What Does “Passive Income” Really Mean (and do we want it?)
I just learned to discover credit cards do something pretty awesome.
At the end of your first year, they automatically double all the cashback that you've earned.
That's right, everything you earned doubled.
All the cashback from eating your favorite soup dumpling restaurant?
Doubled?
All the cashback from the trip where you sort of learned a snowboard?
Also doubled.
And the best part, you don't have to do anything ridiculous to get it.
Nope, discover does it automatically.
Seriously though, see terms and check it out for yourself at discover.com slash match.
Good morning, Christopher Robin.
Oh, good morning, Winnie the Pooh.
Live from Joe's Moms basement, it's the stacking Benjamin show.
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and there's nothing better than sitting back and watching
the money roll in, is there?
I like to watch, but when it comes to money, it always seems to roll right into someone
else's pocket.
Well, today, we're talking about your pockets and filling them with passive income.
Let's welcome the woman whose helped nurses learn about creating more wealth, Naseema
McElroy and a doctor whose podcast helps you create passive income from earn and invest,
Lock G. And finally, stacking Benjamin's own doctor of money, OG.
But that's not all halfway through the show.
I'll try and stuff them all with my incredible trivia.
And now, a guy who's not at all passive about financial literacy, it's Joe's all
se on.
Welcome to the weekend, everyone.
And we'll celebrate with some money, nerdery, some fun money, Chad around this idea of passive
income.
But before we do that, let's meet who's on with us.
And we'll start with the guy across the card table from me.
Mr. OG is here.
How are you, my friend?
Good.
I'm trying to shut down browser tabs so I can be actively on the show and not passively
on the on the show.
Good.
You ever find yourself to do well?
I'm sure you did.
Like, did the boss walk in and you needed to close down certain tabs?
No, stop.
Don't have that open.
Not at all.
But, you know, I get a little distracted like reading, reading other things.
So I would be fully active, no passive for me today.
Not passive at all.
And the guy who's never passive about his podcast, because we're going to save our very
special guest for last, Mr. Doc G from our sister show, earn an invest is here.
How are you, man?
I'm good.
I'm active at being passive.
How about that?
You are very actively passive.
I am actively, it's, it's, it's a little bit like passive aggressive too.
But no, I'm not passive aggressive.
I'm going to say I'm actively passive aggressive.
Does that count?
I think Doc G's pretty good at the active, like get off my lawn.
Nope, not happening here.
Are you?
Um, I'm not sure what that means.
What do you mean get off my lawn?
I'm not happening here.
I just mean that you like your free time.
Don't want to mix it up with the neighbors.
Just let's just, yeah.
You stay in your corner.
I'll stay in mine.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm very public on the podcast and very private otherwise.
So yeah, I let the world pass by and I'm usually doing my own thing.
Except at conferences, you're like a social butterfly at conferences.
I like me some financial people.
I like those conversations.
I agree.
You agree.
Financial, that voice you heard right there from the financial intentional podcast.
We finally got her back to see my Mackerel Royce here.
How are you?
What's up?
What's up?
I am trying to actively not passively have a baby right now.
Very good.
So if I go into labor out the open deuces and be out real quick, I'm going to go.
I'm very close to delivering my third girl right now.
So if you hear some screams in the background, that's what's going on.
Joe, before you joined, she promised me she was going to name it Doug.
You heard of your first, everybody?
Yes.
Do you really want the poor kid to start off life like that?
One strike against him right away.
Be a very interesting birth story.
If you bridge too far, do you have a name in mind, Naseema?
Well, it's definitely not Doug.
But her name is her name is.
Wow.
And this is I, but her name is going to be Zuri.
Yes, for people not watching, we have a, we have another member of the podcast team
today with us.
She's got the headphones on and everything to see.
You're bringing up another podcaster here.
Yes, she'll definitely be a podcaster.
And ironically, four years ago, a couple of days before I delivered her, I was on this
show, Barry, pregnant as well.
She was going for ratings to see.
I think that if somebody has a baby on this podcast, like ratings, shoot up.
Did you hear that podcast where the woman had a baby right on the show?
Sweet, sweet.
Sweet, sweet.
I can see if I could make that happen.
I am a labor and delivery nurse.
You never know.
She's got the drip in.
She's all set.
Yeah.
I'm ready.
Well, we got a, we got a great show today talking about passive income.
But before that, let's see, I think there's something else we need to talk about.
You ready for this?
What?
I don't know about you, but on a holiday week like this week, I'm stocking up because I
want to be the host with the most.
And I know that we're concerned with stacking bedrooms.
We're also concerned with making sure we get a great value.
And we are able on a key weekend, like this coming weekend to stack great experiences with
our friends and family.
And for that reason, there's always something new to try it.
Total wine and more.
Nobody's got a better selection of Italian wine, the total wine and more.
The new St. Giorgio Tuscan wines and the Castellani family are now available to Total Wine and
More for 120 years.
The Castellani family has been dedicated to the craft of traditional Italian wine making,
producing top quality wines for incredible value.
Bottlestar at $9.99.
Many rated over 90.
Vino Nobile rated at 96.
The Chianti Classical Reserva rating in 96.
Oh my goodness, Italian food and the Chianti Classical.
And a Tiscana IGT Super Tusk and Si Meup rating of 97.
With the lowest prices for over 30 years, always find what you love and love what you
find only at Total Wine and More.
Drink responsibly, V21.
We're at those important, Isima.
Oh my God.
I don't know how I live before I heard those.
We have Naseem Michael Roy from Financial Intentional here from Earn and Invest.G.
We got Doug.
We got OG.
Let's get this party started.
Our piece today that inspired this discussion, I was on Business Insider and I read this
from one named Jen Glans.
The five absolute worst ways to earn passive income, according to a six figure entrepreneur
who's tried dozens of them.
Jen writes, When I was laid off for my full time job in 2015, I promised myself I'd do
everything I could to never work for a company again.
I didn't like having a boss or a nine to five schedule.
I always wanted to finally make six figures and I knew the way to do it was to pursue
multiple income streams.
So Naseem, let's start with you.
This sounds great.
I mean, this feels like the dream for almost everybody.
If I can get the money rolling in and I sit back with my feet up and I don't have to
have a boss anymore, like how great would that be?
Oh my God.
I feel like this is speaking to every nurse out there.
I feel like nurses are somehow targets for a passive income stream.
So I cannot wait to dig into this.
Doug, G, have you ever had a failed attempt to passive income streams before we dive into
the ones that she says are absolutely horrible?
Oh my God.
Yes.
I've had plenty of failed ones.
And I guess the question is how do you even define success?
So several passive income streams that have made me very little money and taken a lot
of time.
But not at all pass.
Not at all pass.
Exactly.
Well, I mean, let's be honest, I can think of one passive income stream and it doesn't
start out passive and that's putting my money into an index fund.
Like to me, that's kind of the most passive.
I don't think anything else really is passive other than that.
So you think this whole idea of the word passive is not correct?
Well, so in my opinion, you either say their front loaded revenue streams or their residual
revenue stream.
So the truth of the matter is you do a lot of work, but you do it upfront and hopefully
eventually can then make it more passive.
So I don't think it's a lost idea.
I think people just have to understand that most of the time when we're talking about
passive income, what we're really talking about is doing a lot of work upfront to make
it eventually passive.
That's funny, Doc, because on our other sister show, the Stacking Deeds podcast, they
have the same discussion about real estate because a lot of people say that real estate
is passive income and they came up with a better term.
They came up with the term leveraged income because you leverage a lot of time upfront
for hopefully a lot less time later on.
You like that definition better, Doc?
You're not your head.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think if you understand it that way, you find yourself a lot less bitter when you
go out and try to do this.
OG, if you had passive income streams that ran into brick wall, I don't know that they
have run into a brick wall.
I'm kind of with Doc G here.
I don't know that there's anything in life that's really truly passive short of maybe
winning the lottery or something.
And then even that, you have to then do something with the money.
Arguably, if you had enough money in your lottery winnings and just put it in your savings
account at Silicon Valley Bank, you'd be fine and get all the interest too soon.
Too soon?
Too close to all.
You have to be active.
You have to make a decision because there's rules.
Huh, weird.
You got to move it to New Republic.
Yeah, first republic.
First republic.
First republic.
They might have to rename New Republic as the boy band that you really like.
Oh, that's right.
Yes.
But even that, there's some sort of activity that you have to do.
You know, there's rules around that.
So I don't think that there's truly anything that's passive when it comes to making money.
You're going to do something.
Yeah, to see, but what passive income ideas have you tried?
I think about passive income streams as kind of like failing forward, right?
You kind of don't know what will work unless you try it, right?
Definitely the real estate game for me was one of those things where people would say
was passive, tried that, you know, for real estate.
Are you still in real estate?
Sure.
Sales, just my primary residence.
But you know, I'm a little jaded about real estate because I bought real estate in my early
twenties and then there was the big housing crisis.
So I don't know what you're talking about there.
There was housing crisis.
Lord.
Oh, gee, his hand up.
You were involved in that too.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Because I'm making any more land.
I should buy a four bedroom colonial as a newlywed.
Oh my gosh.
I love that term.
Yes.
Yeah.
What else, Naseema, any other roads you went down?
You know, the MLM things, the front loading.
It's been things that have been proposed to me that I see the work up front and I'm just
like, no, I mean, even like the whole entrepreneurship thing, it's sold as passive income.
And let me tell you something, honey, I could be a nurse all day and deliver babies, but
being an entrepreneur and passive should never go in the same sentence.
But it is so essential oils, didn't you?
You did crystals, didn't you?
So you know, those essential oils get me every time.
I mean, how could you not have all those essential oils in your house?
Like it just the best.
Well, speaking of selling products, that's number one on gents list here is this business
insider piece.
We'll link to it in the show notes and people want to follow along.
You obviously don't have to.
I think we'll do a good job of it without it.
But the first, the first one that she tried was selling products.
So she came up with this game.
She spent a lot of time speaking leverage, a lot of time making the game.
Then she put up a website to sell the game and thought that the orders would roll in.
Doc, do you want to finish?
How did that go for?
She bought way too much stock of these products and then it took forever to sell them.
And I have been there.
I have done that more than once.
So what was your product?
So I guess we could start with.
So if you really want to start way back in the day when I was in elementary school, I
would buy candy at the store, like packs of candy and then sell separate ones to people
for a profit.
Then eventually I started buying baseball cards.
So my stepfather actually owned a coin shop and I used his vendor license to buy packs
of baseball cards.
And then I would sell them in magazines and I did that like as a kid.
Especially when I was in residency, I flipped, bought and sold artwork.
And so I did that actually for a few years sold a hundred thousand, few hundred thousand
dollars worth of artwork, like on my own website and three bay.
But you're talking about this failed and you made a few hundred thousand.
You know, I thought at least, oh, I only made a few hundred thousand dollars.
I said I sold a few hundred thousand dollars worth of artwork.
I made maybe five or ten thousand dollars on it.
That was a profit.
I actually have beautiful artwork in my house now because I kept a bunch of it.
But you have to really start thinking about this.
So I did those things.
And so I was a doctor selling artwork.
So maybe I spent 10, 15 hours a week selling artwork over two or three years and made 10
or 15 thousand dollars.
On the other hand, if I had taken that 10 or 15 hours and moonlighted as a physician,
I would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So you've got to put that into some perspective there.
So wait a minute, Doc, let me get this straight.
You're a hospice doctor.
She's dying and you bring in the artwork.
Yes.
And I'm like, I can't fix your medical problems.
But this will make your surroundings an environment very pretty.
What are you pretty?
I would like to sell this at consignment.
I know you're going to have a lot of money in your inheritance and that you could leave
this for your children and it'll appreciate nicely.
Do you know what's going to make your last hours really nice?
Filters, Joe, filters.
It is horrible.
I'm just thinking about selling artwork right after the diagnosis.
It just not.
So when I was selling artwork, I wasn't practicing hospice medicine.
I was a general internist and they were two very separate things.
I did selling artwork on the internet and I did taking care of patients in my office,
which nowadays you can actually take care of patients on the internet.
But back then you couldn't.
Thanks for saving that, Jordan.
And I'm just like, that's like me walking in.
You know, you just had this beautiful baby.
But we'll go even more.
You're walking around your wall.
It's this beautiful piece of art to complement this day.
It's like having two babies.
You got your baby in the beautiful art for the room.
The nursery needs this.
And you'll remember this forever.
And all the nurses can sign it for you.
Yes, it'll only be 1895.
No, no, no.
The last suit's being filed right now.
That's not fucking huge.
It's absolutely horrible.
And I'm glad, Naseema, that Dachshie clarified that he sold those on the internet.
Because couldn't you see him out in the hospital parking lot and this old van?
Like selling stereo equipment.
Hey, come over here.
The better call soul of the medical world.
Oh my God.
It's not good.
Well, selling products.
I mean, I think, Dachshie, seriously, the amount of time that you apparently spent doing
that versus the profit, the ROI, the per hour, ROI, it sounds like it was pretty low.
Yeah, and all of these things are risks.
I also tried selling services.
At one point, actually one of my best ideas, which just never came to fruition, is I started
a website called CrisisMD.
And actually what I do is I use my skills as a communicator to help people who are in
the midst of medical crisis, help advocate them as someone outside of the medical system
who could connect with them and help them decide what questions to ask and what information
they needed and help them maybe even interact with their medical team.
But I found that it was just too, after spending actually about $5,000 on this, getting a website,
getting the malpractice insurance and the kind of things I needed, I just realized that
it was too difficult with the licensure of each and every state to make sure that even
though I wasn't truly acting as a doctor in these cases because I had the MD degree,
it got kind of complicated.
But, and I'll really say this and this kind of goes to our conversation too.
Every time I tried to do one of these passive income things, even if I spent lots of money
on it or even lots of things, I didn't spend a lot of money.
You didn't even if I spent a lot of time doing it.
The accrued experience and knowledge have served me and have led to other more successful things
like running my own medical practice.
It's Naseebo what you were talking about a few minutes ago, falling forward.
Yes, yes.
Those skills.
Oh gee, how often do you have to talk clients off the ledge about they come to your office
or you're meeting with them on Zoom and they're like, I get this great passive income idea.
I don't know that it's so much an idea like a business idea because frankly, I'm excited
by people who bring business ideas to the table because being an entrepreneur is not
an easy thing.
When you think of something new like Doc's talking about, hey, I've got this idea of
crisismd.com and here's how you do, I think it's super awesome to just kind of play that
back and forth and just, okay, tell me about this and how would you handle this and that
sort of thing.
And usually the side hustle money idea comes out.
It's because we're trying to solve a problem.
It's like, I'm trying to make a few extra bucks.
I'm trying to pay down some debt.
I'm trying to do this extra thing and I think that this would be a pretty low lift way of
doing it.
I'm going to go buy rental properties or I'm going to go, I saw in a podcast or listen
to on a podcast, somebody say that this was the easiest way to be financially independent.
So I want to go do all of those things.
And it seems pretty passive.
And my argument as always, all of those things work.
There's a lot of people who have been very successful.
We kind of said essential oils.
Doug said that before.
There's some people that have been super successful doing that.
There's lots of people that are and there's lots of people who are great at selling art
and there's lots of people who are great at being real estate investors and selling decks
of cards and trading cards.
It's are you going to be successful doing?
That's the big difference.
And in almost all of those circumstances, that's their thing that they do.
It's not a side job.
The person that I think you said your dad owned a coin shop, right?
That wasn't a thing he did on the side.
That was the thing he was an expert at, which made him successful at doing that or as successful
as he could be.
The people are successful in real estate.
Don't dabble.
I'm like, ah, today I'm going to own a car dealership in tomorrow.
I'm going to own a laundromat.
Like they own all the laundromats.
They're going all in because they're an expert in that thing.
So my argument with the kind of side hustle passive income thing is kind of what Doc
G was talking about here.
It's like, well, what's your hourly rate?
And could you be more successful applying that hourly rate to the thing that you're
already an expert at?
Can you leverage that a little bit better?
That's why I like the idea of thinking about his leverage.
How much time is it going to take to build this mountain that will then kick off money
and how much time does it take to continue with?
Because if you think about it that way, I think you have much more realistic expectations.
The next one on Jen's list here is investing in individual stocks that pay dividends, right?
She said, that was a failure for her.
I look at that.
Oh, gee, what's wrong with that one?
She did it wrong, I guess?
I don't know.
Like that seems like a pretty.
She didn't have a trillion dollars.
Well, I mean, the problem is that the stock investing thing doesn't look like it's making
a lot of progress in the moment because you need lots of time.
Dividend investing is one of the best ways to have additional income for retirees.
And as you grow your portfolio, it's the rewards of being an owner of a company as the dividends.
In the last 50 years, dividend payments have increased 11x.
In 11x as in in 50 years, they've raised dividends 11x.
The dividend in 1970 of the S&P 500 versus the dividend today is 11x more.
Yet inflation is three or four times more.
Well, sure.
Let's clarify, though.
She's not against dividend investing.
She's against individual stock dividend investing because she realized that she was better off
if she chose indexes instead of just individual companies.
And that's fine too.
Yeah, I mean, Warren Buffett's been pretty successful on individual stock investing and
dividend investing there too.
But he even says use an index for the average person because he's conceded and nobody can
be a smarter.
But he also does some research, just a little bit of research before he buys some individual
stocks.
This author of this article said she spent just a few seconds of thought behind the stocks
she picked.
So I mean, she didn't have a goal in mind.
She didn't know what what she was investing for.
She just like, that's a cool name.
Not only that, Doug, is that you don't see the results of it.
The big news in the last couple of weeks was Warren Buffett's annual meeting and they
were starting to talk about the dividend payouts.
And I don't know the exact numbers.
But I think he finished his investing in Coca-Cola in the early 1990s and his total cost basis
for all the stock that he purchased for Coca-Cola was something like $500 million.
This year he'll be paid $700 million in dividends from Coca-Cola.
And you go, well, yeah, it's Coke or yeah, it's what no, no, it's none of those things.
It's the fact that it's been 40 years.
That's the reason, or 30 some odd years.
That's the reason that that dividend number has increased past the cost basis.
He invested it, let it sit there for 35 years, and it is now reaping the benefits from that.
We look at investing and she's like, well, in 2020 I did this by, here we are at 2023.
Oh, it's not working.
The evaluation of this working happens in 2060.
That's when you decide whether or not the stocks that you bought paid off into your
point.
Well, and I'm also a Doug here.
I mean, just the direct quote that Doug had, without doing any research, she opens a sentence.
I mean, I don't even need to finish that sentence.
Okay, well, not a great way to do any investment in the agenda.
She bought bad bath and bath.
Stocking is a full-time job.
If we as a group are going to say there are some people who can be successful at stock
picking, and it's up to you whether you believe that or not.
But let's say for argument- So it's true.
It's methodically possible.
For argument's sake, let's say it's definitely possible, et cetera.
But it's a full-time job.
Like you've got to study these companies, you've got to pay attention.
This is not passive.
I don't think it'll ever be passive.
No, no, there's definitely going to be some time invested.
We've talked to Phil Town, who has his own system of doing this.
He spends time every day.
He'll tell you it's not a ton of time every day because he's developed his system over
time, but he spends time every day.
Again, not passive.
I want to go to the third one here before we break here for our trivia challenge.
Flipping products.
Naseema Sheryl and I talked to actually just a couple months ago about maybe doing this.
We hear about dropshipping.
I know Chris Luger, heavy metal money who's been on the show, sometimes listens to the
show.
Chris had on his TikTok channel was talking about, he ordered a bunch of fans from China.
They cost him very little money.
He put them up on Amazon or eBay or somewhere else.
He's making like $15 for every fan that he sells.
He said, I just sell three fans during a week and it takes me very little time to do it.
He's making a little bit of extra money.
What's wrong with that?
I don't see anything wrong with it.
It's just one of those things that are hit or miss.
But when it comes to those kind of things, a lot of effort is put in upfront to kind of
research what things are going to be sold.
It's just like, you know, Doc G was saying it does take a lot of front loaded effort.
So if we look at it like that, I don't see anything wrong with it.
And I have seen a lot of people successfully do some flipping.
So I'd be interested to know how you guys is flipping adventure goes.
If that's what you want to do.
Well, you know what we decided to do instead?
We decided to write about all the travel we do.
So you could find now our travel journal on the-
With credit card links.
What I really want now is travel-
Now that's passing.
Right now what I want is travel companies to just come to see.
I don't care about credit card leaks.
I want travel companies to go, come explore Greece and stay at our hotel.
Yes, honey.
Yes.
I'm with that.
Me too.
I think the real problem here, OG, is again with flipping products.
It just isn't passive.
No.
And again, you have to be an expert in it.
That's the thing.
If you're not the expert in baseball cards, you're not going to be able to decide whether
or not you're acquiring it at a good price or selling it at a good price.
I don't know.
I kind of went down a rabbit hole on sneakers.
Apparently, there's a whole subculture of people who like to trade sneakers.
I've apparently-
Apparently, I wear them and then throw them away.
But apparently you're supposed to buy them and keep them and then sell them sometime
later.
But I was just amazed by it.
To people who like the smell of your feet?
Yeah, exactly.
I guess I don't know.
That's a whole different subculture, Joe.
The feet thing, whatever you're into.
But I was just amazed by like, they're showing this guy in this conference center, whatever.
He's got this big auditorium and he's walking and he's like, oh, those are the Nike 1986.
And oh, he wants 175.
No, that's too much.
I'd take 125 for that.
That's a good price.
He knows everything about that business.
And so he can make educated decisions.
You start getting into flipping box fans on Amazon.
I mean, good luck because you're competing against the guy who's the box fan expert.
You're not going to be successful.
Chris Luger competing against Chris.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's funny.
There's a couple that I met a few times.
We have to have them on the show, the flea market flippers.
Dr. E.D.
You know them?
They, the flea market- Nice people, they'll teach people how to do it.
But I think about what you're talking about, OG.
They know how to go to a garage sale and know what's actually worth something and what
is not.
And that takes a more.
There's like a 90-10 rule, right?
90% of people are going to fail and 10% of people are going to succeed at any of these
ventures.
And so the key, really, I hate to, I'm going to ruin the whole show here, Joe.
I don't mean to.
But the key then is really to, without taking much risk, explore a bunch of different ventures
to see if you happen to have the skill set to land you in the 10%.
Are you a 10%er?
Are you a 10%er?
Yeah.
And yeah, like some people are just going to be more successful than others.
And people have the skill set some don't.
And if you don't know what you have the skill set for, it's just a matter of trying a bunch
of things in a low risk way.
Good news is it took till the 27-minute mark for this particular episode to be right.
So that's good.
It's usually my job to figure out.
We're there at like the four-minute mark.
So luckily we waited this long.
Hey, in the second half of this, I do want to talk about what are your favorite passive
or even, you know, let's go into leverage if we say nothing except for equity investing
is truly passive.
And another question, should we actually be seeking passive incomes?
That's something that we really should be doing if we could go for other ways of bringing
in extra money instead.
And then what are the best ones we think that we've got before we get there at the half
waypoint of every Friday show.
We have this year-long competition between our three frequent contributors, OG and Len
Penzo who's not here today and Paulette Perhatch who has one more week to go.
We'll show you back next week for her farewell episode before Paula Pant actually comes back.
So playing on behalf of team Paula Paulette, Naseema, that's going to be you.
And then, Doc G, you're going to be playing on team Len Penzo today.
So Naseema, I've got some good news and some bad news for you.
Which one would you like first?
Always the bad news.
By the way, how are you feeling?
We're almost a half waypoint feeling good.
I've only had like five contractions during the half way so far.
We're going to drop a baby on this because we only have like 25 minutes to go.
So you got to get those contractions moving because we need some raining.
Super interesting.
It will be very interesting because she would come out but first and that would not be great
for your rainings.
The bad news.
The bad news is you're not in first place.
You're in second place.
Which by the way is also the good news because when Paula was here before Paulette, she was
always in last place.
Paula, super smart and horrible at trivia.
It turns out, but Len has six.
So Doc G, that means you're going to go first.
Always.
Naseema slash Paulette, Paula going second.
You have five points.
Oh, G in a rarity in third place with four.
I haven't been here a while.
What's going to change?
Is Len going to pull away?
Will Naseema help team Paula move into a tie for first?
Is OG going to get back in this year?
Well we need some trivia to find out.
Doug, what do you got, man?
Hey there, stackers.
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor.
Doug and a big happy birthday today to actor Rami Malek.
I remember all the good times Rami and I have had together over the years.
My old pal loves him so much.
I remember Rami starring in Mr. Robot.
I watched the whole thing.
We both had fun with that one or the time he was in the Pacific and I watched it.
Also, great bridge builder for our relationship.
But today's question is about his role as Freddie Mercury from Queen in the film Bohemian
Rhapsody.
The song written by Mercury is largely-
I love the look on DeSeba's face.
Like oh God no.
This is right up her alley.
Sorry, Doug.
It's just like oh no.
Can I keep going Joe?
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I mean this is my time really.
Like the spotlight's on me.
Well, mute my mic.
Okay folks.
The song written by Mercury is largely thought to be his way of coming out.
While the song was published in 1975, Mercury had begun it earlier.
But the question is this.
How much earlier?
What year did Freddie Mercury begin writing Bohemian Rhapsody?
I'll be back with the answer after I go tell Joe's mom I'm just a poor boy.
Nobody loves me.
He's just a poor boy from a poor family.
Isn't what I'm supposed to do at the end of that?
Yeah.
The only reason why I even know about that song is Wayne's World.
We should tell you something.
That's where we're starting from here.
Well, the only reason we're quoting it is because of the fact that Wayne's World's
mom's basement.
So there's the bridge right there in the Seema.
Nice.
Just like we are.
So, Doc G, song appeared in 1975, but when did Mercury begin?
So writing it.
I'm figuring that he probably started writing this in his teenage angsty years.
My problem is I have no idea how old he was in 1975 when it came out.
So let's guess he was in his somewhere in his 20s.
I don't know.
So I'm going to say it happened in his teens.
I'm going to say 1963.
1963.
1963.
Long cold winter.
And he started writing that when he came to terms with his own sexuality.
Wow.
Seema, what are you thinking?
Well, this is all before I was born.
So because I like multiples of five.
Hey, for everybody.
I'm not that old just to let you know.
So I'm not that old in the whole scheme of things, but I'm old to be pregnant.
So there's that.
I'm on the elderly side here, but because this was like six years before I was born when
the song came out, but I like multiples of five.
I'm just going to round down to 1970.
1970.
So, oh, gee, we got 63.
We got 70.
This was a big money maker for queen.
Yeah, I wasn't following any of that.
So it's just basically got to pick some time around that.
Say a year.
So pick, pick a year.
The odds tell me I need to take all of the downside.
I'll take every minute behind Doc G's time of 1963.
So 62.9.
I think you're going to win this one.
Yeah, I think you're going to win this one.
Yeah, I said 63.
Okay, 62.9.
And down.
It's only interesting if it was much earlier than we thought.
It sucks.
It feels really awful, doesn't it?
Doc.
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm, see, this is the problem when you go first is you anchor everything.
I know.
It's all year, 100%.
Yeah, definitely.
Trust me, I know.
Trophy's right.
Well, we got 12 years earlier, 13 years earlier and five years earlier.
So who's right?
We'd love to let you know, but we'll do that right after the break.
Be right back.
Stackers, it is military appreciation month.
And if you want to do what we're doing and show your appreciation for the men and women
in our armed forces, Navy federal has a great hashtag.
They're using hashtag mission, military thanks, give thanks to the people in your family that
are serving in our armed forces on any social media platform, hashtag mission, military,
thanks, Navy federal credit union also wants to stand next to you and thank the men and
women in the US military for their important commitment to our country for more than 90
years.
Navy federal credit unions made it their mission to help people in the military community.
Navy federal credit unions open to all branches of the military veterans and their families.
Navy federal's employees are veterans and military spouses, which makes them a part of
the community they serve.
They understand their members better than anyone.
Listen to these benefits, stackers earning and savings of $349 per year.
A regular savings rate four times higher than the industry average.
An average credit card APR that's 5% lower than the industry average award winning 24
seven stateside member service.
Over 350 branches worldwide.
A quarter percent discounted rate on VA loans.
Show your own support for our troops with hashtag mission, military thanks.
Learn more about how Navy federal celebrating the commitment that connects them to their
members at Navyfederal.com slash celebrate.
Navy federal's insurance rate.
Navy federal's insured by NCUA dollar value shown represents the results of the 2021
Navy federal member give back study credit card value claim based on 2021 internal average
APR assigned to members compared to advertised industry.
APR average published on credit cards.com and FCU reserves the right to change or discontinue
promotions and rates at any time without notice.
We're all juggling life a career and trying to build a little bit of wealth.
The Brown Ambition podcast with host Mandy and Tiffany the budget needs to can help.
How can I protect myself from identity theft?
I think the first thing is to be aware of what fishing attempts look like.
So check that email address.
But now it's a coming to your text.
You guys fishing text now?
Girl, yes.
Talking about this virus.
I'm like, girl, so you texting now?
What's your lack of funding?
Brown Ambition.
Wherever you listen.
Doctor, you kicked this thing off by saying that Freddie Mercury started writing Bohemian
Rhapsody in 1963.
How you feeling now that everybody else is locked in their guests?
As usual, I'm feeling screwed, but I couldn't be that far off, right?
So it's only a matter of years.
But you know, I figure you asked this question because it was either he started thinking
about it right before he wrote it or he started thinking about it way before he wrote it.
So I'm guessing that OG might have won this one.
Naseema, what do you think?
You on that train think OG's got it?
You know, I'm just here for a good time, not for a long time.
She just described college for me.
Oh, I thought for you, college, it's good time and long time.
It was the best seven years of my life getting that BA.
Yeah.
Oh, gee, feeling good?
You've got the under.
You're all feeling good?
Well, let's see who our winner is.
Doug, what's the answer?
Hey, there stackers.
I'm resident Galileo expert and lover of fat bottom girls, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug.
He looks just a queen son, Gen Z, calm down.
When Elton John first heard Bohemian Rhapsody before it was published, he was asked if it
should be on the radio.
He answered, are you mad?
Seeing the song was quote, too long and too weird.
Queen's publisher was pushing another future hit called You're My Best Friend, as the song
DJ should play and forbade them from playing Rhapsody.
But British DJ Kenny Everett heard the tune and accidentally played it 14 times over the
course of two days.
His finger probably slipped, one source said, and the rest is history.
EMI suits finally relented when everyone began asking for the song and it became a huge single,
earning tons of not Benjamin's but pounds for the band.
But all of that happened in 1975.
The question was, what year did Mercury begin writing it?
He was in college when he wrote, Without Music, mama, I just killed a man in.
I'm not going to tell you what year just yet, I will tell you that OG is really getting
comfortable in his last place spot.
He was six years off.
Doc G. Yu sucked, but not quite as bad as usual.
You were just five years off.
The C-Maw came in just two years off with her guess of 1970 because he started writing
the song in 1968.
Hey.
Well did I win though?
You did win.
Yay.
She was like, wait a minute.
She's watching Doc G and OG and going, I don't, it looks like somebody died, so I'm not sure
that I want.
Congratulations.
You won.
You know, doing it for the ladies.
Hey.
A great year.
It's a year when all the cool people were born, by the way.
Okay, cool.
FYI, yes.
Fantastic.
So team Decema Paula Paulette moves into a tie for first OG now two behind the leaders.
What's up with that, Doug?
Yeah.
The world is upside down.
Can I just say this is like the second time I randomly just won?
So, you know, I really think I'm really lucky here.
Maybe I should just go and play the lotto.
That's passive income.
That's passive income, I tell you.
That's passive.
Let me tell you something.
And we love to play a good lotto.
It's a flex or anything, but I'm really good at the Stachybejamins trivia.
Yes.
You can brag to everybody you know.
No.
We did you a favor by letting you win to see him.
If you do us a favor and have a baby on the show, so we get the ratings up.
This is a two way street here, girlfriend.
Come on.
Yes.
Speaking of time for the second half of the show, this is the part of the show where we
are going to dive into our solutions about what we really think is the key behind either
good passive income streams or even good leveraged income streams.
One of the things you used to think about, this section of the show brought to you by
depositaccounts.com.
To see me, you know what happens when you go to depositaccounts.com?
You get to deposit money into an account.
No.
No.
You actually look at those CD rates, those checking accounts, savings account rates that you
get money market rates that you see at banks.
And the one you're banking at probably isn't the best.
So if you go to depositaccounts.com through lending tree, you'll find them all ranked
head to head and you can find a better savings account for you.
Go to depositaccounts.com today.
Easy for me to say.
All right.
Second half of the show, let's think about this.
Naseema, let's start with you.
How should we best think of passive income streams?
Like if we're truly looking for real, I don't know if real passive income streams, but let's
be more realistic.
What should we be looking for?
I think what Dr. Chi was talking about as far as like front loading a lot of work is
something that you should think about for short term, I mean for long term gains.
And sometimes it's not even the income.
Sometimes it's the skills that you acquire in learning about how to do whatever project
you're working on.
And I also think there are a lot of great resources out there for passive income.
I love Nick Loper, Side Hustle Pro.
I love my boy Cody Bierman.
He is like the king of passive income.
So like if that's really something that you're chasing after, there's great resources of
people who have done a lot of that front loaded work that you can learn from and see if this
is something for you, but I also think that a lot of us are part of this fire movement.
And in some kind of ways, we can say that that's like the ultimate passive income, right?
Because you're striving for this fire number.
And you know, we're not going to have to work.
We're going to let our investments pay for our living expenses down the line.
But we know in that that we do have to work these years to accumulate that wealth, right?
And so that's the way that you should look at earning passive income if that's what you
want to do.
And just like OG was saying, like don't use it as a short term solution to your problem
because there's probably something a little bit better like the easiest thing that I could
do is just pick up an extra shift because believe me, in those four hours extra that
I work, I'm going to make way more money than I will in trying to write an ebook, publish
the ebook, put it out there, market it, all those kinds of things.
So, yeah, I'm on the page of just it's passive, but not really.
No, no, right.
Well, that's what I was going to say to see about everything you said.
You're like, okay, picking up an extra shift is good.
You'll make a bunch of money per hour using skills you already have.
When you talk about Cody's site, you talk about Nick Loper's site, both of those are
side hustle sites.
There's no passive there.
You said over and over to me, and this is my interpretation, just get rid of the word
passive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk your, you're not.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, listen, passive income, this idea behind it actually is very good for
two reasons, right?
One is I think we should try to diversify our income streams.
And if you have a paying nine to five and you're doing well with it, if you can add
in a diverse income stream, it's never a bad thing, right?
You lose your job, what have you?
That's one part.
The other part is look, in our lives, we don't have much chance for exponential growth.
And if you happen to be one of those really 10 or 5% really successful passive income
people, you can actually get exponential growth and make a lot more money.
So I think passive income is good.
I generally have three big rules about it that I think make it much more manageable.
So if I'm going to look at passive income, because I like those two things that can provide
me, A, I'm going to look at low cost startup.
So whatever I'm doing, it should cost me almost nothing to start or very little, right?
Starting a blog and trying to monetize it.
Really I want maybe sweat equity, but not actual equity.
So that's one thing.
Then the other thing is I think you've got either look at the leverage you already have.
So do what I call a lazy side hustle, which is a side hustle that uses the skills that
you already have.
So I got into a bunch of medical side hustles because I had already done the work and paid
for the education.
So it was really easy to jump in and do medical directorships and things like that I was already
trained to do.
So I was leveraging the skills I already had.
That's one or you go the other way and you go after something you're passionate about.
So even if you're not successful, it's kind of a passion play and you're using your time
well, regardless of your successful or not.
So I think if you use some of those rules, you can create some guard rails and make passive
income reasonable.
I don't like the low startup cost one.
Yeah.
Well, here's the reason why.
If there's almost no barrier to entry, you've got a ton of people you're competing against.
And so a lot of people go for that low startup cost.
And that means you're going to have to hustle your ass off to make anything because a lot
of broke people are chasing that same stick.
I don't think the money is the thing that keeps people from being successful business
people.
It's the know how and the work.
And so yeah, you could say that, but I don't think that's what it's holding people
back because any fool can go out and convince someone to give them money or take a loan
or take a loan on their house or sell their car.
I mean, people do it.
Go into credit card.
I mean, you can take your credit card in and get a $20,000 loan from your credit card.
So here he can do that, which you really, what really makes someone successful is not
the money.
It's the willingness to work at it.
Have you seen the success rate of a McDonald's franchise?
I bet it's high.
Very high.
It's incredibly high.
One and a half million dollars to get in.
Doug, very high barrier to entry.
I liked that you use that phrase, Joe, because there are two major barriers that to any success.
It's either a huge amount of time or a huge amount of money.
But if you don't have one of those two things as a requirement, then your odds of being
hugely successful are low because you'll have enormous competition.
So you should look at those as good things if you're willing to put in either a huge
amount of money or a huge amount of time.
But I think the whole thing is that people don't want to put in the time.
And that's what people think about when they think about passive is like, what can I do
to get to this?
And the shortest amount of time without doing that amount of work.
And so that's the problem.
I think that's why, Naseema, the key here is actually to sell to people who think there's
passive income and tell them that you've got the trick.
That's the passive income itself.
That's it.
That's it.
We kind of hear, I mean, whether it's Instagram or wherever, we hear passive as synonymous
with easy.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Yes.
I mean, look at all the people selling that.
Don't set a smart thing.
You better record that.
Oh, wait, we are.
Lock that in.
That's his allotment per quarter.
That's his second quarter allotment is in.
Can't do that again, Doug.
Yeah, actually, it's a really important point because a lot of these people who are falling
for the passive income trap are actually also falling victim to passive income porn,
which is pretty much what Facebook and Instagram often are.
It's other people making money on you thinking you're going to learn how to get passive income.
And that's a big point.
You said sexuality and porn in the same episode, Joe.
We got whoever's got that big book card is settled down to the races.
Yeah.
Which is why I stopped going on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Yeah.
100% for that reason.
All the snake oil.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just well, and I wanted to talk to you, OG.
Go ahead.
I was just going to say the FOMO and the like, oh my gosh, there's always a bigger, better
thing to do.
I have enough of that going out of my life.
Like I'm an expert at spending money and like striving for the next thing.
I'm really good at those things.
I don't need motivation.
And I don't need to see that there's 700 steps between me and Yellowstone Club or something
like that.
Like it was just very distracting.
So I just took it out, took it out of my life.
Life's much better, honestly.
I want to stick with you for a second because I also want to bring in your knowledge of taxes
because I feel like there's also people that are like, I see people chasing the dividend
strategy who might be in a high tax bracket and they're doing that in a brokerage account.
And all they're doing is creating friction when they could be going for capital appreciation
instead.
And sometimes think, oh gee, that this idea of spinning off income, if I'm not going to
spend it, might be kind of wasteful.
What do you think?
Well, I think the biggest component of all of this stuff is taking advantage of what
you're already good at, take advantage of the things that you're already an expert at
and use the resources that you have to explore these other things, right?
Like the idea of passive income, Doug, you said this great that that it, I'm going to
say that again, Doug, you said this great.
Yeah, I did.
You can get a couple out of boys there.
But passive doesn't mean simple, right?
Like we think like, oh, well, I'm going to make this simple.
Financial planning is not simple.
It's complicated.
You can do simple things, but for it to be unique for you and to work out specifically
for you, you have to work at it.
And all of this boils down to make good decisions about what you're really good at, spend less
than you make and invest the difference.
When you start doing that, the problem is is that the payoff is way in the future.
You just don't get to see the compounding results.
You don't get to see the impact of all of the years of success and hard work until the
end.
And what you see, we were talking about social media for a second, what you see is the end
of everybody else's success.
You see Grant Cardone going, I just bought a G650 for $100 million.
Well, yeah, yeah, you did.
He's 60 years old and a dude's been hustling for 40 years.
But you could do that too if you started when you're 20 and worked 80 hours a week and slate
it, it's possible.
You see Warren Buffett is like, I got $100 billion on Warren Buffett.
Okay, cool.
But at 50, he wasn't the same guy.
He's had the power of compounding in time, which is the number one impact filter on all
of those things is just time.
So all of these things you can be successful at.
You can be successful at real estate or stock investing or dividends.
And yeah, some of the friction that you mentioned is taxability of that being smart about those
things.
But starting with what are you trying to achieve and then working backward, I think a lot of
people will get to do more of what I'm really good at, make some extra work the extra shift.
I don't have to go try to learn how to drive Uber.
I'm already a really good nurse.
Like just go do that for like one other day and you'll be fine.
It's not a life sentence either, right?
It's like, I can do this for a period of time and then and then lot off the gas.
And the key is is to save that excess.
What we do habitually across our country is we go, I'm going to go hustle.
I'm going to go work.
I'm going to go make some extra money.
I'm going, Oh, thank God.
I made 200 grand this year spent 205.
But damn, it was great.
You know, making 200.
Now I got a hustle a little bit more.
Next show, I'm like 230.
I spent 237, but, but I made two, you know, we got to freeze it at spending 150, go make
300, save the 150 for a couple of years.
You're good.
It's easier said than done.
I know.
I think that is a great place to leave this discussion way to put a pin on that OG.
Oh, well, almost finish it.
I do have one more question actually, which is, uh, Naseema, how you feeling?
Because we got like three minutes of this left, so we got to get.
Not quite there guys.
Not quite there.
You know, it is my third baby.
I could drop in like it's hot, but we would need to know what happened.
We, we not there yet.
Sorry, unfortunately.
Oh, well, well, just relax.
We're going to, we're going to see what everybody's doing in their neck of the woods and we'll
come back to you in a few minutes.
So just keep breathing, just breathe and maybe we can get this done.
Oh gee, let's find out what a year do in this weekend.
We've got big weekend weekend before the big weekend.
Big plan.
Well, this is our big weekend.
I mean, next weekend's everybody else's big weekend.
This is our big weekend.
My daughter's birthday party, son's confirmation, grandma and grandpa times for our inner house.
That is, this is a level four Scotch weekend.
That's all there is to it.
We'll have our guest of honor go last.
So what's happening at, earn and invest this coming week there, Doc G.
So earn and invest.
We basically, let's not talk about what's coming up this week.
Let's talk about what just dropped right now, which is the episode with Christine Benz.
And yes, our own Joe Salsi high.
And we talked about safe withdrawal rates and whether we should have a fixed strategy
or a variable strategy, a highly stimulating conversation and coming up this weekend for
me personally as my son is graduating from high school.
Nice.
All right.
Fantastic.
And he's your show editor as well.
He is.
He is the editor for earn and invest.
So what are you going to do when he leaves?
Obviously editing you can do from anywhere.
And he's so darn fast at it that I think he'll be fine still doing it.
He needs the money because he just bought a car.
So all that being said and done, I think he's going to continue to cover my editing needs.
But more importantly, sounds like dad keeps reminding him of that.
You're still going to need for money.
More importantly, he's like our tech support in the house and we're all clueless without
him.
So we are screwed when he leaves the minute the cable, the TV goes out, something becomes
undone.
And he's got it so like jacked up in so many different ways that we're in trouble.
Oh, no.
Doc G's like, hey, son, what is this cable running from the neighbor's house?
And why do I have 187 new channels?
Talk about passive income.
Dad, I found all this copper on the bottom of people's cars.
What is catalytic converter and how much do they sell for it?
Miss Seema, thanks for hanging out with us.
Thank you for having me.
You're not going to ask.
What's next for me?
I know.
I was just going to politely.
I didn't come in there.
It didn't come.
It didn't come soon enough to see me.
However, let's not ask about you because I think we got that one wrapped up.
What's coming up at financial intentional?
Well, let's talk about me because I'm having a birthday coming up.
So let's say happy birthday to me and I try not to have a baby on my birthday, but I'll
be fine sharing my birthday because I think it's an incredible day.
But for financially intentional, we are just being intentional about just living, which
in right now in this season of my life, I'm focusing on having a baby.
So what you see is what you get and what doesn't happen is that happening.
So there might be a podcast episode.
They may be not.
There may be some social media content there, maybe not.
So we intentionally having a baby over here and financially intentional.
Y'all can all share in that joy with me.
Did you just say that in this season of your life, what you see is what you get?
That's it.
How the **** is that different than the Naseem of before?
I think that's been used since the beginning, hasn't it, BID?
It should be because that's it.
Naseem, if you need a spelling clarification for Doug for the birth certificate, just talk
to me after that, I can help you out with it.
I'll keep that in mind.
I'm surprised to learn there's two S's, which is just ridiculous.
There are two S's.
The end of Douglas.
Yeah, right after the A.
Uh-huh.
That's right.
Wait, what?
What?
You said there are two S's and I said right after the A.
Right after the A.
Which is true.
Well, all of it's true.
What a jerk.
If Naseem is not going to have a baby on this show, we should just go ahead and end
it.
So Doug, tell everybody what should we have learned today?
Well, Joe, here's what everybody should have learned today.
First, take some advice from our panel.
When comparing passive income opportunities, dive into both of those two words.
How passive is it really and, if someone else is doing all of the work, is it truly
an opportunity?
Second, take it from Doc G's patience.
Be sure you're applying your time and expertise to the things that provide the biggest return
and keep people alive, Doc.
But the big lesson?
Don't tell Joe's mom that someone else is queen, when that woman yells off with their
heads, she ain't kidding her out.
Thanks to Naseemah McElroy for joining us today.
You'll find her podcast financially intentional wherever you're listening to us right now.
Thanks also to Doc G for hanging out with us.
You'll find his podcast, Our Sister Show The Earned Invest podcast.
Also, you know, wherever you're listening to us right now.
Go subscribe or follow both.
We'll share links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com.
Thanks also to OG for joining us today.
Looking for good financial planning help?
Head to stackingbenjamins.com slash OG for his calendar.
This show is the property of SB Podcasts LLC, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Salcihaj.
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 Earned 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.
What a chat with friends about the show later.
Mom's friend Gertrude and Kate Youngkin 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 is 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.
Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary and humor.
Useful idiots with Katie Halper and Erin Maté.
I really don't like sharks, and I think we live in a very shark again this sick world.
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.
Not supposed to make us feel better.
Useful idiots, wherever you listen.
Thanks for watching.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
a lot of people.
All right.
All right. So Joe is not participating in our after show because he also doesn't believe in high quality internet in the basement.
So it's one megabyte downloads be just really didn't keep up today.
But I wanted to talk about passive income and MLM stuff.
I was thinking about my kids and my kids friends when we first joined a golf club.
So we were 30 something and we had this country club buy us.
And it was really cool because you could just go, you know, you play golf, you do your thing.
You can, oh, hello, Mr. OG, Mrs. OG, you must want another cocktail, you know, and it just kind of all.
Well, my kids.
Privilege much.
Was that privilege much?
Yeah.
Holy crap.
On the golf course.
Stop.
We're just right by a country club.
Like does never been to a country club.
This is not about this.
Dymmit.
Settle down.
So I'm talking about passive income.
So my kids figured out this is a really fun place to hang out with their friends.
You know, they had a pool, like, you know, they could do whatever.
And so my son in his infinite wisdom realized that every time he went up to the little front thing, he could go,
Hey, could I have a cheeseburger?
And they go, sure.
And they'd make him a cheeseburger.
And they'd go, Hey, can I have a ice cream?
And they go, Yeah, sure.
Here's some ice cream.
And so he had his friends come over one time and he says, Hey, for a dollar, I can get you a cheeseburger.
And his buddies were like, sweet.
So my son would collect a dollar and he'd go order a cheeseburger for a dollar.
I can get you an ice cream.
And so at the end of the month, they send you this bill, right?
And the bill, the bill says that, you know, we had 71 hamburgers over the course of a weekend.
I'm like, what the heck, you know, and the price isn't a dollar.
The price is, you know, retail price.
I'm like, this can't be right.
And they said, no, no, it was when your son had that big party.
And I said, huh, it's not a party.
Interesting.
So we went and chatted with him and he's like, no, dad, no, you don't have to pay anything.
You just, it's just, it's just all part of the thing.
In fact, get this, dad.
My buddies paid me to get this.
I got all this money to give him these cheeseburgs.
So he had a quite the passive income scheme going on using my credit card, basically.
But the similar thing happened with my son in an apple pay.
And he was just like, oh, I can just hit this little apple pay thing at the vending machine.
I get a bag of chips every time I want.
So hey, Joe, welcome back.
What did you do with that thick stack of singles?
Oh, gee, that you handed over to you.
None.
I have an idea.
None.
None of your business.
I just thought I'd go for a wait for a while because if Naseem is not going to have a baby on the show,
then we might as well just cut it right there.
Scrap it.
Just head it.
Yes.
We just talked a little bit about my kids' passive income strategy, Joe.
And it evolved them buying food from the country club for their friends and charging them a
dollar, collecting the cash, not giving it to me.
So you buy the food.
Yeah.
Well, they didn't know I was buying the food, allegedly.
They just, they just, no, no, dad, every time you go up there, you can get anything you want.
It's amazing.
Yeah, this place is incredible.
Have you ever been pitched an MLM?
No, I was part of an Amway pitch when I was in college.
One of my roommates tried to like, he did the whole meeting and tried to pitch us on
Amway.
Yeah, but how did that begin?
Because it always began with me where they wouldn't tell you what they wanted to meet
about.
It's like, oh, yeah, why don't we go have lunch?
Oh, cool.
Sounds good.
Yeah.
I got this idea.
I got this idea.
I want to pitch.
Okay.
Great.
Yeah.
What's the idea?
I'll just tell you when we have lunch.
Yeah.
It was something, it was something like that.
And he got all the roommates together and he did his Amway pitch and it was selling cleaning
supplies and no one did it.
But that, yeah, he tried to get us on it.
I sold knives in college as a victim of MLO.
Like a cuckoo?
Well, supposedly cuckoo is not an animal.
It wasn't cuckoo.
I can't remember.
Cuckoo is not supposed to be a problem.
I mean, those are good problems.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, no, I mean, I couldn't find a part time job and I answered an ad and yeah, I got
totally scammed on that deal.
They claimed you were going to be selling to restaurants, you know, and it was all high
volume stuff and really you had to go sit down with sit down with people in their homes.
And actually the big scam was you were, even if you didn't sell anything you were supposed
to have gotten paid something, if you sat, if you had 10 sits for every 10 sits, you were
getting some amount of money.
I can't remember what it was.
That's interesting.
And so I thought, you know, I wasn't selling a ton a little bit, but not a ton, but I had
all these slips.
And when I turned them in and they see me, you're going to snap when you hear this.
This was a while ago, but they didn't pay me.
And I said, why not?
And they said, well, the sits only count if you sit with the head of the household and
you were sitting with the housewives.
Oh, you're not kidding.
You're not kidding.
I'm kidding.
That is the household.
Oh, I am pretty pissed just thinking about it.
And oh, yeah, when my mom heard that, who had a huge ship on her shoulder, anyways,
I couldn't figure out why he would have to try to sell Tupperware to the head of the
household.
And then the guy suddenly died and my mom's claim she wasn't involved.
No, I'm kidding.
Yeah, that was ugly.
Yeah, I made no money and I got scared.
Sliding the whole way.
Yeah.
Did you hear about that?
There was that story about the door to door insurance sales person who went up and like
knocked on the door.
The woman answers the door and she's like, I'm not interested and slams the door in his
face.
So then he knocks again and the woman answers the door and she's like, Hey, I told you I'm
not interested and she slams the door in his face again.
So he thinks for a second he goes around to the back door and he knocks again.
Like think about the balls to go to the back door and knocks again.
And the woman answers and she goes, what are you doing back here?
He's like, I was just going to see if there was somebody nicer here than that horrible
woman at the front door.
Just.
Well, I'm having a contraction.
So lastly, it's straight.
It's over.
And I were go, I care.
This is going to be a four hour long show because we ain't leaving.
Get comfortable.
And then what happened?
happened.
I'm going to go.