158: Why You Feel Behind Financially

I'm saying, you can say that you're a hero.

“You're a master of the club, right? But you don't understand.”

Exactly, it's just a challenge. You're just a master of the club. You're just a master of the club. And if you work, you're a coach. - That's right? - Safe. You're a master. - You're just a master of the club. - Now you're a master of the club. - Right? - And move, and move!

- That's a slut! - Have Nutella for guests. - Me too, Ernst. - I'm sure you're a bit too much. I'm sure you're a bit too much. Not Nutella for Nutella. You separate that perception from reality. My name is Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croke.

Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur with lifetime revenues of over 300 million,

and I'm a multimillionaire in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. As the show name might suggest, every episode. We talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset.

“So Robert, what are we going to be talking about in today's episode?”

In today's episode of the rich habits podcast, we're leaning into the mindset side of our business, finance, and mindset tagline. We're breaking down why so many people feel behind financially, even when the data tells them they're not. And I think there are three big reasons, skewed benchmarks,

survivorship bias, and the fact that most people won't admit what their real financial situation actually is. I feel like almost everyone I talk to friends, family, people who message me at Instagram, even people who are objectively doing well financially, all say the same thing I feel behind.

I've heard of a thousand times, and feeling behind, and actually being behind are actually two completely different things, but we treat them like the same, and they cause real damage to the mindset and where you actually are. Yeah, Robert, I know people personally that make six figures, 150, 200,000 a year, and they tell me that they feel broke.

And they genuinely feel that way, and it's not them being dramatic, but when you dig into a little bit and you ask them more about what's going on,

the problem is not their finances, it's the way they perceive their finances.

Robert, you mentioned skewed benchmarks. So let me jump into our first topic here, skewed benchmarks. Most people, they don't even know what they're really comparing themselves to. Right? They just have this vague sense that everyone else is doing

“a better than them. And I think a lot of that comes from what we see online.”

You talk about this all the time. This is that social media comparison bias. It's that psychological phenomenon where people evaluate their own worth by comparing themselves to people that they follow and see online. It's always been a thing, but Robert, I feel like since really 2019, 2020, it's just got out of control. Because now you're not just comparing yourself to your neighbors,

or your co-workers, oh wow, Johnny got a new BMW. Martha down the street, you know, she just upgraded this or what you're not now just doing that, but you're doing it for everybody around the world simultaneously on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on TikTok. Despite all of these people everywhere else, they're just showing you the highlight real. It's not the reality of their lives. Yeah, we all scroll Instagram and you see someone posting about their new Tesla, their vacation

in Bali, their crypto gains. You see LinkedIn posts about people getting promotions, starting new companies, raising capital. All of these things in your brain automatically goes, well, I'm not doing that, so I must be failing. But what you don't see is the debt purchase behind the Tesla, the credit card bills for Bali, or the fact that the crypto portfolio is down 60% from its peak in October. You're comparing your full reality to someone else's

carefully curated illusion, and this causes real problems. So here's why things get ugly. Let's pretend you feel behind financially because everyone on social media seems to be making more money than you. So you make the emotional rash decision to take a new job, you absolutely hate because it pays more, or maybe even you invest in something incredibly risky because you're trying to play catch up or even worse, you go into debt buying things to look successful when you're not

quite there yet. Robert, all of this turmoil in angst came about because you felt behind that you saw the Bali trip. You saw the Tesla model. You see those things and you're like, oh, I got to go, start doing this stuff on calcium, polymarkets, so I can better. I saw this really cool thing that I could flip a real estate this or you start doing these crazy outarming to go take this

you feel behind financially because you're benchmark. That pure benchmark, you're saying,

what is my life compared to? The benchmark is skewed. You're comparing it all to social media. Now the data shows that younger people are experiencing this more than anyone. 43% of Gen Z and 41% of millennials report feeling financially behind. But when you actually look at the data and I think data, facts are our friends, right? We hear that all the time. A lot of them are doing just fine for their age. You could have a growing 401k. You could be out of high interest debt. You can

be making more this year than you did last year, but because you are comparing yourself to these skewed benchmarks, you are stressed and you don't feel like you're doing well financially. All of that stress, all of that emotion is caused by a headline of some 23-year-old tech guru on LinkedIn, selling their startup for half a billion dollars to Google or something, right? You have these

“unrealistic benchmarks in your head of how far along you should be in your life.”

Yeah, I couldn't agree more to this sentiment in this whole point because we see it every day on Instagram and TikTok where this person says, well, you can do this in five minutes a day and make $20,000 a month and you've got people like Grant Cardone saying, if you don't make $400,000 a year and you're a man, you're a loser. Everyone needs to put away all that noise and get rid of

it because the key point here is the benchmarks we're using that comparison, that idea of what we should

be doing is broken. We're comparing ourselves to highlight reels and outlier success stories, not the reality of life. And that's just the biggest problem I see. So that leads us to survivorship bias. We only hear about the winners, the person who bought Bitcoin in 2011. The entrepreneur who started up went viral and they made millions. The real estate investor who time the market perfectly and now is a real estate mogul. But for every person who posts on LinkedIn

about a job promotion or a viral product that made the millions of dollars in month one, there are a thousand other people who are skipped on the promotion and couldn't get their viral idea to work. The difference is those thousand people aren't posting about it because success looks common when it's actually very rare. Whereas the average outcome, the person who works a normal job saves consistently, retirees comfortably at 65, that doesn't make headline news because it's not

sexy. But it's what many financially successful people actually do, including myself and Robert, right? That's the playbook. And it's the playbook that's his old as time. Which brings us to the

“actual numbers, right? This is most important because of what you guys to really tune in here and”

think about how do I benchmark myself against the actual numbers? The Federal Reserve does a survey every three years and the most recent data we have here is from 2022. And that survey shows the median net worth in America by age. We're using median, not average because average gets skewed by billionaire tech bros and billionaire tech people. Like I just so we're not going to do average. We're going to do median. I'm median. We're all median here. So let's just as roll. So if you're

under the age of 35 in the United States, the median net worth is $39,000. That's it. It's not a 100,000.

It's not 500,000. It's not a million. Oh my gosh, you're 33,000 on a millionaire yet. Like

which wrong with you, Susan? No. It's $39,000. That number is actually up 143% from 2019 to 2022. Which tells you that younger people are actually doing a lot better now than they were just a few years ago, which means if you're a 30 year old human being in the United States with $40,000 to your name, you are by definition above the median, right? You're above average, right? You whatever you want to call it here. You don't need to feel like you're behind financially at 30 years old with $40,000

to your name because you are by definition doing better than the masses. So let's dig into the people in their 30s and 40s and I've got some really good stats here to help you guys. So please take notes. Age 35 to 44 median net worth is $135,000. Age 45 to 54 years old. It's $247,000. And age 55 to 64 is

“$364,000. Now remember, 30% of Americans currently have a negative net worth. 30%. So if you have no”

debt and $100 in your pocket, you are ahead of 30% of Americans already, take away all of these great stats. So keep that in mind because these are real numbers and what's wild is, 73% of a adultery port there, at least doing okay or living comfortably, financially, according to this federal reserve data. Three quarters of people, which means people that are retired at 63 with 364 K to their name collecting their Social Security are feeling comfortable, but take that with a grain

listen to the show, but you wouldn't know that from social media. That's for sure. You certainly wouldn't. And I just I love kind of reflecting upon stats like this, right? So think about that again. 35 to 44

media net worth in America is $135,000. 45 to 54. It's about a quarter million dollars, $247,000

and ages 55 to 64. Media net worth is $364,000. And you threw in the staff that essentially a third of Americans have a negative net worth. So if you have a positive net worth, no matter what that is, congrats your head of a third of Americans, which is great. And if you're coming in above these actual real Federal Reserve benchmarks, you are above the norm, like you are doing better than your peers. And I would argue, you listen to the show, I'm sure a lot of you are actually

kind of running the numbers now in your head and you're like, wait a second, I'm actually doing pretty good for myself. I thought I was behind because I saw this LinkedIn post about my friend who got promoted and now there are VP where I'm a manager, but you know what, I am doing pretty good. And that's the purpose of this episode to give you guys hope to help you understand that you're doing pretty good. You guys are taking notes, you're taking action, you guys are taking

control of your financial futures. I mean, you are doing so, so, well, we'll get more into that

into a second. But Robert, before we jump into that, we got to talk about the disconnect because

that's where a lot of people fall, right? They fall that the disconnect between feeling and reality.

“Because even with these numbers, people are still feeling behind. And I think there's a few”

reasons for that. So half of Americans say that they're happy or even very happy with their finances were on the flip side. Half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. But the thing here is Robert is living paycheck to paycheck. Doesn't automatically mean you're failing. It means your expenses equal your income, which in my instance, when I certainly was living paycheck to paycheck at 23, 24 years old before I became an entrepreneur, it just meant I didn't have that much money

to move around because I was maxing out my Roth IRA every year, right? So maybe you're someone who's contributing to their 401(k), you're maxing out your Roth IRA, you're saving every single, you know, months and things like that. And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm living paycheck to paycheck. But like, under the surface, when you kind of open up the hood, you see just how well you're doing. And the data backs up, I know I've been dropping a lot of data on your guys this episode,

“but it's important because facts are our friends. 72% of young adults are actively taking steps”

to improve their finances. They're saving more. They're cutting their costs. They're paying down their debt. They're trying to make progress. But they don't feel like they're making the progress because they're comparing themselves to these impossible standards. Yeah, I remember when I was in my 30s, I was making good money. I was growing businesses. I was buying real estate. I was building wealth. But I was also very lucky because I wasn't constantly

comparing myself to the barrage of highlight reels that we see nowadays on social media, like everyone now has to contend with. And I'm sure if that was the case back then for me, I might have felt uneasy as well on my well-building journey. But going back to this, and this is one of the key points from what you just stated, is so many people, they might still be making six figures or higher six figures, but because they don't get their expenses in order

because they're trying to keep up with the Joneses, that is a key takeaway that everyone needs

to understand. What is the reality and what are the feelings? Because the reality is you're living beyond your means, and that hurts your feelings, but you could fix it if you get your affairs in order and get your debt to income in your budget in order, you can fix all of this. But this is a great distinction for people to understand. Yeah, the big idea we're really trying to get across here is that feeling behind financially and actually being behind financially are not the same

thing. And most people feel behind not because they're failing, but because they're using the wrong benchmarks, and your perception of your financial situation is shaped by what you see not by what's true, and what you see is skewed in three major ways. Yeah, number one for me is social media, highlight reels, you're comparing your full reality to other people's carefully curated illusions, and number two, survivorship bias in success stories. You hear about the viral entrepreneur,

the early crypto investor, the real estate flipper who made millions, but you don't hear about the thousands of other people who try the same thing and failed. And the third major way you're

“skewing your benchmarks is the headlines that are everywhere focusing on economic pain, right?”

Credit card debt, record highs, most Americans can't afford this emergency housing market, crushes, young buyers, right? These stories are emotional. They're supposed to bring out your emotions because they need to get clicks, they get paid on clicks. They don't get paid when they say, hey, you know, there was this guy in Montana or this woman in Nebraska that had a great retirement,

for the last 40 years. Like that doesn't get headlines, but what does is the housing market is crashing,

and new buyers can't afford anything, right? So when you put these three things together, social comparisons, survivorship bias, negative headlines, you get this warped perception, where it feels like everyone else is either crushing it financially or completely broke, and there's no in between. Yeah, walk down the neighborhoods and see the Jeep Cherokee and the BMW and the driveway and all the cool stuff and most of those people are broke, and that is why you

have to stop comparing, live your life, live within your means, do all the right things so you can retire with wealth and financial freedom. So Austin, what do we do about this and what can everyone do to follow along? I think it all starts with questioning the benchmarks we're using, like if you feel behind, ask yourself behind what? Behind who? Is that benchmark even realistic? Is it based on reality or is it based on social media? And be honest about survivorship bias.

When you see a success story, ask yourself how many people have tried the same thing and failed, when you see a headline about someone making millions, ask yourself, is that the exception, or the rule, and I'm sure you'll find yourself in a much better mindset. And don't forget, get grounded in your actual financial situation. Not how you feel about it, but what the numbers actually say, are you saving money month over month, year over year? Are you reducing debt month

over month, year over year? Are you making more here in 2026 than you made? Maybe last year in 25 or maybe even 2024, because you don't, maybe not everyone makes more money year over year, maybe it's a little, you know, 18, 24 months promotion, 18, right? But are you making progress? Are you building

“the skills to increase your income over time throughout your career? Like you have to measure”

what you can control, and you can control your savings. You can control reducing debt. You can control your skills to make more in your career. Those are the things to focus on because if you measure those things, everything else is going to fall in order. And if you're actually struggling financially and you're not making progress, if you're going backwards, that's real and that needs to be addressed. But most people who feel behind aren't in that situation, they're making progress.

They're doing fine. They just feel terrible about it because they're using these broken benchmarks. We're talking about in this episode. Robert, what an awesome episode here. I'm so grateful that we get to come back every week and share these strategies and perspectives and sort of reality checks with 100,000 people that tune into the show. If you're someone that is

trying to figure out like, wait a second, my net worth says I have $79,000 to my name. I'm in my

“early 30s or maybe I've got 186,000 to my name and my late 40s. Whatever it is, that's what you should”

be focused on. We're talking about this all the time, which is, again, you can only control the controlables. You can't control what the stock market's doing or things like that. But what you can't control is that I save a little bit of money this month. Did I invest a little bit of money this month? Did I pay off a little bit of debt this month? That's what you got to focus on because it's not the crazy crypto real estate tech bro AI. All this stuff that you've seen to headlines is

some guy raising all this money or some woman go buy a condo and she's building up a whole empire. Like it doesn't matter. Now that stuff affects you, you're on your own journey, you're on your own path and the sooner you realize that you are on exactly where you need to be and your life, the better you're off you're going to be. Like I'm exactly around you to be Robert's exactly where he needs to be and you are exactly where you need to be. 100%. I've been saying it for years

and to me this episode really reflects a lot of what I believe in that life and leading a financially

“free mentally free and a fulfilling life is about what you do for yourself because everyone is”

different. Personal finances different. Life gets in the way we all have setbacks but so much of the

outcome is based on your mindset and that's why we're always bringing this up and I love this episode

for that to just give everybody a little bit of a reality check a little bit of bumping the shoulder to get them to understand, stop worrying about the highlights, stop worrying about all the fake stuff on the internet and worry about what you can control in your own house and in your own habits and finances. Yeah, when my favorite phases, Robert is don't worry about the White House, worry about your house, right? And that goes whoever's you know, president's going on, right? Like you can't control

that house but you can control your house. I love that. So Robert, let's now jump to our Q&A section of the episode. If you have a question to ask us, be sure to email us at [email protected] or send us a DM on Instagram @richhabitspodcast actually before we answer a question, let's give a shout out. Let's give a shout out to public.com, the investing platform for those who take it seriously

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So our first question comes from your real O on Instagram. Your real says,

"Hey Robert Noston, I've been a day-win listener and have learned so much from your show. Thank you. I want to know your thoughts on my work 401k. You guys say the rule is match, beats Roth, beats taxable, but my new job has a funky retirement rule with Maryland. They only contribute up to 3% of contributions. So essentially if I contribute 3% of my salary, I'm only getting a match on 1.5%. So 50% of my contribution. It's not dollar for dollar.

Should I still invest into it knowing that I have no autonomy to pick my allocation? All I have

“is a target date fund. Or should I not invest to it and use that money to max out my Roth IRA?”

Since the contribution limits increased this year." Really good question. Robert, I'll let you keep this one off. Yeah, I wish we knew Euryl's age, but let's just assume 35, 40 years old or something like that. I would say I would probably not max out the 401k because you're not getting that one for one match. And if you don't have any autonomy and they're just going to slap you in a target date fund, I think your money would do better elsewhere. You mentioned maxing out the Roth IRA.

I think that's a great idea. So that would be my takeaway because if we assume that they're giving this 50% match for every dollar and they're going to put you in a target date fund that's going to underperform the benchmarks of the regular market, you know, the S&P or the NASDAQ, I would rather see you at least get that Roth IRA maxed out every year in the funds we talk about all the time. So you at least have the autonomy and hopefully stronger gains than any of the target

date funds they're going to put you in. Yeah, that's a good perspective and I wanted to include this question because it's a fun thought exercise, right? Because if you're getting a dollar for dollar match on your 401k contribution, like yeah, go get your free money, like 100% I don't care, what it's invested in, congrats. You just got literal free money for contributing to your retirement account. You can go switch things up later. But if it's a 50% match, now it's like, okay, so I've got

two invest half my money and it like it just doesn't get a match and that has to be parked into something that I don't have autonomy over where the other 50% I do get as a free like 50% return on my contribution in a one-year period of time. It's like that sounds pretty good. But something though that just kind of continues to linger in the back of my head here that you said, Euryl was since the contribution limits increase this year, which is true Roth IRA contribution limits increase from

“7,000 to 7,500. Something Robert and I really believe in is the Roth IRA. And we want to make”

sure that you are maxing out your Roth IRA contributions every single year if you're certainly can. If you can afford that, we think that is something everyone should be doing. It's the most

powerful wealth building account in my humble opinion that anyone has access to. And so Euryl, like,

I want to make sure you're maxing out that Roth IRA knowing that the contribution limits a little bit higher. And if you do want, like, can you do both? I guess that's kind of like my question back to you because I don't have the perfect answer here. Like, it's a math question. I'm sure we can figure out and extrapolate different types of scenarios with the markets too, whatever, because like 50% return is material. That's great. But like can you do both? Like,

can you maybe go up to 3% or maybe 2% and you know, get some sort of match there? But then also more importantly, max out that Roth IRA because you have complete autonomy over that investment. I mean, it's kind of boring and not that advantageous. If you contribute up to the match in this 401k, they put you in a target day fund, hacker money is in bonds, 22% is an international,

“and 14% is in some small cap value fund. And you're like, what does my money even invested in?”

It hasn't grown at all in the last three years. Like, cool, this match. But like, I just left so much on the table if I had autonomy. And so like, that's kind of what we're trying to prevent. There's no perfect answer to this because like, again, it's math problem. But I want to include this question to give you guys kind of a insight into how I'm thinking about this and sort of just

It really comes down to your personal preference. But I would love to see you max out that Roth IRA.

Yeah, and I want to click back on this just one second because there's a stat that really sticks out

for me. And that is less than 19% of US adults currently have a Roth IRA. Austin and I are huge believers as he stated in the Roth IRA as one of the greatest well-building tools out there to give you all of this growth over time tax-free. And so I just really want to put it out there

“for everyone else on top of your real to understand the importance of the Roth IRA. I think”

everyone that has kids that should be their 18th birthday gift to get them a Roth IRA opened up or migrate a custodial IRA into the Roth IRA for them at 18 years old. But everyone should own one and I just wanted to click back on that for everyone that's following along. All right, Robert. So our next question comes from an anonymous listener on Instagram. This anonymous listener says I love the podcast. I started listening to it about a year ago.

In ever since then, I've just binge all your episodes. I've learned a lot but I need some serious help. I'm 43 years old. I live in South Florida. I own my condo and I don't have a mortgage. I make about $2,500 a month with association fees in some other bills. I roughly pay $2,000 to $2,300 a month. So I'm only left with a small amount of money for the rest of the month.

I don't have any debt and my credit cards are getting paid on time. I've never been educated

on investing so I started late. I opened a Roth IRA on public.com about three years ago because of you guys. But from what I've learned from you, I think I need to do some serious rebalancing in my portfolio. What ETFs should I include in a long-term retirement investing account to maximize my growth over the next 10, 20, or even 30 years? Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Robert, what'd you take on this? Obviously, I think people should keep it super simple.

When it comes to these retirement accounts, I don't like to have a lot of active management with my Roth or my retirement accounts in general. Just index funds and things. But how do you sort of approach it? I agree 100% my Roth account and my other retirement account. I do not really get fancy with it all. So in this case, I think QQQ is great. I would have VOO in there. I would maybe look since he's only 43 years old. It may be having some AIQ, maybe some SPY. I to get a little bit of income.

But I would have it down to 4 or 5 of these funds. We talk about all the time. Maybe some VTI in

“there. But that's what I would do. I would keep it simple. Get it spread across those 4 or 5”

index funds every single month and let it rock and roll for the next 20, 25 years to build as much wealth as possible. Given the $100 monthly contribution, now the other thing that I would say right now because he is living beyond his means with the relative income to what he's paying

for the condo, I would go get that side hustle. We're always talking about make that $3,400 extra

month and invest all of that into these funds. We're talking about to jump start that retirement and get it further along. But either way, keep it simple. Do your thing. Use the funds we mention and you'll be set. Yeah, Robert. I'm right there with you. And I think the big takeaway here is, at least this is how I think about it. It's like I again, I do act in management in my bridge account right now. I'm kind of leaning toward energy. I'm leaning towards some international

stuff. Like I have active management in these sort of brokerage accounts. But with it, it comes from my retirement account. In account, I'm not going to touch for 30 years because I don't have access to it. V-O-O, Q-Q-Q-Q, a little bit of Bitcoin, a little bit of SP-Y-I, right? Just ride the wave. A-I-Q's a great example. Maybe you want VTI instead, but just these big boring index funds in ETFs. Now, Robert, before we jump to our final question, we have a special announcement to make. We built

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“Our final question comes from a dare pee via email, rich habits podcast at gmail.com. A dare says”

Hi, Rich Habits team. I love the podcast and always find your discussions very practical and insightful.

I'm writing with a real world situation. It would love your perspective. My 82 year old mother-in-law has entrusted me with $50,000 to invest in the stock market. She doesn't need the income right now, but we want the money to grow over the next five years. My big priorities are to preserve capital as much as possible. At least target a 7% annual return. Keep the investment relatively simple and understandable, and if possible, generate modest income without high risk. Given her age

in this five year time horizon, what are stocks, ETFs, or other investment strategies you would recommend, specifically we love your actionable ideas, not just general principles. Robert, Robert, how it's so funny. Man, I want no risk. I want 7% returns, and I want to make sure I keep on my money. Okay, cool. Let me know where to find that. How do I do it? It's like, no, that's not anything. That is a scam. If someone says you can get 7% with little to no risk and modest income

like run the other way, because it's not real. So a dare, I'm not being mean of just setting expectations. The stock market adjusted for inflation has returned about 8 to 9% over the last 90 years, and that's an average. Some years, it's up a whole lot. Some years, it's down a whole lot and it comes with a ton of risk, right? But that's the average. And that is really close to your expectation of 7% annual return. If you want a risk free return, you put all 50,000 of this into a high

yield savings account. You go earned three, maybe three and a half percent on that money, or maybe you buy some municipal bonds or something else of that nature that allows you to earn three, three and a half, four percent depending on the strategy. That is real. You can earn low single digits risk free right now with treasury bills and bonds and things like that. When you now start talking about mid to mid to high single digits, like seven percent, you got to take on risk

to earn seven percent. That's not just a walk in the park. That is the volatility comes with that for sure. It's really hard to give you any advice here, because I'm not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice. I'm not going to tell you where to put 50,000 dollars of your 82-year-old mother-in-law's money, but I do want to help you set expectations and understand one. It's very hard to consistently for five years in a row, deliver seven percent returns that preserve capital

without high risk. That's hard. The next thing I want you to understand is you are in a situation where the time horizon is very short. If this was a 10, 15, 20-year-time horizon, and you could

ride the wave, then yeah, just park it in the S&P 500 and get that 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 percent return

average over that period of time with the ups and downs that come with the stock market. If I were in your shoes, I would probably put half the money in a high-yield savings account earning three to four percent. The other half I would likely park into the neose hedged equity ETF that is, let's call it SPYH or QQH or there's another ETF called HEDG that I'm still learning more about, but I think

“it also might be something you should learn about as well. It appreciates with upside in the stock”

market. It will also be less volatile than bonds. So there's a couple ETFs out there to choose from, but a lot of them are not going to, like, a 7 percent return here is very, very hard to achieve with. I think the lack of volatility you're looking for. I think it's a great takeaway and the

bit more stable for some of the companies that have had longer stable returns over the last 10 years, but because it's a five-year window, you're asking us to give you actionable advice based on a five-year window, and we don't know where that five-year window falls into that 50, 60, 70-year time horizon

of those average returns of 8 or 9 percent that Austin was talking about, so that's very, very

difficult. But if you looked at SCHD, you get some decent dividends from high quality companies. If you did V-O-O, you'd be betting on the US stock market, which I bet on every single year, and then if you did V-T-V or something else of that nature, you could be betting on a different portion of some of these companies that aren't the big high flyers, but are still pretty stable. But it's really tough in such a short window with an expectation of 7 percent or greater.

So, also look at high yield savings. Maybe look at Treasury bills. There's some other things you can add in there. They're going to not give you 7 percent by any stretch of the imagination, but they are going to give you low risk and high stability.

“And I also think it's important to make sure we're on the same page about the task you're asking.”

You're trying to generate an extra $292 a month of income for your mother-in-law. $292. When you zoom out, that doesn't seem like that much money. Maybe there's something that your fingers crossed healthy 80-year-old mother-in-law can do that would help her that would help supplement income like the $292 a month that she's looking for. That's not putting $50,000 in the markets that could go down by 10 or 12 or 28 percent,

“like it did in 2022. I think there's more solutions than just investing the money”

if the problem is to generate $3,500 a year. Everybody, thanks so much for joining us on this

week's episode of The Rich Habits podcast. We are super appreciative that tens of thousands of you come back every single week to listen to the show. We've gotten nearly 1,000 people now inside The Rich Habits network nearly 60,000 of you have subscribed to The Rich Habits newsletter and we could not be more grateful. Please have yourself an awesome week and we will see you

“on Thursday for our Q&A episode. And always remember, if you find value from the information we”

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if they need a little bit of help and spread the word of The Rich Habits podcast. Thanks everyone and we'll see you on Thursday. [Music]