Rich Habits Podcast - 43: Our 3 Favorite Rich Habits to Implement in 2024

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

In this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, Robert Croak and Austin Hankwitz share their three favorite rich habits anyone can implement in 2024. By implementing these rich habits, you'll know exactly where you stand with your money, save thousands per year in expenses, and begin to build wealth much quicker. ---Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: ⁠https://www.masterworks.art/richhabits---Be sure to check out Public's new ⁠High Yield Cash Account paying 5.1% APY.⁠ This is higher than anything else on the market and is FDIC insured up to $5M. ---Earn 5.1% APY using a Public HYCA, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Opt-in and share your email, ⁠⁠⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠4-module video course!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download our FREE Budget Template, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To learn more about Robert: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://stan.store/RobertJCroak⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To learn more about Austin: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://stan.store/austinhankwitz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Contact: [e-mail] ---Hankwitz Group LLC has an existing business relationship with NEOS Investment Management LLC. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and the author owns several NEOS ETFs.

Amazon presents Laura versus fruit flies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top five business podcast on Spotify.

My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with more than 200 million in company exits under his belt 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 fintech companies around the world. As the show name might suggest, every episode, we talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset. However, we try and bring you two unique 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, before we jump into this episode, I just want to remind everybody, we are going to be announcing the $500 worth of Amazon gift card winners at the end of this episode. So stay tuned. Drumroll soon. Be here for that. It's really, really great. We're so excited for that. With that being said, Robert, kick us off with what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. Yes, in today's episode of the Rich Habits podcast, we'll be talking about our three favorite rich habits. Every single one of you should implement in 2024 as part of your New Year's resolutions.

By implementing these rich habits, you'll be able to better track your investments and your gains, outpace your peers, and optimize your wealth, build, strategies. These are New Year's resolutions you need to actually follow through with, not like the gym membership you cancel after three months. So many people turn their calendar over every single year and say to themselves, New Year, new me, but they keep falling back into the same money traps of consumerism and lifestyle creep. By the end of this episode, you'll be able to know exactly where you are with your money, save thousands per year on your bills, and finally become an owner in the companies that you shop at, allowing you to build wealth much quicker. You know, a lot of people, including myself, get excited for the new year.

2024 is just a couple weeks away. We might have some new year resolutions as they relate to reading more books or going to the gym or eating healthier or spending less money or investing for the first time, right? There's a ton of things to get excited about in 2024. And I have a laundry list myself. Robert and I came together and we said, wait a second, what are maybe three of our favorite new year rich habit resolution things that we can come up with that every single one of you no matter where you are and your wealth building journey can benefit from so if you're just getting started or if you're already a millionaire we think these three rich habits are really going to help you in 2024 i'm so excited about this episode because you're right we all look at that

calendar year cutoff after we ring in the new year and go yeah this is going to be my year i'm going really crush it this year. But guess what? That's all bullshit if you don't make changes. That is why we wanted to spell it out of what we think everyone listening and following along should do, because if you make these critical changes, whether they're small or large to you, the gains you will make over the coming years and the coming months will be astronomical by making the subtle changes or the drastic changes to get yourself off track. So the number one thing we're going to do in this episode is teach you to your net worth. What is net worth? This is simply your assets minus your liabilities. What does that mean? Well, assets mean what has monetary value? This includes your house, your investments, your car,

precious metals, cryptocurrencies, equipment, and everything in between that has value. Then you look at your liabilities. What is that? That's your student loan, your car loan, your mortgage loan, your credit card debt, and everything in between. So the simple way to do this is assets, minus liabilities equals your net worth. So now that you have those two numbers figured out, that's where you're at. You need to figure that net worth out and then figure out how to calculate it and track it. And we're going to show you how. You know, Robert, I think what's really important about tracking your net worth is a lot of people make

the mistake that they're just going to stumble in to building wealth, right? They're just going to kind of drift throughout life, do what society kind of tells them to do. And wealth is just going to come. Don't get me wrong. Some people are able to get away with that, right? We have lottery ticket winners every day. We call them luck sacks. Yeah, and I'm certainly not one of them.

So what we got to do, we got to work for our money, right? Which means if we know where we are from a net worth perspective and we know where we want to go from a net worth perspective, it makes it a lot easier for us to sort of navigate that path, right? And I also want to be speaking now to the listeners that might be a little intimidated by tracking their network. because they know it's negative and they feel like, oh my gosh, if I actually track it and I actually have to do this computation, it's going to make that a reality in my brain and it's going to make me feel sad or anxious or upset or intimidated to even begin. We empathize with you. I was there myself. I remember graduating college with a big negative $30, $40, $50,000 negative net worth because of my debt, my student loans. I hadn't started making money yet. Like I get it. But I promise you.

What helps me, I can, I remember this so clearly, Robert. I was tracking. my net worth on this app on my phone I had randomly found, and I remember the day when it went from negative to positive. And it was the coolest feeling ever. So if you find yourself as one of those folks with a negative net worth, you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever you are right now, wherever you are in your wealth building journey, just begin tracking it. And when you begin tracking it, it's going to give you the confidence to say, wait, is this decision I'm about to make with my money, maybe going on that vacation or trying to buy that car or trying to do this, good or bad decision going to help me get out of a negative net worth or is it going to bring me lower into a

negative net worth? So just by knowing where you are is really going to help you with your monthly and quarterly decisions with your money. God, this is incredible. I just have goosebumps just talking about this because, you know, daily when I'm talking to various people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s and sometimes 60s, it's remarkable how many people will say, well, wait a minute, I have a nice house. I have a nice car. I have nice things. I go to nice restaurants. I go to nice restaurants. What's this net worth thing and why should I be concerned with it? And it's really scary and shocking because so many people, it's kind of like the out of sight, out of mind theory. I believe that people just don't want to look at the number because of the fear of what they're going to find.

But by ignoring that number and not doing your budget, not knowing your debt to income ratio, not knowing where you're at in your wealth building journey, you're just setting yourself up for worse failure later. Think about it from this perspective. Let's say you're in your 40s. You have a paid any attention to it or maybe even worse 50s. You have children now that are in their teens and 20s and you want to build a really help them along on their way, but you've never done the work to set yourself up for a really good retirement and financial freedom. And so that just all comes along with this point of understanding your net worth early and understanding how to track it. And it's so, so important because I deal with people every single day that think because

they have nice things in their driveway and they get to sleep in a nice, comfy pillow top bed, that that means they have a net worth. No, those are liabilities unless they're paid for and you own them outright. That house, that car, that motorcycle, all of those things are liabilities until you own them. And many times those are not worth very much by the time you do own them. So the opportunity cost has been lost with all of that money. That's why this point is so critically important for everyone listening is to understand that once you get a handle on what your net worth is, what is your retirement number that you want to have down the road, then you can back into what you need to do now to get to that number. So for me, tracking my net worth, very, very difficult

because we can only really, in our situations, Austin, track the things that are quantifiable now because we have so many venture investments, investments in properties that we don't know what the end result is going to be. So we can start by tracking the liquid and the quantifiable assets that we can put a number on now to know where we're at. And I think it's ever so critical, even if you're just starting out, because so many people just don't understand that most people do have a negative net worth number based on their liabilities versus their assets. And it's just so important to understand the difference. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about tactically tracking our net worths. From my perspective, to Robert's point, I try to track just the numbers, right? I also

have venture investments. I've got property. I've got all these different things. And I have a general idea on what the equity in my house is and the equity in my rental property is. But for these other investments, like, I mean, I really, it's hard to put, I mean, I know how much I invested, but I don't know what it's worth today. So I try and just like keep that out of the equation. So for you listening right now, and you're trying to track your net worth for the first time, here's what I want you to do. Go to Google Sheets or go to Excel or whatever you can, but I want you to be on like a sort of spreadsheet vibe, right? Open up the spreadsheet and type in assets.

Under that, I want you to type in your checking account, your savings account, your investment account, your Roth IRA, your 401k, your vehicle, right? Anything that has like a real monetary value, like actual real money that you could sell for tomorrow and like actually have money in your pocket, put that as line items under the assets. And then once you've done that, log in to all those accounts and just type in what that number is. checking account, $246,000, savings account, $8,000, like, whatever that number is, right? Go drop all those same things in. Then make another column, call it liabilities.

And this is where you say student loan debt. This is where you say car loan debt. This is where you say personal loan or medical bill or credit card or mortgage, whatever those debts are. And I want you to type in all of those as well. And then once you take out the sum of the assets and you subtract out the sum of the liabilities, you might be positive, it might be negative, it doesn't matter. but now you know where you are.

And so now you have an idea of where you're starting and you obviously know where you're going because you listen to the Rich Habits podcast. We hope everyone turns into a net worth millionaire. Wow, that was incredible. All right. So let's move on to number two, optimizing your monthly spending with credit cards.

This one is fun because I do it myself. I know Austin does it. And optimizing your monthly spend with credit cards is just so, so critical. And one of the cards I enjoy the most and I think everyone should have is the MX blue cash preferred card because it's 6% cash back on groceries. And I eat a lot and I know I might not look like it. But it's very important to me to optimize my credit card strategies.

So Austin, why don't you break it down a little bit for the listeners, a few of your favorite tricks and cards and what you do to optimize this strategy. Absolutely. So before I do that, though, I just want people to quickly get a better understanding of how much money you, Robert Croke, are likely safe. saving on an annualized basis by just swiping your Amex Blue Cash Preferred 6% Cashback credit card versus a debit card or something else. Before I jump into that, though, I just wanted to help quantify this 6% cash back on groceries. Let's assume the average American household spending $500 to $600 a month on actual groceries that you're buying at the grocery store.

6% cashback on that throughout the year is about $4 to $500 depending on how much you're actually spending. What would you do with an extra $500 per year in your savings account or your investment account, right? That's the type of optimization we're talking about here. Other ways to optimize. There are two other cards that I really like for paying rent or your mortgage on. The first one is called Zerp, Z-U-R-P.com. If you are a person with like mid to low credit score, it's one of those debit cards that like helps you build your credit, they have awesome perks like free Chipotle, like free sneakers, like all these cool, like,

travel perks that you probably never heard of, like not very traditional perks. So if they let you pay your rent, they let you pay your mortgage, all that fun stuff. We've also all heard of Built B-I-L-T. That's another credit card that allows you to pay your rent and your mortgage and earn points that way. But for me, Robert, what was really big as a small business owner is I opened up the Chase Inc. Unlimited and the business cash credit cards, so two of them. And I spent the minimum, like, monthly spending it is for three months.

I think it was like maybe, I don't know, $6,000 on one. another like 2,000 on the other. It wasn't that much. And I had business expenses anyway. So it made sense. And I earned 180,000 points, which is worth like $4,000 of like travel credits just because I optimized when I had a business expense that obviously was a ride off anyway and the right kind of credit card I wanted to use for that. So the next time I have to have a business travel expense, it's already paid for it because I optimized it through these specific cards. I think one of the key takeaways, and thanks for that, Austin, that was incredible, is the word optimize. I feel that so many people we could write kind of these three phrases on a whiteboard, put it in their room where they sit and work the most,

and it would change their life. And Optimize is one of those key words because so many people just kind of haphazardly go through life with their money, their credit, their finances. And if they really put these rich habits in play and optimized all of their items throughout their financial journey, they would be so much further ahead. So it's such a key word. and people understanding that all of these little rich habits and hacks mean so much more in the future for optimizing their money, optimizing their wealth, optimizing their savings, and really putting them in a good spot. So let me talk about kind of my point in this. If you're looking to start out somewhere or you're a complete beginner with mid-level credit, I think the most important credit card to check out is the Discover It card. It's a 5% cashback card.

And if used religiously next year, you could just save so much money, like we said, hundreds of dollars throughout the year through your spending with this card. And like I said, this is a really good one for that beginner person or the person with mid-level credit because they also match all of your cashback earned in the first year. So I earned over $500 in cash back in my first year because of this match. So you could do the same. Yeah, what's cool about this card is they've got rotating categories. So like Robert said the Amex, I think Blue Cash preferred is what it's called. That's just groceries. Discover it.

They do have like the groceries, but some months it's like restaurants, other months it's gasoline. Other months it's like Amazon and Walmart. So it's like in all the categories are normally aligned with like holidays. So I think like in Q4, call it October, November, December, it's like 5% cashback at Walmart and Amazon if you're Christmas shopping, right? Stuff like that. So just like being aware that these opportunities exist and being able to optimize your spending around them to save hundreds of dollars, if not over $1,000 next year and just like free money cash back because you optimize your spending. It's just, it's so important. I love it. All right. Let's get into number three, owning stock in the companies you love and buy from.

This is one of my favorite rich habits because getting into the practice of buying the stocks you know, use and love is so, so important. You all love your Nike, your Starbucks, your Netflix, and Kroger. And so as an example, I've talked about this many, many times. I've done a couple TikToks on it. But recently, as an example for my private community, I bought 200 shares of vital farms because I love their eggs. And I love their story. The founder has a really, really great story. You should read up on it. But I bought their stock to give an example to practice what I preach. And so far on those 200, share is a Vital Farm stock, V-I-T-L. I think it's been about six weeks. I'm up $646 on that investment so far, just buying the products that I know and love. And it's such a good feeling because every time you're

in the store and you're buying those Nikes, buying those eggs, buying those Starbucks, you're actually feeling like, hey, I'm an owner of this company and I own shares. So I'm actually helping myself. So think of all the eggs that I could buy with that $646 in gains I've already made just in the last six, seven weeks. It's just incredible. And I think it's a great practice for everyone to get in the habit of doing. And obviously buying stock and companies comes with risk. We're not saying that if you buy stock in your company, like Robert did here, you're going to make 600 bucks. But it's just a really important mindset shift.

A lot of people have yet to make. and I think 2024 New Year's resolutions could be a good opportunity to make that mindset shift. For me, that company that I love is Abercrombie and Fitch. I wear their sweaters and their hoodies and T-shirts and stuff all the time. Their stock is up like 250% this year. I probably had a lot to do with that by how much I shop there. But again, that's just a crazy example, right? You're not going to two, three extra money by investing into a single name.

We had a pretty good year in the markets. But what we're trying to get at here is if you are spending hundreds of dollars per year, thousands of dollars per year on Amazon or at Target or at Walmart or buying your groceries at Kroger. You should own stock in these companies as well. You should be an owner and not just a consumer. I love it. Yeah, we always talk about the mindset shift from consumer to investor. And that's one of the key things that will help you in your wealth building journey. If you love Nike, then love their stock. If you love Vital Farms eggs, buy their stock. It's all just about changing that mindset to get you thinking like an investor and not just a consumer, one of the most important things everyone can do.

So we know the calendar flips to 2024 in a couple of weeks. So we hope that you wrote down these three points of tracking your net worth, optimizing your credit card spend, and owning stocks and companies you buy from and that you love because 2024 is going to be the year that you take control of your wealth building journey. You are going to absolutely crush it. We're so excited for you and we are so excited that you're going to join us into 2024 as we continue to share our favorite rich habits through this podcast every single Monday and Thursday. Now, Robert, before we jump into the question and answer segment, let's introduce this episode's sponsor, Masterworks.

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already using today's sponsor Masterworks, where you can invest without needing millions or even an art degree. We're both investors on Masterworks and have had such a great experience thus far. And every painting Masterworks has sold to date has delivered a positive return to their investors, including net annualized returns of 10, 17, and even 35% just this year. Now, naturally, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns and any investing involves risk, including loss of principle. However, Masterworks's 16th exit, a Kusama piece, was just a a couple of months ago. If you're tired of sitting on the sidelines and want to get in on investing in

artwork like Robert and I, you can skip their wait list using the link in the show notes below or by visiting masterworks. Art forward slash rich habits. Again, that's masterworks. dot aart art forward slash rich habits. To see important disclosures, please visit masterworks.com forward slash CD. And just we're on the same page. What happened here is I found a Masterworks ad on Morning Brew in like 2018, 2019.

And I was like, wow, I want to invest in art. This sounds like fun. So they had a guy hop on the phone with me, call me, say, hey, how much are you like, what's your like situation? Are you thinking about investing? What's your holding period like, stuff like that? I was like, yeah, I've got a couple thousand dollars. I want to invest in this stuff.

It's very interesting. And I've since purchased three different artwork pieces on their platform. And I've already exited one. It is a really simple platform to use. They make it very awesome, very simple. and we're really excited that they sponsor and support the Rich Habits podcast. We hope all of you can benefit from the awesome tools and resources that they can provide. So our first question comes from Annie R.

Annie says, my husband works for Amtrak and the railroad system. He has his money in their 401k and also in their pension retirement plan. However, he doesn't have the ability to choose the index funds in which his money is invested into. I suggested to him it would be a good idea to open another brokerage account, invest money into that so you can choose your investments. But he said, nah, I'm good. What suggestions do you all have to change his mind? Robert, this is a really good question. I think it's really important for, you know, wives and husbands to be on the same page as it relates to money. So I'd like to get your perspective on this first. This is a tough one, Annie. And I feel your pain because I deal with

this on a daily basis when I'm working with couples. And it's just really difficult because as we've talked about for a very long time, Austin and I, so many people think, well, I've got my 401k. That's my retirement plan. And unfortunately, they're forgetting one very simple truth. You need to make your money work as hard for you as you work to get it. And guess what? The 401k doesn't do that. You have no autonomy. You have no choice. And many times that 401k is going to have you in high cost items, but also low gain items because they want to play it super safe, make their high fees, and keep you moving along down the road. So unfortunately, this is a huge issue for you because Because him saying, nah, I'm good, is disrespectful to you and your portion of this life and this marriage

of how to properly handle your finances. So I think you need to have a really serious meeting with him. But I would start it out by saying, hey, honey, or whatever his name is, that your pet name for him, I would say, what are the returns over the last three to five years on the 401K? because what I'd like to do is some research of how it's performing relative to the rest of the market or these benchmarks that are out there for the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ through QQ. That is a great way to get rid of that nah, I'm good. When you can show him that he's probably making 4 or 5%, maybe 6%,

and the rest of the markets are making 10, 12, 15, 18%. Because at the end of the day, we don't know your age at this point, but it's very important to understand having that velocity on your money because if you're leaving four or five percent on the table for five, 10, 15, 20 years, that is just terrible, terrible money management and it has to change. So I know this isn't rainbows and unicorns. It's just the truth. And I want what's best for you. Austin and I both do. So that's the hard truth about this situation is he needs to be dealt with and you need to have the hard conversation to really get this money optimized and being managed correctly.

And I think what could be important as well, Annie, and this could take years just depending on performance and time and stuff. But, you know, him not having a Roth IRA, which is essentially what you're alluding to here, doesn't mean that you can't have a Roth IRA. So you should go open up your Roth IRA. You should max it out. You should buy V-O-O-O-S-P-Y-I, Q-Q-Q-Q-G-T, the awesome index funds we always talk about. And heck, maybe after two or three years of you experiencing these gains or whatever happens to the markets over the next two or three years, you can say, hey, honey, this is what I've been doing. This is kind of cool. I think maybe you should be doing this too. Let's compare my performance to how you have performed yourself in your 401k over the

last couple of years. And I think that might also kind of get the conversation rolling, but that's obviously a two or three year kind of time horizon on that answer. And I want to add a little bit to this for everyone else that's listening. Thank you, Annie R for the question. If you're on the verge of getting married. You're, you know, a year away, two years away, maybe you're a month away, or you've been married for a couple years, five years, or whatever. This is a critical conversation to have early rather than later because you need to make sure before you tie the knot or even if it's after you tie the knot. You have to be on the same page financially, especially if you're a younger couple, because if one person is on the wrong side of the fence

and doesn't understand the importance of financial planning, saving for retirement and investing properly, it's going to be just not a good situation in the long term for either of you because you're one entity now. So it's so important as a married couple to be on the same page for your financial goals because you don't want to find yourself both working as a Walmart greeter when you're 70 years old. That's just no fun for anyone. Really good question, Annie. Thanks for asking it. So our next question comes from Janelle. Doesn't seem like Janelle has a last name. So You're just going to be Janelle, Janelle. Just Janelle.

Janelle's question is, can you explain to me what dividend investing really is? What's the difference between high growth dividend investing and high income dividend investing? All right. So the stock nerd in me is about to go crazy right now. So everyone buckle into your seatbelts. Okay. Yeah, okay. All right, Robert.

That was funny. So what is dividend investing? Simply put, a dividend is a cash payment to you for. owning stock in a company. For example, Apple. Apple is a company. We all have Apple iPhones and MacBooks and all the fun stuff that Apple has. Apple makes billions of dollars a year and profits. Instead of taking that money and reinvesting it to make a incrementally better iPhone with a better camera like they always do, what they do instead with a lot of the money is they pay out all that money to the people that own their stock in the form of cash. Quite literally, like cash

just gets deposited to your brokerage account. They don't like write you a check. You don't like get it wired to your checking account. But it gets it gets deposited just automatically to your brokerage account. If that's public.com or wherever you're investing, it's just automatically there. So as a dividend investor, you're making passive income for doing nothing. Like that's the dream, right? Own these dividend paying stocks, make all this passive income and retire early. That's what I'm trying to do. Now, what's the difference between high growth and high income? Really good question. Let's start with high income. Let's say that Apple made like $10 billion in one year of profits that they are going to, you know, have for the following year. They've already paid their taxes. Everything's good to go.

10 billion in profits. And they want to pay out two billion of that to their investors, 20%. So they're paying out 20% of their profits to their investors and maybe that yield, cash on cash yield here, assuming let's say Apple's $200 a share and they're paying out, I don't know, $20 per share in dividends. that's a 10% cash on cash yield you're getting. Whoa, 10%. Like, that's like real estate level cash on cash yields. That's great. So that's a high income type dividend investing strategy. Now, there are REITs real estate investment trusts. They have historically had high dividend payments because their by law have to pay out 95% of their profits to their shareholders. There's also, you know, Verizon and AT&T, some of these other old boring companies that have high dividend yields.

I think Verizon's close to like six or seven percent. But that's what a high income dividend is. High growth is the other side of the equation. It's a low dividend yield, so maybe like a one or two percent, but they're growing how much they pay you by like double digits every year. A good example of this, actually, Robert, we talked about it was Broadcom. It's one of these semi-conductor companies that we shared on one of our TikTok lives on a Thursday night. But essentially, they just announced that they're going to pay their investors 14% more next year in dividends than they did this year. That's a 14% pay rate. If you think about it, right?

Like, we all get our 3 to 5% from our employer. 14%? That's so much money. So that's what the high growth is, right? Those are those companies that are growing their dividend payments on an annualized basis by double digits, which is also really, really exciting in what I like to do personally. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road.

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Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accent. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horsepower engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SUVw, German engineered for all. I love it. So let's touch on this a little bit further for Janelle. Speak to everyone following along, watching and listening.

What should the weighting be? What percentage of their portfolios should they be investing in these dividends? then producing products. So let's talk about why that's important, right? I mean, at the end of the day, Robert, a lot of these companies that are new to the stock market, think Uber, right? Uber is a tech company. They're not yet really that profitable. These companies, they don't pay a dividend. So like, you're just crossing your fingers at the stock price goes up and you make some money. Where the older companies, Apple, Microsoft, these older ones, they do pay a dividend because they pay out those profits they make. So I think it's very important for people to kind of have a balance between like the risky growth

kind of tech companies, as well as the more traditional S&P 500 large historical companies in their portfolio. So for me, what I like to do, to give you actual numbers, I'd say of my invested assets, about 35% of that is in these dividend paying stocks because I want to be making that passive income. And I love seeing hundreds and thousands of dollars every single year deposited to my brokerage account because then I take that money and just buy more stock with it. So I get more next year. It's like Christmas, but like every month, it's great. I love it. All right.

And one last thing on this for Janelle, a great way to accomplish this. And we talk about this quite frequently is SPYI. It's a Nios Fund. You can go to Nios Funds.com and check it out because this kind of gives you both. It gives you the dividend and the growth. So check out SPYI as another alternative in this category. Really good question, Janelle. So our final question comes from Zuzi M.

She says, I own a small condo worth $300,000 with $175,000 mortgage on it. I'm self-employed. I'm a single mom, and I make $250,000 a year as a freelancer. Zuzi, what's your secret? This is cool. I'm going to need you to DM me and let me know what you're doing. But she says she has $70,000 in savings and will be around $100,000 in savings in February. I have nothing saved for retirement.

This is all in cash. What do I do? Okay, let me take the first stab at this because I'm actually pumped. What I did for my retirement investing in 2023 that I think really kickstart me aggressively that you can do in 20203 as well right now if you want is open up the mega backdoor solo Roth 401k at carrymoney.com. We did an interview with Ankur Nagpal like, I don't know, three or four weeks ago where he's the co-founder of carry money. He's very passionate about solopreneurs and other entrepreneurs and freelancers to start investing and optimizing their retirement savings because they don't have. the employer to give them the 401k and it's kind of like a don't really know what to do kind of hurdle. So go to carry money, open up one of these mega back door solo Roth 401k is and you can actually

contribute and invest up to $66,000 of your $70,000 right now or your $100,000 that's going to be here in February to your 2023 contribution year. Put all of that in the S&P 500 and forget about it. and then you will be able to enjoy that money in retirement tax-free on all the profits you make. That's what I did this year. I'll be doing it again next year. And next year, I think it's like 68 or 70,000 that you can invest. So that's a major retirement strategy for other self-employed business owners is the mega backdoor solo Roth 401K. Robert, I know you have yours. So let's hear it. No, I think that's fantastic. I would just like to see a little more diversification. We don't know the age, I don't believe. Do we know Zuzi's age?

I don't think so. Okay, we need everyone when they ask these questions to put in more detail with age because it gives us a little more color to understand how to really handle the complexities of these questions. But I'm going to take a stab at it. I love what you're saying. I agree. The only difference I would have would be I would have some more diversification, maybe into a couple of these reits we love, definitely some portion of this in cryptocurrency.

I would want to see maybe some of this in BNDI going into 2024 because I think the bond strategy we talked about the other day on the podcast is a really good one going into 2024 as well. So I would say I love what you're saying, Austin, but also maybe a little bit more diversification. Because she's a high earner, there's going to be more and more capital to put into these strategies coming over time in 2024 and 2025. So I would just diversify a little bit more. But I love that strategy. And I'm not even going to begin to tackle the name of the mega backdoor self-employed 401K, dot, dot, dot, you'll have to explain that one a little better.

But that is a great strategy, but I'd have to write it down to be able to remember how to say it. And I will say to Zuzi, carrymoney.com, what makes them so special is the only other alternative to the mega backdoor solar Roth 401K is Vanguard. And Vanguard is very restrictive in the things that you can invest into. Carry money allows you to invest into the cryptocurrencies, the reits, and the things that Robert wants you to diversify into. So go check that out. go take advantage of that. We have no referral code. Literally, I'm a customer. I love it. So I'm sharing it with you all.

Like, it is the real deal. And I can't say enough good things about them. I love it. All right, everyone, it is finally time to give away the remaining $500 worth of Amazon gift cards because you filled out our holiday survey. So we could better get to know you and what you want us to be talking about in 2024. So Robert, let me hear it. Give away. Give away. Let's go. All right. So our. The first winner out of the 994 responses is number 841. So email address, Rosborn 92 at Gmail at a Salana Beach, California. We will be emailing you your $100 Amazon gift card. Stay tuned. Congrats on winning. Our second winner with the random number generator out of 994 people is lucky number 211.

So Jackson stole 9 at gmail.com at a Salt Lake City. you have won yourself a $100 Amazon gift card. Lucky winner number three is number 450. So Linda G's at gmail.com out of Arizona. Congratulations. You won yourself a $100 Amazon gift card for filling out our holiday survey. Now, lucky number four is number 346,

which is Corbin's KS at Gmail out of Vancouver, Washington. Congratulations. We're going to send you an email with a link to you. your $100 gift card. And our final winner, number five, is lucky number 351. L-Marlandis at gmail.com at a Stone Mountain, Georgia, you have won yourself a $100 Amazon gift card. We are so fortunate for the 994 of you that went into our Google form, filled out our

holiday survey, letting us know what you want us to talk about into 2024. We'll definitely be putting out more surveys like this and more giveaways. We want to just give back everything that we are doing. We want to make sure you are empowered. you're having fun, you're loving the podcast. So we are super, super grateful. And thank you for hanging out with us. So far in 2023, we are so excited for 2024. Love it, love it, love it. And yes, thank all of you for filling out this form, helping us get to know you better and really setting us all up to just do better, provide better information,

and just grow the rich habits community and podcast. We're so excited for 2024. And we couldn't do it without each and every one of you. So if you learn something on this episode, be sure to share it with a friend as well as leave a five-star review, either on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening from. And don't forget to follow us at Rich Habits Podcasts on Instagram where you can ask us questions to be in both this episode

in our Thursday Q&A episodes as well. Thanks, everyone, and have a great start to your week.