. And I think that I felt like that sign,
even though it was for your neighborhood, it was really more for you. Like every time you passed it,
it was this reminder. Tell me about the sign. Yeah, I put out the sign as soon as I made that $600
that bakery coming soon. I had my neighbor. One of my other neighbors had a printing company and he
gave it to me for free because he was so excited about it. Listen, Germantown Nashville was excited
about the cupcake collection. So when I started this business, I didn't know how to bake not even
out of a box, but I practiced on them. So as I was learning recipes and trying things, I would go
knock on their doors and say, Hey, it's me again. My family says this is good. Well, you try this and
they were like, heck yeah, bring it on. And so I would beat them things. And they wanted the world
to experience it. So this neighbor ends up making me a sign to put on my porch. It's a little like
three by the re sign. It is not big at all. But it says bakery coming soon. And it was mine.
And bakery did not come soon. It took me two years of working every day like it was a job
before the story forever even opened. You talk about your neighbors. I read somewhere that your
neighbors called your house, the lemon crack house. Is that true? Yes. They call miles the
lemon crack house because the first cupcake that I perfected was a lemon one dipped in glaze,
which is what I was gonna probably talk to you about that later on. And my house before I moved
in had been a crack house in the neighborhood. As my biggest, we were cleaning up the house.
My baby brought me something. He said, Mommy, I brought you something. And it was a broken crack
pipe. Oh, man. Holy cow. Yeah. You've a wonderful chapter about your experience working in corporate
America, because as your earlier businesses weren't working out, you went and applied for other jobs.
You try to get a job with FedEx. And by the way, talk about also, also, you think you might have
the job and your phone gets disconnected. So you can't take it. But that leads to this
opportunity with AT&T. What did you learn through the AT&T experience? And then later on,
the Home Depot experiences you worked in corporate America? Oh, yeah. So I learned how good I was
at sales. I didn't think I was a good salesperson, but I always had balloons on my chair. So if a
challenge was set up, I would always win that challenge. And I ended up getting on the number one
producing team in the building. But what I learned at AT&T was customer service. I learned the value
of not leaving people waiting. And I think it even aggravates my children that are in my team
members today. When I say things like, why are you sending an email, pick up the phone, call people,
why are you waiting, do it right now? And they're like, you know, everything doesn't have to be
done right now. But they tested us to see if you could tell how long you left somebody waiting in
silence. So they have you close your eyes and just sit there. And when you felt like, you know,
a minute had passed, raise your hand. And some of us were opening our eyes to the second thing.
Really? That's really, you really don't realize how long you're leaving people waiting. So I learned
customer service at AT&T. And that I was a really good salesperson. At Home Depot, I learned how to
put a product together. So I became the on staff writer. And I did all the ghostwriting for the
founders. And I created a paper that was internally distributed. So I became the head reporter for
all the in store reporters. So I learned how to market. I learned how to write commercially.
I had a degree in this, but you know, you have to actually have experience. So in the beginning
stages of my business, it was me who was writing all the publicity who was making who was taking
the pictures of all the product and posting those on the website, because every stupid thing
you've ever had to do is taking you from where you are to where you want to be.
Do you recommend going through the corporate America route before somebody tries to go off on
their own? I think a lot of people will end up in corporate America somewhere. I don't think
that there's anything wrong per se with corporate America. Let me tell you why. My mother is an
amazing administrator. She's 75 years old. I was laughing because she said, you know, man,
I learned something. She's like, I'm still learning every day. But my cousin called her on the phone
said, Auntie, I'm ready to start my business. I need you to do this or that. My mother's never
owned a business in her life. But she has opened up enough businesses for her children and ran
other people's businesses that she knows really everything it takes to open up a business correctly
and how to run it properly. I think you still execute entrepreneurial spirit. Even if you're
working at a corporate job, I believe just your client is that one customer, whatever company that
you're working for. I believe everybody is an entrepreneur. It's just that those people are in
the business of their own labor. And then you also got your degree at that time. Do you recommend
the college path? Yeah, I don't necessarily believe that's the way you also have to go
either. Because again, once you get your degree, you've got to go to what I call the School of
Hard Knocks in order to apply the science that you learn. So I don't think that everybody has to
also go to school because I believe I got, yes, I got my bachelor's degree from an accredited
university. But I got my masters from the School of Hard Knocks. You sure did. And by the way,
speaking of your mom, just a wonderful chapter plus on your mom and on the wealth that she brought
to your family, like struggling with money, but still rich in so many different ways and all the
stuff she taught you. There's so many, so many lessons there. What would you say with the cupcake
collection has been the biggest aha you've had about business and good business and serving people.
I think the biggest aha moment I've had with the cupcake collection is all you have is all you need
to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I was waiting in those two years to get
enough equipment to have enough money to find the right storefront and all of those things to open
up my business when all along everything was already available inside of my house. I opened that
store with a dorm size refrigerator and a KitchenAid mixer because that's what I had and that's what
could pass the health inspection all along. I thought I needed to have a commercial size refrigerator,
I needed all these commercial mixers. Yes, I was going to need those things one day, but I didn't
need them on day one. We always let that get in our way. I think about young podcasters that I've
mentored and they're like, so what microphone use I'm like, it's not about the microphone.
Yeah, but I will say this though, Mignon, KitchenAid mixers, those are going to be around like,
you know, I will be long gone. They'll be talking about it's like they're dinosaurs, you know,
and at about how when humans were around and they'll be like, but they had these, those KitchenAid
mixers, those last forever. Yes, I was so excited when I was able to first buy my first KitchenAid
mixer because I was mixing by hand, like with a handheld mixer. Yeah, yeah, even now my handheld
mixers are KitchenAid. Well, and KitchenAid, if you want to sponsor the show or sponsor it
yet, just give us a call because we're clearly fans of the product. We were not bad. I know it
is Memorial Day week here and a lot of people are taking the family out to the park, they're
getting together with loved ones, nothing better to bring them than cupcakes. So we will have a
link, by the way, if people want to order from the cupcake collection and talk about this interview
and talk about your book with family. But if they can't or if they want to give cupcakes a
tribe and Jan, can you give our stackers a little help with maybe making it taste better? Yes. So
if you're going to be taking cupcakes out to the picnic, right, or at the to the cookout, sometimes
like, especially during this holiday week, it begins to get hot outside that for the very first
time. So I would say take yourself a cooler with you, but don't pack it down with ice. Take yourself
a cooler and get yourself one of those pre packed ice packs that sort of screw into the lid. Yeah.
And put one of those inside so that the cooler is cool so that your product doesn't melt. That's
one way that was one is say to have a good cupcake experience because when you've slaved in the
kitchen over your cupcakes and making them, you definitely don't want them to melt in the sun.
And then another thing that I would say is make them melt proof. One of the things you can do
instead of trying to put a traditional icing on the top of your cupcake dip them in a
a confectioner's sugar and sort of water mixture and cover the whole cupcake in it. It's going to
seal the cupcake but also give you something that's not going to melt and give you just enough sweetness
to add to your cupcake. And then the last thing that I would say that would make well, it won't
be the last thing. The third thing I would say that can make your cupcakes better is when you go
out and get a box mix, try the mixins that they suggest. One of the best things I've done is to
add an extra egg besides the one that they call for. Or if I'm trying to save some calories,
I would exchange the oil for applesauce. That's one way that you can exchange some of the fat out
of a cake and still make it super moist. But the final thing that I would say that can make your
cupcakes better is to visit the cupcake collection dot com. Just press the easy button stackers.
Just press these about you know, we'll have a link to that. And we'll have a link to the book
in our show notes at stack of Benjamin's dot com. Minyan have a great Memorial Day. Thank you so
much for for sharing your story. It's a great it's it's such a great story. And I know you
helpful a lot of people today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I hope that they will visit
amazon.com and pick up my new book. It's called Made from Scratch Finding Success Without a
Recipe. Or then come on over to Instagram at minyan.prancelaw and tell me what they thought about it.
Hey, this is Jen Pilcher, Navy spouse of 23 years. And when I'm not helping military spouses
connect in our digital community, I'm stacking Benjamin's.
Big thanks to Minyan. What a what a story. Oh, gee, and it just shows again.
When you think that you can't do something, you're probably right. But if you think that you can,
even if you're down to your last five bucks, no electricity, using a generator just when the
kids are home, $5 and what she's turned it into. Pretty impressive. If you can't get inspired by
that, I don't know what it's going to take. And we get notes from people all the time that they're
struggling. They're afraid to open up a Roth IRA or they're worried about being able to open a
savings account. Not sure if they increase their savings by X amount of money per month.
And Jan shows that those things are pretty easy compared to what she went through.
And she made it happen. Wonderful lady. Pretty sweet. And super happy to help her tell her story.
And let's throw a David lifeline and tackle some of life's greatest questions. Our friends at
Haven Life Insurance Agency, OG, they put what you value first. What cupcakes do you value most?
Well, I don't like frosting. So I take any cake. One star. So with you. So with you.
Frosting is scoop it right off into the garbage disposal. So wrong with the
spoon. All of it. Like do you even like just a little bit just for a little bit of extra moisture?
There is. I won't be obsessive compulsive about it, but I will scrape it down.
You know, if there happens to be a drop left, it's fine. But yeah. Okay. When we make cupcakes
at home or when Mrs. OG does, she'll make those little mini ones like a mini cupcake. Have you
seen the mini cupcake tin? We don't even bother putting frosting on them because they're like,
you know what a cupcake without frosting is called OG cake. It's called a muffin.
You're making muffins is what you're doing. That's right. Now.
You're not making cupcakes. It's chocolate cake. Whatever. It's a chocolate muffin.
That's what you're having. Be that as it may. It's delicious. It goes well with OG's muffin top.
Nice. Yeah. It's your loved ones in your time and a muffin or two. It's why they may buy
quality term life insurance. Actually simple. You go to stackabedgments.com slash Haven Life.
Now for a free quote, love what they do at Haven Life because they have cupcakes with all the frosting.
The delicious frosting. Their prices are affordable. All policies issued by the
parent company Mass Mutual more than a hundred and sixty year old insurer. And as frosting on this
deal, you don't have to wait for several weeks for a decision. Really lovely customer support.
How about that? Nice. We want sprinkles on it too.
Robust online life insurance calculators for people who aren't sure what they're going to need.
That's the sprinkles. You want to cherry on top? Prices are affordable. How about that?
Yes. It's amazing. That's incredible, Joe. You just painted a picture
with words and cupcakes and online cupcakes.
Slavery picture is amazing. Today we're going to throw out the Lifeline to a guy. I am 90%
sure has been a long time listener all the way from the UK. James. How are you doing James?
Good afternoon, gentlemen and Douglas. I'm calling from the UK with a question that I hope
you can help me with. But firstly, a little background. In the UK before 2015, 75% of your
retirement savings had to be spent on the annuity, which explains why our insurance companies have
such nice buildings. But it means that we are relative newcomers to structuring our investments
in retirement. Would you and OC, the other chap, let me have your thoughts on how to structure
your retirement funds, assuming no annuities, income funds or other assets outside of equities.
For example, I'm thinking of two years in cash, two years in a 60-40 fund and the rest in 100%
equities to allow me to ride out, most market downturns and also benefit from long-term growth.
Obviously, every one's ability to deal with market volatility is different, but like your general
views here, please. Your advice is most appreciated and will, as is customary, be largely ignored
and I will invest everything in gold, crypto and time shares. For the free t-shirt, I understand
that Douglas covets one of these, but I don't think he needs one. As the last time I saw him in
London many years ago, he gave me a cup filled with £1 coins. No idea what that was about,
but if you do need to do something with the voucher, please donate it to your favourite charity or
auction it off. Thank you both. Okay, Joe, I'm going to fire me right now and hire this guy. He's amazing.
This dude is incredible and he might have been the guy that I gave all that money to because
this is how that's how he spoke. He's so eloquent. We do it UK meetup. We got to call OG the OC.
How's the chop? The other chance. Fabulous. Fantastic. I love gentlemen and Doug. That's good.
Douglas, that's good. So structuring your portfolio, OG, it's interesting that he brings up the
annuity today and the fact that the social security truly is like an annuity for Americans. So our
headline today, James, is kind of about the American equivalent of that. But now that he's
responsible for a lot of his own retirement, let's walk him through structuring it. Which is way
better, by the way, being in control is way better. I think as you look at from an investment time
horizon standpoint, I think the mistake a lot of people make is they assume that when you get to
retirement, you got to be conservative. The reality is that you need some money the first year that
you retire and the second year and the third year and so on and so forth. But you also need money
available when you're 30 years into retirement or your spouses. And statistically, there's a pretty
good chance that a non-smoking couple who's 65, one of those people is going to live to be 92.
So you've got almost a one in four chance of one person being alive, still 30 years in the future
almost. So you need to have an income that continues to rise with inflation. And anything that you put
that's conservative, cash or fixed income is not going to increase with inflation over time.
And you don't really feel the effects. I mean, we have in the last maybe two years or so,
we've had a sensation of what inflation feels like. But inflation overall, for a long period of time,
it's hard to get your fingers on what that's like because a dollar turns into a dollar three and you
go, whatever, and turns into a dollar six and you're like, whatever. But it's a fact that over 25 years
or 30 years that dollar turns to $2.50 through inflation that purchasing power risk is the biggest
thing. So the vast majority of your money needs to be invested in things that have the opportunity
to beat inflation. The only thing that beats inflation over long periods of time is the ownership
of companies. Lending to companies or lending to governments just doesn't do that. So you need
to have money to sustain any market declines so that you don't have to pull money out while the
market's going down. We advocate between two and three years worth of spending in something that's
liquid like cash or fixed income, cash or bonds. You can go as long as five years, but I wouldn't go
as fewer than two from an emergency fund cash position in your portfolio, two years worth of
distributions. So just kind of working this out. Let's say that you had a million dollars and you're
going to draw $40,000 a year. That was going to be your spending plan. And you want to increase that
40,000 with inflation every year. Between $80,000 and $200,000 should be in something very liquid and
very safe and secure. Cash, money market, CDs, government bonds, something like that. So two years
of the 40,000 up to five years of the 40,000. The rest of the portfolio, that other 800k or 900k,
all invested in a diversified portfolio of companies, that's that simple. Draw from that
eight or 900,000 every single month, unless your portfolio goes down a certain amount. You get to
pick that number. Maybe it's 20%. Whereupon you draw from the cash bucket, the emergency bucket,
until that's drawn out. Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to prevent
distributions from your portfolio while it's going down. So you retire in January of 2008.
By the end of 2008, the market's down 30%. You don't want to keep drawing from your stock account.
You want to just go, I'm going to let it sit there and just recover. And I don't know how long
it's going to be. But I've got this bucket of cash that I can live on for five years or three years
and not have to worry about touching my stock portfolio. So it'll do its thing.
Statistically, that all works out over different time periods that we've tested it. So three years
of spending and something secure, the rest of it invested in equities.
Off you go.
And we've mentioned before, the only problem with that portfolio is not the portfolio.
It's you. I don't mean you specifically, James. I mean that that does create a roller coaster when
the market goes up periods of euphoria, which are, you shouldn't think you're a genius. And on the
other side, periods of just these dismal bottom of the barrel feelings, which you've got to be
able to ward off without touching your money and making big changes. That's the hard part.
I mean, the market's gone down in the last 50 years, three times more than 50%.
And yet over that 50 year period, a $100,000 investment is worth 22 million in a diversified
stock portfolio. I think that you just dropped the mic. Show's over people. There it is.
So the key isn't the minus 50s. The key is stay invested during the minus 50s. The problem is,
is that how do you stay invested during the minus 50s if you're taking money out? Solve that by
having the emergency bucket two to three years, maybe four, maybe five, which gives you the time
frame to say, I can just live my life, keep doing my thing and let this money compound and get back
to being able to draw from it after whatever treacherous market fluctuations happen.
It's that simple. James, thank you so much for your question. Great to hear from you. If you've
got a question for OG and would also like Stachy Benjamin's greatest money show on Earth,
Peace of Swag set your way, head to stachybitchmans.com slash voicemail. Super easy to leave us a voicemail
and we'll answer your question. Great to hear from our friends around the world. It's so cool.
OG, when we jump on Instagram, we have a free comparison with us on Instagram who's in Norway.
We have another fan who's in Latvia who joins us fairly often. We have a couple great listeners
in India that I hear from fairly often. It's really cool to hear people around the US,
not just Stachybitchmans stacking whatever denomination they're trying to stack.
Don't forget our three listeners in Lichtenstein.
We got all three of them. As Doug has said before, half the population of Lichtenstein.
That's our calling card that they listen to our show. Hey, on the community calendar,
we not only have the podcast. We of course have a robust YouTube channel where we have YouTube
shorts. We have extended plays of our interviews. You can watch Mignon and I discuss what we talked
about here today. If you're somebody who finds yourself on YouTube a lot, subscribe to us there.
YouTube.com slash stacking Benjamin's. You want all the places where you can keep up with us.
Just head to our welcome guide, stacking Benjamin's.com slash welcome will give you all the places
where you can find us and get great money help. Of course, if you're not here for that type help,
you seriously need a better team in your corner. You feel like you're not making the right decisions.
You are constantly just second guessing yourself. Well, you know, it's time to stop that and put
a better foot forward. O'Gina's team are taking clients. So if you had to stack your
Benjamin's.com slash O G that'll be a link to his calendar, you'll be able to set up a meeting with
O G and his team and see how his team can help your team make better decisions in the future.
All right. That is it for today. Another day of a lot of takeaways, Doug.
What should we have learned from this show? Well, Joe first takes some advice from Mignon
and create your own recipe for success. Second, new job opportunity on the horizon.
Take some advice from our headline and evaluate the total package and not just your salary.
But the big lesson. Only some people are fans of anchovies and brownies. My special ingredient
is wasted on people with unsophisticated pallets.
Thanks to Mignon Francois for joining us today. You can find her new book made from scratch.
Finding success without a recipe wherever books are sold. We'll also include links in our
show notes at stacking Benjamin's.com. This show is the property of SB podcasts LLC copyright 2023
and is created by Joe Salcihai. Our producer is Karen Reibine. This show was written by Lacey
Langford, who's also the host of the military money show with help from me, Joe and Doc G from
the Earn and Invest podcast. Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered
on each episode in our newsletter called the 201. You'll find the 411 on all things money at
the 201. Just visit stackingbenjamins.com slash 201. Tina Eichenberg makes the video version of
this show. Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer the amazing Steve Stewart.
Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now.
Why don't you chat with friends about the show later? Mom's friend Gertrude and Kate
Yunken are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group
called the basement. So say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the basement fun
with other stackers type stackingbenjamins.com slash basement. Not only should you not take advice
from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show was for entertainment
purposes only before making any financial decisions speak with a real financial advisor.
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the stacking Benjamin show.
you
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you roll your eyes. This is a one of the, well, best known TV stations in the United States.
This is from WGN morning news.
It's strongly worded email from Nick to address. He says, first I'm a big fan of the Legion
news, accurate professional and timely. What I am not a fan of is anchors saying, thank
you to every reporter after every report. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the other. Please stop
thanking reporters. It's their job. Yeah, just move on and start reading the next story.
We as viewers cannot care. Bankers feel the need to be over polite to feel for us. Well,
Nick, we agree and we fix the problem.
That's the latest live from Wrigley, Nancy Lou, WGN news. Nancy, you parishioners,
add. She's going to be GN news. Kelly, you're Chicago police. They're live all morning
along from Lala, Palooza here in Grand Park. All right, Dan, that doesn't work this morning.
Thanks so much. We have a strongly worded WGN played that on air. We fixed it. Well done.
Wasn't that a whole gag that I don't remember what show it was? Was it Jimmy Fallon or somebody
did like unnecessary bleeps and it made it we've done it. We've done it. We're here. I
remember we did that a few years ago where we just bleeped out random words throughout
a show and it was great makes it great. It's fantastic and unfortunate of what our brain
fills in on the beliefs.
Statistically all that works out. The end. Da da da da da da da da.
Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary and humor, useful idiots with Katie
Halper and Aaron Mate. I really don't like sharks and I think we live in a very shark
agandistic world. Well one thing to keep in mind is sharks are not out there trying
to eat surfers and swimmers. They'd much rather eat fish but in many cases they mistake us
for their actual prey. When they do bite they usually move on. That's supposed to make us
feel better.
Useful idiots. Wherever you listen.
♪♪