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- [00:00]
Austin Hankwitz
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast brought to you by Public.com, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify. Let me be the first person to tell you happy New Year and welcome to 2025. My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co host, Robert Krok. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with lifetime revenues of over $300 million. And I'm an entrepreneur in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. Since quitting my full time job in corporate finance a few years ago, I've built a seven figure media business and actively advise some of well known fintech companies around the world. As the show name might suggest, every episode we talk about Rich Habits as they relate to business, finance and mindset. However, we try and bring you two unique perspectives. One from an industry veteran, which is Robert, and the other, myself, someone who's still in the process of building wealth and figuring it all out. So, Robert, first off, happy New Year, my friend.
- [00:53]
Robert Krok
Yes, yes. I am so excited for this year and this episode. So let's go.
- [00:58]
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah. What are we going to be talking about in today's episode?
- [01:00]
Robert Krok
In this episode of the Rich Habits podcast, we're going to bring back a favorite from 2024, getting rich, not looking rich this New year. You all loved it when we did an episode like this to start off the year last year. So we're bringing it back with a twist. We are going to rapid fire six action items that you need to do immediately as we head into 2025 to set yourself up for success financially.
- [01:25]
Austin Hankwitz
We wanted this episode to sort of be a quick hit. Okay, New year, I'm going to open up my podcast player on Spotify and I'm going to make a action item list of things that I need to add to my New Year's resolutions to make sure that I'm setting myself up for financial success in 2025. We're going to speak from the heart. We're going to hit you with some real action items here, some nuggets of information that we think you can go out and do today. This isn't some woo woo. This isn't some crazy, you know, hypothetical stuff. These are super simple 1, 2, 3 rudimentary things that you need to start implementing in 2025 if you haven't already. Because again, we're going to get rich in 2025. We're not going to act rich, we're not going to look rich. We're going to actually get rich in the new year.
- [02:08]
Robert Krok
Whew. That gives me the goosebumps. Let's get into this.
- [02:11]
Austin Hankwitz
So the first action item is, I want you to ask yourself this question. Did you go into credit card debt this holiday season for gifts or for travel? If the answer is yes, 2025 is the year to learn about what a sinking fund is and actually using it for planned expenses. So, okay, let's take a step back. What is a sinking fund, and how do I use 2025 for my planned expenses? Think about a sinking fund as a separate savings account for an upcoming planned expense. We all know that Christmas is on December 25th of every single year. And we all know that we gotta buy Christmas presents. So, you know, in January, February, March, and so on up until December 25, that you need to be setting aside a little bit of money to save for these planned expenses like Christmas. Another common planned expense, Robert, that I see people make a mistake on swiping the credit card for all the time are tires for their car, oil changes, and br. So, you know, you have these planned expenses coming up in 2025. If it's a travel vacation, if it's travel for the holidays, if it's gifts for, you know, next year's Christmas, or maybe it's something to do with your car or something to do with an upgrade on the home. We all have planned expenses for 2025. And so this is the year you actually start setting money aside, every single paycheck inside your honest budget, to begin to save for those planned expenses so that you don't go into high interest credit card debt, which is a terrible idea.
- [03:37]
Robert Krok
A couple of them you didn't mention, I don't think is wedding season. So many people, every year, they get caught off guard that their friends are getting married. They swipe it on the credit card, then they're fighting for months and months to pay it back. Birthdays, you guys have to realize there's a huge difference between a sinking fund and an emergency fund. Because like Austin said, Christmas comes the same time every year, just like the birthdays for the kids come the same time every year. And you have to be prepared for those because you want to avoid the cycle of running the crowd credit card and then paying it down for months and months, then doing it again for the holidays, because that does not help you set yourself up for financial freedom. So I love this one. To start out the episode, and for.
- [04:21]
Austin Hankwitz
All of our women listening right now, another one I want to call out that might sneak up on you are the cosmetics and the beauty care Right. Every three or four months. Women listening, I'm sure, go to the beauty salon, they pay the four or five hundred dollars for the blowout, the highlights, the anything. I, I don't really know what goes on over there, but I know it's expensive. That's what my girlfriends told me. And so you're doing this every three or four months. Don't act like it's going to catch you by surprise when you have this big bill come up at the end of it after that four month period. So if it's going to cost $400 and you get it done every four months, set aside a hundred bucks out of your monthly budget into a sinking fund. This can be in your high yield savings account. I know with Wealthfront you can have like different categories, right? That's a pretty cool thing to consider with your sinking funds. But put this aside. 100 bucks every month. So now when you go to the beauty salon and it's $400, you have the $400 of cash saved in your sinking fund to go pay for it. You don't have to the credit card.
- [05:13]
Robert Krok
Okay, let's go on to talking point number two. Did you invest in your 401k? If not, 2025 is the year you're going to do up to the match. You always hear us say match beats Roth beats taxable. We want you to match, get that free money and go up to the company match in the 401k. But then everything else above that, we want to see it go into the Roth until you get that maxed out. So Austin, I think you explained this better than anyone on the Internet. Walk them through what this means and what is the best strategy.
- [05:47]
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah, so getting rich in 2025 includes investing. And we want to make sure that you all, if you have a 401k like 78% of Americans do, to invest up to the match by your company. We did a whole episode breaking down how the 401k works, the company match, what to select. It was episode 91 published on November 18th of 2024. How to conduct a portfolio performance review. So go listen to that if you're new around here. But essentially what we want you to do is to the match to get the free money, because free money is free money. And then after you've done that match, call it 2, 3, 4%, take all the other money you have that you're taking home every single month and put it in that Roth ira. We've talked about this account for years now. It's an awesome way that anyone can begin to build toward a tax free retirement income. And once you make these contributions of $7,000 per year in 2025, you want to invest that money in the s and P500. And then if you have any money left over, put that into a public.com taxable brokerage account in the same ET ETFs and index funds that we all know and love. So when it comes to investing in the 401k, if you get a match from your employer, you should be taking advantage of it in 2025 because it is free money. Robert?
- [06:57]
Robert Krok
Yeah, Austin, you alluded to the Roth ira, so let's further flush that out because we really want to make sure everyone understands to also do their best to max out that Roth IRA for 2025. That's $7,000 the same as it was in 2024. And you have up until April 15th to max out last year's fund.
- [07:21]
Austin Hankwitz
That's 100, correct. Robert we've talked about the sinking funds. We're getting the free match now from our employers in 25 and in 25. We're also maxing out our Roth IRA. If we didn't max it out at 7,000 of contributions last year in 2024, we have until April 15th of this year to now go back and do that and max it out for 2025. It's in my opinion that the Roth IRA is the most powerful investing vehicle out there for any individual investor who wants to build a a big beautiful nest egg for their retirement because all the contributions grow tax free. Which means when you're 65 and you got a couple million dollars in there, you can take that money out, put it in your checking account and not pay a dime in taxes on those profits. And you could be saying right now, Austin, I didn't max out my Roth IRA in 2024 because I couldn't afford to max it out. We have a solution for you. It's episode 70, finding an extra $2,000 a year to invest. We published that June 24th of 2024. Go back and listen to that one if you're new around here where we help you find an extra couple thousand your budget every year to invest so that you can max out the Roth ira. Those include shopping for new insurance policies or maybe even switching your cell phone plan to visible wireless to save yourself 70, 80, 90amonth per phone line.
- [08:32]
Robert Krok
So many people do not realize the beauty and the importance of the Roth ira. I did a speaking engagement recently and I asked the Entire audience, a small audience. It was like 30 people. I said, how many of you have a Roth IRA currently? The average age in the audience was 32 years old and the percentage of Roth IRA people was less than 20%. And I was shocked at this because for everyone listening and following along, or if you know someone who's working in their financial journey to try and become financially free, make sure you ask them and make sure you share this episode. Because it is so, so important to have that Roth IRA building wealth and be tax free in retirement. It's so important. It's only $500 a month to max it out. And you don't have to max it out to still get the same benefits. We just like to make sure everyone understands the importance of the Roth ira.
- [09:26]
Austin Hankwitz
Now the next point we want to make is tax refunds. If you were someone who received a big 4, 5, 6, $7,000 tax refund in April, maybe you got that refund because of some crazy tax credits or maybe you just had a child or maybe something with your accountant that we're not privy to. But it might also be because your employer is withholding too much of your salary every year. Taxes. This was happening to me when I was working at my 9 to 5 job. I'd always get this tax refund of like 2 or $3,000. And I thought it was great because it was like this way for me to, you know, expect a little bit of a bonus in April. But in actuality, it was a bad idea because I would much rather have that two to $300 per month deposited to my checking account so that I can go out and invest it or go out and pay off debt or go out and, you know, save for something interesting and important to me rather than letting the government hang on to it for a whole year. It, you know, interest free for no reason. 2025, we're not doing that this year. We're going to call our HR department at our work and we're going to tell them to change our withholding down a little bit so that our paychecks are a couple hundred dollars more every single month. It's a tax form. I promise. It's a lot easier than it sounds. It's really, you know, not that intimidating. Just give them a call. They'd be happy to do it. That's what happened to me. But this is a big one that people forget about in the new year, Robert, because for whatever reason, some people don't mind having a big tax refund, but it's just Not a good idea.
- [10:48]
Robert Krok
Yeah, well, they're not looking at it the way you are. You're very, very good with your money and you're very good at automating your investments, which is what we're always preaching to everyone and trying to get them to do. And I think people by nature love seeing that lump sum in their checking account all of a sudden, and they just don't know what to do with it. And in this instance, I think most people are going to go blow that 2, 3, $4,000 right away on something they don't need to impress people they don't like, rather than having the extra 2, $300 in each paycheck, which then, if they had their investments automated, would each month to grow their own wealth. So I totally agree with you on this 100%, and I think it's a great strategy that most people don't know about and certainly no one talks about. So I love that and I hope everyone listening shares that hack with friends and family, because it is a great strategy.
- [11:38]
Austin Hankwitz
All I'm saying, Robert, is $200 a month invested for 40 years is $2.3 million. So you're leaving millions of dollars on the table by getting these big refunds from the IRS come tax season, and then you're blowing something that doesn't make sense. Get your withholding straight, take that extra 200, $300 a month and invest it in the markets and set yourself up to be rich, not look rich in 2025.
- [12:03]
Robert Krok
And another hack that is really, really great for this episode is, and no one really talks about this either, is freezing your credit. I've been doing it for years and years and I'm sure it has saved me a lot of time and anguish because it is nearly impossible for someone to steal your identity. The good thing about freezing your credit report is it helps you from identity left. And opening fraudulent accounts is almost impossible. So it's really easy to do. You can do it online. If you have a card with your local bank, you can go to them online or in person and say, hey, I want to freeze my credit report. And basically what it does, it prevents someone from trying to open credit cards and other revolving credit type accounts under your name. Because wherever they file for it, even if they have your personal information, the credit report is frozen. So the company they're trying to issue it with has to call you to get verification. You filled out the app. And so it really takes a big, big portion of that worry out of the equation. I love it. People don't talk about it enough. And it has saved me so many times over the years when people have tried to mess with my personal identity.
- [13:11]
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah, Robert, you know what costs a lot of money is when someone steals your identity and they go out and they open up these credit cards, they get these auto loans or maybe these personal loans and whatever else. And now you got to go hunt it all down. You got to close the cards. I mean, it is a nightmare. Make sure that does not happen to you in 2025, go and freeze your credit. It doesn't affect your credit score, and it lasts until you lift the freeze from it itself and it is completely free. So here's a couple ways that you can go freeze your credit. Just a little FYI here, there are three major credit bureaus. What this means is like if someone was going to go open up a credit card in your name, it would go through one of these. So if you freeze all three of them, then this won't happen to you. It's called Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can visit Equifax's website and create a My Equifax account to manage the freeze. You can go to Experian's freeze center on their website to place, remove, or temporarily lift a freeze on your credit report. Or you can go to the TransUnion Service center to freeze your credit report on their website. This will take you 20 minutes, and we promise you it's going to save you so much headache. And don't just do this for yourself. Do this for yourself, spouse, anyone, even your kids, if they're over the age of 18, if they have credit cards or loans or anything out in their name, make sure you freeze their credit so that people can't go out and take it from them. This is a lifesaver, Robert.
- [14:35]
Robert Krok
And if you're fearful of doing it on your own, you can check out companies like Aura and Lifelock and they'll do all the work for you. They give you monitoring, right, in an app. I don't do that because I felt confident enough in doing it myself. It took a couple phone calls and a couple emails. But there are companies that'll handle it for you. This is not a paid endorsement. We're just trying to give you all the hacks to protect yourself. Because the bigger you become, the more wealthy you become, the more people are going to target you. And we just want to make sure as scams get more and more prevalent in society, that you know how to work around them.
- [15:09]
Austin Hankwitz
I couldn't have said it better myself. Now, before we jump into our last point, I want to recap. We're using sinking funds in 2025. We're investing up to the match of our 401k in 2025. We're maxing out the Roth IRA in 2025. We're adjusting our withholdings with our salary so we millions and invest that money versus getting that big tax refund in April. We're also going to go out and freeze our credit so people can't steal our identity. These are super easy, actionable things that anyone can do really, just in a weekend, if you kind of put your mind to it. It's pretty simple here. So now that we've recapped that, the last thing, the last big point is to actually make financial goals. We talk about. It feels good, Robert, to talk about cool things and it feels good to invest. It feels good to, you know, know, look and do a little bit of research. But you're not actually doing the thing by talking about the thing. You're not doing the thing by learning about the thing. You're not doing the thing by watching a podcast about the thing. You're doing the thing when you actually go do the thing. And the thing in this situation is actually making financial goals and building a plan around those goals that will allow you to hit them. So, Robert, I want you to walk through a couple financial goals that I think is going to allow people to not only make a plan around them, but, you know, pretty easy to hit here.
- [16:26]
Robert Krok
Yeah, I think it's really just all about sitting down with pen and pad, like you said, on a weekend and really just charting out what do you want. Are you trying to remodel a bathroom? Are you trying to get passive income? Are you trying to get over some proverbial hump? We always talk about the hundred thousand dollar base and then from that, the blueprint is all provided for you. You could literally go through our podcast episodes, pick the ones that are relevant to your financial journey, and then exercise all the information that' in those episodes. So for me, one of the number one things I want to see people do is be consistent. Too many people jump in, they get a thousand dollars, five hundred dollars, or they get excited about an investment, they invest and then they stop investing for months and years. Then they jump in again. We want to see you be automated as much as possible. Whether it's $50 a week, $100 a week, $1,000 a week, it does not matter. But we want to see you Automate those investments. And that starts by opening that public.com account, getting your bank account link, get those automated investments started, whether it's in the ETFs, we talk about cryptos, whatever it is that works for your risk tolerance. That's number one. Number two, because we're talking about beginning of the year, is looking at and rebalancing the portfolios. I want to hear your take on this one for sure. Because it's so important to look at your performance for the past year and then really break it down and say, okay, what worked, what didn't work, and what changes am I going to make take for 2025? And then number three is auditing your honest budget. And like Austin mentioned earlier, that means everything to do with in your budget. The honest budget is having the doggy treats in there, having the nail salon appointments in there, having the new golf clubs. We all know many of you bought a new putter or new driver this year and you forget to put that in your budget. All of this comes down to having a real budget budget of what you actually spend so you can automate those investments and put yourself in a better position.
- [18:28]
Austin Hankwitz
I'm right there with you, Robert. And back to the rebalancing of the portfolio. Just want to again, encourage people to listen to episode 91, how to conduct a Portfolio performance review. It was an absolute fan favorite. So go listen to that if you haven't already. It gives you a little bit of instruction, step by step on how to approach rebalancing. But at the end of the day, Robert, hit the nail on the head. You want to make sure that you are performing up next to the benchmarks like The S&P 500, like the Dow Jones, like the NASDAQ, things like that. And then finally, to Robert's point about auditing your honest budget, I mean, that's the entire reason we do this, is to find that 15 to 25% margin every month in your budget so that you can invest. And again, Robert, we're not investing for fun. We're investing because we don't want to trade time for money anymore. We're investing so that one day our portfolio can be so big that it can supplement our lifestyle in perpetuity. So don't feel like we're telling you to do these things with no end goal in sight. 2025, it's a new year. It's time to start making these new financial goals. If that's getting $40,000 invested in the markets this year, I know that was a Big one for some of my friends. For 2024 to get 40,000 invested, we talk about building the base. Maybe this is the year, Robert, where some of our listeners hit that hundred thousand dollar base built, which means they're invested all that money into index funds and ETFs that we talk about. Or maybe this is the year where someone buys their first house or someone's able to go out and buy their first rental property. Maybe this is the year that someone's pay off that high interest credit card debt. No matter what, your financial goal is auditing your honest budget to understand where that margin is every single month, automating your investments, which means you're deploying that margin into the markets and then rebalancing that portfolio on a semiannual or annual basis will allow you to hit those goals year after year after year. We are getting rich in 2025. 2025 is the year you get rich. You're actually going to do it. You're going to sit down and you're going to do these six things that Robert and I just laid out. And I want to also just like linger on of mindset topic because we do talk about, you know, finance, business and mindset here. And this is the mindset of like making these massive improvements, Robert, to your life. If that's relationally or if that's physically, you know, you're working out a lot. Maybe it's emotionally talking to a counselor or maybe again, financially, what we're just talking about here, massive improvements to your life. Those things do not happen overnight or in this one big swoop. They happen because you do small things consistently over a long period, period of time. Small things that most people take for granted. Average is broke, average is sad. Average is credit card debt. Average is all these things that we don't want to be. I don't want to be average. But by doing what seems average, right, by contributing to my Roth IRA or by following a budget, or by freezing my credit, or by using a sinking fund. What seems like a normal average, rudimentary approach, taking these small steps toward financial freedom every, every day, every week, every month, every year will allow me as an investor to reach it much faster than my peers, even if they don't reach it at all. Because I am doing these small things every day and they compound, right? How could I compound days on themselves so that I can have this big. And we talk about compound interest, right? You do a couple things very completely and smartly every single day for weeks, months and years. That's A lot of compounding Robert, this.
- [21:57]
Robert Krok
Is probably one of the most important conversations we've had this year for our listeners. And it really does come down to the small, consistent things you do over a long period of time make all the difference because of compounding in your life. Not just your financial life, but your entire life. Quality habits make you a better person, make you healthier, make you be more financially sound. And I love this conversation and I hope everyone finds five people to share this episode with because it's so, so important. These little things compounding over time, time are what give you the quality of life that everyone dreams of but might think that it's not for them. And guess what? It is for you if you follow along and take action on these items.
- [22:42]
Austin Hankwitz
And to that point, if you are new around here and someone sent you this episode and this is the first time you're seeing Robert and myself. How's it going? Glad you joined us. Can't wait to have you stick around in 2025. We talk about investing, personal finance, entrepreneurship, mindset all the time. And yeah, this was a great episode, Robert. I'm super proud of the stuff we talked about here because it's not, you know, crazy things that are really hard to understand. These are action items. These are things that people can write down to your point and get done on a Saturday or a Sunday.
- [23:11]
Robert Krok
Yeah, none of this is rocket science. And investing and building wealth and building an authentic, meaningful life is not rocket science. Most people just need a little bit of a nudge and that's what we're here for. Give you the playbook. Nudge you every single week in the community or the podcast and really help you figure it out for yourself. Yourself. Because as you always say, Austin, personal finance is personal. And that's why I love that I get to wake up every day and do this with you because we are changing lives all around the world and it's just the most fulfilling job I could ever have.
- [23:43]
Austin Hankwitz
Now, before we jump into the Q and A portion of this episode, let's take a moment to hear from this episode sponsor, public.com if you're serious about investing, you need to know about public.com that's where you can invest in every everything. Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, you name it. They even offer some of the highest yields in the industry, like a bond account that pays 6% or higher that remains locked even if the Fed cuts rates. What sets Public apart is how they give you the tools you need to make informed investment decisions. Their built in AI tool called Alpha doesn't just tell you if an asset is moving up or down, it tells you why that asset is moving up or down so you can actually understand what's driving your portfolio's performance on a daily basis.
- [24:26]
Robert Krok
Public is a finish registered SIPC insured US based company with a customer support team that actually cares. Bottom line, your investments deserve a platform that takes them as seriously as you do. So fund your account in five minutes or less@public.com rich habits and get up to $10,000 when you transfer your old portfolio. That's public.com rich habits paid for by Public Investing. Full Disclosures in Podcast Discord Description with.
- [24:58]
Austin Hankwitz
That being said, let's now jump into our first question from our Q A section of the podcast. If you're new around here, we answer three audience questions every single episode. We get these questions either sent to us via email at rich habits podcast gmail.com they ask them inside the Rich Habits Network. Go check it out, link in the show notes below or they send us an Instagram DM @Rich Habits podcast. Our first question comes from Michael S. Via Instagram DMS Michael says, I love the podcast. I just went back and listened to all of your episodes. Honestly, they are more helpful than any finance book I've ever read. Here's my question for you guys. If you were given $200,000 at the age of 25, what would you do with this money to set yourself up for financial freedom in the future? I asked this because this is how much I'm inheriting very soon, and I'm thinking ahead of how I can take an investor's approach versus a consumer's approach. Thank you both for everything you do. Wow. What a great question. Cool situation to be in. Robert. I'll let you kick this one off.
- [25:55]
Robert Krok
Okay. I think it's a great question and it's an incredible situation. And here's why. I always go back to a story of an ex girlfriend of mine when I was 22 years old, she was in an accident. She got a lump sum. I took her to Croak Capital, told her what to do. She didn't listen. She took the entire amount and went and bought a convertible that was a depreciating asset. And then if she would have just put even 80, 90% of that money away, she would be a multimillionaire now. But she didn't listen. So I'm going to tell you the same thing. Take 10%. If you're getting 200 grand, take 20 grand of it and have a ball. But Please, please take the rest. Best of it, get the Roth IRA set up. Get your bridge account set up. Get a public dot com account set up so you can get some money in crypto. Because at your age, you should have some of your investable capital in cryptocurrency for the future. Also, then you want to look at just getting all of your ducks in a row and then forget you have this money. Because as soon as you let this money affect your daily life and lifestyle, creep kicks in. You're more than likely going to blow this money within two years. Years. So if you will, and if you can, I believe you can, because you're here watching the podcast and you're asking the question, get at least 80 or 90% of it put away for your future. Because if you have 150, $175,000 invested now at 25, you will be a multi, multi millionaire if you don't invest any more money when it's time to retire. That's what I would do. That's the playbook, and I hope you do it.
- [27:20]
Austin Hankwitz
I'm right there with you, Robert. I think the first thing I would do if I was Michael is I'd slow down a little bit. You know, you're probably inheriting this money because someone in your family has passed away. And I'm really sorry to hear that. And you're probably full of a lot of emotions. You've probably never seen 200,000 in your checking account ever in your life or anyone's checking account. And so there's probably a lot of just like raw emotions that are going through you right now. And I really just want to encourage you to slow down. You don't have to deploy this money. Don't feel like you have a shot clock on doing anything with this money. Like, sometimes it's okay to just sit there for three months and grieve or sit there for a couple months and learn. Surround yourself with people like Robert, myself, and countless others that want to see you thrive and win with this money. But also surrounding yourself is going to come with people that want to take advantage of you, take advantage of the fact that you have this money. You know, Robert really nailed it here. The other thing I want to mention is, relationally, it's important that you are upfront with your spouse before you get married that you have this money. But I don't want want you to feel like you need to. I guess I'm trying to walk you through here is like you're young and there's going to Be people in your life that are going to treat you different because you have more money than them, a meaningful sum of more money than them, including women. And there are going to be people that might not have your best interest at heart because of that. I'm super lucky I haven't had that situation, but I'm sure Robert has and other people absolutely have, many, many times over. So just, you know, Michael, make sure that you surround yourself relationally with people and you open up your life and your heart to people that want your best interest, not your. Tactically speaking, you want to open up a Roth IRA and max it out for 2024 and 2025. That's $14,000. Yeah. Go put, you know, 15, 20, 25,000 in your checking account and have some fun. Maybe go buy a new car or go buy the samurai sword you've thought about at the LEGO set. I don't know what your kids are doing these days. Right. You know, upgrade lifestyle a little bit, enjoy the money. But set aside 170, 180,000 that in park it in both the Roth IRA and then open up an account on public, deposit it into your public account and then doll call it 10,000, $20,000 a month of that lump sum into the S&P 500 into the NASDAQ, into VTI, VGT, VUG, MOAT, ETFs like that over the next, call it 12 to 18 months. That will allow you to buy the ups, downs, the left, the rights and the circles there. So that's my advice. I think there's a lot to consider here. Michael, we're rooting for you, man. And we're super grateful you listen to the show.
- [29:52]
Robert Krok
And I just want to add one more thing that I think helps people over the years and at your age, it's something, something that many of us fell victim to. And that is always try to remember, put it on a post it note above your desk or in your bedroom or something. Rich is loud and wealth is quiet. Use that to your advantage. Because I will tell you from experience for the last 35 years of my life when I was your age, is that you need to make sure you understand friends and family and these people. As you build more and more wealth, you want to make sure that they're there for you and not because of what you have. And the more money people think you have, the more it's going to be harder to determine who are the people that have your best interest in mind and truly care about you. So just keep that in mind, write it on a post it note, put it in a note on your phone, I don't care. But always remember that quote because it'll help guide you during the times, trust me, when silly bands happen and everyone in the world knows. Knew all the money I was making. I had people I haven't heard from since grade school and high school reach out and ask me to help them and invest in their business because everyone thinks you're just going to all of a sudden open up your heart and help everyone. Don't do that because at the end of the day it's your journey and you want to focus on your journey and make sure you do the right things.
- [31:08]
Austin Hankwitz
And the last point I want to make is if you give anyone any money, give it to them as a gift, not a loan. Never loan friends or family money because it makes the relationship so messy and it just it suc someone's struggling or needs money or whatever, give it to them as a gift. Not alone. Our next question comes from Philip B. From Inside of the Rich Habits Network. Philip says, I'm interested on Yalls take on defining and practicing ethical investing. Do you all practice it at all? How do you draw the line or define how much you agree or disagree with the company's actions or policies before deeming them uninvestable? Do you have a list of specific companies that you don't invest in? Are there whole categories that you will not invest in? Any other nuances or things I should consider here? Thanks again for the help, Robert. I'll you kick this one off.
- [31:54]
Robert Krok
I have been waiting to answer this question all day. Philip, this is amazing. I hope you're listening. Yes, I definitely practice ethical investing and here's why. If I don't like what a company is about, if I don't like their ethos, their culture, their CEO or what they do, I won't invest in them no matter how much money can be made. Like for instance, you bring up some of these different companies, these retail companies, companies. I had a very, very bad experience with silly bands utilizing Walmart and it ended up in a lawsuit. A very big and public lawsuit. And for that reason, I would never ever again invest in Walmart. I don't care if the stock returned 100 a year because at the end of the day I have the ability to invest in what I want and who I want. So I would rather not make money from companies that I don't agree with what they they do or their business practices. So for me, 100% agree with you and the answer is Yes, I always practice ethical investing. And when it comes to sectors, it can be whole sectors. I don't invest in airline stocks. I don't invest in cruise ship stocks, anything related to tobacco or, you know, marijuana. I don't invest in those either. Could I make more money by doing that? Sometimes. But I just don't do it because I don't believe in those sectors and I just don't associate with those sectors. So I stick. Stay out of it.
- [33:19]
Austin Hankwitz
I like that. Take Robert. I don't go personally as deep as you do when it comes to some of these like, ideas, but I will not invest into a company if I don't align with their management team, their CEO. Right. I know a good example of this for a lot of people's Tesla. A lot of people don't like Elon, and I understand he's all over the place. So I understand why you might not like Elon. So that's a good example of a company that people won't invest in because of their CEO. I've done that myself because of different CEOs. So that's kind of where I draw the line, is like, do I agree with how the CEOs running the company from a culture perspective? Like, what have they said in the news? Like, who are they as a person? I mean, I invest in DraftKings, right? They're a gambling stock I've invested into, you know, Lockheed Martin. They're like a wartime company. So, like, I'm not so much like industry specific as I know other people are, which is just my investing style of choice. But I do draw the line at the management team. And that's kind of like how I evaluate if I do want to invest in a company or not. It comes down to the CEO and their management team.
- [34:19]
Robert Krok
I love it and it really does. It's a lot like you said about alignment. You know, so many people say, oh, I won't shop here because of this reason. I look at it the same way with investing. If I don't agree with, like you said, the management team or the CEO or something like that, that could be enough for me to not want to make money or invest with them. Because at the end of the day, like we always talk about, there are opportunities every, everywhere, why do I need to capitalize on that one? So I agree. And Philip, thank you for this question. I really love it and I'm glad to finally get to speak on it.
- [34:52]
Austin Hankwitz
So our last question comes from Donna M. Donna says, hey, everyone, and happy New Year. I've really been trying to educate my kids on saving and investing. It's working. They both now have a Roth IRA and a brokerage account and they are loving what it means to own stocks. They're not big readers though, but I want to buy them a simple, easy to understand book that might help them better understand the benefits of investing. They're 18, 25, and 27 years old. Do you all have any recommendations on books for kids and young adults of this age who are interested in investing but need a little bit extra help? Robert I'll take the first stab at this one. I think for the 27 and 25 year old, they would really benefit from the book Own your Money by Michaela Aloka. She's a wonderful author. She's a friend of mine. Own your money. It's a really, really great book. Another awesome book, maybe for the one who might be a little bit more advanced than others, is the Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle. It's a very easy to read book that helps illustrate what dividends are, what the index funds are, and how sort of reinvesting dividends could positively impact your returns and like how this turns into something over time. I also think there's a great book called the Richest man in Babylon. That was the first book I read, so maybe that could be for the 18 year old. It's very easy to understand. There's like a couple, you know, general rules that the author lays out and gives very easy examples about as to how important they are when it comes to saving and investing your money and putting money aside. And I think the last one I'd want to call out is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. That's a really great one there as well.
- [36:31]
Robert Krok
And the last one is Rich Dad, Poor dad by Sharon Lechter. I know that Robert Kiyosaki gets all the credit for this book, but she's the one that wrote it. It's incredible and it's a really, really good book for someone just starting out. So I really love that book as well. But other than that, you crushed it. We share a lot of the same books that we've read over the years many, many times, so I think that's a great place to start.
- [36:56]
Austin Hankwitz
Very, very cool. I had no idea that Sharon wrote that book. That's interesting. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits podcast. We know you were expecting a Q and A episode, but instead you got a Monday morning type episode. A flagship episode is what we call them and we'll have another one coming out on Monday. That episode is going to be about our three favorite investment categories for 2025. So if you're new around down here, click the follow button, the plus button, the notification bell, whatever it is, to make sure you come back and get notified on Monday. When we talk about those investment categories, be sure to leave us a five star review. If you learned something, share the episode with 2, 3, 5, 10 friends Robert and then most importantly, check out all the links in the show notes below. We have a newsletter. We have the Rich Habits Network. We have everything, a bunch of resources down there as well. So there's a ton of stuff for.
- [37:44]
Robert Krok
You to I am so excited. We are going into calendar year three of the Rich Habits Podcast and now we have the Rich Habits Network. So we are just a build build build machine and we're so excited for all of you that support us each and every week and find value from what we do. So thank you all so much and we'll see you next time.
- [38:04]
Austin Hankwitz
Thanks everyone and have a great rest of your week.