Loading summary
Transcript39 lines
- [00:00]
Austin Hankwitz
Why do growing businesses love working in Slack? Let's ask Christy at Ari Bikes.
- [00:05]
Robert Kroke
Running things in Slack saves me so much time.
- [00:07]
Austin Hankwitz
AI summaries save 97 minutes per week. What say you Rocks from Gosney? Slack helps us build community. It helps us build connection. Your partners, vendors and customers all in one place. Take us on home. Ashley from Carraway if we didn't have Slack tomorrow, I would explode. Well, let's not let that happen. Visit slack.com podcast to get 50% off Slack business plus. You're about to make a trade which you do you listen to. Is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify brought to you by public.com by the end of this episode, you'll have a complete month by month financial roadmap for 2026 so you never miss another important money task again. My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co host, Robert Kroke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur with lifetime revenues of over 300 million, and I'm a multimillionaire in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. As the show name might suggest, every episode we talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance and mindset. So Robert, what are we going to be talking about in today's episode?
- [01:25]
Robert Kroke
Well, first off, welcome to the first Monday of 2026. We're so excited to have all of you joining us again in 2026. And we this year of the show is going to be better than ever. Let's now talk about something that happens to almost everyone. January hits, you make a bunch of ambitious financial goals and by March you've completely forgotten about them. You tell yourself you're going to review your insurance, rebalance your portfolio, max out your retirement accounts, finally build your emergency fund and fix your budget. And then nothing happens and you fall off the proverbial wagon. And it's not because you're lazy or bad with money. It's because you're trying to do everything at once. All in January, you get overwhelmed and then do next to nothing for the other 11 months of the year. So today Austin and I are going over a complete 2026 money calendar. Every month we'll share one or two specific tasks so you can start out 2026 with a clear roadmap of what to do and when to do it month by month so nothing is overwhelming or slips through the cracks.
- [02:28]
Austin Hankwitz
I think that's the name of the game, Robert. Laying things out and bite sized pieces so people can really figure it out, take take control of their money and take those small action steps and really begin to inch toward their financial goals. This episode is going to be a blast because yes, we've got a whole catalog of information for you, especially if you're new around here to go review. But if you're really just looking for the quick and dirty, what do I do Month to month, this episode is going to really walk you through exactly what to focus on every month of 2026. And Robert, every month is going to have a theme. So what I want you to do is kick us off with January and what January's theme is.
- [03:05]
Robert Kroke
January is know your numbers. The first thing you're going to do in January is calculate your current net worth. Most people have no idea what their net worth is. They might know their salary, what's in their checking and savings. They might even have a rough idea of where they're at in their 401k. But they don't know their actual net worth and that is a huge problem. Calculating your net worth is simple though. It's everything you own minus everything you owe. Your bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, the value, your car, your home equity. Those are your assets, what you own, your credit card debt, student loans, car loans, mortgage balance. Those are your liabilities or what you owe. So assets minus liabilities equals net worth.
- [03:51]
Austin Hankwitz
I love that. I personally track my net worth on a quarterly basis. I think tracking your net worth is an incredible way to keep tabs on if you're actually trending in the right direction financially. So good call out Robert. Another thing you should be doing in January is going back to last week's episode and learning about our anti budget. Assuming you're not living paycheck to paycheck. If you are, we've got other episodes to support that as well. Additionally, maybe you want to join me here in a no spend January where I'm kicking off the New year here, Monday, January 5th doing a no spend January where I only spend money on the necessities. I'm not eating out. I'm not buying that cool impulse thing on the TikTok shop. It is the no spend January. Or if you have no idea where to start when it comes to spending, just go download the Rich Habits Honest budget in the show notes below. All right, Robert, February's theme is credit and debt. February, you're going to focus on your credit health. What I want you to do is pull your credit report. You can do this from all three bureaus@annualcreditreport.com completely for free. I've actually done this myself. It's super simple. Make sure you go in and you check for errors, maybe accounts that you don't recognize or late payments that should not be there. And make sure you dispute anything with that's wrong immediately. I said Credit and debt. So let's talk about debt. If you're carrying high interest debt, choose a plan to pay it off and then commit to that plan. There's plenty of debt repayment strategies to choose from, many of which we've covered on the show here before. My favorite is the debt avalanche method. This is when you identify and pay off your debt from highest interest rate to lowest interest rate so you pay the least amount of interest during that period of the loan. But other people like the debt snowball where you're tackling the smallest balance first. Doesn't matter what you do. What matters is you're paying off your high interest debt and you're not collecting more and more of it. And here's a pro tip for those of you who might have already received a tax refund if you did go and use that money to pay off your high interest debt. Kickstart your payoff process with a couple hundred, maybe a thousand dollars or so. It's going to really help move you in the right direction.
- [05:54]
Robert Kroke
I love this one and I'm always shocked at how many people don't get credit alerts or keep an eye on their credit. And here's why I had this situation happen just three years ago. I traded in my Lincoln for the new Lincoln and it was a seamless thing. Sign a couple of papers and I was out the door. Three months later I get a credit alert that my credit went down 80 points because I missed three payments on a car which would never ever in a million years happen. So I found out that the dealership traded in the old car, sold it off, but never paid off my old loan and it was their fault and it took me like two months to get it fixed. So I strongly suggest people keep an eye on their credit and get alerts set up because I was able to nip this in a bud really quickly and get my credit right back up where it belongs. So just a quick little tip that I wanted to add in there. So next, our next theme is for March Insurance audit. Call your current insurance providers and price check every policy you have. Auto insurance alone can drop by hundreds a year. Just by shopping around. So think homeowner's insurance, umbrella coverage, boat insurance, renters insurance, any of these policies you have. If you don't have term life or disability insurance and someone relies on you for your income, this is the month to fix that. Term life is cheap and a healthy 30 year old can get $500,000 of coverage for around only $30 a month. And don't forget your HSA. If you have a high deductible health plan and you're not planning on maxing it out, you're leaving tax money on the table. And we love that free tax money. So make sure you check that out as well.
- [07:29]
Austin Hankwitz
We've gotten through the first quarter of 2026. We calculated our net worth, we're looking through our credit in our debts, and we're also making sure that we're auditing our insurance. Now we're going to kick off Q2 in April with taxes and retirement. April is tax season, we all know that. So be sure to go file your taxes. But also think about it strategically. If you got a huge tax refund last year, adjust your W4 withholdings. Otherwise you're essential. Giving the government an interest free loan. You should be keeping that money in your own paycheck and then investing it in the S P 500 throughout the year. You should also review your retirement contributions. Are you on track to max out that Roth IRA or that 401k? The 2026 401k limit is around 23,500. So if you do have autonomy and that's something you want to do and you are working toward that, maybe bump up your contributions by a couple percentage points so you can achieve that goal. And if you're self employed like me, make sure you're setting aside those Q1 estimate taxes now. Do not wait for a year end. Surprise.
- [08:31]
Robert Kroke
And that brings us to our next month, May. And this is the mid year check. In May is your mid year review. You're almost halfway through 2026. So we're going to go back to that January budget. Are you sticking with it? Where are you overspending? If you wanted to save 10,000 this year, you should be at about 2,500 right now. And if you're at 1500, you need to set a plan to course correct. Check your emergency fund. Do you have three to six months of expenses saved? If not, make it a priority in your yearly plan. Without it, one unexpected expense sends you into debt. And look at your income as well. Did you receive any bonuses or raises did you capture that increase, or did you let lifestyle creep get in the way and absorb all that new capital?
- [09:15]
Austin Hankwitz
You know, Robert speaking of lifestyle creep, I think it's episode 142, published on November 3rd, really, really great episode about lifestyle creep and ENS that more of the money that you just got through a raise actually comes home with you and gets invested and grows for you over time. Now, the next month, of course, is June. We are now officially halfway through 2026, which means it's time to do a little bit of a deep dive into our investment portfolio. We've had six months of performance. Now it's time to check in and benchmark our own investment performance against other indices and ETFs we believe in, like the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq 100, all the big popular indices that we should be benchmarking against. And here's a call out, too, Robert and I think this is very important because I like to rebalance about every six months as well. If you had a really successful investment, let's say something popped off like crazy here in the first six months of 2026, and it grew dramatically to make up a large portion of your portfolio, don't forget to rebalance that, redistribute those profits elsewhere inside of your portfolio so you're not concentrated into a very specific stock or sector of the market. Another thing to consider is looking at the fees of these ETFs and mutual funds that people talk about or might be in the headlines. Seem sexy, but they can come with high fees. Let's make sure we're not paying high fees when it comes to investing, or if you're brand new to investing and you have no idea what I'm talking about, open up a Roth IRA on public.com and start contributing 50, 100 bucks a month. Put it in Voo, which is the S&P 500, and you're going to start compounding for decades to come.
- [10:53]
Robert Kroke
So that brings us to July, where we're going to do a spending audit. July is the month where we audit our spending category by category. So you're going to pull your last three months of statements. Categorize every transaction. Transportation, insurance, subscriptions, groceries, eating out, miscellaneous. Don't forget the dog treats, don't forget the makeup, the haircuts, all of those things. And once you have the real numbers, you're going to make real decisions. Maybe you're fine right now with 400 on restaurants a month, but then cut somewhere else the Point is having accurate data so you can be intentional with how you spend your money. And if you're taking a summer vacation, budget properly. Flights, hotels, food, activities, and I like to say add up to 20% for the stuff you didn't think of. Don't just count on your credit cards to handle that because we don't want to see you go into further or any credit card debt to pay for a vacation.
- [11:48]
Austin Hankwitz
We sure don't. And we hope you guys are taking these summer vacations and spending time with your family. But you're doing it in a way that is financially responsible and not setting you backwards from a net worth perspective. Now, something that's going to help set you forward is the month of August where the theme is income optimization. August is all about making more money. So you have a traditional job. Research your market value, go to Glassdoor PayScale levels, dot, FYI, if you find yourself 10, 15, 20% below market value for compensation, go and build a case for you to get a raise. Document your biggest wins, show where your value is at this company and start building a case for October, November, December, January, February, whenever those raises come in the new year. So that when the new year does come back around, you're like, listen, I'm making 5, 10, 15, 20% more. I'm back to where the market value is or above it. This is also a great time to think about side income. Obviously it's the dead of summer, we're over here trying to, you know, walk some extra dogs, do some grocery delivery. Maybe you're doing some Uber or doordash or whatever's going on. Right. But also think a little bit beyond that. Think about consulting, think about teaching, think about freelance work, how you can find an extra 3, 4, $500 a, you know, you do that for a couple years here, Robert. We're talking about tens of thousands of dollars which if deployed correctly in the markets, that grows into hundreds of thousands in retirement. So what feels maybe like a chore now can turn into a prosperous retirement if you play your cards right. But you have to be strategic. And a big mistake people fall for is they say, oh, I've got to go spend all this money to buy supplies for this side hustle I'm trying to do. Don't go do all that stuff. What you need to focus on is what do I have around me? Is it a skill? Is it something in the garage? Is it, is it like, what do I already have to help me make money? You don't need to go buy a $2,000 pressure washer because you saw some ASMR video on your Facebook reels.
- [13:42]
Robert Kroke
I love this theme and I really would like to see everyone that listens and watches this podcast to take the chance. Take a few minutes, go to ChatGPT whatever it is you use and type in how much you would have in retirement if you put away an extra 2, 3, 4, $500 a month with an 8% annual return, how much that would turn in over time? Because I think it would blow people's minds because so many people and so many fake gurus out there are always talking about, oh, that extra couple hundred bucks saved and invested won't make a difference in your life. I promise you it'll make maximum, maximum difference over time by letting it compound. So I would like it if everyone would do that exercise for me and really see what Those compounding of that 3, 4, $500 a month would turn into over time. So that brings us to September and the theme is education and skill development. If you have kids, review your 529 plan. Are you contributing? The money grows tax free and withdrawals for education are tax free as well. So even 100 or $200 a month compounds significantly over 15 years. So for yourself, think about professional development. What courses or certification could boost your income? If a $2,000 certification leads to a $10,000 raise, that's a 5x return in one year. So consider that and just do some research. There are a ton of AI certifications, Google certifications, all these out there that are really cost effective and can make you way more valuable in your current job role. And check if your employer offers tuition reimbursement or professional development funds. Most companies have these benefits and they go unused and it's free money and a way for you to level up without any out of pocket.
- [15:31]
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah, and don't get too fancy with these certifications. I mean, at the end of the day, maybe it's a cybersecurity thing, maybe it's a little bit of AI, maybe it's a little something about just Excel or PowerPoint, who knows, right? But there's like all these certifications that you can go get that will one build that case for either a promotion or some other raise that you can get in the future. Get creative with some things here, but also like don't overthink it. Robert. That brings us to October, which I think is everyone's favorite month for year end tax planning. You've got two months left now to reduce your 2026 tax bill. So you have to ask yourself can I max out my 401k in the last 2 months if I want to do those pre tax contributions? Same deal with your health savings account. Or if you're like me and you like to donate to causes you believe in, you can open up a donor advised fund and really turbocharge your tax savings by donating appreciated assets. For example, I just donated 80,000 dol of appreciated cryptocurrency and I'll be able to save about $30,000 on my taxes by doing so and I got to donate to a cause that I really believe in. Also, if you have taxable investments, look at tax loss harvesting. Sell losing positions to offset gains elsewhere inside your portfolio and then buy a similar investment to maintain exposure to that general theme. And finally, if you're like me and you're self employed, go meet with your CPA now in October so you guys can talk about year end deductions and estimated taxes. Don't do this three weeks before the end of the year. Don't go do this in January, do it September even really. But like October, you really need to be talking about this and having these conversations so you have time to make the decisions and and if you do them right, you're saving thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars on your taxes depending on how large your small business solopreneur business is.
- [17:16]
Robert Kroke
So so good. And that brings us to November holiday budgeting. I think this is the month that kills everyone for the year because they're not ready to budget for the holidays and it's a perfect time to set yourself up. Set your budget before you start spending and make a list for everyone you're buying for and assigned dollar amounts. That's not a Scrooge move, it is just really smart because most people wing the holidays and go into January stressed and broke. Don't be that person. Before buying something on Black Friday, ask would I buy this at full price? If the answer is no, you probably don't actually want it. Also, and I know Austin did this really well this year, do all of your Christmas shopping on Black Friday. It's free discounts on money you had earmarked to spend anyway. And if you're not going to do that, always remember the hack I talk about. If you have some high ticket items you're buying online, put them in the cart cart. Wait a couple days, wait for that discount code to come in. Because I think it's 55% of all of these shopping carts have a drip campaign discount that comes in a Couple days after you leave it in the cart. So that is another way to set yourself up properly for your holiday giving and budgeting.
- [18:31]
Austin Hankwitz
All right, Robert, let's Now wrap up 2026 with the final month, which is December. It's all about finishing strong and planning for 2027. Review your full year and ask yourself, did you hit your goals? Where did you succeed, and where did you fall short? Calculate your net worth again. Compare it to your January net worth. It should be much higher. Your debt should be lower, your investments. Fingers crossed the stock market does well this year and continues to trend up until the right. But if not, figure out why and fix it for 2027. Maybe you should max out any remaining retirement contributions if you still haven't maxed out that Roth IRA or you haven't gotten into that 401k like you wanted to do that before the year ends. If you have an FSA at work or it's use it or lose it. Don't leave money on the table. Go use and spend that money. Start thinking about 2027. What are those financial priorities? Is it buying a house? Is it helping your kids with college? Is it going on that dream vacation? Is it finally building your base? Like, what is your big priority for the year? What did you learn from this year? And how can you apply it to achieving those new goals?
- [19:36]
Robert Kroke
My closing thoughts are this. Most people spend more time planning their vacations than planning their financial future. That's insane to me because your financial life determines your stress level, your options, your freedom, your security. And it deserves a plan. So commit to at least three of these benchmarks. Print the calendar, put it on your fridge, put it above your office desk, whatever it is you need to do. Set phone reminders, share it with a spouse. Do whatever you need to do to make sure you follow through completely throughout the year. Start with January. Calculate your net worth. Set up your budget. That's your immediate homework. Then, one month at a time, tackle these key objectives. This is your year to crush financial goals, and we're here to help you every step of the way.
- [20:22]
Austin Hankwitz
I am inspired, Robert. I'm ready to run through a brick wall for these people. I could not be more excited for them. And it's. It's a lot easier when you break it down month by month, right? You're going like, okay, well, what is your net worth? Where are we starting here? How do we make sure that we're being effective? By paying off of our debt? We're making sure that we're not overpaying on insurance and we're getting into the taxes and the retirement and then we've got a little bit of an investment review. We're optimizing for our income, we're making sure we're saving for kids college and then we're doing that year end tax planning. This is really a, if you think about it, it's a very big episode, but it's broken down in a way that a lot of people will be able to get a lot of tactical advice from. And that's what just gets me excited.
- [21:02]
Robert Kroke
Yeah, I think the big takeaway for me is you spelled it out early in the episode is that so many people make big plans for January, you know, New Year, New me, and then when they don't do it, then they just give up on the year and go right back to the old habits. That stops today with this episode. I don't want anyone to give up. Even if you don't fully knock it out of the park in January or February, guess what? You can stay with it and still finish the year strong. So I hope this really helps all of you along the way in 2026 and beyond because we wanted to make this episode to understand every month is important and you can continually compound on your wins to build a better financial life for yourself in the future.
- [21:42]
Austin Hankwitz
All right, Robert, let's now jump to our Q and A section of the episode. If you're new around here, every Monday we come at you with an awesome cool lesson and then we answer three questions from our audience. If you have a question to ask us, you can email us at rich habits podcastmail.com or you can DM us on Instagram at Rich Habits Podcast. But before we answer, first question coming from Christian, we've got to give a shout out to Public because Public is the investing platform for those who take it seriously. And I think all of y' all should take investing seriously here in 2026. On public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, crypto option contracts and more. Now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI, which I think is awesome.
- [22:29]
Robert Kroke
It is awesome. And it all starts with your prize dumped from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and let AI do the work. And it screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500 all with just a few clicks.
- [22:52]
Austin Hankwitz
Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. So go to public.com richhabits and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com forward/rich habits paid for by Public Investing.
- [23:11]
Robert Kroke
Full disclosures in the podcast description.
- [23:13]
Austin Hankwitz
Oh wow, this is a funny question. Okay, so this is going to be good. Christian emailed us and said hi Austin and Robert, thank you all for what you do. You've helped me change my mindset about money and living frugal. In my 20s, I'm 26 and I started investing when I was 24, I started putting away $5 a day, so about a hundred bucks a month. But now after I came across your podcast, I've shifted away from the consumer mindset to the investor mindset and Now I'm putting $600 a month and maxing out my Roth IRA. But here's my question. Is it better to transfer my investments from Robinhood to Public or should I just keep using Robinhood? If you suggest I do transfer, would I be able to get some help to transfer it to public? I really appreciate it. Your podcast is the bomb. Yeah. So shout out public. We love Public. I've been using Public for about half a decade now and I think they are the best platform for building a portfolio. A multi asset portfolio. Scratch. Their UI is amazing. The customer support, it's awesome. Right? They're also a sponsor of the show and the reason they do sponsor the show is because I've loved using them for the last five years before the show even existed. Right. So shout out to public. But here's what we always say. We don't care what platform you use. If you want to use public, that's great. If you want to use Robinhood or Schwab or Fidelity or E Trade or does even E Trade exist anymore? I don't know.
- [24:24]
Robert Kroke
It does.
- [24:25]
Austin Hankwitz
It does. Okay. We don't care what platform you use to invest. What we care about is that you invest. That's all that matters. Are you putting money in your retirement accounts? Are you investing every, every single month consistently in the S P and the NASDAQ and you know, the Dow Jones or whatever other index funds and ETFs that, that you believe in long term, that is what matters more than the platform you use. Now of course I'm going to go tell you to go put it on public because I prefer Public personally. But if you want to keep it on Robinhood and rock and roll, that is totally fine.
- [24:53]
Robert Kroke
I think that's a great takeaway. Austin and just for everyone listening, transferring is a lot easier than you think. As long as you have stocks and ETFs that are are pretty generalized, they can transfer from say, Public to Robinhood or Robinhood to Public or Fidelity or whatever it is, it works out just fine. It's not a taxable event. You don't have to sell anything, you just transfer it. And there are some mutual funds that are platform specific and are not transferable, but that's not the case with a lot of the things we're talking about here. So don't worry about the transfer as much. Just go to the platform, read up, make sure you know what you're doing. It's much easier than you can imagine. Imagine.
- [25:31]
Austin Hankwitz
Thank you Christian for the question. Our next question comes from Sarah W. Sarah says hi Austin and Robert. My name's Sarah. I'm 27 years old and I'm recently engaged. Congratulations. That's awesome. That is so cool. Sarah says, I'm a huge, huge fan of the show. Thank you both for teaching me so much about my finances and helping me build the confidence and tools to save for my future and invest wisely. In the three years since I've listened to your show, I've been able to save three $500 for an emergency fund, pay off all my credit card debt, and build my IRA and individual brokerage accounts to over thousand dollars while being unemployed in medical school. That's awesome. Let's go Sarah. Sarah also says I'm going to graduate this summer with about $450,000 of student loan debt and I need some help figuring out the logistics of paying it down. My resident salary will start around 65,000, but it will go up 5,000 every year for the next three or four years, depending on which specialty I match into my income as an attending physician could be anywhere between 250 to 400,000. I plan on building my IRA and individual brokerage accounts with the total of what I O before I aggressively pay them down. Which is good. We talk about that. Sarah says about a quarter million of her loans are about an 8% interest rate, 130,000 at 7% and then 20,000 is actually subsidized from her undergrad with no accrual around interest, so that'll be cool. My first payment will be due January 2027. Sarah says my mind can barely comprehend the sheer amount of debt I'm going to have to pay off and I want to be as smart and strategic as possible to Pay this down while still building toward my future and he like can shed on my situation would be immensely helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read my question and keep up the excellent work you all do on the show. Wow. Well, first off, Sarah, I am just, I'm in awe by doctors because these doctors, not only do you plan to want to help people, vulnerable people, people who have no education, sometimes like me as it relates to my health. I go to a doctor, say hey, why does my stomach hurt? And they're telling me I got something going on. Like, I admire doctors so much. You all are servants, you all are selfless. Doctors are so cool. I respect the heck out of doctors. The other reason why I really respect doctors is because they go half a million dollars in debt to do what they do, which is also incredible. So tactically speaking here, it sounds to me like you will start owing on your student loans January of 2027 and you're going to be making about 65 to 70,000 a year between let's call it now and maybe 2029 or 20, 2030. And then you're going to start making a ton more money. Generally speaking here, if I were in your shoes, I would punt the student loans until to your point you started making the 250, 300, 400,000 a year. Once you start making that much money, continue to make your minimum payments on the student loans. A lot of them are here at that 6,7ish percent interest. And while you make those minimum payments, one, make sure you stay out of high interest debt. But more importantly two, if you're making 300 grand a year or 350 grand a year at 31, I want you living on 55 to 65,000 of that on an annualized basis. And the other 250,000. 200,000 gets invested into building your base. Now it might be unrealistic to ask you to go have half a million dollars invested before you start paying off these loans. I think you can do them a little bit simultaneously here if you wanted to, but don't simultaneously pay them off until you have a couple hundred thousand invested. If that's with the Roth IRA and your bridge account on public or whatever's going on that's unique to your situation. That's my take. Robert, what do you think about her situation?
- [29:10]
Robert Kroke
I think it's a great situation and I agree with you 100%. Austin. I think she should get 100, 200 and $250,000 saved and invested. Get that base built. It's compounding for life. 27 years, a long window to let this grow and then start chunking away as her income goes up, up. Don't let lifestyle creep get in the way. Don't upgrade the car, don't upgrade the house, all of those things right away. Because if you take that three, four, five years after your base is built with that couple hundred thousand dollars and really go hard on getting these debts paid down, you are going to be set for life before you're even 35 years old and making money without all of the debt. So that's the way I would do it. I think she's thinking perfectly in line with what we believe. And you, you nailed it.
- [30:00]
Austin Hankwitz
Yes. Sarah, you're going to go to the hospital and you're going to see some do doctors pull up in a, in a Porsche or a Mercedes or a BMW and they're going to be your age and you're going to be, golly, I could be driving a BMW to this hospital. I could be driving my brand new Porsche. I could, no, don't fall for that, Sarah. They've got just as much debt as you and they're doing it the wrong way.
- [30:20]
Robert Kroke
Right.
- [30:21]
Austin Hankwitz
What we want you to do is go get that base built and then, and here's the most important part too. When you do start paying off the student loans aggressively after you've got your couple hundred thousand invested, don't stop investing. Investing. Right. We're not saying to cold turkey cut off your investing and to go put all that to the student loans. Keep maxing out that Roth IRA, keep contributing to that 401k or whatever's going on in your specific situation. We never want someone to stop investing to go pay off debt. Unless of course, it's high interest debt. Robert, because we always say you can't out invest high interest debt. Now Robert, before we jump to our last question from Manuel, gotta give a shout out to NEOS investments. NEOs offers ETFs that seek high levels of monthly income with a keen focus on tax efficiency while providing core portfolio exposure across equities, fixed income, real estate, cryptocurrency and cash alternatives like treasury bills. Their ETFs may be especially interesting for investors looking to generate tax efficient monthly income inside of their investment portfolios. Their funds may serve as a compelling income focused alternative or complement to many of the investments already in those same portfolios.
- [31:25]
Robert Kroke
So if you're looking to add passive income focused ETFs to your portfolio, consider learning more about NEOs ETFs@neosfunds.com as with all investments, investors should carefully consider their investment objectives, risk charges and expenses of NEOS exchange traded funds before investing. To obtain a prospectus containing this and other important information, please visit neosfunds.com Please read the prospectus carefully before you invest. An Investment in NEOs ETFs involves risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee that NEOs ETFs will make monthly distributions and the amounts may fluctuate from month to month. Cryptocurrency is relatively new and the market has its own specific risks. NEOs ETFs are distributed by 4 Side Fund Services LLC.
- [32:12]
Austin Hankwitz
All right Robert, so our final question comes from Manuel R. Manuel says, hi Austin and Robert, thank you so much for changing my life and having such a big impact on my family's future. Let's go dude. Thank you. Manuel says, I'm joining the 50 year old club this month and I'm kind of worried about whether I'm on track to retire in the next 10 years. You always say personal finance is personal, but I really appreciate your recommendations for any person turning 50 years old. Like me. I work for a tech company making 210,000 a year and we net 90,000 a year from three rental properties. My wife is 45, she's a stay at home mom and she is actually the manager of our rentals. We have three kids who are still in school, 30,000 in an emergency fund, of course, sitting in a high yield savings, 300,000 in our traditional IRAs and 401k and about $1 million of debt across two mortgages and one HELOC. Of course, no credit card debt, no student loans, no car loans, nothing of nature. So with that being said, my goal of course is to retire in the next 10 years. What changes should I make today to ensure that that takes place? Robert, we just got a pretty good background on Manuel's financial position here. What do you think about his situation and what would you change so that he can retire within a 10 year period of time?
- [33:21]
Robert Kroke
Yeah, I think they're in great shape. I'd like to see more money going into the traditional brokerage account and the IRAs and the 401k. I'd probably hold off on adding any more real estate right now because I would just like to see them beef all that up. I see there's $300,000 in the retirement accounts. I think at 50 years old that's pretty light. But they do have roughly a million dollars in net worth in the properties. But again, you can't really spend that. So it's a little bit different. So I beef up the retirement accounts, get more money into that monthly over the next five years, maybe keep the three rental properties for now and then diversify a little bit more once you beef up the general traditional brokerage and retirement accounts. Because I'd like to see that at at least a million more. Because remember, you have three kids, so life is a little more expensive when you have three kids at those ages. And you don't want to be looking at retiring in five to 10 years with maybe only $2 million. I think you could get to a much better number, but not as much by doing so much real estate. That would be my take and also I would like to see more diversification. Maybe you look at some precious metals, maybe you look at some Neos funds to give you some more income along the way for later on and just really beef it all up and keep doing what you're doing by making a lot of money, but also getting more diversified along the way.
- [34:44]
Austin Hankwitz
That's a great takeaway, Robert. Just kind of looking at the numbers, right? He's got about 1.1 million of real estate equity across his home and his three rental properties. So at 1.1 million in real estate and then only 300,000 in the stock market, I'm so excited that you are netting 90,000 a year on those three rentals. You did it. Congrats. You. You've got some really cool passive income coming in for you. Passive. You know, your wife helps, but it's. It's pretty passive. Now it's time for you to flip the switch, right? Instead of saying, I'm going to go keep buying rental properties. More real estate. More real estate. You've done such a great job of. Let's flip that switch and get hundreds of thousands of dollars more invested into index funds and ETFs that are going to double for you about every seven years in the stock market, which means your 300,000, hopefully by the time you're 60, is much closer to about a million to a million five, depending on how aggressive you're able to invest toward that. And having a million in real estate, which I'm sure it'll appreciate too, at that time. And a million five invested is a $3 million net worth. Tons of passive income, tons of portfolio income. Manuel, you've done it. You're going to be in such great shape come retirement. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast. We are so excited about 2026, baby. We're locked in. First Monday, back at it. Financial goals. Making money, Growing our net worth. Growing the cash flow. Making investments. The Rich Habits Network. There's so much to be excited about this year. We're all in the same team. We' together. We're rooting for you. There's so much to be hopeful for. 2026 is going to be an incredible year for all of us.
- [36:17]
Robert Kroke
This is the year where everyone watching is going to take notes and take action. Because all this sauce, all this education, all this great information only works if you do. And we appreciate each and every one of you stopping by and we are so ready for 2026.
- [36:34]
Austin Hankwitz
And if you want more of the Rich Habits podcast, consider joining the Rich Habits Network. This is our community for our biggest fans. Almost a thousand people have joined the Rich Hab. We host two hour weekly live streams every Tuesday night. We offer investment opportunities where you guys can invest alongside of us. We just did something with SpaceX. We also just invested into a really cool CPG company. Like, lots of cool things happening behind the scenes over there. So feel free to join us using the link in the show notes below or just type in Rich Habits Network on Google. All right, y', all, another great episode in the books and we'll see you on Thursday. Sam.