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- [00:01]
Austin
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast Question and Answer Edition. These are our Thursday episodes where we answer your questions as if we were in your shoes. You can ask us questions via email@richhabitspodcastmail.com, which is actually how we answered a lot of the questions on this episode. Or you can send us a question on Instagram dms@rich habits Podcast. Or join the Rich Habits Network and ask us questions over there and get them answered much faster. As a reminder, we're running a seven day free trial right now on the Rich Habits Network and over a hundred of you have joined during the month of March. It has been amazing. A ton of y'all stuck around and Robert, I want to remind everyone I was thinking about this this morning. It's like why would I join the Rich Habits Network? It's because every single week Robert and I sit down in a zoom call for anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours and we talk with you guys one on one. We're talking about the markets, what's moving the markets, what we're seeing right now in our own portfolios, giving you guys the week to week update on how we're thinking about money investing strategies and sharing investment opportunities that we're seeing in the private markets. I mean it is a really cool way to connect with us, get your questions answered, get some insiders perspective on what we're doing and of course the eight hours of video coursework and everything else that comes with the network.
- [01:45]
Robert
What I feel the greatest value for someone that might be on the fence for joining, getting our brains, our insights and everything we're doing in real time. Like Austin said, we do this every single week. We have the community, we're in the community every single day, engaging with people, answering questions. And just the fact that we built this really cool community with a lot of like minded people I think brings a ton of value as well. And I look at it especially with the free trial so you can, you know, check it out and take it for a test drive. I just look at it that it's the best money you could probably spend a month to get the most amount of value. If you're serious about growing your business, working on your mindset, understanding where the markets are going and just kind of staying on top of all things personal finance. That's the way I look at it.
- [02:37]
Austin
And as a reminder, there is no commitments. If you join for the seven day free trial and you absolutely hate it, you just hit unsubscribe, you will not get charged and you just got seven days for free. I mean it's literally that simple. If you like it, you stick around. If you don't, you leave. And there's no hard feelings. So there's a link in the show notes below if you want to go check out the Rich Habits Network Now Robert, before we jump into this Q and A episode, let's take a moment to hear from this episode's sponsor, Public and why we think everyone should have an account on Public. If you're a serious investor, you need to know about public.com because on public you can invest in everything. Stocks, options, bonds, cryptocurrency and they even offer some of the highest yields in the industry like their bond account that pays a 6% or higher yield right now and remains locked in even if the Fed continues to cut interest rates. What sets Public apart is how they give you the tools you need to make informed investment decisions. They have a built in AI tool called Alpha and that tool doesn't just tell you if an asset in your portfolio is moving like a simple watch list. It tells you why it's moving. Think Chat, GPT meets like your Apple Stocks app. It's got a cool watch list but then also tells you what's going on in your portfolio and why it's happening.
- [03:48]
Robert
And Public is a FINRA registered SIPC insured US based company with a customer support team that actually cares. So the bottom line is your investments deserve a platform that takes them as seriously as you do. So fund your account in five minutes or less with public.comfront/rich habits and get up to $10,000 when you transfer an old account portfolio. That's public.comfront/rich Habits paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the podcast description.
- [04:19]
Austin
We love Public. Go set up an automated investment plan. Go buy some bonds. Go do the whatever. Public is great. They've got everything you need. Retirement accounts are now there. They've got a high Yield Cash account paying four 0.1% bonds paying up to 7% right now. It's nuts. Go check out Public. You're gonna love it. Now our first question comes From Anjuna K. Anjuna K says hi Austin and Robert, I'm a huge fan and a dedicated listener of your podcast. Like many others, I wish I had your guidance 10 years ago. I'm a 39 year old family practice physician working part time and My husband is 44 and works in sales. I started doing the backdoor Roth conversions last year, so we each have $14,000 in our Roth IRAs year. He's also maxing out his HSA, which unfortunately is not an option for me. However, I have $400,000 in my personal 401k which is all invested in the S&P 500. Here's my question. Should I continue maxing out my 401k to get that full tax deduction or would it be better for me to contribute to a Roth 401k instead? In the past few years I've split my contributions 5050 between the two. Without a clear strategy, we're paying a 24% effective tax rate with a combined income of about 200,000 dol. This is a really good question Robert. I think the way people should be thinking about answering a question like this, hey, I need to figure out the Roth versus the traditional which one should I choose? Do I put it in the Roth IRA? Do I put it in the Roth 401K, the Roth variant, or do I put it in the traditional variant? And as a reminder, Roth equals after tax dollars, which means your money grows tax free and you get to take it and enjoy it and spend it in retirement without paying any more in taxes on the profits. Whereas a traditional IRA, a traditional 401k, you get to write off your contributions against your taxable income in the beginning, saving you a little bit in taxes upfront. But you have to pay taxes on the profits and everything that you take out and spend in retirement. Robert and I have always sat on this fence that we think it's the biggest, biggest thing people should be doing is taking advantage of the Roth variant of their retirement accounts. Not only because we can't predict where tax rates are going to be in 20, 30, 40 years, but also because for our own sake of mind, we know that we don't have to worry about it. If we knew that tax brackets were going to be like 49% in 2060, then yeah, we would want to do everything we can to get as much money into the Roth. So we didn't have to pay taxes on that. But we don't know what that is. We cannot predict that we're humble enough to admit it. And so we're thinking, let's just get as much money as possible growing for us tax free.
- [07:07]
Robert
Yeah, I love that breakdown. And, you know, we talked about this last week. I feel like really focusing on the Roth variant takes the gamble out of your future. So I think the best strategy here is, as you alluded to, is up to the match for what the company is offering and then everything else you can get into the Roth is the best play. Because you're right, we can't predict what the taxes are going to be in 10, 20, 30 years. We don't even know what they're going to be like in two years years. So for us, we want to make sure to allow you to retire with dignity and not have to stress about it over that next 20, 25 years. Being at 39 years old right now, you have a long horizon of investing. And that's why we like to do the sure thing by utilizing the Roth to its max potential.
- [07:58]
Austin
So in Juna, to answer very concisely, I would put all new contributions to your 401k in the Roth variant. So the Roth 401k, I would continue making sure I' that money is invested in the S&P 500, so it grows aggressively. And I wouldn't worry about the existing 400,000 that you have right now, which you said 50 50, so maybe even only 200,000 of that is in a traditional 401k. I just let that ride, let it grow. Don't worry about converting and paying taxes, any of that stuff. Just let your 200,000 grow. But all net new contributions should go to the roth.
- [08:33]
Robert
I agree 100%. Great question, and you killed it, Austin. Let's get on to the next one.
- [08:39]
Austin
Our next question comes from Jim D. Jim D says. Hi, Austin and Robert. I listen to your podcast regularly. I'm 60 years old and my wife and I have been maxing out our 401k contributions for many years. As a result, we've got a pretty good nest egg for retirement. We're planning to retire at the end of this year when I turn 61, and I'm trying to determine if we should start converting some or all of our traditional IRA savings into Roth IRAs. We have $4.5 million saved in retirement accounts. Between the 401k, the IRAs, and the Roth, roughly 800,000 of that is in Roth IRAs. We're still paying off our house, which is about $3,000 a month. We'll be doing that for the next 11 years. But it's only at a 2.5% interest rate, so I'm not feeling too bad about it. We have two car loans which total $1,800 per month. But we only have two years remaining on a 0% interest loan for both of them. We have no credit card debt and no other loans. We're currently in the 24% tax bracket. Starting next year when we retire, we could start taking distributions of 200,000 dol year to match our expenses and minimize the amount we pay in taxes. However, we're concerned that we could be setting ourselves up for large required minimum distributions when we turn 75 or leaving our kids with a huge tax bill after we're gone. My thought is to take some of these IRA distributions to pay for expenses and then convert more traditional IRA funds into Roth IRA such that I max out at that same 24% tax bracket that we're used to. Do you think this is a good strategy or do you have another suggestion? Robert, you want kick this one off?
- [10:15]
Robert
Yeah, I do. Jim, great question. Great job getting you where you are. Congrats on that. Just a couple things I want to touch on before we go into this. And that is the house at 2.5% interest. I wouldn't make any extra payments. I would not rush to pay it down. I know a lot of people, they don't want to have debt, but this is really good debt. So I like the fact that you still have the mortgage. I would make the payments on time and just keep that mortgage rolling. Same thing with the cars. I wouldn't take any of this money that you're looking to roll over and pay off the cars either because you have these zero interest loans on the cars. And it's always good to point out each and every time we discuss this that good debt is a great thing. And most wealthy people use debt as leverage to build more wealth. And you guys are in a great situation here. Now to get back to your thoughts on the distributions and the IRA and converting from the traditional into the Roth IRA component. I like that strategy. I think it's a really strong point for you guys to focus on because it will get you in a much better position after retirement and when you're required to take distributions. So I do like that strategy, but I'd love to hear Austin's points because he's really, really good at breaking these down.
- [11:32]
Austin
Okay, so for everyone listening at home, that's like, what the heck is a required minimum distribution? What is Jim talking about? And why is stressing about having four and a half million in retirement. So there's something called a required minimum distribution. And let's take a step back here. So the $4.5 million that Jim has in his retirement accounts most of that money, right? Besides that 800,000 in a Roth IRA, he's not paid taxes on it, right? So he didn't pay taxes on the contributions, and he still hasn't paid taxes on the profits that it's grown into. And so the IRS is like, yo, Jim, we're ready for our money, man. Like, like, you're sitting on all this money. Like, where's our cut? And so required minimum distributions. Jim mentioned about 75 years old. That's about when he'll probably start taking them, depending on what the IRS kind of. I think right now it's like 73, but maybe it turns to 75 by, like, 20, 36 or something here. So, like, it makes sense for him to think about 75 years old. So essentially he's like, by 75 years old, I will have to start taking minimum distributions every single year. And if I don't, I get a 25% penalty against the amount of money I was supposed to take, right? So in this case, I did some math for you, and it's looking like Jim needs to start taking, like, mandatory 205 to $210,000 of required minimum distributions by the age of that 75, 76. And if he doesn't, he'll pay a 25% penalty on that number. So we'll pay $50,000 a year in penalties for every year he doesn't take that distribution. Now, Jim, you had a really, really great call out here, which is like, okay, I know I have to take these distributions, and if I don't, I'm either going to get penalized like crazy or my money's going to get taxed out the wazoo for my children. Like, I want to make sure this is good for them. So it seems like you're definitely off to a good start with the strategy of, like, I can convert the traditional IRA funds into the Roth IRA, make that conversion up to that 24% effective tax rate every single year, since that's what you're paying already and you're used to that. But I wouldn't do it like, you know, a whole windfall of $2 million, and then have to be taxed at, like, that top echelon tax bracket, bringing you up from 24, maybe to 30 or 32, 35, who knows? So I wouldn't do it in a big windfall. I absolutely though would do it up to wherever that 24% goes to. And then just cross your fingers that most, if not all of it gets converted by the time you're 75 years old, which I think it likely would. I mean, you're talking about 15 years here of conversions that you can continually do. But this is a really great question and we're really excited for you, right? This is a really good problem to have, Robert, being able to go into retirement and saying, listen, I've got all this money, I got to pay taxes on it. But back to this idea of like, you know, when is it okay to hire a financial advisor? When is it okay to hire an accountant or someone, you know, these professionals. This is one of those times where you go and you can sit down, right? I'm not a cpa. Robert's not a cpa. We're not licensed to do anything here. We're just a couple guys on the Internet trying to share our perspectives and being able to then sit down with someone who is licensed, who can give you actual advice that is insured. And it's like it's all the stuff that they do and can sit with you for three, four, five hours and walk you through every little nook and cranny of your portfolio and your financial well being and making sure that you're doing the right things to set yourself up for long term success. I don't care what the fee is, right? That's going to pay dividends in the long term. So, like this situation, Jim, I would take to a financial advisor if you don't have one already, they can sit down with you, they can bring in the accountants, they can do everything to make sure that you're doing things correctly.
- [15:10]
Robert
I always see the difference of when you get to this level of what having a fiduciary financial advisor really can do. And it really comes down to one simple sentence. It's not what you make, it's what you keep. And having all of those strategies like you've laid out here, Jim, and like we're trying to explain to everyone, really helps you keep the most, but also build the strategies for the future for your children. So, Austin, that was a really, really good breakdown.
- [15:36]
Austin
So our next question comes from Luke S. Luke says, hey, Austin and Robert, I've been with you guys from the start. I love looking forward to your podcast every week. My question is about the FIR and FIRs ETFs you've recently talked about on your webinar. I Wanted to invest in them, but I don't know how they work. Can you please explain what they do in more detail? Are they long term? I'm guessing they are, but I'm kind of just wondering what exactly the companies that are inside of these two ETFs. Thanks for everything you guys do. So, long story short, these are the fire ETFs that we talked about on the webinar. So there's something called the Fire movement, which is essentially saving as aggressively as possible, as much money as you possibly can as early as possible so that you can retire early. Now, when we talk about the fire movement, there's two specific phases. There's the wealth accumulation phase and then there's the retirement phase. The FIRS ETF is built for people. In the wealth accumulation phase, it is invested into the S&P 500. It's invested into all these different like strategies like commodities and gold and things that do well throughout different market cycles. The ETF is broken down into four separate buckets that are optimized for four separate market cycles. Those four market cycles are prosperity, right? When things are going great, you want to be invested into US Equities, a recession. So when things aren't going that great, you want to be invested into gold and things like that. Inflation, which means that if we're in a high inflation environment, you want to have the short term treasuries and then 4 deflation, which means if we're in a deflationary environment, you want to be in bonds. And so those are the specific strategies that incorporate into the firs wealth accumulation, wealth building sort of strategy ETF while you're implementing the fire movement for yourself. And then when you're ready to retire, there's the FIRI etf, which pretty much just focuses on, you know, current income. So they've got bonds, they've got some covered call strategies. They've got things that are going to push out 4, 5, 6, 7% of annual income to you inside of your portfolio. That's the whole breakdown on the ETFs. The FIRS ETF has actually crushed it this year. It was in the green when we had our webinar, but it's only down 0.2% year to date. Again, because this wealth accumulation, wealth building ETF focuses on different market environments. It realizes the market environment that we're in right now and has diversified enough so it doesn't lose during this market environment. And so if you look at the price of the NASDAQ year to date, The NASDAQ's down 10%. QQ is down 10% compared to FIRS, only down 0.2%. So that's a 10 swing to the upside. It's an interesting ETF. It's really cool. They've got these different market environments that allow people to build wealth no matter what's going on around them. And we're really glad that we were able to find these ETFs and the people that created them and share them with you all.
- [18:36]
Robert
Yeah, I really like them because I feel like they give people more safety in uncertain times. The strategy is really, really good and they nailed the timing of it because right now things are shaky. Am I going to sell my QQQ or my voo? Never. Those are just holdings that I'll always have and they always go up into the right and they perform really well over time. But this is something people could look at if they want to be a little more risk off and have a little more diversity. So that's why I like these funds a lot.
- [19:07]
Austin
I'm right there with you, man. All right, our next question comes from Ben T. Ben says. Hey guys, I'm Ben. I'm 28 and I actually listen from the United K Kingdom. I've been watching you guys for some time now and I wish we had more info like this over here because so many points you guys have raised. I've been able to apply to my investor mindset, investing and other strategies. Now I'm trying to make the move of doing a full time 9 to 5 job, staying healthy and fit as well as growing my own marketing business, spending time with family and friends and everything in between. With that being said, I am feeling a little bit all over the place and kind of overwhelmed with where I am in my life right now. I love your show. Thank you so much for what you guys do. You. So Robert, it seems like Ben is trying to go from like full time job to entrepreneur while also keeping his friends and family happy and being athletic and everything else. So what, what advice do you have for Ben here?
- [19:59]
Robert
You're in a tough spot. I feel like I was you, you know, 30 years ago and that was trying to keep everyone happy, trying to keep the friendships going, being able to hang out with everybody. And what I found was, and you know, for anyone listening at any age, you know, take this and use it however you feel in your own life. And I found that balance, especially work life balance is a myth. You have to decide, especially in your early years, what do you want out of your life financially and what are you looking to achieve? It's all hard. You just have to choose your hard. Some people choose to really dedicate a lot of time into fitness and health. Health. I love that, and I think everyone should do that. But when you talk about balance and people tell you that there is balance, if you're crushing it in your career, there rarely is balance. I had years and years where I passed on going to the baseball games. I passed on going to the beach or the lake house and all those things because my career was more important to me in getting that head start. When I was in my late 20s, everyone was pissed at me all the time because I said no, because I was focusing on building my empire. So I'm not saying you shouldn't have fun, but just make sure that you understand that the balance aspect of this, no one has ever really perfected it. And you have to just figure out what works best for you because there are things you're going to have to give up if you want to build your company, if you want to build financial freedom. Just like Austin, Austin's about your age, a little bit older, and he has to always keep an eye on the prize because we have so much going on and he has so much going on in his career. And if he tried to really have that balance of spending all the time with friends and family and everything else, he wouldn't be able to accomplish that. So anyone listening understand balance is very, very difficult, and you have to find what works for you and time box as much as you can, figure out what's important to you and don't do the things that don't fit in the top five because you will always be distracted. Every weekend there's a party or an event. Every night there's people going out for drinks or going out to watch the final four or whatever it might be, you have to figure out what's important to you and stick to it.
- [22:17]
Austin
I don't think I could have described that any better. Robert, wonderful job. The only thing I'd add from my own perspective is, yeah, especially like in this age cohort of like 28, 30, 32, a lot of people are getting married. It seems like a lot of people are having kids. Some people who've been in their career now for probably close to a decade are really beginning to see those promotions. You might look around and see a lot of people around you that are, quote, unquote, crushing life, right? They've got the spouse, they've got the kids, they got the job, they got the car, they got the house. And it seems like they're just doing it all perfectly. Nine times out of ten they're not. So don't ever compare yourself to other people. Comparison is the thief of joy. I think a really, really big thing that you need to realize is if you want to be an anomaly, you have to act like one. Because it comes back to like, if you want to be different than everyone else, you have to act different than everyone else. And some people, you think, oh, acting different means like, oh, I'm going to go start a business and do all that. Nah, man. Like sometimes like that is like the bare minimum when it comes to like trying to be successful. You've got to work the 14 hour days or you got to work the weekends. Something else that I think is really important too is like, you should be surrounding yourself with people that are encouraging you and that believe in you. If your friends are dogging on you for like, oh, come on dude, this is the fourth time you've like buil on us. Or like, this is the, you know, you keep saying you don't want to. You like, you never see us and you're like, what's going on, man? It's like you just got to choose what you want. Do you want to have a successful 9 to 5 career plus a side hustle, plus this like awesome athletic, you know, build and like, you're doing that stuff like, cool. That's probably a really busy day and a really busy weekend for a lot of people. That might not include watching the final four basketball game with your friends. Like, you just got to pick and choose what makes you happy. And the sooner you can surround yourself with people that are not upset with you for being on this path and want to encourage you, including your spouse, the happier you will be.
- [24:10]
Robert
Yeah, we all get the same 24 hours in a day, so make sure you choose wisely. But before we get into our next question, listen up folks. Time could be running out to lock in a 6% or higher yield at public.com you can lock in a 6% or higher yield right now with a bond account. But remember, your yield isn't locked in until the time of purchase, so you might want to act fast. Lock in a 6% or higher yield with a diversified portfolio of high yield and investment grade corporate bonds only at public.com forward/rich habits.
- [24:44]
Austin
So our next question comes from Michael B. Michael says. Hey guys, I'm so happy I found your podcast. I've gained more financial knowledge in just two months listening to it. Than the previous 47 years of my life. Life. That is quite the statement. Thank you. Wow, Michael. So Michael says his wife is 52, he's 47 and they make $230,000 a year. Combined he has $50,000 in his high yield savings account. 401ks are maxed out every year and they currently have $750,000 in them. He's got a maxed out IRA at $14,000. He's buying a little bit of Voo and Spyi to get started. In his bridge account he's got $90,000 of non traded company stock that's averaged 22% annually over the last 16 years. That's pretty cool. Let us know the stock so we can buy it too. He has a house that's worth 425,000 that he owes about 215 on. He has a 3% interest rate. He's only five years in on a 30 year mortgage and has no other debt. And finally he has two decent low mileage cars which are unfortunately driveway ornaments because they have company cars. Michael says, I'd like my wife to retire in 10 at 62, I want to retire in 10 years as well. My question is, with this extra two to four thousand dollars a month that we have, should I be dollar cost averaging into my bridge account and buying more shares of voo, SPYI and maybe even some single stocks or throw every penny at the mortgage principal or maybe a mix of both. The low 3% mortgage rate is what raises questions about the need to attack that as aggressively as possible. But I wanted to ask you guys first. Good question, Mike B. I will let take this one.
- [26:27]
Robert
Yeah, I mean you already know the answer here, Mike B. And that is I would not touch the mortgage. You are blessed with being able to borrow money for under 3% and even in down markets over a long period of time, The S&P 500 averages, you know, 9, 10% a year. So you're going to be in a much better position there. And something I say a lot, Mike, if you haven't heard it before, is, is that wealthy people always make sure that the positive arbitrage of the money that they're working with is in their favor. So what does that mean? It means if you can borrow for 3% and make 10% with your money, you're always going to borrow. That is why the wealthiest people out there, they have mortgages, they have loans on their boats, loans on their office building, loans on their cars because they know they can borrow it cheaper than what they can do with their own money. So in my instance, absolutely. Dollar cost average, leave the mortgage alone, keep doing what you're doing, you're crushing it. And then you set yourself up so much better in retirement because you have all of your money working harder for you and you ride that low interest mortgage as long as you can.
- [27:35]
Austin
I totally agree. So he's saying they're maxing out their 401ks, maxing out the IRAs and what to do with this 2 to 4000 extra a month. I would start really building that bridge account. You said you've got 90,000 of non traded company stock. I'm assuming you like the stock. It seems like it's performing performed well. So I'd hold on to that, let that continue to grow for you. So go to public.com, open up a normal taxable brokerage account, which we dub the bridge account, and start buying more shares of Voo, VTI, Spyi, Moat, VGT, QQQ, all the big index funds and ETFs that we talk about. Don't worry about the price action that's happened year to date. We're going to be looking at 5, 10, 15, 20 years years ahead of us. And over that period of time, you're going to be up big, big on this account. So if you're building this account from absolute zero right now, like you just open the account on Publix brokerage and you're ready to start investing about 2,500amonth at a average 8.5% annual return. You're going to have half a million dollars in this account by the time you retire at 62. That's pretty cool. That's another half a million dollars that you're going to have. And then that 750,000 that you guys have in your 401ks, that's going to be worth probably 2 or 3 million because you're continually maxing that out. You're going to have that principal grow over time as well. I mean you guys are going to be set up for success when it comes to a really healthy retirement. So congratulations, Mike. Congratulations to you and your wife. You guys are going to be doing just fine.
- [29:04]
Robert
Yeah, I agree totally and just really good work. And just people's questions are so in depth. So if you're thinking about sending us a question, kind of use the questions in this episode to really follow because so many people will send us a 500 word essay but not a distinct question. So these are really good and we appreciate them.
- [29:26]
Austin
Our next question comes from Carlos B. Hey, Austin and Robert, I love your show. It's helped me a lot. I would like to get your advice on books about rich habits for my wife. We're married with two kids and we're both doctors, which means we have a pretty good income. We max out our Roth IRA every year and we're able to save regularly and consistently recently. I'm the one, however, responsible for that consistent savings as our finances are very much in my purview. My wife does not seem to be very interested in that. I've always been very frugal and I can easily keep my expenses low, but I feel that my wife spends way more money than that is ideal on a monthly basis. We just got a significant raise and it seems that this raise did not match what increased in our savings. I just feel that my wife spends until her checking account is empty at the end of each month. We're talking between 2 to $3,000 unnecessary spending every single month on her side. Every time I try and talk about money to her, she's not interested and does not want to change any part of her spending habits and thinks I'm just being cheap and does not understand why I want to save and invest. Don't get me wrong, I think everybody should spend their money as they want as long as they can afford it. But being a couple, I'd like to show her my point of view more effectively. Do you recommend any books or have any advice for people like me? Thanks so much, Carlos. Robert, you want to take this one?
- [30:43]
Robert
I love this question, and yes, I want to take it because you and I dive into this conversation frequently. But a lot of couples struggle from this and it comes down to kind of the basics of what we preach all the time. And that is if you don't have automation with your investments and the money is just sitting there in your accounts, you're going to spend it. And I believe that's the situation here. And I think you have every right as a married couple to have the conversation. And where I would probably start is figure out what is your monthly budget, what are your expenses, your honest budget. There's a link in the show notes you can grab. It's free. So once the budget is made, then you have to have the serious conversation and say, look, here's where we're at. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish with our savings and investing thing and have the serious conversation. Because if that money does not have automation and it's just sitting in her checking account and she's a High earner. You're right. If she does not have a place for it to go, every month, it's going to get spent. This is human nature. Money that is not spoken for seems to be available and there. So what I would do with her is try to get her to understand that you want to put a number on this. This, that every month 15 or 20% of her net disposable income gets invested. And after that she can do what she wants with the rest. But you have to get that 15 or 20% set aside first. And I don't think that's what she's doing right now. The bills are paid, everything's on time. I'm sure you guys have great credit scores, but the investment strategies are not automated. So she sees it in the account and she spends it frivolously. That's where I would start.
- [32:31]
Austin
That is a really good piece of advice. I wasn't thinking about that when I was going to give my perspective, but you're totally right, Robert. You should have a 15, 20% ballpark somewhere in that range and say, okay. And not just her money, though. I'd say, like, collectively. Right? So it's like, hey, we're both bringing home, let's call it $30,000 a month after taxes. You guys are both doctors. I'm assuming you're around that range. So 15% of $30,000 a month, month after taxes is four and a half thousand dollars a month. Let's say that you're putting four and a half thousand dollars a month invested into a brokerage account. Or maybe you're investing into your 401ks. Like, as long as you're getting 15% of the amount of money that you make every year invested for you, I think you're feeling pretty good. Maybe. Carlos, like, I'm not saying that you're in the wrong here, but I am saying without knowing full information, that maybe you guys are doing better than you think. Think. And that she really wants to enjoy the money. If you're checking the box of 15 to 20% every month, you're investing four and a half to $6,000, which comes out to about, let's call it like 60, maybe $70,000 a year that you guys are investing, like, congrats, you guys went to med school, your doctors, like, enjoy your life. That's amazing. And if you're like, hey, we've got 400,000 of student loans hanging over our heads that we really want to pay off, then maybe that's a different conversation. I don't exactly know where your, like, anxiety with money is coming from, because it very well could be a legitimate reason, right? Maybe there's a ton of money that you guys are spending and, like, you guys aren't investing anything. Maybe you guys are underfunded when it comes to the retirement accounts for your age. Like, there could be legitimate reasons that you're feeling this way, but assuming there's not, and you guys are investing 60, 70, maybe $80,000 a year here, let's say you guys are living a normal life, which means you guys have, you know, your debt to income ratio makes sense in your budget. Your mortgage isn't, you know, you're not house poor. You don't have a bunch of high interest debt. You don't have, you know, all this student loan debt. Like, you should feel pretty good about where you are now. Assuming you do have high interest debt, assuming you do have student loans, assuming you do have all these payments, that's a different story. If that's the case, you guys very, very much need to get on the same page about money. And it seems like your wife might be missing, like, an illustration. Maybe you need to sit down with her and show her, hey, we work too hard to be this broke, right? We work so hard as doctors. We went to school for 10 years. We like, we worked really, really hard and we make all this money and we're broke. Assuming you're broke, right? This is that side of the equation. If that's the case, I feel like y'all need to have a heart to heart. Maybe you guys need to talk a little bit more about the trajectory of this. You guys don't want to working as Doctors when you're 68 years old, right? You should be living on a beach or hanging out at your lake house or whatever high earners want to do in retirement. Robert, do you have any, like, advice to have that conversation though? Like, how could he approach it? Well, let's assume they are broke. Let's assume, like, bad things are happening in their finances. That is causing a legitimate concern for Carlos here. Like, how should he approach that? Is it by, you know, mathematics, showing her, like, hey, here's where our trajectory is and it's not looking good. Good. Is it maybe like, like what, what advice do you have?
- [35:48]
Robert
Well, I think let's go back and unpack the very first part of this. And that is I believe Carlos is in a situation where he doesn't believe it's fair. So let's look at it this way. Let's say Carlos is making 150,000 and his spouse is making 150,000. He's putting away 20% a month towards their retirement. She's putting away zero. That disparity is problematic. That's where the conversation needs to come come. And so even if they got to 20% a month put away for retirement, but 15% of it's him and 5% of it's her, that could be where the disparity is coming and the anxiety is coming. So that's the conversation. And I think math is his friend, because what he can do is say, look, we're XYZ years old. This is how much we make. This is our expenses. Every month we need to have 3 million away for retirement, 4 million, 5 million, 2. To keep the lifestyle we desire and live how we want to live in retirement. And then back the math out with her and say, in order to do that, we need to be putting away this amount per month. And right now, you're not holding up your end of the bargain. That's where the problem lies. I don't think that they're broke. I don't think that they're not making money. I feel that it's just being spent frivolously. And because he's frugal and she's not, that is causing the disparity in them getting to where he believes they need to be financially for retirement. And I think it is a hard conversation. I too, was in this position where I felt I was with somebody that was outspending what they should be spending because I'm a high earner and they just felt that I make so much money, it doesn't matter how much they spend. And to me, that is a very, very slippery slope because you want to give your spouse everything they dream of. Of. But you have to do it within reason. And that starts with the math, the budget, and the conversation.
- [37:40]
Austin
Yeah. And to completely solve this problem just means that Carlos and his wife need to just combine their incomes, Right. Have that combined income like married people should, and say you make 150, I make 150. Combined, we make 300, let's say after tax, whatever, it's 20k a month. So of this 20k, we're going to carve out 20% of it. 4,000. That's what's going to get invested. Now, how do we want to spend the other 16? Right. I think if that's the approach, like, I would be receptive to that if I was your wife. But again, we're not counselors here. We're just a couple guys on the Internet and we are wishing you all the best Carlos but like shout out to you for wanting to have these conversations and not like having it fester up inside of you and like getting really emotional about it. I think being over communicative is really really good in a marriage and in a relationship, especially when it comes to money.
- [38:30]
Robert
I couldn't agree more and I love this question and I hope everyone listening. It helps a lot of people out there figure out how to have the conversation because the last thing you want to do is get to retirement and you never had the conversation and you can't retire gracefully. Biggest part of our message is to help everyone become financially free.
- [38:52]
Austin
So our next question comes from Jennifer F. On Instagram. Jay says hey Jay here. I've been investing ever since I found your podcast and I opened my first brokerage a few months ago. I have two questions. One I know you guys preach about time in the market instead of timing the market and not to worry about the stocks current drops. However, do you have any recommendations for maybe some single stocks instead of the usual ETFs to add to my portfolio during this time of volatility? And two, more importantly, I recently started a new job and my earnings more than doubled. I was wondering if you had any additional advice on automation for budgeting, for examples, how many accounts I should have and for what tasks. Great question Jay. Single stocks I think it's really important to so whenever you're thinking like okay, what single stocks do I want to buy, I want everyone to only focus on the blue chip best of breed single stock stocks, right? These are companies that have been profitable for a long time. They're likely, you know, a top 50 holding inside of the S&P 500 by market cap. They've been paying a dividend, maybe their profits grow every year, right? These are the types of blue chip single stocks that you want inside of your portfolio right now. In preparation for this question, Robert and I dove into some of our single stock portfolio and we were looking at some names that we really like. Two right now, now that we like the most are Amazon and Google. We both think that they are going to do incredibly well over the next five years, especially from a free cash flow, operating cash flow and earnings per share perspective. So buying Google and Amazon, in my opinion around these prices, dollar cost averaging into some of them make a lot of sense. We also looked at Microsoft and Apple. We think they're a little too overvalued historically speaking at the moment. But Amazon and Google, you're looking for some single stocks. That would be my suggestion. And then, Robert, do you want to maybe take a stab at his second question around what autom for his budget should he be building now that he's making all this extra money?
- [40:50]
Robert
Yeah, I love this part of the equation because when it comes to automation, it's not just automating your investments where you put aside X amount per month per platform, which is. We're going to get to that, but it's about automating your bills. That could be as simple as putting everything on autopay so you don't have to think about it and making sure that they're paid timely. So you're building really good credit. But the automation of your investments is really cool as well. Well, that's why we love public.com. you can do those automated monthly investments, whether it's in the bonds or you're doing cryptocurrency or ETFs or whatever. But also I have automated investments with Acorns, fundrise, all of the companies you hear us talk about. Like with fundrise right Now I have 250amonth that comes out every single month for years now. And it just builds and grows and grows and grows. Same thing with acorn. You can do a set it and forget it strategy there. I personally do acorns 25 a week. I love it. It's like found money when I look at the account every few years. So all the automation you can do helps make you consistent with your investing. People that only invest when they think about it tend to try and time the markets. And that is absolutely the wrong strategy. The more automation you have, the less timing the market you will try to do do and the better off you'll be in the long run.
- [42:12]
Austin
Great answer there, Robert. I think when it comes to budget automation, I agree put things on autopay, understand what day of the month specific things are supposed to come out of your account so you know exactly what your account balance will be before it even happens. Wealthy people forecast broke, people react. So you want to be forecasting with your money. When it comes to investing, obviously we want to encourage you to invest up to the match in your 401k to get that free money and then go everything above that used to max out your Roth ira. And then if you still have money left over and you have Autonomy in your 401k, go max that out, assuming it's invested properly. And then if you still have money left over, build up that bridge account. That's what you want to do on public.com and speaking of public again, automations on public are super easy. You just create something called an investment plan. You tell it how often it's going to take money from your checking account. It's call it once a week. It'll take 100 bucks from your checking account. So $400 a month. And of the $100, it's going to put 25 into Voo, 25 in the VTI, 25 into QQQ, and 25 into VGT or whatever other things you wanted to put money into. And then congrats, now you're investing 400 bucks a month into the tried and true ETFs, index funds that we talk about. And it's all spoken for before the month even begins. Right. You have that in your budget. You're looking at it, you're projecting for it. It's all, all good. So that's how I'd approach that. Jay Automating your money is incredibly smart and we encourage everyone to do it no matter how you do it. If it's with public or fundrise, I do 150 bucks a month on fundrise. I've been doing it since like 2021. I just, it's got thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars now in this account because I just, every month it just like takes 150 bucks. And that's what it is. It's so cool. And to your point, it does feel like just like found money. Right. If it's in the budget, it and you look for it now three years down the road, like, whoa, where'd this $12,000 come from? It's like, yeah, you've been investing and because you've consistently invested, it just grows over time.
- [44:10]
Robert
Yep. That's the whole goal with automation is becoming wealthy and financially free does not happen by accident. It has to come with strategies, automations and being consistent. That's it. It's that simple. And the more people start to do that, like Acorns is a great example. I round up all of my purchases using Acorns debit card that I use. And it's just so funny because I'll look at the account once every couple of years. I'm like, wow, that is crazy how it has accumulated this much and has gained so much just by robo investing. And it's just one of the best parts of building strategies. So you automate as much as possible. I love that question.
- [44:49]
Austin
Now our final question comes from Caleb M. Caleb says hi, Austin and Robert. I'VE got a question for your Q and a episode. I'm 21 years old, I have no degree and I spent the past few years working in a blue collar field for minimum wage which I ended up disliking very much. Now I'm a server at a restaurant doing much better for myself. My dream career would to be working as a fiduciary financial advisor in the best interest of all my clients. If I wanted to start in this career, would you recommend me getting a degree in finance first or just getting the minimum licenses required to start acting as an advisor and growing my book of business working independently or for a firm? Also, I'm wondering if just being a financial advisor is a good career move in general. Specifically if you guys think it's going to be around for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years years. What advice do you have here for our friend Caleb?
- [45:38]
Robert
I think this is a great question and do I think the financial field is a great field for the next 20, 30, 40 years? Always. Absolutely 100. Because as this field may pivot a little bit because of AI, because we get better and better software every single year, it doesn't matter because you're using this education in this field and the work in this field field to help yourself. And it's just one of those things where knowing more about money finance and how money systems work is going to help you long term more than if you're doing something non related to money but still trying to build wealth. Because it really comes down to the education and the at bats. I always talk about the at bats because for me I can learn something really really well and then two years go by and I don't implement it or I don't use the strategy and then you forget, you kind of got to relearn it over time. So I like the idea and the thing I would do ahead of this would be to start building your personal brand around becoming in the financial field so people know you as a smart person, someone that's in the financial field, you're building your way up because then you can start to get that know like and trust factor going with your audience. Even if it's a smaller audience audience. So when it comes time to build your book, you're not all of a sudden coming out of nowhere where two weeks ago you were mowing lawns and this week you're a financial advisor, you're building up the anticipation of you getting into that field.
- [47:08]
Austin
Yeah. So tactically speaking, how would you do this? The first thing I think you would do is to further understand the role, right? There are people who are financial advisors and then there are people who are like certified financial planners. That's like the gold standard. I'm pretty sure you need 6,000 hours worth of like working as a financial advisor before you can sit for that exam. So for you it's like, okay, what do I want to be? I want to be a financial advisor. How am I going to do that? First step, in my opinion, is to find a mentor. Find someone who is in this space. Allow yourself to be surrounded with people that are doing this for a living. Maybe you've got Uncle Bob or Aunt Becky that has a financial advisor themselves and they're willing to make an introduction for you. And maybe the financial advisor is kind enough to want to sit down and talk with you and tell you more about, you know, the people that work at their firm, what their day to day looks like, and how they've been able to build such a wonderful book of business. The next thing I'd want to do is find a job in the field. It doesn't have to be like working at a firm, like a financial advisor firm, but maybe you can be a client service associate at a firm. Maybe you could be a financial assistant somewhere else else. But think like paperwork, scheduling, calendaring, like you're not actually doing any financial advising. You're just surrounding yourself with people who are. And you're likely making 12, 15, 18 bucks an hour doing this, right? It's not sexy work. You're making scheduling, right? You're doing calendar stuff, you're doing paperwork. It's not sexy, but you're in the trenches learning around with these people. The next thing you have to do is take the sie. The SIE is the exam exam. That's like the entry level exam to just get started when it comes to your series seven, your series 66, your series 63, things like that, Go take that exam. If you still like it, then go find someone who can sponsor you for the Series 7. So essentially what that means is like you can't sit for one of these exams unless an actual financial advisor firm has like said, oh yeah, he's cool or she's cool, go let them sit for the exam. Like they have to like vouch for you, essentially. Essentially. So to do that you have to be working at a firm at that point. So once you get your SIE figured out, which you don't have to be working anywhere for, you could take that and say, hey, I've been doing this calendar stuff. For a while. I've been doing the paperwork stuff for a while here. I sat for my sie, I passed the exam. I'd love to get sponsored by you for the series 7 or 66 or 63 or whatever it might be. Those exams will cost like 500, maybe up to $1,000, depending on which ones you take. You can use Kaplan or STC to study for them. Once you pass those exams, I also would recommend you to pass a life insurance licensing exam as well. That'll be a few weeks of studying. 200, $300 maybe, but it will allow you to also sell life insurance, which 9 times out of 10 gets like bucketed into this, like financial planning world. Term life insurance is what we encourage you to do. Do not be one of the scummy people to sell indexed universal life insurance, please. And then finally, maybe once you're licensed and you're this person, you can start working at at, you know, one of these firms. Maybe it's Ameriprise, maybe it is an Edward Jones. Maybe it's anywhere else, right? Like, like you're working, you're building in a book of business. You're learning along the best and you are now making money as a financial advisor and growing in your career.
- [50:27]
Robert
And just understand, Caleb, it takes time. You're building a career in finance. It takes years to get the book built. Get that proximity to power, get people to know, like and trust you. But I love the field, obviously. Austin and I enjoy this every single day and we just love this question. And thank you so much for submitting it.
- [50:48]
Austin
Don't forget we are running a seven day free trial on the Rich Habits Network. We have over 600 of you have already joined. We're so excited you're there and we can't wait to welcome the next 600 of you. So if you want to try out the Rich Habits Network completely for free, no strings at all attached, Cancel it if you hate it. It's all good. No hard feelings. Go click the link in the show notes below. Join our weekly live streams. Watch the eight hours of video coursework. Ask a question. Dm Robert and I, we're having a good time over there. Join the Rich Habits Network. Everyone, thanks so much for joining us on our Q and A episode. We're so excited that you guys come back every single week. If you learned something, please consider sharing this episode with a friend or leaving us a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to the show. And don't forget to leave a comment on Spotify. We get back to every single Spotify comment. We take pride in that. So leave us a comment on Spotify and we'll hit you with a reply. Thanks, everyone and have a great rest of your week.