Transcript
Venmo Advertiser (0:00)
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Austin Hankwitz (0:29)
month 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 understand exactly where your first investment dollars should go, why waiting for the perfect moment is costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and why learning by doing beats analysis paralysis every single time. My name is Austin Hankwitz. I'm joined by my co host, Robert Kroke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur, 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 talking about in today's episode?
Robert Kroke (1:18)
In today's episode of the Rich Habits podcast, we're breaking down exactly where your first investment dollars should go, why you need to stop waiting for perfection, and why the best investment education is just getting in the game. I've been getting a ton of messages from who have their first 500, their first thousand, maybe $2,000 saved up and they don't know where to start and they're scared of making the wrong choice. Meanwhile, the money is sitting in a checking account, earning them nothing. People will spend six months researching the perfect investment, reading every book, watching every YouTube video, while during those six months their money earns zero returns as the markets go up mid single digits. And it's not that people aren't interested in, because our own research is showing that over 40% of folks who aren't invested in 2026 say it's because they don't know where to get started.
Austin Hankwitz (2:10)
So someone's listening to this episode right now and they're saying, listen, I've got a thousand dollars. I'm ready to get invested for the very first time. If this is you, the first question you need to be asking yourself is, do you have an emergency fund? Because if you don't have any cash at all set aside for emergencies. That first thousand dollars shouldn't go into investments at all. Going into a high yield Savings account on public.com as a start for your sort of beginner emergency fund. Now, the reason why I say beginner is because I tell people they need to aim to have three to six months of their expenses saved in an emergency fund. But realistically, if you're just starting out, even $500 or $1,000 is a huge buffer when life happens. And you need to tap into that rainy day fund. It means you are not swiping a credit card the next time your car breaks down. You have that unexpected medical bill. But let's now say, Robert, someone has that $500 or $1,000 set aside into this beginner emergency fund. They're working on it and they've got some extra money beyond that. So now where does that first investment dollar go?
