[00:00:00] Intro: Every number on a balance sheet tells a story, late nights spent building something meaningful, the risks taken, the difficult conversations. The lessons learned along the way, but true wealth is not measured in dollars. It’s woven into the stories that we create, the experiences that shape us, and the memories that outlive us.
Welcome to The Living Beyond The Numbers Podcast with Jude Boudreaux from the Planning Center. This show is not about spreadsheets and financial jargon. It’s about real conversations and powerful stories. That help you align your money with your values, your dreams, and your legacy, because at the end of the day, it’s not about how much you have, it’s about the life you wanna live and the stories you leave behind now onto the show.
[00:00:51] Jude Boudreaux: Well, welcome everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Living Beyond the Numbers podcast. I’m your host, Jude Boudreaux. I’m here with our director of positivity, Kayla Baring. [00:01:00] Hello. And we’ve got two special guests today. We have, uh, one that’s been on the podcast before. Rob Baer’s, the head of our tax practice.
Hello. Yeah, welcome Rob. And, uh, we’ve got, uh, new to the podcast but been on our team here at the planning center for quite a while is Abni Tino.
[00:01:18] Abney Fortino: Hi. Happy to be here. I’m usually, uh, the sidekick to Rob, so.
[00:01:24] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, so that’s fantastic. Well, you can yeah, be on center stage today. You don’t have to be the sidekick, so, yeah.
But we’re really excited to have you here. Abby’s been part of our tax practice for a number of years as well. And, um, I forget, what’s your, what’s your official title now?
[00:01:40] Abney Fortino: I am a tax advisor at the Planning Center, also known as Tax Signer. Um, I am the main contact helping people prepare and file their returns at the individual level each year.
[00:01:54] Caleb Arringdale: And how many years do you have here at TP cny?
[00:01:57] Abney Fortino: I have been here for seven [00:02:00] years, um, straight out of college. I started at TPC as a seasonal tax preparer, and uh, I’ve stayed here ever since.
[00:02:12] Jude Boudreaux: Nice. And that’s why it’s so hard for us to find the seasonal tax repair role now. ’cause like we’ve hired you and then you state and nobody else can kind of measure up.
I guess.
[00:02:20] Abney Fortino: I tried to set the bar. I, I feel we’ve found some amazing candidates through the years that, um, you know, are there, but that bar is set. They have to reach that so.
[00:02:32] Jude Boudreaux: Well, that’s perfect. Well, it’s, um, yeah, I know we share a number of clients and, um, I know you bring so much to the table here and, uh, part of, you know, what we’re gonna talk about today is, you know, being around the table and playing board games.
So a little different flavor of an episode, uh, today. So, we’ll, we’ll get into our main topic here in a minute, but, um, yeah, so Abney, we talked a little bit about your, you know, that you joined here at the planning center seven years ago, but why don’t you just tell [00:03:00] us a little bit more about you as a. Way for us to get to know you.
[00:03:03] Abney Fortino: Yeah, so, um, I grew up in rural Illinois, um, middle of nowhere surrounded by corn fields, small town. I always knew I wanted to do accounting specifically. I had a love for numbers, and when I found out that accounting was a profession that existed where I could use real numbers and solve real problems in the world, I ran with it.
I actually went to a high school instructor once and said, why don’t we have an accounting class here at. School and they said, I don’t know if accountants will be important in the future, so I don’t know if we need that. Well, I, I strongly disagree now, but, um, I ended up in college then pursuing accounting and, um, when I found the Quad Cities office out in Moline.
I love the idea. I could be in [00:04:00] a small town-ish environment still surrounded by corn fields, but I would actually have supermarkets within a driving distance It fantastic. So kind of, uh, how it came to be. I had actually never. Come to this area before I applied at TPCI applied, came for an interview and decided to move my life to the Quad Cities to join TPC.
So, um, other than that, the other fun things I get to do, I guess, is uh, I raised three beautiful children. So I am constantly busy chasing children around, but I also try to find balance in leisure and play along with raising kids, along with working at TPC where I travel around the country throughout the year.
I try to make the most out of [00:05:00] every day I’m given.
[00:05:01] Jude Boudreaux: That’s amazing. Thanks Abby. And, uh, how old are the kids now?
[00:05:06] Abney Fortino: Yeah, I have a 11-year-old, a 9-year-old, and a 3-year-old, so they keep me on my toes.
[00:05:13] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, definitely. I’m sure they Sure they do. And uh, always harmonious and everything gets along fine and
[00:05:20] Abney Fortino: Oh, perfectly.
[00:05:21] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Well, fantastic. Well, and, um, were there other things that y’all wanted to get into? Rob, did you have any questions? Maybe.
[00:05:29] Rob Baner: No, but I think that’s gonna play into, uh, our topic of the episode where board games can be a wonderful outlet for the family.
[00:05:37] Jude Boudreaux: Absolutely. Well, and it’s, um, you know, part of why the podcast title is Living Beyond the Numbers, because, you know, the, the numbers obviously are important.
We are all here because we like numbers and clients that we work with. Numbers are, are really important. We need to make sure that those things are right and they’ll provide for the families in the way that we want to. And there’s this whole living part [00:06:00] that is, is, is part of it. And sometimes it’s easy to get focused on the numbers and we don’t think as much about some of the other aspects.
But, um, when this came up, uh, you know, when you’ve got a group of people who work together like we do, who are pretty smart. Pretty analytical people by nature. Um, who many of us are pretty competitive, so board games, uh, can become a, a big thing for us. It’s often the topic of conversation and when we get together once a year, uh, many times there are board games involved at our annual meeting.
So, um, so it just seemed natural for us to have an episode to talk about, uh, board games. And with that, we’ll come a few recommendations. You know, uh, mostly just thinking about, you know, when, what, you know, when we think about our families and it comes back later, you know, we think about, you know, well from your family, like how did you do family time together?
Um, board games I think are a part of that answer for all of us and our different forms and, you know, views of family. So maybe let’s just share a bit about, [00:07:00] you know, how that comes up or why did that come to be for your family?
[00:07:03] Caleb Arringdale: I’ll say for my family growing up whenever like all the cousins got together, risk was the game du jour.
So we would play risk games, you know, we would have these epic battles that would last days. Um, and we did risk for. Years and years and years we moved on to Axis and Allies, which is risk up another level of complexity. We’ve since then moved to many other different types of board games, but growing up, whatever, we all got together, board games were a always a central component of our, of our time together.
[00:07:34] Abney Fortino: See, I find that so interesting when you think about like what someone’s favorite even childhood board game is and how that relates to who they became. I mean, I, I would definitely guess that risk was your favorite Caleb
[00:07:47] Caleb Arringdale: Global denomination baby.
[00:07:49] Abney Fortino: So I would’ve played clue a lot as a child. I played with my family and now I read lots of murder mystery novels, so it kind of [00:08:00] works out.
[00:08:01] Rob Baner: That’s great. You know, for me, um, board games had a, a small amount of, uh. Like play during childhood. We did some of the standard old games, you see like life or monopoly or whatever. Uh, but I didn’t really become a board game hobbyist, I’d say until college. And I’ve read before that around the year 2000 or so, we entered what’s called the board game Renaissance, where the depth of board games, uh, that are available to us now, the different types of experiences, the different, uh.
The, the level of complexity or the, the level of accessibility, uh, it’s just become, uh, so much now. There’s so much out there and ever since, you know, the early two, uh, early two thousands, the number of board games you can pick from and the types of experiences you can have has grown exponentially. And so for me, it was around [00:09:00] college or so where, uh, our group of friends in college started.
Having board games is one way to connect with each other and have a good time and, and maybe learn something really complicated and do a big strategy type game with a lot of rules and trying to figure out how to handle a, a situation and spending an hour debating how this specific interaction works or.
Really casual social games, like a clue giving game where anybody can play. It could be taught in 30 seconds, and it’s more about just having a fun conversation and some good laughs. Uh, so that’s been wonderful to see that aspect of, uh, connection with family and friends grow, you know, in my, in my adulthood.
[00:09:45] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, that’s, uh, it’s interesting when you bring up, I hadn’t thought about this as from childhood. I thought about this more from with, you know, my kids are 15 and 10 now and we’ve got a number of board games that are a part of it. Uh, as a child we played Monopoly, which I loved and I still do love, although my family [00:10:00] doesn’t love playing with me, uh, very much.
Uh, ’cause you play to win the game. And that his point of the game is to show that, um, how. Honestly how painful monopoly systems are that somebody ends up with all the money and everybody else ends up bankrupt. But the, um, yeah, the main thing I can think of from my childhood when we did games, um, that is culturally even too growing up, you know, down the bay was, we would say here it’s a game called Pedro, uh, which is like a partner’s game, kind of like hearts.
Spades, I guess I haven’t played either of those too much. Um, but where you try to win tricks and it’s you and a partner against two other people, um, but it was tons of fun to be able to play that. And you could set up Pedro tournaments and have people moving around so you’d interact with other folks, but you and your partner would, would play together and learn your strategies.
And it was a big part of, you know, big family gatherings growing up and other. O other, you know, cultural events around, there were often a Pedro tournament associated with a, [00:11:00] uh, you know, a fair that was going on over a weekend or something. So, um, Sokar games have become a huge thing, and even for us now, when we were traveling, carrying board games around isn’t the easiest thing, but there’s a, you know, flip has made it into kind of our family.
Uh, lore and we’re out, uh, anywhere. It’s always in my son’s backpack, so, uh, it’s not uncommon to be able to set up and play that card game for four, and we can do that pretty much anywhere, which is a wonderful thing about its portability.
[00:11:29] Abney Fortino: It sounds like Pedro might be the euchre of the Midwest. I’ll stick it the same thing.
Very similar.
[00:11:36] Jude Boudreaux: It is funny ’cause like that’s a game I’ve heard of and I know nothing about. So yeah, I was taught sheep’s head a little bit at Thanksgiving this year, but uh, you know, which was, you know, similar playing for tricks kind of a thing, but it wasn’t, uh, yeah, it certainly wasn’t like, I don’t know, Ure I think it seems a little more complicated, but I’d have to, I’m curious to learn about it now.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah. I think overall we’re seeing how perhaps 50 years ago our, our. Grandparents played tons of card games. Right? And that was a, that was a very common social activity. And then that seemed to maybe slightly die out a little bit. But now we’re seeing this huge resurgence in both some card games, I think, of like, not just the one you mentioned, uh, of, of un, of un flip, uno flip, but also there’s a Monopoly card games, so many card games that have become very popular now, but that’s also transformed into all these other newer style games that some are more complicated.
Right. So many of them are so accessible. So there’s, yeah, we’re seeing this huge resurgence in, in gaming as a, as a family, as a family habit, but really a family activity.
[00:12:45] Jude Boudreaux: Culturally, I think we’re all kind of comfortable with this idea that family is this broader concept now that some of us have, you know, these, uh, you know, great big, my wife’s got this huge extended family and they get together every year for Thanksgiving, it was just there and it was kind of a small gathering.
This year it was about 60 [00:13:00] people, you know, so it wasn’t the normal 80 or so that, that it happens to be most of the time. And we have other families like mine, which were pretty small, but you end up with, um. Seeing, uh, my best friend from high school last night, and, uh, she’s part of our family, you know, so family.
And as we develop those through our, our lives and those people who are close to us, board games can be a simple way to connect people across a common set of rules and in a shared experience without maybe a lot of shared history or background.
[00:13:30] Caleb Arringdale: I even wonder what COVID did for this. I think of people being.
Kind of stuck together for a while. I know for my wife and I, we had never really played two person board games pre COVID. But during COVID we bought several. We bought one called Pandemic, which is a great game and terrifying to play during like the Pandemic, but it fantastic. But these, we bought several different two player games and really we were able to enjoy that while we were.
Sort stuck inside.
[00:13:56] Abney Fortino: But even like you said to player board games, I mean, [00:14:00] most people don’t realize those exist. That there are games you can play with one person, even let alone two or three. You don’t need an entire party of people to do it.
[00:14:10] Rob Baner: And, uh, the way cooperative games have risen in popular popularity, there’s so many cooperative games now for any number of people.
[00:14:19] Abney Fortino: Yeah, monopoly will ruin families with the competitive aspects. Uh, cooperative games much better, except when one person doesn’t carry their weight in the situation, it can still lead to a bit of a battle.
[00:14:36] Jude Boudreaux: That’s true. I heard everybody’s idea of cooperative is, can be different as the game evolves, I imagine.
And uh, yeah. It’s interesting you brought up two person games, Caleb, I’m curious to. Maybe hear about some of the ones that you all played. You know, king Domino became a big one with, in our family, which was a, an easy one to learn even for the younger kids. But then has, it’s still fun to play and Karen [00:15:00] and I can play together and they have expansion packs too.
So we play the Four of Us, or we can play that with Queen Domino and how you can. Build off of one game idea and do lots of different things now and expand it based on the number of people who were interested or who had time that evening. But yeah. What are some of the two player games you were thinking of?
[00:15:20] Caleb Arringdale: The one we have, we have several, but pandemic’s, the one that that sticks out the, we played that one the most probably ’cause it was a terrifying thing to play during an actual pandemic. But also it was a lot of fun and the more we played it, the better we got at it. It was just fun.
[00:15:33] Jude Boudreaux: Nice. Well, maybe we, should we transition into talking about some of the, some of the specific games here or,
[00:15:39] Rob Baner: yeah.
So one thing, uh, Abney and I prepared for today is just a short list of some of our favorite games that we would recommend families try if they’re looking to get into the hobby, or even if you’re already in the hobby and looking to expand that connection. These are all great games that, uh, can include the family.
[00:15:58] Abney Fortino: I think one of the coolest things [00:16:00] in, uh, our house with having board games is we kind of converted our formal dining room into a board game room because we found that more useful with our children. I find it very intriguing too, that our kids are social media obsessed. They’re video game obsessed. They find every way to disengage from us continually.
So I think it’s really cool that board games have become their way to connect with us to say, Hey, can we have a family board game night? And you know, just putting on the calendar, making it consistent, uh, practice to have that time of connection with them no matter how often they also isolate the rest of the week.
So we do get to have that connection time. So I brought a couple of board games. Some I play with my kids, some I play with my friends, who then they have a little more of a challenge there. But I sincerely believe there is a board game out there for everyone. So I have [00:17:00] a. Three sisters here and what this is is essentially imagine yi and farming mixed together.
You are building a little garden and you’re racing to build the best garden before your opponent. So I’ve just a really cute, if you are done with ysi, let’s instead build a garden.
[00:17:23] Jude Boudreaux: Nice. So dice space game and you kind of compete against each other
[00:17:27] Abney Fortino: and you just have a little pad to write on and you track which flowers you grew and what tools you have for your garden.
Uh, also though, can get highly competitive, same way as Yazi. But this one would be, my kids’ favorite would actually be Flame Craft. And this one’s available at major box retailers. It’s not just out there in, uh, just small board game shops, but Flame Craft, it’s more of a kids’ one. I don’t find it challenging at all, but is it [00:18:00] cute?
Absolutely. You open little shops for your dragons to sell their goods to each other, and you visit each other’s shops and buy those goods. So my kids like to collect their favorite dragons and yeah, not no competitive nature really. And no one gets upset about who won or who lost. It’s really just, uh, getting their favorite dragon.
And then if you have someone who doesn’t love all of the cutesy things, I have heat. Which is exactly what the picture shows. It’s a racing game. Just you are pushing your pieces around the board. It’s a giant track. It covers an entire kitchen table, and you’re just racing to see who’ll get there fastest.
Increasing your speed and so on. So this is actually a card game. So you’re throwing cards down to increase your speed and Yeah. Is [00:19:00] 100% a race. Let me see on the back, I bet we could see the race track. Yep. You can kind of see the race track there. It’s just absolutely huge. You’re running through the desert.
They also have an ex. Expansion out for this. Uh, but I have not mastered this alone because there are so many ways you could play it, so many strategies. So this is more mine for my friends. Come over. Someone wants something a little more competitive.
[00:19:26] Rob Baner: Yeah.
[00:19:26] Abney Fortino: And also kind of, I mean, you think about like, sorry, the board game.
I would say that that’s the, uh, more adult version of, sorry.
[00:19:36] Rob Baner: I’ve heard wonderful things about heat. We’ll have to get that to the table someday. It’s been on my want to playlist for many years.
[00:19:42] Abney Fortino: Absolutely. And it’s one of those, it’s, you know, uh, you play some of those video games where you can throw power ups at your opponents.
You can slow them down, you can speed up yourself. It has all of those features mixed into it, so it adds a [00:20:00] lot of extra complexities other than just moving your pieces. And then this is more the cutesy one. This is one I would break out with the grandparents. I would include the extended family on because it is Hickory dickery.
It has won multiple awards, but just as it shows there you are just a mouse racing around the clock and collecting things as you go. It’s just absolutely adorable and I think that’s most of my games or all the cute ones, I don’t know if Rob looks for that and games he’s getting, but I definitely look for what has the most color, the most different elements in it.
So I would highly recommend as a gift to someone to just, the gameplay is amazing. I bought it for the beautiful, uh, elements where I knew it looked pretty on my shelf, but in reality, it’s my [00:21:00] favorite board game out of my collection of about a hundred board games. So highly recommend. On
[00:21:08] Rob Baner: the subject of, uh, cute games, there’s one game called Root where yeah, the art sure looks friendly and fun.
They’re woodland critters and they all look so happy. But it is a brutally competitive, uh, like strategy game with war. It’s a war game and it is quite fun. I played that once this year.
[00:21:28] Abney Fortino: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I have a few games like that, that, uh, sit on our shelves, um, because a lot of friends, they’ll message me and say, Hey, I wanna come over for, for a board game night.
And that sounds absolutely amazing, except then I sit will ask them. What complexity of game are you looking for that night? Do you want something easygoing or do you want to be in a battle all night long? And the answer usually is more these very light, cozy [00:22:00] games with woodland creatures instead of the war games.
[00:22:04] Jude Boudreaux: So you really think you have over a hundred games? Abney. That’s amazing.
[00:22:08] Abney Fortino: You know, I wanted to complete the entire list so I could bring it here, but I can guarantee to you I’ve spent thousands of dollars on board games. I do own over a hundred and. Really where that comes from too, is I would do a state sale shopping and I could collect some board games people were getting rid of.
Even so I have like classic Star Wars monopoly mixed in with some of these newer titles, but, uh, some of the games I own cost over a hundred dollars themselves because they’re these wooden pieces that are handcrafted and, you know, there’s, there’s so many elements on the other side of it, I bought. Maybe three sisters for $15 on sale.
And it also brings me just as much joy. [00:23:00] So whichever you want. I wouldn’t say board games are always a great financial decision, but they do bring joy and I do not think joy is ever a bad financial decision.
[00:23:14] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, that’s amazing. And I think you’re absolutely right. Like we. All spend to some degree in our values, whether they’re super conscious or not.
It sounds like you’ve thought a lot about this, and I’ll say it’s easy as a family to go and spend a hundred dollars trying to go and do almost anything now, like out and and about. But um, and you know, every board game you buy, spend 40 or 50 bucks on might not become a favorite or become something you play very often and then it.
You know, in our house it gets passed along avenue. It sounds like you, you hang on to them. But we’re, um, but for so many of those become, you know, $20 investments that are now part of like our family story, you know, that’s because we’ve played them so often and there’s. [00:24:00] It’s great to be able to compete, I think in a way with, um, you know, Karen and I will jokingly say like, why are our kids so competitive?
And like, oh, it must have nothing to do with us. Like, we’re pretty competitive people. And so it’s no surprise that our children happen to be, and so a board game for us became a great way to satisfy some of that desire and also talk about. Some lessons too when they’re smaller. Like how to, how to lose, like, you know, our sun is super bright and yeah, you’re gonna figure a lot of things out and you’re not always gonna win.
Like, but that’s life too. So we’ve definitely had those difficult conversations around things and it’s, um, I just find board games themselves just such a great place for, you know, communicating subtle family values without going and sitting down and saying we’re gonna have a family values conversation.
[00:24:48] Abney Fortino: I love that you mentioned that Jude, because that is actually highly controversial, is the, um, do you let your children lose? Do you lie and you, you know, throw away your best [00:25:00] cards to make sure that they can pull through? I’ve always been of the mindset that I will absolutely beat my children in board games, that we, it’s easier to find board games where there is more of a luck chance than a skill chance.
So that they have a chance to win and a chance to lose because I think it helps so much on incorporating sportsmanship and learning these skills that will translate to their everyday life.
[00:25:27] Jude Boudreaux: I agree so much and yeah, I am not generally one to let the kids win on anything. You know, you, I was pretty competitive tennis player and you know, we don’t, we go out and hit, but we don’t, not usually playing, but if we’re playing points like.
If you beat me on a point, it’s because you beat me. Like I’m not, I think I owe that to you as a, and it’s not. So I can like go stand at the net and like, you know, trash talk them, but it’s like, no, like one day you’ll beat me and it’ll be legitimate. Like it’s not gonna be because I let you somehow do this.
Um, so we’re, but uh, you know, now the kids are all a [00:26:00] little older and for most of the board games we play. Pretty level playing field. Everybody’s got an equal opportunity and there is absolutely a luck factor in, um, in many of these games. So it’s probably the, you know, the biggest downside I hear about Monopoly is that it’s so luck driven, right?
It’s dice games are super luck driven and there’s not a whole ton of strategy you can add into it. Um, but, uh, as, as we look at the explosion of war games that are out there, mm-hmm. Some of our favorite family games are the trekking series. Like this trekking the national parks where we started. Yeah, yeah.
Or, and you visit different national parks and collect them. But one of the, one of the things we came to love about that was that there’s lots of different ways to win and it’s not always obvious who’s winning, you know, and monopoly or risk. It’s pretty clear to tell like, oh, somebody’s in control of the situation here.
But in trekking you can collect cards or you collect these stones when you go through in land places, or, um, so there’s a number of different ways that you can [00:27:00] kind of accumulate scoring and points. So it provides a number of different ways to be able to win. And that, I think, opens up, you know, new opportunities for, um, you know, for, it’s not just to be obvious of a, you know, somebody’s dominating things.
Well, so Rob Abney shared some of her favorite games. How about you? I’m sure you have some on your list.
[00:27:20] Rob Baner: Absolutely. I prepared a short list here of games that I’d like to share as well. Uh, you know, I was just thinking we have three people from the tax team on our episode today, and I think there’s something about the mindset that goes into tax preparation and tax planning and tax compliance and studying that tax code and all the rules.
And that kind of plays a little into board game rules. And your, uh, board game rule book is kind of like your tax code in a. Slightly more fun version.
[00:27:52] Abney Fortino: So Rob, you’re in charge of the rule book, like Me too, right? We have to, we’re in charge of the instructions, making sure everyone follows the [00:28:00] rules.
[00:28:01] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah.
Whenever we play any sort of game, I spend the first, you know, five minutes just, you know, rehashing the rule book to the point where my wife is always like, come on, we play this course. It’s like, well, you know, might have forgot in a rule. Gotta be careful here, let’s consult the, let’s consult the guide.
So, yeah, I think. I, I don’t think it’s a accident that we’re all tax team members and also play a bunch of board games.
[00:28:24] Rob Baner: Yep, yep. For
[00:28:24] Abney Fortino: sure. Do you believe in table rules, Rob?
[00:28:27] Rob Baner: Depending on the game.
[00:28:29] Jude Boudreaux: So like, that’s why I would’ve called those house rules. I assume that’s what we’re talking about, like your your own house rules.
Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So does the money in you, do the fines go into free parking or in the center and come out at free parking or? Well, and I was wondering if this is now part of the hiring process too, like for the tax team.
[00:28:46] Rob Baner: So the other thing I’ll say before I start is that the organization and tracking of things that kind of goes into the mindset on the tax services plays into my organization around even tracking my board game.
[00:29:00] So I keep a spreadsheet online. With, uh, all the board games I have and the minimum player count, the maximum player count, the ideal player count, the complexity rating, and like keywords of what type of game it is, if it’s a card game or a clue game or a team game or that kind of thing. So, uh, so there’s three games that I always bring to the table for a new group, uh, as being very.
Social games that are easy to learn, that are very, uh, inclusive for non-board gamers rather than being really long, complex strategy games. So the first one in my top recommendation is called just one. And you can find this at. Target or any big box store, it’s a very common, uh, board game that that’s all, all over the place.
And with this game, everybody has a little plastic easel and a dry erase marker, [00:30:00] and we’re all on a team together and one person needs to guess a clue that we’re all trying to give that one person. And we each write a word as a clue. Or a word to guess that clue word, but if anybody writes the same word, those clues cancel each other out.
So we’re all trying to come up with something creative that nobody else would pick to help this person guess the word. So you can’t always pick the obvious. Clue ’cause it will end up canceling out with the other person who chose the obvious clue. Uh, so that’s a great fun one. Cooperative game. Everybody on the same team.
Lots of laughs. I think it plays up to seven people or so. So just a great one to break the ice for new people that you’re meeting or new board game, uh, new board gamers, that kind of thing. The second one I recommend is called. Wavelength and wavelength is another clue giving game. All three of these are gonna be clue giving games, but it’s two teams [00:31:00] or you can just play it everybody on the same team without any scoring.
And the basic idea is that. There’s a clue giver, and they have a dial that goes from least to most, and the, that dial will be at some random position and we’ll have a range for our, uh, what we need to guess. And so it could be like a healthy snack to a unhealthy snack, and the dial might be somewhere towards healthy, but not all the way towards healthy.
And you have to come up with some clue that will make them guess where the dial should be. That one always comes up with a lot of laughs. Sometimes we are on the same wavelength and we’re right on the button and sometimes we are way, way off on what we thought they were trying to tell us what the clue they give.
So that one also gives a lot of good laughs and is super easy to bring people in and out of it can play any number of people and just a great party game, uh, as well.
[00:31:59] Caleb Arringdale: That’s a [00:32:00] great game. You can, you can have like an unlimited number of people playing that game and it just, it gets better with the more, with the more people you have.
Yeah. An incredible game for groups.
[00:32:08] Abney Fortino: I think the most I saw was 20 that we had play it about 20 of us.
[00:32:14] Rob Baner: Yes. That’s one that we bring to the annual company retreat. Uh, or if we have some other social gathering as a company, we might have that one on the table. And then my third recommendation is a very, very popular.
Uh. Game. It’s been around a while now and it’s probably the one that’s been heard of the most in kind of this modern board game renaissance era, and it’s called Code Names and it’s, uh, it’s a game that is also played to teams and. It is also a clue giving game, and it’s, uh, uses a grid of cards that each have clues and only the clue giver knows which of these words they’re trying to tell their team to guess.
And they give [00:33:00] a clue, a one word clue that can’t be a word on the table, and a number of words they’re trying to connect. So you might say vegetable three to try and connect three of the. Words that are on the, on the table with all of the clues out there. And so that one can be stressful when you’re the clue giver.
’cause you might try to be really aggressive and say, oh, I’m gonna try and connect four of these words. How am I gonna do that? Or you might. Take it easy and just do a one word clue, trying to just guess one of the words on the table. And, uh, so that one’s also a, uh, very fun one, but gets stressful when you’re the clue giver.
But when you’re guessing, it’s just having a good time and hanging out.
[00:33:40] Abney Fortino: So you’re normally teamed up for it. Um, I don’t know if I had told you this, but I have banned my husband from being my team member. I will only play it in groups or against him because I expect him to read my mind when I’m giving clues, and he cannot seem to do that.
So it [00:34:00] works better if we’re against each other or, you know, um, we cannot work together. So you have to choose your teammate very carefully.
[00:34:10] Jude Boudreaux: So much about how you think. ’cause uh, I can, our daughter thinks a bit out of the box and I can, you know, be along her. But like she and my wife are, you know, who lives in drive each other mad, trying to play code names together because it, the connections that are really obvious to one aren’t to the other.
And it’s just fascinating way into looking how people think and see things.
[00:34:30] Caleb Arringdale: I’ll throw out three honorable mentions as well. Um, there’s a card game called Coup that’s a really fun little game. It’s just cards. You have different, like character cards. It, it’s, it’s easy to learn but to set, but. Deceptively strategic.
So once you get playing a few rounds of that, you play. They’re quick rounds, but it’s really fun. That’s a great one to play. There’s a one called Power Line, which is a building sort of game a lot of people have heard of, like Settlers of Catan, which is kind of the classic building game. This game Power [00:35:00] Line is also a building game, but it goes quickly, the way that turns work, you’re constantly doing something.
So that’s just a really fun game for smaller groups. Then if you wanna be absolutely nuts, there’s this game called diplomacy, which is essentially risk without the dice. And so it’s, it’s the game of risk. With all the luck taken out of it, where you have to work with a group of people to form alliances, break alliances, it is a truly insane game.
But if you’re, if you have three or four people who are up for a full day or two experience, it is a, it is a lot of fun.
[00:35:38] Abney Fortino: Rob, that’s what you usually do, isn’t it? That you hold all day board game events?
[00:35:44] Rob Baner: Yes. Yeah, we’ll occasionally, uh, meet up with good friends from college and just have an all day board game fiasco.
Uh, sometimes it’s simple games, sometimes it’s one game that takes the entire day. Again, that’s the beauty of modern board gaming. There’s [00:36:00] any type of experience that you can have.
[00:36:02] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. And you’ve um, gone to some gaming events too, I believe, right?
[00:36:06] Rob Baner: Yes, yes. Uh, yeah. Convention up in Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah.
[00:36:10] Jude Boudreaux: So, yeah, so it can expand out into so many things. I, I think it’s, um, I was trying to think of hours. Uh, you know, my kids are 15 and 10 now, and so uno flip I mentioned earlier is just like a easy, repeatable, lots of fun inter interactions when you’re playing along on that one. Um. The different trekking games.
We’ve enjoyed all of those. Trek National Parks is probably our favorite. Um, but you know, my daughter loves history and there’s trekking through time, so there’s different. Versions of that same game within the Game Family. Um, and the King Domino series is one that just comes up for us a lot. It’s easy to set up.
It’s pretty quick to play, and, uh, you can play with 2, 3, 4 people. Um, it, it’s been a, and then you can add on a lot of different variations with [00:37:00] the, um, add, add-on packs and, and things, which has, you know, allowed us to take something we enjoy and expand out on it. So we’ve, we’ve had a lot of fun with that one.
And I guess I should add, uh, tickets to ride, uh, has been one for us too. So we, um, enjoy the train game and, um, we’re at, uh, we were at a mountain place in the Dolomites on one rainy day and we went do, we’re downstairs hanging around and the only person who spoke English there, uh, came up and was like, we have the train game if you all might like to play.
And so. Of us really knew what he meant of course, but we got, it was tickets ride, but in German, ’cause we’re in this part of, uh, the mountains that speaks mostly German and not Italian. And so we couldn’t really read anything, but we all knew how to play. And so we had a, a lot of fun, you know, learning our way through different names of places as we, you know, played a game in strategy that we certainly were familiar.
[00:37:55] Caleb Arringdale: I’ll say, if anything, that’s what games do, right? We play these games that create these moments for us that we [00:38:00] just remember forever. Whether, whether it’s like a little kid playing with your cousins or family members to be an adult with groups of friends, being abroad, playing with some, you know, some random strangers.
I think that’s what, that’s really the, the magic of board games.
[00:38:13] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Great. So, um, yeah, so I mean really love this conversation about games and we could continue this for quite a while, but I wanna be mindful of our time and our listeners time here. So, um, we’ll transition to wrapping up a little bit with some, some of our traditional rapid fire questions.
So, Caleb, I think you’ve got those teed up for today.
[00:38:30] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah. Rob already did these, but Abni has, has the newbie here. We’ll, we’ll let you, let you experience them. So first of all, the classic question, what is your favorite animal?
[00:38:39] Abney Fortino: My favorite animal is actually a rhino, and most people are a little surprised by that, but I think they’re really cute.
I actually have a local artist who painted a gorgeous rhino painting, and I have it hanging in my house. I absolutely love them.
[00:38:58] Caleb Arringdale: Great. I like it. [00:39:00] This might be a obvious. Question given what we’ve discussed today, but if you had to go buy some happiness, what would you buy? How much would it cost?
[00:39:10] Abney Fortino: Can you buy happiness?
I mean, um, I, I recognize the joy that comes from games and other small pleasures, but I really always feel like our joy and happiness comes from within and our mindset going about it. So I think as long as we come with a positive mindset, we will have joy.
[00:39:32] Caleb Arringdale: Much better answer than I had. I like it Ebony.
Very nice.
[00:39:35] Abney Fortino: Was yours Legos Caleb?
[00:39:38] Caleb Arringdale: It wasn’t, but that’s a very close on the list for mine. What is the best money you’ve ever spent?
[00:39:44] Abney Fortino: The best money I’ve ever spent, uh, probably buying my house simply because I have this, uh, old house from the seventies just located in the middle of the woods. So I look out my window.
[00:40:00] I’m surrounded by trees right now. Lots of snow in addition to the trees. And it’s just my perfect oasis. So I guess maybe it’s buying, not having neighbors. That might be it. So
[00:40:14] Jude Boudreaux: how do you deal with that, with the snow? Do you have like a plow and things then?
[00:40:18] Abney Fortino: So our closest neighbor is over about half a mile away from us, and he actually plows us out.
He is wonderful. Um, so no, he has a John Deere tractor and he’s able to get around and clear everything out for us for the most part. But this past weekend when we received 12 inches of snow, I was stuck in the house for two days before we could get out at all. So.
[00:40:45] Rob Baner: Did you have a chance to play board games during those two days?
[00:40:48] Abney Fortino: So we did. We, uh, played a couple of games. You know, we were more planning which ones we wanted for Christmas and getting that ready. Um, but, and also just [00:41:00] preparing our house with lots of decorations and baking and all of the things. I mean, it’s definitely those Snowden days you get to bring out all of your hobbies and to experience it all.
[00:41:12] Caleb Arringdale: What’s your favorite trip? Favorite place you’ve ever gone?
[00:41:15] Abney Fortino: My favorite trip, um, would be to Peaks Island in Maine. So it probably also goes with my craziest trip I’ve ever taken where I had, um, two friends from high school reach out to me. We hadn’t spoken in half a decade practically, and they just messaged me randomly and said, Hey.
We’re driving to Maine and we need a third person for this trip. Do you wanna come? I thought about it, I’m like, that sounds a little crazy and it also sounds amazing, so why not? So I got in the car, I went with them. We again, hadn’t spoken in half a decade. We had didn’t have much in common. We got to Maine and we all kind [00:42:00] of just went our own ways.
We just took our own adventure. So it was kind of nice to travel with someone there, but we didn’t necessarily have to vacation together. So I gotta sit on the beach and Peaks Island, Maine. You could only get to. Get to the island on a ferry. So there’s almost no cars on the island, mainly, uh, just bikes.
And so took the ferry over and just gotta relax on the beach there.
[00:42:26] Caleb Arringdale: That’s super cool. Final question, best advice, and anyone ever gave you.
[00:42:31] Abney Fortino: I could never choose. I don’t know how you would rate advice on a scale. I think there’s great advice. I receive every week, every day, every year. I, I’m not sure that there’s one thing that sticks out to me as the only thing that I will reference forever in advice.
[00:42:50] Caleb Arringdale: No, that works. That’s a good answer. Perfect. Well, thanks Andy.
[00:42:53] Jude Boudreaux: Thanks. Any nuggets that comes to mind as you think about it, even just that you would leave for your kids or that you, you [00:43:00] think is particularly useful?
[00:43:01] Abney Fortino: Well, I had a math teacher who, um, I adored to this day, her name is. Jill Bruner back in my hometown and she told me never to become an accountant.
And I, I think about that quite a bit. So
[00:43:18] Caleb Arringdale: every year, right on April 15th, you’re like, why did I not pay attention to her advice
[00:43:22] Abney Fortino: if I had just remembered that, you know? And just really stuck to it. Um, I dunno if I’d be where I am today, so.
[00:43:29] Jude Boudreaux: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, thanks so much, uh, for joining us Abni. It was really a pleasure to have you on.
Any final thoughts?
[00:43:36] Abney Fortino: No, thank you for having me. I love that we all have very different tastes even in board games, and I think that speaks to this idea of that there is something for everyone. Just like we work with a team of very diverse planners and tax preparers and uh, different people who bring different ideas to the table to be able to provide the best service and [00:44:00] experience across the board.
[00:44:02] Jude Boudreaux: That’s amazing. Thank you Abney. It was so grateful to have you on the team and, uh, yeah, glad we got you on the podcast here today. Rob, thanks again for joining us. It’s always fun to have you on.
[00:44:11] Rob Baner: Yeah, thank you so much. This is a blast. And what a fun topic.
[00:44:15] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, absolutely. All right, Caleb, last word.
[00:44:17] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah, again, thank you so much.
A lot of fun. Enjoyed I, both Rob Abby are amazing. Uh, obviously teammates at Brian, but also great to play some board games with us, so this was great.
[00:44:27] Jude Boudreaux: Pretty cool to have, uh, colleagues you could play board games with and, and be interested in doing that. So I think that’s, that’s great. My favorite thing about the planning Center beyond the work that we get to do is the people that we get to do it with.
And so I’m thankful every day for my colleagues and, um, yeah, really appreciative of all of you today. So thanks for joining us and, uh, all of you listening out there. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Living Beyond the Numbers podcast. You can reach me, jude@theplanningcenter.com. And as you might imagine, it’s caleb@theplanningcenter.com.
rob@theplanningcenter.com [00:45:00] or abni, A-B-N-E-Y, ats the planning center.com. So thanks again for joining us and hope to see you on another episode again soon.
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