Transcript
A (0:00)
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast Question and Answer edition, brought to you by public.com these are our Thursday episodes which are entirely focused on question and answer. You guys ask us questions and we answer them. We answer them as if we were in your shoes going through whatever you are going through. You can ask us questions on Instagram at Rich Habits Podcast or via email at rich habits podcastmail.com Robert it is currently Monday, January 26th. The first month, month of the year is almost behind us. This episode's gonna come out and everyone's. We're gonna be just that much closer to February. Man, I'm excited. I, I feel like this was a good month. Good month in the markets. We, we shared our 2026 Market Predictions episode a couple weeks ago. Copper is already up like 15 since we called that one out, which is cool. The Russell 2000 doing its thing. It's been a good month so far.
B (0:53)
Yeah, I really enjoy kind of the first month out of the year because we get to lay the groundwork not only for our own portfolios, but for everyone out there that follow. We scored really high in our predictions in 2025 and I believe we're going to be spot on in 2026. So I'm really, really excited. And of course I always love the Q and A episodes.
A (1:15)
Absolutely. Well, before we jump to our first question though, we 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, options, cryptocurrency and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into index using AI.
B (1:37)
And it all starts with your prompt. 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 put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500 all within just a few clicks.
A (1:59)
You can think about generated assets like ETFs, but with infinite possibilities. They're completely customizable and they're based on your thesis, not someone else's. So go to public.com rich habits and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com rich habits. Go transfer your portfolio over and get that uncapped 1% bonus paid for by Public Investing.
B (2:25)
Full disclosure in the podcast description.
A (2:27)
All right, Robert, our first question comes from an anonymous listener living in New York City. So this anonymous listener says Hi, I have a question regarding 401k rollo and I'd like to remain anonymous. First off, I want to say thank you for the show. I've been listening since day one, every episode without fail, and it's been one of the few finance podcasts that's actually helped me think clearly and long term about my money. I'm writing in with a question because I don't think you all have addressed this directly on your Thursday episodes, specifically around 400 1K rollovers and how to think about them strategically. So here's a quick landscape on me. I'm 30. I work as a commercial litigator in New York City. My base salary is 21,000 a year, not including my year end bonus which is 40 to 50,000. I've got $140,000 in my 401k, 30,000 in a brokerage slash bridge account, 20k in a emergency fund, and $170,000 in equity across two real estate rental properties. I've also got about 15 grand of Bitcoin. I recently left my old firm for a new one, which has me thinking about whether I should roll over my old 401k. The fund lineup at my previous firm performed extremely well and I've been hesitant to move it without fully understanding the trade offs. I know rollovers are common, but I don't hear a lot of nuanced discussion around it. If it actually makes sense to rollover that old 401k to a new provider when it may be better to just leave it alone with an old provider, or how to think about fund performance, fees, consolidation and flexibility in that decision. How should someone in my position think about rolling over an old 401k versus keeping it where it is? Are there situations, situations where staying put is actually the smarter move even after changing jobs? What a good question by our anonymous listener here. Again, thank you so much for being a Day one. We've got a lot of these Day one listeners, Robert. It's insane to think about almost a hundred thousand people have the Rich Habits podcast at the top of their podcast rotation on Spotify. It is. It's unreal. So let's jump to this answer. My perspective on your situation to our anonymous 30 year old listener out of New York City is I would roll the $140,000 401k not to your new to a traditional IRA, assuming it's a pre tax 401k. Right? It's not a Roth 401k, just a normal 401k. You can without Any tax consequences. Open up a traditional IRA on public.com, roll over that $140,000 to it, earn that uncapped 1%, match on that rollover, and then invest the money any which way you want. So when we're talking about retirement accounts, we specifically want to make sure we're invested into index funds and ETFs. We're not doing these risky swing trades or, or things like that. So talking voo, qqq, vgt, mote, M O A T, schd, perhaps maybe you want a little bit of AIQ or some international. With VX us There's a ton of different ways to structure this that meets your risk tolerance. But at the end of the day, having the autonomy to choose because it's in your traditional IRA into what you want to be investing into is the name of the game.
