Stacking Benjamins: Your Gateway to Financial Independence

This year, diversification may have COST you money, as it has many college endowment funds. We'll dive into that topic and three more in our first-ever show that's mostly headlines ripped from the popular financial press! We'll tackle headlines from NPR, CNBC, Marketwatch, and more, including our lead-off story that asks, could your retirement fun be ruining our economy? Also, nine American families living abroad have reported that their life savings, stowed away in a bank, had vanished. Will the bank reimburse their money? Finally, we'll talk about pensions. GE has frozen pensions for over 20,000 employees, and many more are eligible now to take their funds as a lump sum. How does that work? We'll detail all of the factors you need to consider, on today's show. After a little dose of Doug's trivia, we'll throw out the Haven Life Line to Jan calling all the way from Germany, who says first, that we are awesome, and second, about diversification between accounts. Should he also invest in multiple currencies?

Wondering how the best and brightest leaders emerge in any organization? Whether you're running a business or just your household, we all need leadership skills, and today's guest focuses on those of the great leader, Walt Disney. We'll sit down with Pat Williams, motivational speaker, author, and co-founder of the NBA Orlando Magic franchise. Pat combines his decades of management experience with the leadership lessons from the visionary animator to provide you with relevant and practical lessons on how to lead in the modern workplace. Our talk with Pat begins at the 30:49 mark. Plus, during our headlines segment, we'll take a call from Leo Acheson, associate director of multi-asset and alternative strategies team at Morningstar, about the company's newest report on the state of health savings accounts. HSAs have changed a lot since we last spoke with Leo a year ago, and we'll ask him about improvements in the industry and which plans are the best accounts you should be watching out for. We'll begin our headlines segment at the 5:15 mark. Later we'll throw out the Haven Life Line to Julie, who's found herself with a few hundred dollars that she wasn't expecting. What's the best way Julie could invest this small, one-off windfall? Of course, we'll save some time for Doug's trivia. Thanks to Kabbage for supporting Stacking Benjamins. Get the money you need to run your small business. Go to for 50% off your first year.

What do you get when you place a bunch of seasoned workers in a room? You immediately start telling stories about the best career advice anyone has ever given you. Today we do just that, with the host of the Beyond The Dollar podcast: Sarah Li-Cain. We’ll work from a post detailing how a Netflix co-founder's father left him a handwritten list of 8 rules to success. What are those rules? Check out what Sarah, Len Penzo, and Paula Pant all have to say about them! Halfway through the show, we’ll take a break to talk about higher interest rates. Who’s working on that? Well, one company is, and today we’ll give you an introduction to Froogal, with CEO Kale Pasch. Plus, we'll answer a voicemail during our Magnify Money segment asking for resources on podcasts and blogs for families AND we'll have some fun with another of Doug's wild trivia questions.    

Why are college costs increasing so fast? While there are lots of theories, only one researcher has reached out to many middle-class families to directly ask them how much money they've spent on college and to get the direct story. Today we talk to her. Caitlin Zaloom joins us on today's podcast to dig in to the problem with college funding. 529 plans? Saving directly with the state using pre-paid tuition? We'll tackle LOTS of scenarios and throw out some ways to solve the problem on today's show. In our headlines segment, we talk about borrowing money from your 401k plan. Even though you can borrow from it without penalty, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. We'll also dig into the chaos that's been created as some of the biggest brokerage firms in the country swipe fees all the way to ZERO. Is that a good thing? After a little dose of Doug's trivia, we'll wind up the show by throwing out the Haven Life Line to an anonymous caller who calls out Joe and OG....well, maybe not OG. More directly....just Joe.

What would you say to someone who said they could teach you to be rich? Would you have a hard time believing them? Today we'll sit down with the person who has already done just that for thousands of people across the country: New York Times best-selling author Ramit Sethi. In our headlines segment, what's the deal with gold? We'll take a look at one article from InvestmentNews that makes the case against gold. But, do we think it has a place in your portfolio? Is that money better deployed elsewhere? We'll give our nuggets of wisdom thoughts before moving into our second piece: 5 things plan sponsors are still getting wrong. You've ran into at least one of this issues (or know someone who has). We'll also throw out the Haven Life Line to Mandy, who wants some advice on what to do with her money in the market. Should she stay invested, or cash out and buy a house? Of course, we'll save some time to spend on Doug's surprisingly money-themed trivia.