← Rich Habits Podcast
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- [00:01]
Austin
You're about to make a trade. Which u do you listen to? Is it get optioning those options or let's do a little research. Learn more@finra.org TradeSmart why do growing businesses love working in Slack? Let's ask Christia Ari Bikes Running things.
- [00:20]
Robert
In Slack saves me so much time.
- [00:22]
Austin
AI summaries save 97 minutes per week. What say you? Rox from Gozney Slack helps us build community. It helps us build connection. Your partners, vendors and customers all in one place. Take us on home. Ashley from Caraway if we didn't have Slack tomorrow I would explode. Well let's not let that happen. Visit slack.com podcast to get 50% off Slack business plus hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast Question and Answer Edition brought to you by public.com if you're new around here. First off, welcome to the show. These are our Thursday episodes where we answer your questions as if we were in your shoes. You can ask us questions on Instagram via Instagram dms@rich habits Podcast or email us questions at rich habits podcast gmail.com or you can join the Rich Habits Network. Join over 800 other podcast listeners and get your questions answered live via our Tuesday night live streams via Zoom, which are a lot of fun.
- [01:21]
Robert
Yes, we are so glad to be back after the holiday break and the Rich Habits Network. If you are trying to level up your game, whether it's in business, finance, investing or mindset, you should definitely check out the Rich Habits Network. We have a lot of fun in these live streams. We talk about everything from investing, where markets are going, what's happening in real estate, all of the above. So if you're new around here you might want to check it out. We are running a seven day free trial. It's linked in the show notes so make sure you check it out.
- [01:52]
Austin
Something else people should check out is public.com the investing platform for those who take it seriously. Because on public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index using artificial intelligence. It's the new year. It's 2026. You need to have a public account and start investing.
- [02:17]
Robert
Yeah, these tools are incredible. And with generated assets, it all starts with the 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 let the AI do all the 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.
- [02:43]
Austin
That's my favorite part because it literally tells you, here's how this strategy has performed over the last 10 years compared to the stock market, right? Is it a winning strategy or not? And Robert, I'm only, I'm only trying to invest in those winning strategies, my friend. Those are the ones that are the best. So generated assets, they're just like ETFs, but you got infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. So go to public.com rich habits and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer over your portfolio. That's public.com forward/rich habits, of course, paid.
- [03:18]
Robert
For by Public Investing and full disclosure in the podcast description.
- [03:22]
Austin
All right, Robert, so our first question is coming from Drew via email. So Drew sent us an email at Rich Habits podcast gmail.com and says, Gentlemen, I trust this message finds you well. Longtime listener feel to free first time question. I'm a Florida resident and have zero real estate holdings in the state. I'd like to make an investment in my home state as a primary residence. However, recent insurance rate increases have me spooked. By all indications, we in Florida and those in other natural disaster prone areas should expect to see further rate increases in the future, considering insurances on primary residents are generally not tax deductible. Insurances now play a significant role in affordability and can now carry weight as a trans transactional consideration in the total cost of ownership. Can you guys please provide your thoughts on real estate investing in areas susceptible to flood, wind, hail, fire, earthquakes, mudslides, extreme heat, et cetera. Specifically talking about the United States here. Thanks again. Interested to hear your thoughts. Robert, I'll let you kick this one off because you've been doing the real estate investing longer than I. You live in Florida. You are. I mean, you went through the hurricane last year, right? So what's your perspective right now on investing in a primary residence? Right, like you're going to live there. Primary residence in a place around the country that's likely on a coast, hurricane prone, things like that.
- [04:44]
Robert
Yeah, it's a little tough because this is a great question and I think you have to kind of build it in as a cost that you just have to deal with to live in paradise. And it's not just Florida. There are other really cool areas parts of the country that are beautiful but also prone to hurricanes and winds and all the problems. So I look at it this way. If you were to take insurance right now in a primary home, a traditional primary home in Florida, you're probably going to pay four times more for that insurance in Florida than you are in Milwaukee or Toledo, Ohio or somewhere like that where I'm from. But you have to ask yourself this question. You have year round sun, you have incredible weather, you have warmth, you have all these wonderful things and you have tax benefits, which is something I always try to get everyone to understand that even though maybe you're paying more in insurance to live in a beautiful area in Florida like we're talking about, but you also have the tax benefits of domiciling your primary home in Florida as well. So I think overall you just have to consider what is more important to you. Is it to have cheap insurance? If so, live somewhere really inexpensive like where I'm from, Toledo, Ohio, very low cost of living, great state. But you're not going to have all the bells and whistles and tax benefits of Florida. Then you have to just consider the overall cost of living and benefits versus your lifestyle and what's more important.
- [06:07]
Austin
And so when you talk about these tax benefits, you're talking about the fact that Florida has a 0% state income tax versus New York at 13 or Vermont at 11, a California at 11, stuff like that.
- [06:20]
Robert
Yeah, definitely. Because you know, I just met with somebody yesterday, somebody that's from New York that's looking to move here. And it was all that conversation in her considerations for what she was going to buy. She was looking at condos and primary homes. And you just have to consider that because there are other benefits to Florida besides the weather and the beaches. So I think it's just understanding the total ownership cost and the benefits and then weighing them out. Because yes, if you look at it just from an insurance perspective, it's going to cost you more than many other states. But there are a lot of benefits that comes with it.
- [06:53]
Austin
Yeah, and it's not just the home insurance. I was talking to someone recently that lives in Florida and their car insurance is like unreal for a family of four. Their car insurance is $12,000 a year. No accidents, no like crazy things here. Yeah, they've got a couple college age drivers, but that's $12,000 a year for a family of four. I mean, I pay a fraction of that and it just, it doesn't make any sense mathematically when you're like, whoa, that's crazy. Like it's just, it's very interesting. So from my perspective, it's not somewhere where I would want to invest now a primary residence, you live there, you're enjoying the sunshine. Like that could be thought of as just the price to pay to live in Florida and enjoy the weather and enjoy all those things. But if you're someone who's like, maybe in Tennessee, like me, but you want to buy some real estate for an investment property, I would not pick Florida because one, the property taxes are insanely high. Two, insurance cost on those homes are very high. Three, you guys have hurricanes all the time. My home cannot exist maybe two years from now. And then the way I have to rebuild the home maybe one day is like not how the. It's, it's all very tricky stuff. And then also too, I heard, you know, this guy was talking about how, you know, he got insurance for something. I think it was like flood insurance or whatever. And it was hurricane insurance. But they said it wasn't a hurricane, it was the wind. How is wind not a hurt? I don't know. There's all these little stipulations you got to be really careful of. So if you are a outsider looking in, maybe not investing in Florida real estate. If you want to live in Florida, rock and roll. It's the cost of doing business there. And I was just in Florida for New Year's. The weather was perfect. You guys have got some cool stuff going on over there.
- [08:30]
Robert
Yeah. And I think the only other thing to consider that you brought up is that what if property taxes go away? Now, obviously there will still be taxes, but if your property taxes in Florida to own a primary home were to go down 40, 50, 60% in the coming years, if this does get passed, that's another thing to consider when you're doing your homework on if it's the right place for you to buy that primary home.
- [08:55]
Austin
Great feedback there, Robert. Let's jump to our next question from Seth H. Seth says since December, every single month I've been depositing $580 into my Roth IRA. And right now it's invested into Spyi, VTI, Spy, Voo, and QQQ. Have I over committed to ETFs that have so much overlap? Do I really need to have five ETFs that have so much overlap, like VTI, spy, voo in my Roth IRA? If not, should I consolidate that and put that money into other ETFs? Would love your perspective as I make new contributions for 2026. What a good question, Seth. And I love that you've asked this. So you're in a good spot. You're like, listen I'm, I'm now maxing out my Roth IRA on a month to month basis, right? You want to hit that $7,500 maximum now for 20, 26. And how we always like to encourage people to think about the Roth Individual Retirement Account is like, dude, this is your forever account. This is that retirement account that you're going to have in 30, 40 years from now. And when you look forward to that 30, 40 year retirement nest egg you want because you didn't take crazy risks in these high flying, high beta single stocks or these crazy investments or whatever's going on, you played it normal. You invested in the markets, you invested in blue chip single stocks, you did these ETFs and index fund we talked about, right? You're not doing anything too crazy here with this Roth IRA. But your question is spot on because you've got Spyi, Spy, Voo and Vti. So you've got the NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF. You have the S&P 500. You have the S&P500 again and you have the total stock market index, which newsflash is essentially the S&P 500. So four of the five ETFs that you have in your Roth IRA right now are invested in the S&P 500. There's just 95% overlap across these four ETFs. So here's what I would do if I were in your shoes. I would consolidate this by perhaps selling most, if not all of the shares you've got in VTI and spy. I believe SPYI is a good thing to have. Pays you that monthly income. You can reinvest it elsewhere in your portfolio. So, so keep some, you know, call it 5 to 10% allocation into that. But V is where you want to consolidate the VTI and SPY shares into, right that money into. Because that's the cheapest way to own the S&P 500. You mentioned you got QQQ. Rock and roll with that. Love to see it. But you should also diversify a little bit too. So maybe there's a world where you could add vgt, which is the tech focused Vanguard etf, or maybe you can add schd, which is the income value side etf. Or maybe there's a world where you can add a little bit of AIQ if you want some artificial intelligence or maybe some precious metals or, you know, but don't get too fancy here. At the end of the day, you want to have 80 to 90% of this invested into the ETFs and index funds we talk about like the S&P 500, like the NASDAQ 100, like the Dow Jones. Right. These tried and true long term up until the right strategies that are going to allow you to grow wealth over time. Really good question and a really funny situation to be in.
- [12:17]
Robert
Yeah, I agree 100%. I would lose spy in VTI. I would make sure to get some exposure to precious metals. You've got gld, slv. I love that you called out AIQ because I think that gives some good AI international exposure. And other than that, I would keep rock and rolling with VOO and QQQ and SPYI for sure for that income and just get a little bit more diversification so there isn't so much overlap. And if you want to test this out, take those funds, feed them into chat, GPT or whatever platform you use and ask them how to better position your weighting and how much overlap there is. And you'll be shocked to see how much you have right now and make those changes and you'll be more diversified and ready to rock and roll in 2026.
- [13:07]
Austin
If you want some international exposure, you X us. I think everyone should have a little bit of bitcoin. A little bit of bitcoin in the Roth IRA. I've got some. Maybe you want to do some BTCI. Call it 5% of that. Right. But at the end of the day, no more than 4, 5, 6 ETFs in your Roth IRA here. All sort of investing into different parts of the market with the vast majority of it in American capitalism via the S&P 500 in the NASDAQ 100.
- [13:35]
Robert
Yes. And always, always for all of you listening, make sure you understand what you own, how much overlap there is. I helped somebody the other day with their portfolio and their a friend who was using a financial advisor. I'm not going to say what company. There was so much overlap. It was egregious. I felt terrible for them and it had been that way for a long time. So they're just paying all these additional fees to own like three or four of the same thing and it just doesn't make sense. So make sure you do the deep dive at least quarterly or biannually to understand what you're invested in and make sure you're waiting and your overlap is correct.
- [14:13]
Austin
Correct. So our next question comes from John K. Via email at rich habits podcast gmail.com John says. Hi Austin and Robert, I know you are big proponents of building your base in ETFs and I wholeheartedly agree. Recently, though, I've been seeing a lot of comments specifically from Michael Green and Michael Burry around the increase in passive investing damaging price mechanisms. The risk being that passive inflows amplify gains on the way up and then amplify losses on the way down. I'm still slightly confused by what they're trying to say. So could you please break down exactly what they're trying to allude to and provide your commentary if there's any real risk or actionable advice to take about passive investing into these index funds in ETFs, John There is no real risk. There's no individual investor risk when you are doing this passive investing. So here's what's going on, right? AUSTIN ROBERT what in the world is passive investing? Help me understand this. You've got Vanguard and Global X and BlackRock and, you know, all these big companies that have their own ETFs, they've got their own mutual funds, they've got their own index funds, they've got these investment vehicles that track the s and P500, that track the NASDAQ, that track insert index or, you know, investable theme here, they are passively mimicking what these indexes do. And by that I mean every time the s and P500 adds a new company to it, right? They rebalance, I think, on a quarterly basis. ROBERT or every time they kick out a company, whatever's going on, these trillions of dollars are doing the exact same thing. These trillions of dollars are not selling a specific company stock because they believe the stock is bad or because it had a bad earning or whatever's going on. They are simply doing it to mimic what the S, P, you know, providers of the s and P500 index fund are telling them to do. So Passive funds buy and sell based on rules, not fundamentals. So when money flows into these passive products, it, I guess, mechanically speaking, pushes prices higher, theoretically, right? Regardless of whether those companies got better or not. And then when that money flows out, if it's like, hey, I'm, I'm, you know, people are taking money out of the markets in general, or they want to sell their ETFs or, you know, whatever, they also sell the stock, right? And so when you sell a stock, 9 times out of 10, price can come down. When a lot of people buy a stock, nine times out of 10, prices go up, right? So their concern here is that the dynamic, specifically talking about Michael Berry and Michael Green, this dynamic of buying and selling passively amplifies the upside and the downside, especially during times of, you know, black swan events or big stressful moments in the markets. Here's the thing, it's all a bunch of hocus pocus right at the end of the day. Are they right? Yeah, I'm sure there's some, some market maker thing going on with your Delta, your Sigma, your Theta, your Veda, your whatever the heck Greek symbol they use. I don't even know. There's something going on, I'm sure behind the scenes. But you know what is also happening right in front of our eyes? The S and p being up 17% in 2025 and 25% in 2024 and 20 something percent in 2023. And the S&P 500 having a 95 year track record of delivering 12% return on a long period of time averaged out right like that to me is more important than trying to, oh, I don't know, man, these. The weird passive bubble is happening and we're all going to lose whenever, like, I'm not worried about that stuff. If you want to Direct index, right? You want to go Direct Index, go Direct Index. The S&P 500 on public dot com. Go direct index. The NASDAQ 100 on public dot com. If you don't want to be at all into these ETFs and index funds that are passively investing and you know, flows and market caps and crazy stuff like that, you have an alternative. I'm personally just riding the wave. It's all good. This is more of a system level concern, not an individual investor level concern.
- [18:18]
Robert
I think that's a great breakdown. And you kind of took the words out of my mouth when you're talking about the hocus pocus. Because one of the things we talk about all the time for years, Austin and I on the podcast on our lives, even in the Rich Habits Network is understanding not to have these knee jerk reactions to headlines. And right now Michael Green and Michael Burry both are headline gobblers. Like they're always going to have this super intelligent headline to push their behind the scenes narrative. Whether it's Peter Schiff with gold or Michael Burry, you know, with his short recently and his notional value on what he did with Palantir and some of these AI stocks. So you just have to be careful and really read between the lines. If you guys recall, and if you're new here, maybe you haven't heard this from me, is to understand and think deeper and understand deeper what these headlines actually mean and why they exist because you have to understand they all have initiatives and their reasoning for these headlines. So just be careful and just watch out for that hocus pocus.
- [19:26]
Austin
So our next question comes from James B. Via email. James says hello Austin and Robert, I've really enjoyed the podcast. I've been listening since January of 2025 and you both have definitely helped me have a more advanced understanding of personal finance. Thank you for all you do. My name is Joe. My wife And I are 35 year old teachers living in the Midwest. We make 130,000 a year, about 7,000amonth take home pay. We each have $100,000 in our Roth IRAs. I have 20,000 in a 529 account for our 4 year old. The only debt we have is at 2 1/2 percent. It's on our home. It's $80,000 and our home is valued at 210. We have a fully funded emergency fund of $20,000 and a $450,000 net include our pension. We live pretty frugally yet comfortably kind of saving and investing 20 to 30% of our income every month. Since listening to you all though, I've been more intrigued about diversifying our investments. We've thought about dipping our toes into real estate in the form of rental properties. I'm a relatively handy person and I really enjoy doing home projects, so I genuinely think I'd be really good at this. We Normally keep about $25,000 or so saved in our checking and savings accounts outside of our emergency fund. And we want to use this to buy property between 70 and 90,000 that would hopefully produce about $300 a month of income. I'm not sure if we need more cash to get started. I've also thought about flipping a home to get started so I could use less cash upfront for a down payment and get a larger chunk of cash to use toward rental properties in the future. So do we flip in rent? Do we just flip to flip? Are we being too ambitious? What do you guys think about this? All right, Robert, you have done countless flips in the around $100,000 range in the greater Toledo, Ohio area. We've got a guy here who's super handy. They've got 25,000. They're making a ton of money. They're in their 30s. Half a million dollars as teachers. Geez, if they can do it, anyone can. First off, that's cool. But what, what advice do you have for them specifically as it relates to the 25,000? Is that enough to do a Flip. How would you go about flipping homes? What were the sort of ways you financed it? Like walk everyone through that.
- [21:38]
Robert
Yeah, I love this question. And in this situation it gives me goosebumps because it's just the right way to do it. If you're dipping your toes in real estate, I always tell everyone, start small. I know Grant Cardone says if you're going to get into real estate, you should start with a 32 unit apartment complex. That's ridiculous because the average person is not going to have any clue what to pay, how to underwrite it, how to renovate it. In this situation, I think it is the ultimate sweet spot, especially in the Midwest where I'm from. In northwest Ohio, you can go out and buy these homes that are a little bit run down. We call the lipstick remodel. Buy it for 70, 80,000 bucks, put 20 or $25,000 into it, you're all in for a hundred thousand dollars, maybe 100, 510 with closing cost. Then flip it and sell it for 145, 155, 160 if the comps support that. Or make it a long term rental like they alluded to, make that 2, 3, $400 a month. Because in Ohio, especially northwest Ohio, some parts of Indiana and other parts of the country, the 1% rule still works. So what does that mean? If I own a house that I'm in all in for a hundred thousand dollars, I can probably rent it for a thousand to $1,200 a month, which means it's a good deal and the numbers work out. So I love this situation. I don't think there's any real pitfalls here, especially with him being handy, because you just want to be careful when you're doing this first property. You want to get opinions of contractors and other people and make sure you do it right. But you also don't want to sign away your life and pay retail for a bunch of contractors. If you can go in and do the painting, do the flooring, maybe you want to upgrade the vanities. Super easy stuff stuff. And Home Depot is your gold mine here. Set up a pro account. You get really good discounts at Home Depot and you're up and running and rock and rolling with your first property. You're going to learn a lot on this first property, but it's going to set you up for future deals and allow you to take whichever direction you want. I do flips and long term rentals, but you can also just do flips or just do long term rentals. It depends on what works for you and what you want the outcome to be.
- [23:55]
Austin
Back to the question of financing. How would you normally go about financing, purchasing? Let's call it a 70, 80, $100,000 home.
- [24:03]
Robert
I mean I've self funded but I've also done mortgages. You can go get a mortgage or you could get like a 203k loan which is an all in loan that gives you the money for the house and the renovations. Then the only cash you would have to come up with would be like your closing costs and your down payment stuff that you need to get the house purchased. But you could look at that, you could look at a DSCR loan. There's a lot of different things out there you can do. In this instance you might be able to find owner financing as well where they're going to sell it to you as is and you pay them a payment with an interest rate of 6 or 7%. You go in, if you decide to flip it, you're only financing it for 4, 5, 6 months and you're up and running. There's a lot of ways, especially in this hundred thousand dollar range project to get the funding to be able to get you up and running. And I think 25,000 in cash available to work with is enough in this situation.
- [24:56]
Austin
And what, what big mistakes did you make when you were flipping these? I mean let's be real two bedroom, one bathroom homes, right? These very small 70, 80, $90,000 homes. What big mistakes did you make in the beginning that you kind of learned from that? You could tell Joe here.
- [25:13]
Robert
Yeah, I would say the biggest mistake I see people, I haven't really suffered from it because I've been doing it for so long and even in the beginning I was pretty good at it. But the biggest mistakes I see people make is not understanding the carry costs of a project because every project costs more and takes longer than you expect. And people don't factor that in with their numbers of what that carry cost is a month. So let's say you borrowed money and it's a hard money loan at 8% and it starts 30 days after you borrow it. You take too long on the project. Let's say it takes three months longer than you expected to do it. So you've got the carry cost of the loan for those three months. And let's say it takes you three months to either sell it or rent it. You have those fees as well. So I would say that would be number one and number two would be trusting someone. They don't know their experience or their work ethic when doing a project because a lot of people just buy a project, they go out and hire a contractor and think they're all good to go. They give the big deposit and the contractor's up and running. So just be careful there. But I think in this situation with James, he's going to be really hands on and I like that for them them because they're going to know exactly where every dollar comes from. And another thing to consider, if you do hire a contractor, do not get ahead of your pay schedule. A lot of these contractors going to ask you for more and more money even though the work that they have performed thus far isn't up to where it was in the schedule. And also what I like to do, if you can, is compare the difference between you buying all the materials and letting them buy the materials because they generally will get a discount. But if they're not passing it along to you and they're actually marking the materials up, you might save more money on the project by buying the materials yourself through a Home Depot or a localized company that has the materials you need. I prefer Home Depot but there are others out there.
- [27:08]
Austin
I think that's a great breakdown. Robert James, we're wishing you the best with your 2026 rental property home flip excursions. It's, it's exciting. It's exciting. Now before we answer our next question, just want to give a shout out again to Dot com specifically their generated assets strategy. I'm telling y', all, if you've not yet tried using generated assets for yourself, you are missing out. It is literally chat. GPT meets investing. You type in, hey, I want to invest in companies that are going to profit from oil because I just saw that we invaded Venezuela and there's oil in Venezuela and I want to make sure that I can like type in anything you want and it will find it for you. Then it will back test that specific strategy against the S&P 500 over the last 10 years to tell you if it's a historically speaking winning strategy. The Rich Habits Network. We've actually inside there published 13 winning strategies and I've invested so far into four of them on my own public account, which is really exciting. Another reason to join the Rich Habits Network. Robert we just always are coming up with some cool stuff.
- [28:17]
Robert
Obviously we love public public, but I think the generated assets tool is like the goat move by them because it's just so incredible for us and all of our listeners and anyone that follows along that goes into public.com checks it out and plays around with it. Write the prompt, see what happens. You might come up with a genius strategy and it'll build you the index around that. So I love this tool. I'm excited to play with it more in 20266 and invest more in some of the strategies that we've come up with inside the Rich Habits Network.
- [28:50]
Austin
So our next question via email again rich habits podcastmail.com comes from an anonymous listener. Our anonymous listener says, please keep me anonymous. Hello, I listen to your podcast every week and I really appreciate it. I'm 24 years old. In this past year I worked as a high commission solar panel sales job making about $160,000. However, starting in 2026 I've accepted a project specialist role at a semiconductor company with a hundred thousand dollars salary which is way more aligned with my long term career goals. My current net worth is about $110,000. My question is, am I making the right decision by taking a pay cut to move into my career? Even though the income is lower and with the goal of house hacking a duplex or a three family soon, what income or net worth number should be realistically targeted? It feels like a hundred thousand doesn't go as far as it used to. Thanks again. The podcast has been a big impact on how I think about money and my decisions. Awesome situation to be in. Samuel. 24 years old, he just made a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Are you kidding me, dude? That is unreal money at 24 years old and you have $110,000 net worth to show for it. In this you talked about having about 40,000 of stocks, a little bit of bitcoin, a high yield savings like all that rock and roll stuff. That's so cool. And it really comes down like hey guys, I, I took this new role at a hundred thousand and it's in my career. Am I making a mistake? I vote no. I vote you're not making a mistake. If you want to work in the semiconductor industry, which news flash, that's going to be around for a while, right? If you want to work in a budding industry like the semiconductor industry, making six figures at 24 years old, like dude, yes, that's a great move because you now I'm sure have some sort of visibility or path to climbing some sort of corporate ladder at this new company or a startup, whatever you're doing here, where that hundred thousand thousand chances are, in 10 years from now, it's going to be a quarter million, right? Versus the same 160 you would have been making before. Right? Because again, it was a high commission solar panel sales job. The only way you made 160,000 was door knocking 90 homes a day out there in the hot Arizona sun. Maybe who knows where you live, but that's how you made your money. As you got really good at sales, you put in the brute effort and all that, you got it done, which is great. But now you're looking like, okay, you're kind of capped, right. Unless you maybe do it again. But even harder this year, like you're probably not going to make more than that. If that was like you're all in, you know, that's how much time and energy and everything you spent there where in a semiconductor job as a project specialist role, maybe the project specialist turns into a project manager, then a project director, then a VP of projects, then the president of the company. Right. There's like a lot of ways to think about this. I think you're making the right decision. And I'll let Robert chime in as it relates to how to think about the goal of house hacking or a three family or whatever's going on there from a net worth perspective and maybe an income perspective as well.
- [31:49]
Robert
Yeah, I love this situation for our anonymous listener. And you covered it really well. I think you have to sometimes go backwards to go forwards. And when I think of high commission solar sales, I think of high stress, I think of high volatility of what could happen with your paycheck, paycheck. Whereas getting into this other field, this new field and having a real job in the semiconductor industry, to me that speaks safety, it speaks growth and it speaks stability. And that's what you want at 24 years old. So I wouldn't worry about the pay cut in a short term reference and I would look at it more as a long term pivot to have a better career for yourself and have probably benefits with this company and like Austin said, not be out there knocking on doors, yours dealing with the high stress of all of that. I love this for you. And when it comes to house hacking at 24 years old, I think you're spot on. I would look at a duplex, a triplex or a quadplex. I would live in one of the units. I get that Fannie Mae 5% down mortgage so you don't have to come out of pocket with a lot of money. That's a great way to do this. Live in one of the units for at least a year and then do it again if you want and just Keep rocking and rolling, rolling. So you can start to build up some diversity and a real estate portfolio. And house hacking is always the way to go. I don't care how much money you make, I would not start with a single family home or a dream home because you're 24 years old, you're trying to build your wealth and set yourself up for a good future.
- [33:22]
Austin
And when it comes to your situation, right, when it, when it comes to like house hacking and how you know when you're ready, we always like to say, go get your base built. $100,000 invested into the index funds and ETFs we talk about. You say that you've got about 40,000. So that's your goal. Give yourself the next three or four years, let's call it by 30 years old, right? Our anonymous listener is going to be house hacking. Because by 30 they'll have $100,000 invested into these index funds and ETFs. They'll have enough to put down with this Fanny may, 5% to go buy a 4 or a $500,000, you know, duplex or triplex. They, they've got it all figured out maybe in that, in that, you know, call it five year period of time. Time. Their salary is now closer to 180,000 a year versus a hundred thousand. So I wouldn't give yourself such a short shot clock. I feel like you've seen a lot of money at such a young age. Do you feel like you should be doing more with it? Right? You saw $160,000 at 24 with your, with your job. And you're like, listen, I got to go do this, I got to invest this, I got to get fancy. I got to go figure out how to do these things. You don't. You got to keep it super simple. Index funds, ETFs, get that base built, grow in your career, work toward that. Promotion, work toward that. You know, higher paid Sal forget match beats Roth beats taxable. You've got a 401k now, I'm assuming compared to just a sales job, you probably didn't have one of those. So a lot of ways to think about building wealth between now and 30 years old. And that's the type of time horizon you should give yourself. Now our next question comes from Daryl Darrell says, hey, Austin and Robert, huge fan of the show. I listen to every single episode during my commute. You're doing the Lord's work. I have $200,000 sitting in a high yield savings account and I don't know what to do with it? I'm 26 7. I work full time in tech making 300,000 a year. I built my base like Robert always says. I have 235,000 in ETFs in index funds, 35 of that 235 is in Bitcoin. This does not include my 401k, my backdoor Roth IRA and all the other cool things I do. Because of your show I keep my expenses pretty low. I save and invest over 50% of my after tax income. Geez Louise, Daryl, you are definitely an anomaly. My friend Daryl says I sold a lot of single stocks that performed really well in 20, which is how I ended up with $200,000 in my savings. I've got it now sitting in a high yield savings account. I don't want to put it back in the stock market. I'm frankly a bit scared of having all my money in the stock market. I want to diversify outside of the stock market in 2026. So I'm thinking about putting 100 grand in oil and gas through a private investment firm founded by someone I trust. I'll get some tax write offs and maybe some returns if the wells produce as expected. I'm also considering some real estate buying, maybe an apartment complex. But I don't know anyone in the real estate world so I don't know where to start with that either. I also started reading a book about buying small cash flowing businesses. Maybe that's something I do. I'm open to everything right now. I'm so excited to get this money deployed. What would you do in my situation and why? Robert, kick us off.
- [36:19]
Robert
This is a very very loaded question and situation. I would say do not do the oil and gas. I have not seen too many people except for very, very wealthy people that are looking for the tax benefits. But when it comes to the returns and the liquidity of oil and gas investments, very, very difficult. I'm going through it right now myself, so I would shy away from that. I would start small in real estate and if you want to do multifamily, if you don't know anyone locally, I would go to some meetups. There's gotta be meetups around you. Check out Facebook Marketplace, check out Instagram, see what's in your area. Get to know some people that are in the industry but also read some books, get some audiobooks like the Multi Family Millionaire is a pretty good place for people to start that are looking for a simple short read of how to learn how to have multiple doors because you have to understand, if you go too many doors, you're going commercial. If you go four doors or less, then it's still considered residential, which is a lot easier. I always talk about that as a starting point point. But I would really consider first and foremost real estate over buying a business or doing the oil and gas. Just because I think real estate is much easier to handle. There's less risk and it's going to get your foot in the door, get you making some money and learning along the way without taking the risk of buying a small business or having the illiquid nature of the oil and gas investment.
- [37:48]
Austin
I think that's really, really, really good advice there. I do not like oil and gas either for the same reasons you just shared. Cool. You get to save money on taxes at the expense of not getting your money back. Like, like, no thanks. So here's what I would do if I were in your situation. You said, hey, I've got 200 grand, includes my emergency fund. Let's keep maybe, I don't know, 30k for your emergency fund. Now you've got 170 to play with. I would start to look around at ways to diversify. Buy not in the stock market, but also not getting too fancy. Think Fundrise. F U N D R I s e.com on fundrise, they've got a venture portfolio, they've got a private credit portfolio and they've got a real estate portfolio. I'm invested into all three. The venture portfolio makes up about 10% of my total investments here and it is up since 2023, 62% in the last two years. That's pretty cool. But again, these are high risk, high reward, late st venture opportunities. But maybe you want to join the Rich habits network and invest into some things that we're invested into. We just did a a big investment in SpaceX, right? They're supposed to IPO here in 2026. We got in at a $800 billion valuation. There's still a little tender offering and so if they IPO at one and a half billion, that's a 40, 50, 60% return for investors. That's the rumor at least. So we'll see how that goes. But maybe you should do more of that late stage venture investing in a more methodical way. Maybe you do some private credit, right? I know fundrise has got a private credit portfolio. I'm going to p my private credit stuff here. Looks like over the last year or so I'm up like 7 or 8% when it comes to private credit. Their real estate portfolio, same deal. So I click on this here. Over the last year, I'm up about six and a half, seven percent in real estate. So like it's a way to still earn mid single digits in the markets, right, without being in the stock market. Because when the Trump tariff tantrum happened in April of 2025 and the Nasdaq fell by 18, 20%, the S P FEL 18%, right. All that stuff happened. Everyone. Stocks got demolished. That didn't happen with real estate. That didn't happen in the fundrise, you know, credit fund or their flagship fund or you know, things like that. So I would, I'd consider some fundrise stuff. I'd also consider different types of commodities. I think copper is really interesting right now. I think palladium remains interesting. I think fertilizer is pretty interesting right now. Like maybe there's a world where you could invest into some ETFs that track some of the largest commodities. I'm not talking about put 20% of your portfolio and that stuff maybe mid single digits. Right? But you're saying, hey guys, I've got all this money and I don't want to put it in the stock market. Which again, why you probably should. I understand you're a little, you know, skittish when it comes to having all your money in the stock market. But if it's well diversified, like it'll be just fine over a long period of time. But at the end of the day, if it's fundrise, if it's some commodities, things that Robert talked about, when it comes to some real estate stuff, when it comes to cash flowing businesses, I leaned no on that one because nine times out of 10, they're not as turnkey as you think. Think. You know, you see people do the, oh, I'm gonna go buy a laundromat. Cool. Turns out that didn't work, right. Or you know, it doesn't make as much money as you thought it would or you couldn't buy the building. So now you're leasing is. It's just there's a lot of different kind of sexy headlines and videos we see about passive income this or whatever go in that. When it comes to buying these cash flowing businesses, that is a little bit trickier, especially if you're working full time, making $300,000 a year, working in tech. And at 27 years old, my friend, you are absolutely crushing it. Congratulations. You are an an. It's so cool that so many smart people listen to our show, Robert. It's, it's unbelievable.
- [41:28]
Robert
Yeah, it really is cool. And I like that coverage because at the end of the day, people start making a lot of money and they get it in their hands and it's in their bank accounts and then all of a sudden they feel like they have to all of a sudden get fancy with it. You don't have to get fancy with it. I promise you. The richest people that we know, I have billionaire friends and guys that are worth and women that are worth 100 million plus, they have VO, QQQ, VGT, AIQ and maybe a bond fund and they call it a day. They have some real estate, some precious metals, and maybe a few other types of investments. That's it. You don't have to get super fancy because at the end of the day, you also don't want to take away from your current situation to where all of a sudden you have this high earning job and you're not paying attention to your job and your career as well. Well, so just keep that in mind.
- [42:19]
Austin
And I hope that helps 100%. Yeah. Actually, I'm just looking at this stuff here on fundrise, like private credit. I. It's cool. Like in 2025 alone, my venture investing was up 43%. The private credit increased by 8%. The real estate increased by about 4%. Right. So it's like if you want to get diversified, fundrise is a really cool way to do that. Everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, Question and answer edition brought to you by public.com we could not be more excited to be in 2026. With each and every one of you, we've got an awesome new show called the Rich Habits Radar coming at you tomorrow. We took the last two weeks off because of Christmas travels and New Year's and all that fun stuff, but that's coming back tomorrow. So be sure to come back right here tomorrow to learn all about the biggest headlines impacting you and your money as we head into 2026. Do not forget, please check out the Rich Habits newsletter. We give you guys weekly updates on the markets, the biggest headlines that we think are interesting little ideas on what we are doing with our own money as well as the Rich Habits Network, our community for our biggest fans, where we host those weekly live streams, offer investment opportunities and things of that nature.
- [43:32]
Robert
I am so excited for the Rich Habits podcast and our entire ecosystem for 2026. We said this earlier. I feel like I could run through a brick wall right now. I'm so excited of everything we're working on on to provide you all more value, more insights, and just really crush it with all of you in 2026. So we thank you for stopping by each and every week.
- [43:53]
Austin
Thanks everyone and we'll see you tomorrow with the rich habits. Radar. Sam.