116: How to Retire Early (Seriously)
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00:26That was easy.Spotify, it's Jay Shetty.Are you one of those media strategy people?Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social?Let me introduce you to fans.And they're here with me on Spotify.Trust me, I know fans.They don't skip.
00:49They stay for hours.They don't move on.They manifest.They're not a demographic group.They're fans.Spotify advertising.You're among fans.Hey everyone and welcome back to the rich habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify, brought to you by public.com.
01:08My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croke.Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with lifetime revenues of over 300 million and I'm an entrepreneur in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics.Since quitting my full-time job in corporate finance a few years ago, I've built a seven-figure media business and actively advise some of the most well-known fintention.companies around the world. Now, as the show name might suggest, every episode, we talk aboutrich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset. However, we try and bring you twounique perspectives, one from an industry veteran, which is Robert and the other myself,someone who's still in the process of building wealth and figuring it all out. Robert,what are we going to be talking about in today's episode? In this week's episode of the
01:53rich habits podcast, we're going to share with you all the step-by-step blueprint on how anyonelistening can retire early. Retirement means a lot of different things to different people.For example, I'm approaching retirement age myself, but I've actually been retired for over a decade now.But that doesn't mean I'm sitting on a beach, sipping coronas, hanging out all day because I love what I doand I love being able to continue working on the projects that are near and dear to my heartthat I'm passionate about. So this episode will be that blueprint you need and will show you exactly what toto retire early. You might not like the answer. You might need to make changes in your lifestyleor your retirement expectations, but we're going to tell you how to retire early regardless.
02:40This episode will be the blueprint of sorts, and it's broken down into six sections,which each section will be building upon the previous one. So let's dig in to section one,which I like to think about as the foundation. Now, fundamental to a sound financial footing isknowing where your money is going on a monthly basis, and by having a budget, you can see bothyour sources of income, as well as what you're spending your money on. Now, I know this soundsreally elementary, but I'm willing to bet that more than half of you listening right now,don't actually have a written budget with every single monthly expense included inside of it.You need to do this. It will change your life. I cannot say that enough. Having a written budget
03:25where you've got every line item of what you expect to spend for the next month, right?This is going to come out in the month of May.So you need to have your June, your July, your August budget figured out.It takes a couple months to get to the groove of things and figure out what things actually are and how much money you're spending.But once you actually overcome those expectations, I swear it's like taking the limitless pill.I mean, you just see the world differently.Now, once we've built our budget, we're going to begin paying for our essentials.This is rent, groceries, utilities, income earning expenses like transportation related.
04:01You have to go to work to make money.You should probably buy the bus ticket or pay for the Uber or your car payment, right?You got to go do that.Insurance is also essential.That could be car insurance, housing insurance, rent insurance, health insurance, life insurance.Now, once we've paid for our essentials, we're going to do minimum payments on all of our debt,student loans, credit cards, vehicles, things of that nature.and most importantly, stop going into high interest debt.
04:29That's simple.So keep track of all your expenses.This is going to help you understand what you're spending your money onand where you can begin to trim fat if needed.This is the literal foundation of a positive relationship with moneywith a long-term goal of retiring early.If you master this foundational layer of knowing everything that comes in,everything that goes out,
04:49understanding what is essential and non-essential in my daily life,world is your oyster when it comes to financial freedom. So what I hear in the foundation phase of this,and that's a great breakdown, is just getting people to understand, no matter how rudimentary it mayseem, most people don't do it and don't stick with it. But it's also all about not livingbeyond your means. In this first phase of building your foundation, you need to have that heart toheart with yourself, your better half, and the whole family and understand where you're atand make sure you're on the right path to build that foundation as early as possible.So let's get into section number two that I think is really important is the emergency funds.
05:32We want to see you set aside three months worth of expenses.For most of you, that's going to be about $10,000 to $15,000, but this is your emergency fund.This is going to take you anywhere between 9 to 18 months to build from scratch if you haven't already started.And for some of you, it may be shorter.for others it may be longer, but it shouldn't take you more than 18 months to build because you'regoing to take this very seriously. You're going to get it dialed in and you're going to follow the planof what we're laying out today, this blueprint for early retirement. Now, if you're having troublebuilding it, you need to evaluate your non-essential spending and reduce where necessary. This looks like
06:13eating out, restaurants, streaming services, subscriptions, switching wireless providers to save some moneyuntil you're on your path to building that up.This is the buffer between you and everyday lifethat's going to allow you to breathe easierand set yourself up for success leading into section three of this podcast.So we now have our foundation laid.We know everything that's coming in, going out.We know what our essential spending is,
06:40our non-essential spending.We cut back on some non-essential spendingto build up that emergency fund.We have $10, $12, $15,000 set aside.a buffer between us and life. So now it's time to move on to Section 3, which is figuring outdebt and investing. So we've said this phrase a hundred times now. Match beats Roth,beats taxable. We want to ensure after you've built up that emergency fund of three months ofexpenses, providing a little bit of a buffer between you and your life, that you're now on
07:12track to start building wealth. The only way you're going to retire early is if you got some wealth.So let's go build it. Wealth is built in two ways.by paying off debt or by investing in the stock market. We prefer that you pay off your high interest debtfirst before investing in the stock market because you cannot out-invest high-interest debt. Here's thatexample for you. Let's say you've got $10,000 in credit card debt at 30% interest. You're paying $3,000 ayear of interest to the bank on that credit card debt. Let's now say instead of paying off the credit carddebt, you had $10,000 in the stock market. On average, the stock market goes up by 10% a year. So by not payingoff the debt with that $10,000 you had invested, you made $1,000 in the stock market, but you racked up
08:00$3,000 of interest. That's a $2,000 net negative. Y'all see the math there? Pay off the highinterest debt. You cannot out invest it. So once that's paid off and you have no more high interestdebt, now let's get aggressive with building wealth so we can retire early. And before I talk throughthat. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. High interest debt is double digit percentagepoints, maybe even 8, 9% on the low end. But if it's, you know, 4%, 5% like most student loans are,that's not a high interest debt. We'll figure that out later. All as well. Instead of paying thatoff, we'd rather see you invest, but we'll get to that. So now let's get aggressive about buildingwealth so we can actually retire early. Does your employer offer a 401k match? If yes, we want to see you
08:43investing up to the match because the match is free money. We also want you to head over to publiccom and open up a Roth individual retirement account, contribute the maximum amount of moneyon an annualized basis to that account, which is $7,000 and then invest that money after it'scontributed into the index funds and ETFs we talk about like the S&P 500, the NASDAQ, the Dow Jones,and everything in between. Up to the match for the free money, max out the Roth IRA, back toto the 401k if you have autonomy and you can choose your investments like the S&P 500,not like target date funds. And if not, then we want you to be investing anything more you havein a taxable brokerage account, which we call the bridge account also on public.com.
09:30So let's use some real numbers and really break this down. Let's say your household income is$120,000 a year. That's about $100k a year take home. So if you're contributing 3% matchedto your 401k, that would be.be around $7,200 a year towards your 401k, including the match. Then another 14K contributedtowards your Roth IRAs for you and your spouse. That's 17.6% of your take home pay gettinginvested, which is a really, really good place to start. So this $21,200 in annual investmentsbetween you and your spouse could turn into $1.7 million over just 20 years. So instead of retiringat 65, you could now retire at 55 with this $1.7 million. But maybe instead of starting at 35 in this
10:21example, you could start at 30 because you listen to this podcast and you take notes and take action.And that now turns into $3.3 million invested by the age of 55. And that is truly a great place to beat that age for retirement. This also assumes you make the same amount of money for the restyour lives, and that's not going to happen. So you'll be making more over time and you can keepadding to these funds. But this is just a blueprint to help you figure out how to get there.And maybe you're doing some of this inside of your bridge account, right? We've talked about thebridge account. Let's say you're investing all this money inside of this bridge account, thistaxable brokerage account on public.com. As a reminder, a married couple filed jointly can cash in on
11:08$95,000 of long-term capital gains.per year and pay $0 in taxes on that money. Go look it up. It's real, right? That's how the taxeswork with long-term capital gains. Not short-term. You'll have to pay taxes on the short term, but a long-termcapital gain up to $95,000 married couples filing jointly of tax-free investment portfolioincome here. And if you have $3.3 million invested because you're $55, you started at $30, you're taking out $95,000a year to retire off of. That's less than a 3% withdrawal rate. You know, we've talked about the 4%rule. People think the 5%. We talk about Nios funds and all the other ways that you can make income,less than 3% withdrawal rate on these numbers. It is so, so awesome. Yeah, it really helps people
11:59understand that you can reverse engineer what you want your life to look like in retirement andbuild backwards from there. And I think the 4% rule is a great way to understand those numbers.but let's get into section four which is one of my favorites to talk about and that is you eitherhave a spending problem or you have an income problem or you have both for most of you out thereyou're spending six eight 10k a month to live your life and then you still complain about nothaving enough the less you spend per year the less you need in retirement and your nest egg tosustain that lifestyle that you want 5k per month is 60k per year spent your one point you're one point$1.5 million retirement nest egg theoretically should generate that same 60 to 70,000 per year for you to live
12:48off of. So I know building a nest egg of $1.5 million sounds daunting, but we've just shared an example,an easy example that resulted in a $1.7 million nest egg in only 20 years and $3.3 million in just 25years. And it is totally doable. I promise if you follow the structure of this blueprint and you stayconsistent, it will work. Create a budget, get out of high interest debt, invest aggressively,live on lesson you make, and practice contentment. It's really that simple because it's all aboutconsistency. People that retire early aren't living a flashy lifestyle with brand new cars andboats and five-star vacations all the time. They choose what they value in this world and they liveand spend accordingly by following the structure we're laying out here today. This episode,
13:40is so much fun to talk through because I know a lot of people are saying to themselves,you guys make it sound too easy. I'm never going to get millions of dollars in retirement.No, we literally just showed you, yeah, if your household income is 120 grand, which, yeah,it's on the high side, right? But maybe your household income is more than that. Maybe it's a littlebit less. Tweek the numbers accordingly to your specific situation. And also, we assumed the 120k is whatyour household income is going to be for the next 20, 25 years. Have you ever heard of a raise? Have youever heard of, you know, getting a new job to make more money, right? There's a lot of variablesthat will make this easier over time. But we laid out an example where you can contribute 3%
14:17to your 401k. Get the match. That's $7,200 a year in this instance. And then you max out your Roth IRA.Your spouse maxes out their Roth IRA. Now you've got all this money invested every year.Maybe you guys have got a couple side hustles going on. And so you're investing more aggressivelyvia public.com in a bridge account. Fast forward 20 or 25 years. And you're you're going to you guys. Andyou've got millions of dollars. You might not be retired at 32 because you're a tech billionaire,but like, that's not reality. Because the things you see on Instagram with the private jets and theinternet money and all these crazy things that people are trying to tell you, that's not reality.The reality is you're on a long journey of a life full of contentment and hope and realism
14:59and excitement that you will be able to retire, maybe in your 40s, your 50s or your 60s,but it is an early retirement. And most importantly, I want to realize. I want to,reiterate, retirement is different for everyone. For Robert, it means he gets to do fun real estate projects. Hegets to do the podcast with me, all these cool things that he's doing because that's what makeshim happen. He's passionate about that. For other people, maybe retirement truly is sitting on a beach.Or maybe it means working part-time as a barista. Or maybe it means teaching a middle school gym class.I don't know, right? Retirement means something different for everyone. And so understanding where you are,what means a lot to you and what you're excited about as a human being is how you can retire
15:42as early as possible make a plan stick to the plan the phrase goes adults devise a plan andstick to it children do what feels good in the moment the biggest takeaway for me for this episodeis getting people to understand build the life you desire not the life you perceive other peoplethink you desire i think that's a critical critical juncture ofeveryone's life because personal finance is personal. And just make sure you understand what is it youreally want for the rest of your life. What are your goals? Some people just want to have a farmhousewith a nice little garden. Some people want to live on a beach. Some people want a condo on a lake.It doesn't matter. It's what's important to you. And we hope that this episode helps you figure it out
16:29and really put it down, use the blueprint and follow through with it. So years down the road,you can look back and remember this episode and think that you took notes, took action,and built the life that you really desired. Robert, I could not agree more. Now, before we jumpinto the Q&A section of this episode, we actually wanted to bring on someone who's really makingwaves in the early retirement space. His name is Mike Venuto. Mike is the chief investment officerand co-founder at Tidal Financial Group. And he's really doing some cool stuff as it relates to thefire movement, financial independence retire early. So we thought it'd be a good idea to welcome himonto the show. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Austin. Thank you, Robert.
17:12Excited to be here talking about early retirement. Let's dig straight into it, right? This wholeepisode has been about early retirement and the foundational strategies that people need to be followingas it relates to actually being able to retire early. Now, you all over at the title financialgroup recently introduced two new ETFs, F-I-R-S and F-I-R-I as a simpler way for people trying to retire earlyto have a clear two-step investing plan. So can you walk our listeners through how that plan cameto be and what that plan is and how they can use these ETFs to stick to that plan?So here at Title, we help people launch, grow, and operate ETFs. Today we service 200 plusETFs, $30 billion. We love doing it. And what we saw was a lot of people were using them for
18:02income in retirement or to build a nest egg. So we decided to embrace the fire movement and make twoETFs, one that's about building wealth, creating a nest egg, and one that's about distributingincome while preserving capital. We built these ETFs by using primarily our client's ETFs on thetitle platform. So we call them fund of funds or ETFs of ETFs. FIRS is the wealth builder. It's designed tohelp you build wealth and save and beat inflation. And it's different than your traditional index based,you know, large cap US stocks. It's much more diversified. We own bonds. We own stocks. We owncash alternatives. We own gold, which has helped a lot this year. So it's a diversified approachto saving. The other portfolio is FIRI for fire income. It's designed to get you at least
18:53a 4% distribution while protecting the preservation of your capital. And it's doing that also throughdiversification. So Mike, what I'm hearing is you've got the FIRS ETF, which is the wealth builderETF. So if you're someone who's trying to build up that retirement nest egg, this is the ETF to do italongside of and through. And then once people have that nest egg that is in the hundreds of thousands,if not millions of dollars, and they're ready to actually begin realizing some of that as income,they switch over to the FIRIETF, which has all these different instruments that will produce theincome on a pretty consistent basis.Exactly.
19:29They are designed for those two purposes, an accumulation phase and a distribution phase.So I really like that.And something that's interesting to me right now is the lack of volatility your FIRS ETF has experienced year to date.Because if you look at it, the stock market was down over 15% from recent all-time highs.and the F-I-R-S-E-T-F was down only a fraction of that.So what is the underlying strategy and how are you implementing thatto allow you to weather the storm so well during these times of higher market volatility?It's been a great run this year for us, right?
20:07As of the recording of this, we're actually in the green for the year,and you can't say that about very many things.Wow.So the idea is based off of what's called the permanent portfolio theory.And this was written by Harry Brown, who was a politician and a market theorist from the 70s.His brain was shaped by the 70s, that high inflation concepts.And his thesis was if you think about investing in economic regimes being inflation, deflation, recession, prosperity.And then you equate those four.
20:43So you buy stocks for prosperity.You buy cash alternatives.and hedges for recessions. You buy gold and Bitcoin and various different commodities in realestate for inflation, and you buy longer-term bonds for a deflationary environment. So this year,we have been trying to keep rebalancing to that 25 percent due to the volatility we've had.Obviously, two or three weeks ago when there was a lot of volatility, the equities dropped below that25 percent. That's a signal for us as active managers to go and bring it back to the 25 percent,take a little off the gold, take a little off the bonds that had done well, and get us back there.
21:23That's why we've been able to mute the volatility of the market because we're not just 6040,they like to say 64 bonds and stocks, right? That's not working that great because bonds have had arough time too this year. But gold has done extremely well. Bitcoin has done extremely well.Cash alternatives and some of the hedges that we have in the portfolio have done extremely well.So what you're saying is you essentially have a pizza, and that pizza is cut up into fourslices, right? A quarter, a quarter, a quarter, and a quarter. So a quarter of that isinvested into equities like index funds, the S&P 500, things like that. Another quarter isinvested in things like gold and silver, which is done very well. The other quarter is invested
22:04into like long-term bonds and things that do well during deflationary times. And then the finalquarter is invested into more recessionary focused things like cash alternatives and some dry powder. Sowhat you're saying is you always have this portfolio a fourth, a fourth, a fourth, a fourth and a fourth. And over a longperiod of time, you want to make sure that you keep that sort of waiting to be 25% to all of thosedifferent things. And like, for example, now, when equities have pulled back in 2025, that 25%waiting for your equities portion has shrunk to maybe 20% in value because prices have gone down.But now the gold side of the equation has gone up so much. You're starting to trim back on the gold a little bit,put it into the equity. So it's always a rebalance sort of portfolio here, a permanent portfolio,
22:49and it's optimized for whatever the market cycle really is. That's absolutely right. What is alsoimportant, though, is the active management is rebalancing, but it's also picking the best ETFs.So when we rebalanced recently, we did reduce some of the gold, and we added to Tom Lee'sgranny shots, ETF, things that are going to do better than just the overall equity market whenthings rebound. Oh, that's so cool, right? So like, for example, I'm looking at thisETF that you guys, you know, the granny shots one that you just kind of added and increasedinside of this FIRS. And it's got Netflix, it's got Costco, it's got Microsoft, Crowdstrike,all the names that we know and love are inside of this. So you have exposure to those things
23:29over a long period of time as you continue to kind of wait and rebalance your FIRS ETF.So here's my other question. Where do these types of ETFs fit inside of a regularinvestor's portfolio. Like, I know a lot of people listening right now are saying, I want to retireearly, and they might be on that path. But other people might just be hanging out and saying,you know what, I'm going to retire when I am and I'm just going to live my life and do my thing.I wish I had more FIRS in my own portfolio. I've definitely got a good chunk, but I mean,you guys are in the green this year and I'm not. My portfolio is down about 5.5%. So I'm curious,like, where does FIRS and FIRI fit inside of like a normal person's portfolio? So let's go back
24:10to that accumulation phase. If you're starting your accumulation phase and you're thinking it'sgoing to be 20 years before I hit my fire number, I'm ready to retire, you don't really need FIRSunless you don't like the volatility, right? Unless you're not able to handle 20% drops like we'vejust gone through. If you've got the stomach for a 20 year time horizon, fine. Now,you're five years from retirement. That's a different story. I don't care what your stomach fortitude is.you don't want your number being pushed out two or three more years.So we think of it as a way to complement investing in broad-based U.S. equity,low-cost ETFs out there.
24:53This is a way to put away some of that money for your nest egg that you can feel more comfortableabout and survive the volatility.Once you're past that accumulation phase, then you can start to take some of your broad-basedU.S. equity or some of your FIRS and move it towards income.so that we can kind of update that 4% rule, right?That 4% rule assumes that you're going to be taking from principle.With FIRI, we tried to create something where you're taking from distributions and not so muchfrom principle.
25:27Yeah, that's great.And before we get into my last question, I want to go back and talk about this permanentportfolio theory.I'm a big fan of some of the oldies.Last night, I brought up a bunch of things from inside one up on Wall Street by PeterLynch. And it's just like, I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this theory becauseobviously it's working in these tumultuous volatile markets right now. So why do you think more peoplearen't looking at this four pieces of the pie and breaking them up evenly to offset volatility in
25:59times like this? Why aren't more people implementing this strategy? The last time that this strategyreally helped was 2008 because bonds did really well and gold did really well. A strategyin this concept would have had a pretty decent year.It wouldn't have been positive,but it wouldn't have been down the 45s and things like that.Since 2008, we've had this strange bull market in both stocks and bondsthat has been call it who what's the nice word.Everybody's saying mean things about the Fed nowadays.
26:30I don't want to jump on that bad wagon,but there's been a government-induced bull market.So a lot of people who are in the new fire movementhave never really lived through a real bear market.And diversification hasn't been your friend until a year like this, where, you know,the bingo card is full of things that we didn't expect.And when that happens, you have gold at record highs, you have Bitcoin rallying,you have bonds selling off than rallying.
26:59So that's why a lot of the things that we're doing in here are working.I think that the attention it's getting lately is because people are starting to recognizethe value of diversification.again. Yeah, Austin and I talk about it daily, and we also mention active management. We just stronglydisagree with people that think they can set it and forget it and put all their money in atarget date fund for 30 years and not pay attention to what's going on. So I really like thisstrategy, especially in times like this, because you can easily with the active managementadapt around it. And so I think it's a really strong kind of component and strategy, and I'm glad we're
27:37talking about it and introducing it more to our audience just as another alternative to what theycan be doing to help them retire early. So let's get to my last question and that is the 4% rule.We've talked about this in the episode and have shared countless times with our listeners whatthis is over the years. But how are you generating that kind of income for your FI-R-I investorson a consistent basis and walk them through why the 4% rule is?so important for retirement, whether it's early or not.So I'm going to start with the second part first, right?So the 4% rule really allows you to figure out when is my accumulation phase done?
28:19Because it assumes that you can take that number and divide it by 20 and come up with,hey, this is how much I can take out of it and have a comfortable retirement, right?It's kind of a reverse engineering.I think that that's a little bit antiquated and I think a lot of the fire movement has movedto higher numbers than that, right? Because in a higher interest rate environment like we live intoday and with all the derivative and option income that's available, people have moved a littlefurther away. So our approach was let's build an income barbell, which means let's build a reallysafe diversified portfolio full of hedges that protects the principle. And then let's build a much
29:01higher yielding one using option income and mortgage-backed securities. I have a whole portfolio in there that'sactively manages of loans to veterans.I love putting these pieces together.So I take those two and I say,this one's yielding eight, nine right now,and this one's yielding three.How much of the safe one do I need versus the more risky one?And to get to that target 4%.
29:26So it's just a barbell that's rebalanced to an at least of 4%.That hopefully allows us to maintain principleand distribute income that's useful to invest.So if anyone's super interested with the F-I-R-S-E-F, F-I-E-T-F, and everything that Mike has been talking about here,their website is fire-dashethefs.com. We'll also have something linked out in the show notes below.But Mike, thank you so much for joining us as we talk through how to retire early with our audience.Thank you.Yes, Mike. Thank you so much. We just love always trying to give people the hacks,
30:01give them the best stuff, find all the best options out there so people can just really makeeducated decisions and help find themselves in a position where they can retire with dignity.That's the number one goal here. And we appreciate you stopping by shedding some light on theseETFs and really breaking it down for people that are looking to retire early if they can.Wonderful. Yeah. I think the most important thing to leave people with is investing really is abouttime. And it's not timing. It's not when do I get in? When do I get out? It's about staying in andcompounding and it's our hope that the protections and the volatility dampening and diversificationof these products help people stay in and don't panic.
30:46Totally agree.Thanks, Mike.Thank you.Great conversation with Mike.I feel like I learned something new every time I talk to him.And I can really appreciate that they've built a ETF that has those like four quadrants,right?No matter the market cycle, we've sort of got you covered here.
30:59And it's done well this year.It's been really cool to see.know, they're in the green and your boy is in the red. So I wish I had more of it.Well, but it also really speaks to us always trying to find the strategy that will work in anymarket. I was so excited to discuss that four quadrant theory and how it works so well in amarket cycle like right now. And it's just really important for everyone to understand that is whywe preach active management, keeping an eye on your money and understanding the different marketcycles and how you can prepare for them. Austin and I have been talking about volatility for months now,
31:36and this is just another way to really watch out for yourself and set yourself up well for retirement.Now, Robert, here's a question I have for you. Have you ever been looking for an online brokerageplatform that was actually built during the century? Because if that's the case, you need to givepublic.com a try. I know you're already using public, but on public, you can actually invest in anything.stocks, bonds, crypto, options, and tons more. And if you're like us, Robert and I, right, we keep anemergency fund. And that means that we're taking advantage of their 4.1% APY offered by Public'shigh yield cash account. Yeah, we love Public and discover why NerdWallet gave public five starsfor its ease of use and investment selection. Fund your account in five minutes or less and earn up to
32:25$10,000 when you transfer investment.over to public. And for a limited time, public is offering a 1% match on all IRA contributions.So if you're finally investing towards your Roth IRA this year, do it on public and earn a free1% match on all contributions. Paid for by public investing, full disclosures in the podcastdescription. I want to say that again because I want to make sure people heard that.Your Roth IRA that you're maxing out every year, if you have it on public, they will give you a matchof 1%, right? So like, you know, we just gave this example of a 3% match at your employer.Like, Public's giving you a 1% match on your Roth IRA. That's awesome. That's a free $70 if you take
33:09all 7,000 deposit it rock and roll. 70 bucks you didn't have before. That's what I'm doing.I'm taking advantage of it. Go max out your Roth IRA on public.com. Go move your portfolio over topublic and take advantage of that $10,000 bonus that they're offering as well. You know,people ask us, Austin, Robert, why are you guys talk about public? It's because we love the platform.It's because it's the easiest way to introduce anyone to the investor class. We've had tens ofthousands of people sign up for public because of this podcast that are now investing for the veryfirst time in their lives. That is unreal. That is so powerful. These are people that are nowworking and inching toward hopefully an early retirement of their own. So like, I have no shame in
33:52my game when it comes to promoting public. They are.are doing God's work. Our first question is coming from Mitch on Instagram. Mitch says,Hey, Austin and Robert. My name's Mitch, and I got a question for you guys. My fiance and I are gettingmarried at the end of the summer and we're looking to combine our finances once we're married. Weboth make similar amounts of money. We have similar spending and saving habits. And we both havecommon saving goals. Because of this, we're thinking that we will just fully combine our finances andtake everything and put it all into one account. We're trying to set ourselves up to be able to buy ahouse in the coming years and we're wondering if choosing a bank account with this in mind should affect
34:32our decision. My thoughts are we'd likely get a better rate through a mortgage lender so I don'tthink the actual bank account matters all that much. What do you guys think and do you have anythoughts in general on combining finances with your partner? So I'm going to answer that last questionfirst. I'm a big believer. And if you all are married, you guys are a unit in the eyes of the worldand God and the country and the IRS, you all are married and you are together, then sure, combineyour finances. I think it's a wonderful idea. You guys are on the same page about money. You guys aresame savings goals. We all know the number one reason for divorce is money problems. And if you areon the same page and you got it all in the same account, same goals, same, like you guys are
35:13rocking and rolling. That divorce statistic drops dramatically. Now, you actually, you have a lot ofDoes it matter what bank or something with a mortgage? No, that doesn't matter at all. Like, if you areusing, I don't know, Bank of America and your spouse is using Wells Fargo or Chase checking or,I don't know, I use Bank of Tennessee. But let's say you're using these different things,like pick whichever one works for you. It doesn't really matter, right? And to your point,yes, like when you have a mortgage and you want to go buy a home in the coming years,you will go to a mortgage lender. You likely won't go to your bank. Those are two different thingsI just want to make sure that's called out.
35:49I'm a big believer, combining finances, having visibility, sitting down once a month and saying,okay, cool, let's make a budget, right?I'm going to make $5,000 this month.You're going to make $5,000 this month.Take home, we now have $10,000 in the pot.What are we going to spend our $10,000 on collectively?Oh, let's go on a couple of dates.Oh, you want to buy a new purse.
36:08Hell yeah, that purse is cool.Oh, I want to buy some new shoes.Heck, yeah, these shoes are cool.Or, hey, you've got 500 bucks to spend on whatever the heck you want to spend it on.I don't care.or whatever, right?But being on the same page and having these conversations is really healthy for a marriageand my humble opinion.
36:23I'm going to almost agree with that unequivocally.I'm going to add a little bit to it, though.So many people believe they're on the same page because they had a wonderful, lovelypre-marriage conversation and then they get married and things over time change and can change.So I think you should take it one step further.Where you have a conversation that states exactly what your beliefs are and what you'reagreeing to because I have found in my past experience that things change over time and you mightfind yourself drifting apart on this notion of being on the same page financially and you don't want
36:59to have that resentment building up because one person is spending more than another.When I do one-on-one calls and consulting calls, I hear about it all the time. Someone in the relationshipstarted gambling on sports. Another person took up golf and golfs four days a week and it's a veryexpensive hobby. All of these things can come about over time in these marriages. So just make sure thatyou have a really strong understanding, like Austin alluded to, spell it out and really have a seriousconversation, not a passing conversation like, this is great. It's going to be wonderful becauseyou want to make sure that you have that budget, you live within your means, and you can really,really set yourself up for financial success. Our next question comes from Blake on Instagram. Blake says
37:44my dad has all his money tied up in paid off real estate. I just turned 19 and I want to get intoreal estate, but I don't think I can get a decent loan based on my age and lack of history ofincome. My question is, would it be smart for my dad to take out a loan against two of hispaid off real estate investments to give to me and I would pay the mortgage? Is this a good idea?What do you think, Robert? I think if your dad is in that position, I would rather see him gohelp you get a mortgage, sign for the mortgage, give you a loan for the down payment just like abank would to get you started, then have him go take collateral debt against properties that arepaid off. I think you could do it either way and it would be fine. But in this instance, I would
38:32rather see you building credit through being on a mortgage of something that you are defined as anowner on the deed to be able to help you get started rather than it just be debt against oneof his properties and everything is in his name because it's not really helping you other thangetting you started, but I'd rather see you on the paperwork to build your credit, build yourexperience in the transaction phase of everything rather than him just helping you throughcollateral debt. Yeah, Robert, I think my perspective is very similar. If anything, like, I don't know,hey, dad, what can I do to help out with your existing real estate? Or can I, maybe become a real estateagent and you're getting in on some of the deals before they hit the market.
39:15Like there's a lot of ways, again, I'm not in real estate as heavy as Robert is and otherpeople that listen to the show. But like, there are other ways that you can get into realestate without saying, I'm going to go in $500,000 of debt, right?Right.Like, be an agent, make some cash. Maybe you're a property manager.Like, you're doing things. You're 19 years old, dude. You're probably on Instagram orTikTok and seeing other 19 year olds making millions of dollars by on their private jets doing realestate deals in Miami or something crazy, that's not real life. Real life is you're going to grind face to
39:46your 25, learn everything you can about real estate. Then maybe at 25 years old, the right dealfalls in your lap. You get some creative financing and you have a home run opportunity.You knock it out of the park. And now that's your first foray into what real estate investing couldlook like for you. There's so many ways you can do this, Blake, but at the end of the day, be patient.Hopefully your dad can help you out when it comes to getting a mortgage. Yeah, that's my advice.Yeah, I mean, Blake, you're in a great situation.You have a father that understands real estate.He's crushing it in real estate.
40:16You want to follow it in his footsteps.Go have the real conversation with them and say, dad, I'm ready.How can we do this?I want my first property to work on.Start small.He's going to give you a lot of great guidance and just get in the game.I mean, there's a lot of ways like Austin said to do this.And you've got a one up on almost everybody because you have a father who knows the business
40:38and can help you right out of the game.the gate. Now before we jump into our last question, let's take a moment to hear from this episodesponsor, Blossom. Because investing is a lot more fun when you're doing it alongside like-mindedpeople. From dividends to growth stocks, there's a community for everyone on Blossom. And remember,Blossom is not an online broker, but instead a social investing app built around transparency,a social media platform built specifically for investors. And transparency is key when it comes toinvesting. You all know how important that is, just because,you listen to our podcast. I've already connected my personal accounts to Blossom and I enjoy seeing
41:16how everything is divided up and performing on a daily basis. Additionally, they have dual-lingalstyle educational video content for those of you that are still learning. They were recognized as atop 25 app for 2025 by the Apple App Store and for good reason. So if you've not yet joined Blossom,we really encourage you to do so. Over 250,000 people already have. It's a very easy way for you to findboth your community of like-minded investors and also manage your portfolio in a really clean way.Click the link in the show notes below to sign up for Blossom or simply type in Blossom in the Apple App Store.So our last question comes from Jasmine on Instagram.Jasmine says, Hi Austin and Robert.
41:54I'm Jasmine.Thank you so much for doing what you do.I really appreciate it.I have a question specifically for Austin.If you don't mind sharing, can you talk about how you went from making $70,000 a year out of college to becoming a millionaire in just five years?I'm making $80,000 a year at 24 right now as a software engineer. I have around 18,000 in myemergency fund, 10,000 in my Roth IRA, 3,000 in my brokerage account, and 1,000 in cryptocurrency.I'd really appreciate any advice and a play-by-play explanation of how you've been able to achieve
42:24such an impressive milestone. Thank you, Jasmine. I appreciate the question. And I think, you know,we just talked about how transparency is key. I am a open book. How I went from making $70,000 a yearas a analyst at a healthcare company essentially to, I think my income last year, my tax return wasjust shy of like 700,000 and this year it's probably going to be 8, 9, a million if I'm lucky.But my net worth, right, my assets minus my debt is over a million dollars, therefore I am amillionaire. The key to that was increasing my income, right? I was able to work from like 8 or 9 p.m.at night to about 2 a.m. on a side hustle, which was TikTok, it was a newsletter, it waslive streams, it was a lot of consulting. It was a lot of things from like 2020 to about
43:162022 that kicked my butt. I eventually quit my job mid-2020. So I could go all in on beingan entrepreneur like this, but I didn't quit my job until I was making much more through my sidehustle than I was with my normal job as an analyst. So any piece of advice I could give is like,one document the process. The biggest hack right now is having a voice online, if that's on LinkedIn,if that's a newsletter, if that's on X, if that's on Instagram or TikTok or wherever else.If you have an audience, that audience is more valuable than you could ever imagine.So that's the first piece of advice. The second piece of advice is to double down on what you'rereally, really good at. And if you do that and you do it on something that makes you really happy,
43:59it won't feel like work. So working from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., analyzing earnings calls,and hosting live streams on the weekend because during the week, I was actually still at my job.Like, that didn't feel like work. That was awesome. I love talking about that stuff.And so if you're doing something that you really love, it's not going to feel like work at all.And then finally, surround yourself with people who really bode to your weaknesses, right?I found a co-founder within the first couple months of, like, starting this little business in the beginning.And he's way more organized than me. I'm not a very organized person. He's just very great.His name's Christian. He's the executive producer of the show.
44:34as well. Robert knows him very well too. He's in the Rich Habits Network and everything.Like Christian is a rock star. And I would attribute a lot of the success that I've had overthe last several years to Christian being my partner. So maybe find someone in your network thatcould help you build and turn something into something magical so that your income can increaseso much. Once you're now making 100, 200, 200, 300, 400, 500, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollarsa year, you pay your taxes, which sucks. But then after you pay those taxes,you invest the money. You put it in the S&P 500. You put it into your, you know, blue chip singlestocks, maybe some cryptocurrency. That goes up in value. Maybe you buy some real estate like I did.
45:14Maybe you invest in some startups like I did. And your net worth will balloon very, very quickly.So that's the whole thing. That's how I went from, you know, a guy working nine to five tonow I'm a millionaire. I think I hit millionaire status like at 26, maybe. I turned 29 in about aweek or two. So if that gives you some perspective. Wow. That was a great break.I can't really add much to that.I just look at it thinking back to what I was 23, 24 years old.For me, it was always about adding additional income streams and that hasn't changed,getting those side hustles, getting those other buckets of income.
45:49But also, I am a voracious learner.I have to know everything if I can.So I think that's one of the key components for anyone listening is always try to learn more,build more skill sets to make yourself more valuable because that is the key.The more valuable you are, the more money you can require for your time and your services,but then also always be looking to improve on your income through side hustles, other investmentsand other businesses.And imposter syndrome.
46:21I'm curious, Robert, I suffered from imposter syndrome and still do in the sense that like,whoa, someone wants to pay me $100,000 for a project.Like, I don't deserve that much money.I'm not that smart.There's no way I'm worth that, right?Now, like, once you do more and more projects and, like, you know, do more consulting gigs or you sell more services or, like, products or whatever it might turn into, you're like, oh, wait, maybe I do deserve this?Maybe I am pretty good at this stuff.Maybe I can build a business around this.
46:46And so, like, I really suffered from imposter syndrome in the beginning.But Robert, I'm curious, like, do you have any piece of advice for Jasmine who's maybe 24?She's got the side hustle figured out.And she's really trying to now go from, call it zero to her first 10,000 a month in revenue for her business.Yeah, I think imposter syndrome affects everyone at some point in their career.And it's just really all about understanding your own worth as a person and really trying tocalculate that.What is your ROI that you believe should be for your time?
47:17Because your number one goal is to stop trading time for money as soon as possible in yourcareer.I'm not saying quit your job.You have a great job.But I'm saying the more valuable you become, the higher your ROI is per hour.And the more that really kind of harkens against what you bring as value to other people.And once you understand how valuable you are to other people, then you can really understandyour worth as a human for your services and what you are in your job.
47:48And I think that's the most important thing to learn as early as possible.You know, I had a big ego early on because I always figured I wasn't the smartest person in thebuilding, but no one would outwork me.And so I think that's important to understand.that for me all day long, I want people that are tenacious and hard workers because that issomething that I think is more valuable than talent. So make sure anyone listening understands that.I could not agree more. I want to hit the retweet button on that one. You are, you're 24 years old,Jasmine or anyone else listening. Like you've got so much time. Yep. To work hard, wake up early,
48:24work late at night, work the weekends, right? Time is on your side compared to the 46 year old person.who you're up against. It's so easy to get started and do it now, especially with AI and everythingelse. And we're so transparent on podcasts. There's a ton of other shows that people talk throughthe sauce. Like, this is just so much fun. You have all the resources in the world at yourfingertips. And we really appreciate your question, Jasmine. Yeah, I think that tenacity andcuriosity are the two most important traits that all of the most successful people I know haveover intelligence. So many people think, oh, I'm not smart.enough when they're dealing with imposter syndrome. And in most instances, the smartest people I know
49:08aren't the most financially successful because they overthink and they just are more arrogantabout things. That's probably the biggest reason I've become so successful over the decadesis because I am continually curious. How can I build a better mouse trap? How can I make more money?How can I make my followers make more money? So I'm always learning.And that curiosity and tenacity has done me so well.Well, speaking of making more money,I want to quickly shout out the Rich Habits Network.If you've not yet joined the Rich Habits Network,
49:42what are you waiting on?There's a seven-day free trial going on right now.We just wrapped up our weekly live stream.Every Tuesday night, we hop on a Zoom call for two hours.You guys have our undivided attention.We answer questions.We talk about the markets.It's been a very fun time talking about the markets so far this year.
49:59and we give you guys the playbook, the blueprint, everything as it relates to our own investing,as well as other opportunities, private real estate deals, private startup deals, everything getsshared inside this network. So if you want to join the Rich Habits Network with a seven-day free trialright now, you can do that using the link in the show notes below, not to mention the eighthours of video coursework covering everything from investing, retirement accounts, building yourbudget, building your credit, everything in between. And for the tens of thousands of you thatcome back every single week, watch the episodes, take notes, and really take action.We love you. We appreciate you. We love that you share the podcast to others. And we love getting
50:40those five-star reviews. So if you're new around here and you really find value in what we do,please give us that five-star review because it helps us more than you know. And if you're listeningto this episode and you're not yet subscribed on Spotify, I'm seeing right here,four thousand of you subscribed on Spotify in the month of April so far. If you're listening,listening to this episode and you're not yet on that subscribe hit the subscribe button it costs younothing all it does is tell the algorithm that more people should be recommended our episodesthanks everyone and have a great start to your week
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