← Rich Habits Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify brought to you by public.com these are our Thursday episodes where we answer your questions as if we were in your shoes. This means you can email us questions at rich habits podcastmail.com you can ask us questions on Instagram via the DM feature there. Rich Habits Podcast is our Instagram account. If you're not already following us on Instagram and watching the clips and the stories and the replays like what are you doing? Go do that anyway, but these episodes are a blast. We've got seven awesome questions teed up for you and I'm ready to just dig right in.
- [00:37]
B
Robert yeah, let's get into it.
- [00:39]
A
But before we do that, got to give a shout out to public.com the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, crypto options and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea, any idea at all into an investable index with AI.
- [00:59]
B
And it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index, and even lets you back test it against the S&P 500 all within a few clicks.
- [01:20]
A
Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, they're completely customizable and they're based on your thesis and not someone else's. So go to public.comrichhabits and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio to public. That's public.comrich habits paid for by Public Investing.
- [01:39]
B
Full disclosure in the podcast Description and Austin Public just keeps bringing the heat building such cool tools. So for everyone out there watching and listening, make sure you check out public.com
- [01:51]
A
so our first question comes from Jessica K. Via email. Jessica says Austin and Robert, I've recently started listening to your podcast and value the wisdom and insight you share with your audience. I'm writing to seek your advice on a strategy for my family as we attempt to rebuild our lives from a difficult financial financial position. My husband and I have worked hard to build a life for our two children, ages 5 and 9 months, but we face significant medical challenges. My husband is a type 1 diabetic and a below the knee amputee. He also suffered a near fatal heart attack at the age of 38. Due to his health, he's often unable to work for several months of the year after being denied short term disability insurance, we made the difficult decision for him to stay home and apply for Social Security disability while he attempts to reinvent himself professionally. To stabilize ourselves, we've been aggressively trimming our budget and currently live off grid with my mother to pay down debt. We have no savings, no mortgage, and a $15,000 car lease. We're also paying back a 401k loan. Our primary financial resource is my reliable income of $32,000 a year after taxes and premiums. We also expect a significant tax refund this year. We recognize that we're in a unique moment in time with the AI revolution and we're trying to learn as much as possible, but we feel like we're starting from scratch. What advice can you offer someone starting with only modest income and a tax refund? How should we prioritize this refund and our limited income to finally create a foundation for the American dream that we've been chasing? Thank you for your time and the guidance you provide. Best regards, Jessica K. Oh my goodness, Jessica, I am so sorry to hear about the ups and downs and deep downs that you've been experiencing as a family. Congratulations on the nine month old baby. It's very exciting to, to, to welcome new humans into the family. I cannot imagine though the terror and roller coaster of emotions that came with this near fatal heart attack. And now the, the below the knee amputee and just what's going on? You probably thought you were going to be a widow and the kids. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry to hear that. This has been your reality. Something that we really strive to do with the show is give people hope. And Jessica, Robert and I are gonna do our best to give you hope. And, and that hope is going to come in the form of a blueprint, right? A plan, a strategy, something to follow and clearly have actions on. So, so let's, let's dig into that. You're making $32,000 a year after taxes and premiums. You're expecting a significant tax refund this year, which is very exciting. The first thing I would do is I would create a little bit of buffer between you and life. This means a very small emergency fund to ensure that you do not have to go into high interest credit card debt if you find yourself in a pinch. This means 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, maybe $5,000 sitting in a high yield savings account. This can be on public, it can be on Wealthfront, it can be on Ally Financial. Sofi I don't care what you use. Make sure you're earning 3 to 4% on this high yield savings and it's a couple thousand dollars for you there. The goal with this is with your, I don't know what's going on with your mom and you got maybe the 5 year old has a unexpected or you gotta take em to the doctor and this is a, you know, $114 visit or needs a prescription for your husband with their, you know, with his diabetes. And that's a $400 something like you don't have to swipe a credit card to do that. You can pull that from your high yield savings account emergency fund. So that's the first thing I would do with this tax refund. To be quite honest. I'd probably put all of it, depending on how large it is, into a high yield savings account. So you're starting to have a little bit of predictability. Speaking of predictability, the best way to have predictability in your financial life is to have a budget. This honest budget Robert and I talk about all the time is going to allow you to begin to understand exactly down to the dollar, how much money is entering your bank accounts on a monthly basis and how much is leaving your bank accounts on a monthly basis, what that margin is. And once you figure out what that margin is then you can begin to put it to work. But you can't know the margin unless you got the honest budget and you are actually budgeting on a monthly basis. If you are really trying to, you know, trim down the budget here, get rid of those subscriptions, audit your spend spending, audit your bank accounts, audit your credit cards like any Netflix, any you know, at T95 bucks? Heck no. See you later. Visible wireless 25, right, like mint Mobile, like do whatever you can here to find that 250, 350 per month in your budget that's been hiding in the subscriptions and the other things that you can optimize, call your insurance companies and say hey you're you know, I'm paying X amount of dollars for car insurance. I'm gonna leave unless you give me a better rate. Everything you can do here to find that 2, 3, $400 extra per budget. Now once you've got that margin you talked about, like how do you guys kind of build here you're starting from scratch clarity into what you are spending and making on a monthly basis which means how much margin you have and then saying here's the goal I now have with this margin. In my opinion, you don't need to be worrying about retirement, investing. You don't need to be worrying about buying a home or do. No, none of that. You need to have three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund sitting for you because disaster is going to strike again, unfortunately. But it will strike just like it does for everybody. And when it does, you're going to have $15,000 between you and a terrible time. Right? So with that margin, I want you to then be adding it to this three or four thousand you got from your tax refund and use that to build up your emergency fund to three to six months of expenses. Maybe closer to six months. I don't know how much you're spending right now because you said you're off the grid, you don't have a mortgage or rent. Like pretend you've got those things and put that now into an emergency fund. I think 15 to 20,000 is probably going to be a good place to be here, but it's totally up to you. And then now you're like, cool, we are doing the right stuff here. We've got our plan. The next thing I want to encourage you guys to do. And then I'll let Robert chime in here. Think about this income. $32,000 a year after taxes and premiums, which means you're probably making 18 to $22 an hour, which, like, nice. That's not bad at all. But I'm thinking about your husband here. I would imagine your husband's a very capable man. He's just had life thrown at him in the wrong ways. And that to me means that perhaps there's a world where he can start doing, you know, some sort of customer support job with call center stuff or maybe something on his computer, or maybe there's something where he can do online sales for high ticket items. Or maybe there's something where I guess I'm trying to say is like, I understand that he's got a lot, you know, kind of pushing against him right now. And you mentioned the Social Security disability, which I think might have to do with income. So like make sure like you're not, you know, I don't, I'm not a lawyer here, so I don't know all the nuances of that. But if you are earning income in the disability, like maybe they go against each other. I don't know. But if you can earn money, if your husband can earn money, I would argue between like sales online, high ticket item sales or tech sales or, you know, customer support or, you know, there's A lot of things, in my opinion, that you can be doing in on just a laptop that you buy on Marketplace for 418 because you haggled them down from 650. That's going to put an extra 2, 3, 4, $600 a month in your bank account because your husband is. Is doing these things. I could be off base here. Those are the places I would start if I were in your shoes, Jessica. Praying for you guys, and thank you so much for listening to the show.
- [09:33]
B
Wow. Heavy, heavy question. I would say tactically, you crushed it. I agree with everything you said, and I think you covered all the bases. I'm just going to go a little bit the other side of this from a mindset perspective. Jessica, you are on top of this based on how you wrote this question. I know your mindset is in the right place. You had all the buzzwords and all the things. It makes me realize you are ready to fix this problem and do whatever you need to do. So please make sure you're following along with everything Austin laid out. And I just want to add a couple little things, and they're not negative. It's just from where I'm picking up on what you wrote, I would not worry about your husband reinventing himself. I would worry about, like Austin alluded to, if he's capable, even though he's going to have some down times and he's going to have some rough patches. I would get a job, any job. Working online, working from a laptop, working from home to get revenue. Doesn't have to be a reinvent job where he all of a sudden becomes an AI expert. He can do that on the side. I would get a job to produce income. It can be any one of hundreds of online jobs. That's what I would do first and foremost. And I would also have the tough conversation. If he's going to be working at home with his condition, then can you go get a second job while he handles the kids, while he's working from home? And you have mother present. I'm hoping sometimes to be able to help along the way as well. So I think your head is in the right place. I commend your efforts and for writing this question and proposing it to us so we can try to add value and help. But I know your mindset's in the right place. Get the budget in order, get the additional revenue up and running, start saving towards the future, and I think you guys will be able to figure this all out.
- [11:22]
A
Yeah. I want to emphasize something Robert said. Any job you can be making 8, 9, 10, $12 an hour or 100 or $200 per project. Any money right now is awesome. And there's no job, no project, no nothing that's below your line of like what you're working on here. I just pulled up on Gemini customer service reps at Amazon and cvs. Transcriptionist or captioner platforms like Rev and Transcrib, Data entry specialist, maybe virtual assistant, content moderator. Like this is just what I looked up on Gemini in two seconds. Like go to Gemini chatgpt, Claude, whatever and just do a ton of homework to find what is best for your situation. And don't forget like you can just talk to these things. Hey, what's going on? I'm Jessica. Here's my husband's thing. Here's like our entire situation. Just talk to it for two or three minutes more information the better and then allow it to offer you some solutions. So yes, AI is your friend in this situation for sure. So our next question comes from Ben B. Ben says hi. Robert Nassen. I'm a longtime listener of about two years and I'm a huge fan. Your podcast has genuinely helped me navigate money and investing in my 20s. I'm 25, almost 26, living in New York City and I work in sales earning around 180,000 a year. I've been fortunate to grow quickly in my role and I've been intentional with saving and investing. Currently I have $130,000 invested across my bridge account, my Roth ira and my 401k, 80,000 is in my bridge account, 16 in my Roth IRA and 30,000 in my 401k. Half of it is in V in QQQ. The other half is an individual Mag7 stocks with a couple growth stocks as well. Plus I've got a little bit of bitcoin and a little bit of copper. I've leaned more toward growth than dividend stocks given my age, but I do have 5% in SCHD for passive income. This past summer I was hit by a drunk driver and I had to get surgery on my shoulder. Thankfully I'm doing much better now and I'm receiving a $65,000 settlement check soon. I want to be very smart with this lump sum and not waste the opportunity. My initial thought is to invest all and put about half into index funds that you talk about and the other half into some high conviction growth stocks like Nvidia and Amazon. Since I feel like I've built my base, is it time to put more into individual stocks? Maybe real estate or Crypto or some other asset class. I don't have a ton of time to manage a property, so maybe I don't do that. But for someone my age with a long term time horizon, how do you Recommend Allocating a $65,000 lump sum to maximize long term returns while still being diversified and responsible? Robert, what a cool question. I'll let you kick this one off.
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B
Yeah, I'm doing the math right now to see where we'd be at. So I want your assist on this. You have the numbers, but yes, I love this situation. And I have a story about this from an ex girlfriend who was 23 at the time. She got hit by a car, had some minor damage. She received $45,000 and I pleaded with her to not touch any of it. Put the money away, ride it out in the S&P 500 until retirement. She'd have millions of dollars. She didn't listen. But I know based on this episode and your question, you're killing it for your age. You're doing all the right things and you're spot on with where I know you're thinking, put this money away, get it somewhere safe. Let compound interest work its magic. And I agree with you. I would probably do this with voo, QQQ and maybe VTI or VUG or something like that. A mix of three or four of these funds and let it ride until retirement and you'll have millions of dollars. But just always remember, when you get a lump sum at any age, especially early on, you want to take as much of that away and get it out of your hands. Because too many people go, oh, I'm getting 65k, I'm going to go upgrade my car and put 10 grand down. I'm going to go buy a motorcycle and spend 15 grand. I'm going to do this. And then they put away this little pittance of that lump sum. Always remember this for all of you listening at any age, if you get a lump sum, try to pretend you didn't get it because if you start spending it, it's hard to stop and you won't put it away for retirement in the future. And it's really difficult to get a high number lump sum at any part in your life. And it usually either comes from two things, an accident or an inheritance. So when you get it, put it away because it'll do so much for you in the long run. And I really appreciate what you're doing, Ben, and appreciate the question.
- [15:48]
A
No, this is great. So let's do that math here. So Ben, if you had that 65,000 DOL and invested all 65,000 in the S&P 500, which since inception has returned 11.88% average annually, right ups down, left and right. But over a long period of time, when you average it out, almost 12% if you assume a 3% inflation rate, which is higher than the 2.4 it's at right now, but lower than the crazy inflation we had Covid. So I think 3% is a good place to be. You're looking at $2.2 million over a 40 year period of time. So it's 65 years old adjusted for inflation. So that's $2.2 million in 2066 money. It's adjusted for inflation. So 2.2 sounds pretty good to me from a $65,000 settlement I had in a very unfortunate situation. I'm really sorry to hear that happen to you. I think that is the most selfish thing people can do is drive drunk. It's terrible. So I'm really, really sorry to hear that happen to you, Ben, but I'm glad you're doing better. Surgery went well. Time to take your 65,000 and set yourself up for millions in the future like Robert said. So our next question comes from T. T says hi. If you could refer to me as T on the podcast, that'd be great. You got it. T. T says. I just started listening to the show this year and I'm a very big fan. I've already taken advantage from your Green Flag, Red Flag episode and I started tracking my net worth. It's been a super helpful habit. I'd love to know your thoughts on how to handle work bonuses. I received my year end bonus around mid March. In the past I've allocated a small portion of it to my 401k. Last year I allocated about 5%, but I did put most of it in a high yield savings account and I kept a small amount for fun. How would you recommend splitting a bonus between my savings, my investments and fun? This year I'm anticipating My bonus is $30,000 pre tax. This is a cool question, Robert. So he's getting a $30,000 bonus in mid March and he's trying to figure out how much do I use for travel and fun and all that stuff, how much do I put in a savings account and how much do I put in investments? So let's make sure we're all on the same PA about something. If your emergency fund, which is sitting in a High yield savings account, is already fully funded, three to six months of expenses. There is no reason to add more money to it, right? You don't need nine months of expenses, 12 months of expenses. You just need three to six. And when you spend the money in your emergency fund and it goes down, you then put more into it so it goes back up to where it's supposed to be. So t here, unless your emergency fund is lacking money, then you don't need to put more into a savings account. If it is lacking, then yeah, get it up to that. Three to six months of expenses. So really assuming it's not lacking, you're trying to say how much gets invested and how much do I save or fund? In my opinion, I don't know much about your situation beside a couple little extras here. You said that you've got about $150,000 salary. You're maxing out your 401k annually to get about a half a million dollar net worth. Seems to me like you're doing a really great job. If you wanted to take heck 20, 25,000 of this and you know, go invest it somehow some way, 401k or maybe in a bridge account or whatever you want to do there. Rock and role. But you're very, I mean you're doing great. Half a million dollar net worth at 30. Like you could also just use this money to celebrate how hard you've worked for the last, I'm sure 5, 7, 10 years and the the wealth you've accumulated. Maybe you want to upgrade your car and go pay cash. Maybe you want to go on an extravagant once in a lifetime trip to Japan. Like you could afford to do those things. Your net worth is half a million dollars at 30 years old. So if I were in your shoes, I would find a good split. Maybe I'd spend 5 up to $10,000 of this 30,000 dol. So you know, do the taxes there and figure out what it looks like. But I'd probably spend several thousand of it enjoying my life. You've done a great job so far. You don't feel like you need to really get things done, do anything too crazy here. But yeah, go invest some of it. I don't, I don't think it's as deep as you think you're going to be a millionaire regardless of how much you end up doing on one side or the other.
- [19:45]
B
I love that breakdown and I'm going to add a little bit of color to it. He is killing it for sure. T. Great job. 30 years old. Crushing it. Amazing. I just shared my net Worth at 30 years old with Austin the other day and you are crushing it. I love this. I like to see people when they're getting a bonus like this, maybe spend 10 or 20%, get the rest invested. So like Austin said, I think you can find plenty of places to add to your capital in these retirement accounts or in your regular brokerage accounts. But I love it for you. Enjoy life a little bit. But I wouldn't just go blow it all. Too many people get the bonus and they don't invest any of them. It my general rule of thumb is 10 to 20% is fun, vacation, upgrade the car, whatever it is, like Austin alluded to and the rest gets invested and you pretend you never took it. And then that way you're up and running and you're on your way to being a multi, multi millionaire.
- [20:36]
A
Well, I think what the best part about it is, it seems to me like T and this is just a great strategy for everyone listening right now that get annual bonuses. I've got a good friend that gets an annual bonus that you just got like $60,000 of a bonus as a lawyer. And you live your life, life, assuming you don't get the bonus. Right. All of your monthly expenses are in this normal, you know, your salary. And I think T mentioned he's over here at $145,000 base salary. So live and invest in everything in this 145. And then when you get the extra 30, you're like, Whoa, this is, it's, it's free money essentially. Right? And so if you're someone that does get a bonus, having that strategy or mindset toward budgeting is awesome because then when you do get the bonus, you can like actually go put it to work in a meaningful way.
- [21:17]
B
Yeah, we just talked about this before filming and we see it every single day with athletes and people that get a million dollar signing bonus and then they just go blow the million dollars as if that's all their money and they don't set themselves up for the future. A friend of mine got drafted in the major leagues as a pitcher, got a $300,000 signing bonus and he was going from zero to 300,000. He went and bought a Ferrari right away. He bought a Ferrari, spent all $300,000. Eight months later he got hurt, lost his contract, never recovered, and then had to sell the Ferrari. Don't do that. Put some of the money away. Always be investing for your future because we're going to live longer and we want you to live a wonderful, comfortable life later. On as well.
- [22:01]
A
So our next question comes from Raul P. On Instagram. Rule says hello, just found yours podcast on Spotify and I love it. Unfortunately, I'm way behind in my life goals. I'm 44 years old, I'm married and I have a job that currently has a pension. My wife and I own two homes. We rent one of them currently below market value and my wife wants me to sell it, but I just want to raise rents. We bought it for 180. It's now worth 300ish and maybe more if I fix it up with some curb appeal and other renovations. But what do you guys think I should do? Keep it and raise the rents or perhaps sell it and take advantage of this hundred thousand or so of equity after selling costs? Robert, you're the real estate guy. Do you think he should keep it, raise some rents and be a landlord? I know it's only limited information here, or maybe sell it and take a hundred grand?
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B
Yeah, if I were Raul and we have limited information, so I don't know what their total net worth is, what the overall situation is, but I would probably sell the property because I'm guessing having that net worth and that money, whether it's 100k or whatever it ends up being into his pocket, allows him to probably outperform the rental and the growth, the capital appreciation of the property. So for me, I'd probably lean towards selling the property now. It's a totally different game if they already have a million dollars in net worth and they've got all these other investments. But I wouldn't want to be betting on rental income because it's just so small each month as a way to build wealth in this situation.
- [23:29]
A
Maybe it's a good idea, Robert, to spend some time talking about the how hard it might be to raise rents, how people might want to move out because they don't want to pay the new rent and you got to find a new tenant. So maybe spend two or three minutes explaining your perspective on raising rents and below market value and things like that.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah, I just actually yesterday dealt with this. One of the neighboring houses in Ohio, where I was, where I'm from, the tenant was moving out. I said, why are you moving out? And she said the landlord just raised our rent $300 a month and we simply can't afford it. And I said, well, what did he base that on? And she said he based it on comps. So I think it's important to understand and I'm going to try to keep it short, but Break this down. He raised the rent based on comps, yet this is an older home home that needs a renovation. So I believe he was basing it on a comp that was probably a nicer home and it was unfair to them, so they were forced to move out. And a lot of times when people say, oh, I'm just going to raise rents to make more money, they don't realize you might lose that tenant and you might spend months and months getting a new one because you don't know or you find yourself in a situation where you have to do all of these renovations to raise the rent. So make sure when you're basing your rent increase on other comps in the neighborhood, good, they are equal comps because there might be several homes that are fully renovated in the last two, three years. Your home might be an older home that hasn't been renovated in 15 or 20 years, but yet you're trying to get top dollar for it. So make sure you understand the difference and really do your research so you don't put yourself in harm's way. Because so many people that own properties have a carry cost every month for insurance and property taxes and a mortgage. And if you go three, four, five months without any income on that property, that could set you back two years in cash flow. In making up that four or five months that the property sat empty, that's
- [25:23]
A
a really good call out. And your wife does want you to sell it. You know the phrase happy wife, happy life. So Raul, hopefully she gets excited now that you've decided that your, your friends here on the podcast want you to sell it too. But yeah, man, and then it's like, okay, what do I do with this? A hundred thousand dollars? Well, first thing you want to do is maybe Robert, spend some time here talking about the tax implications of this, of this gain.
- [25:45]
B
Assuming because we have limited information, you've had it for years, you are going to have long term capital gains on the amount you make if you net the 100k. Keep that in mind. But also, I wouldn't recommend if you know what a 1031 exchange is to do that in this situation, given the information we have. Because then, yes, you could put off paying the taxes with a 1031 exchange, but you're jumping right back into owning another property. And I don't think that's what your wife wants and I don't think that is the proper move at this time in your financial journey.
- [26:18]
A
Now, before we jump to our next question from Lily on Instagram, got to give A shout out again to public.com with their generated assets. If you've not yet gone and played with it, typed in your own strategy, maybe you're really into companies who are buying back their stock aggressively, right? And you are just. You want to own companies who are buying back their stock. I think Shopify just announced like $100 million buyback. Robinhood, another hundred million buyback program. So like, I don't know if that's something you're into or anything else you come up with. Literally just type it into the generated assets prompt on public.com rich habits and you are off to the races. And if you want to move your portfolio over to public, you get that free 1% match on however much money you move over. It's a 1% match. You can go move over a million dollars into public and get a free $10,000 match because you did it. So really, really cool. Go check out generated assets public.com rich now this question from Lily on Instagram. Lily says, I'm 56 years old and I've been out of the work environment for many years. I'd like to do some sort of remote job. Do you have any suggestions? Interesting. So, Lily, good question. Obviously there's like two ways to work right now. There's in an office, in a, you know, physical work, somewhere, somehow, some way, and then there's remote. The remote aspect, I'd argue, has gotten really competitive for two reasons over the last two or three years. One, one, who doesn't want to work remote work from home. But also two, the only types of companies, in my humble opinion, assuming it isn't like very easy stuff like we had mentioned earlier with like the copywriting or the transcribing or like things that we were talking about earlier with our other listeners. Question is, you gotta be really good at like using tech because these types of companies are like tech startups that will hire you, but they expect you to like, understand tech really well. And maybe, Lily, you are really good at tech here at 56 years old, I know Robert's great at tech and, and he's up there, right? So like it could make it happen. But in my humble opinion, if you want to get back to work, Lily, I would figure out a type of career that one, aligns with your existing work experience from however long that was ago. Or two, maybe something that you can get certified in or some sort of additional, you know, training that's going to help you start to make 19, 24, $28 an hour. For example, my mom, whenever she wanted to go back to work after being out for a long time. She wanted to go be a medical co. Think the job, if I'm not mistaking is these medical coders follow the doctors and the nurses from one patient to another and they, they write down the code of the service and the, you know, different types of codes for like the things that were provided to the actual patient. Right. So you know, gave them an iv, conducted this type of analysis with the EKG or whatever like so that they can bill it correctly to the insurance companies. Right. That's like a cool job that you could train for and make some decent money doing. So like just think stuff like that. Does that align with what you're up to? Maybe you're really good at baking, you want to go work at the bakery Publix. Like I don't know but I would start there Lily. I'd think about what am I really good at? What are things that you know, I'm super passionate learning about, happy to spend a lot of time being curious about it and build a career around that. You're only 56 years old, you can work for another 10, 15, 20 years if you want to. There's a lot of time to, you know, sort of relearn and re educate yourself as it relates to things that you are curious and excited about. So that's how I would approach this. And if those things happen to be remote, rock and roll. But I wouldn't silo your decision making to only be a remote job.
- [29:51]
B
What a great takeaway. And I think the key for me is Lily, are you good with tech? Because if you're going to get a remote job for a big company, you're going to have to use Slack and you're going to have to use all these different softwares, you're going to have to learn AI and all of that. Now if you are good with tech, ChatGPT is your friend. Go to ChatGPT or Gemini. Hi, I'm Lily, I'm 56 years old. I spent 25 years doing XYZ. I would like to get a remote job. Given this skill set set, what would be give me 10 options that are best for me. Super simple. If you're not good with tech and you're not familiar with ChatGPT you could Google it. Google with Gemini has great, great capabilities. Super simple. Just put it in the chat bar, let AI do the work, figure it out that way. Now if you're not good with tech then you're going to have to get a little Bit more creative, Maybe go to some local Facebook groups, look around, see if anyone has any remote positions, look at some local law offices and other places where you could go to them and say, say, hey, are you looking for anyone to do any of your billing or any of your, you know, normal clerical stuff? There are so many ways to handle this for you at 56 years old. And like Austin said, you have a long, long life ahead of you. So I think you have to figure out what works for you, given your past skill set and what you're good at now. Because sometimes we do have to reinvent ourselves. And maybe it is time you do that with taking a few of these classes, classes like Austin alluded to, to help you get certified in something that is a good remote position with lots of opportunity moving forward.
- [31:22]
A
And I think too, right, because we're talking about money here. And this is just another general rule for anyone that's thinking about, for example, my friend, he's a firefighter, and he is gonna go get some sort of certification to do, like, EMS stuff now, I think, and then even maybe be a nurse on the weekends. Like, he's really into these, like, emergency services. That is what he's curious about. He's excited about it. And like, for him, it makes a lot of sense because he can then go firefighter. And if he wants to do some nursing stuff on the weekends or days that he has off, he only works four days a week. Like, there's a ton of different overlap there. Like, maybe for you, Lily, there's something like that as well. But the big takeaway, I think, for everyone to realize here is if you are going to go get a certification, if you are going to go back to school, if you are going to go do something that's going to cost you thousands of dollars, make sure there's a clear ROI on that investment. Hi, I am a firefighter. I'm going to go spend $12,000 becoming a RN, or you insert EMS certification. So I can be on ambulances or, like, whatever's going on, right. I'm gonna go spend $12,000 doing that. I now have a clear plan that says I'm gonna make $1,400 more per month now that I have this. So I'm gonna pay off this debt that I went into to buy this or hopefully don't go into debt. But it's like, there's a clear, if I spend this, I make this much more. Which means over this period of time, as a payback period, anytime after that is gravy. Like that's how you need to be thinking about investing into your career. So our next question comes from Dante on Instagram says, hi Robert Nassen. I want to thank you for all the knowledge and work you put into your podcasts. I've been listening for almost a year now and can say that although I'm still in the early stages of my financial wealth building journey, I've learned a lot of tips and tricks and habits. You've put me in a great position and I've even taught my parents some lessons that they never thought of as well. Awesome Dante, we're super excited to hear that you listen to the show. So Dante says, I did have a question I was hoping you could answer for context. I'm 23 years old. I just graduated college last May and this past week I actually started my first full time job making 70,000 thousand a year with great retirement benefits. I get a 10% dollar for dollar match on my 401k. This can be used for my pre tax 401k or a Roth 401k and I'm able to split up the percentages. So if I wanted to I could do half for the pre tax and half for the Roth. My thought process is maybe to have 1 or 2% go to the Roth and the rest go to the pre tax, but I wanted to get Yalls thoughts. It's a really good question Dr. Dante. Sounds like a great employer. 10% match dollar for dollar. That is awesome my friend. Well first off, yes, if you can afford to contribute $7,500 a year, right? So 10% of your annual salary there. If you can afford to contribute 7, $500 per year and get a match, essentially making it a $15,000 a year contribution to your 401k, you're going to build wealth very very quickly in my opinion. I always elect for the Roth variant of whatever's going on because I do not know know what the tax law is going to be in 20, 30, 40 years from now when I'm actually able to tap into these retirement accounts. As you guys have probably seen. Like the state of California is trying to do this tax on billionaires and now all these billionaires are going to Florida. Maybe it's you know, billionaires now, maybe it's 100 millionaires later and then deca millionaires and then millionaires. Like who knows, right? But what I'm trying to get at here is we can't predict those things things and when they're going to happen or if they're ever going to happen in the future. So if I can make sure that my money is going to grow tax free in retirement via the Roth retirement account, whatever it might be. Roth IRA, Roth 401k. I'm going to choose that every single time.
- [35:01]
B
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I say it as many times as people will listen throughout the year that the Roth to me is one of the greatest wealth building tools known to mankind and available to everyone over 18 years years old. So I like your breakdown and I agree 100%. Get the advantage as much as you can for the Roth variant.
- [35:21]
A
So our last question comes from Evan on Instagram. Evan says, hey guys, I'm a new listener and I'm enjoying the show. I have a question about a 401k loan. Here's my situation. Married, 36 and 30 with two young kids. 145,000 in a 401k and 16,000 in a Roth IRA. 14,000 in a bridge account and 10,000 in a high yield salary savings. We own our home with a 3% interest rate, paying about $2,000 a month in our mortgage. We currently have a loan from my 401k at 10 and a half percent with $15,000 left. We also have a car loan at 7% with $17,000 left. I'm thinking of paying off the 401k loan, taking another $40,000 loan at 8 and a half percent to pay off the car loan and then put 20,000 in a high yield savings for our emergency fund. My wife is two or three years away from being a nurse and I'd really begin to feel better with a proper emergency fund and about $300 less in monthly payments. What do you think? It sounds to me like you're trying to, what's the phrase, Robert?
- [36:26]
B
Rob Peter to pay Paul?
- [36:28]
A
That's the one. That's what it sounds like you're trying to do here. Evan, don't do this. Don't do this. No, let's just start from scratch and figure out what we can do here. This $14,000 you have in your bridge account, I love it. Here's what we're going to do. Your 401k loan is at 10 and a half percent interest. That is high interest debt by any definition you want to use, right? You've got 14,000 in a bridge account and 10,000 in your high yield savings account. If I were you, I would cash out the bridge account. 14,000. I would take 1,000 from the high yield savings account. Now you have $15,000 and now you can pay back your 401k loan in its entirety. Now you have 9,000 in your high yield savings, which congrats you an emergency fund. There's no reason to go borrow 20,000 from your 401k to go put it in cash, like just use the 9000, build it up to 20 or 25 or whatever you want to do there. Now that you freed up a monthly payment from this 10 and a half percent interest you are paying on your 15,401k loan, that's what I would do. So the bridge account's gone. Now you are essentially trying to out invest high interest debt. No need to do that. So your bridge account 1000 from the high yield savings you paid off the 401k loan. Now you've got 17,000 on a car at 7%. You and everyone else in America just pay that off. I mean 7%'s up there. So if you want to get a little aggressive, you can. But it's nothing like 10.5%, right? Double digit interest rate there. But no, don't go borrow more money from your, you want to get out of debt. Dude, we're trying to like build wealth, not move money around and borrow from this account. To do this and do that, just pay off the 401k loan with your bridge account and a little bit from your high yield savings. Don't go more into debt and then pay off the car loan as you, you, you know, do. And then finally, when your wife is a nurse, she's going to make 60, 80, 90,000 a year depending on how many hours she ends up working. And you guys are really going to start growing some wealth.
- [38:20]
B
Yeah, 100%. Evan, don't do this. Robbing Peter to pay Paul never works. And at the end of the day you, you trade money forever because you think you're saving over here. So you get a loan over here, but then you're giving up on investing over here because you're trying to pay this off. Do what Austin said, get free and clear of the high interest debt. Don't go back into high interest debt. Don't take any more loans against your 401k. Please don't do that because at the end of the day, especially with the markets are right now, The S&P 500 is flat this year, the NASDAQ is flat this year. And in most good years in good markets you'd be making 10, 11, 12% there. So you'd be able to kind of offset it and justify it a little bit. But in this situation right now, do what Austin and said, you'll be much better off in the long term. And when you get that 10 and a half percent interest paid off for that loan, then take that same amount of money and start reinvesting it back into the bridge account to get you back up and running again. But get those things paid off and never look back.
- [39:18]
A
Everybody, thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast Question and Answer Edition. If you have a question to ask us for future episodes, email us at rich habits podcastmail.com DM us on Instagram at Rich Habits Podcast. Or just join the Rich Habits Network, our community for our biggest fans. Because every Tuesday night Robert and I hop on a zoom call with like hundreds of you for two hours to share our market insights, talk about our portfolios, recent investments we've made, and of course answer your questions in real time.
- [39:51]
B
Yes. Also keep in mind we still have the seven day free trial running for the Rich Habits of Network and we talked about generated assets. Go in if you do the free trial. If you haven't already joined, check out what we put together for our generated asset portfolios and strategies. They are incredible and that's just one of the many tools that are available inside the Rich Habits Network.
- [40:12]
A
Thanks everyone and we'll see you tomorrow for our Friday episode of the Rich Habits Radar. Sam.