Q&A: Bankruptcy, HELOCs, and Student Loans

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1:02That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of our question and answer segment of the Rich Habits podcast. I'm Austin Hankwitz. This is Robert Croke. And before we jump into things, just want to share our gratitude and thankfulness that we are still the number one business podcast on Spotify. Maybe we can keep this up for a couple of weeks. I know we have some big competitors that are out there.

1:35But as long as you keep liking, subscribing, listening, following, sharing everything with a podcast, I think it's going to stay up pretty high. So, Robert, let's kick off our first question. Sounds great. Let's go. So our first question comes from Jessica B. Jessica says, I love the podcast. It's my new favorite. Thanks, Jessica. I was recently laid off, but luckily I've now found a new job paying$30 ,000 more. With that being said, we're trying to restructure our budget. One thing I'm struggling with as it relates to the budget are the constant unplanned expenses. One week, it's a broken water bottle for one of the kids.

2:05Another week, it's a new pair of shoes. We're almost 40 years old and we make enough money to invest and save, but every single month it feels like there's little left over to actually do these things. Do you have any advice as it relates to budgeting for families with little kids? Robert, what's your take on this? Oh, this is a tough one. Everyone deals with it. It's kind of like dealing with lifestyle creep. So in my opinion, what you should do is look at what can you do once you figure out your normal budget and taking a percentage after you get the debt to income figured out, you know where you're at each month, how much you can put away for investing, and then carve out a 5 % or maybe a 10 % chunk of those funds that are left over every month.

2:48and just start keeping them maybe in a high yield savings account so the money is available but still earning and have that be your baby, your kid fund, your unexpected expenses fund. That way you're not doing this guesswork and you'll have a fund built up specifically for those unexpected expenses and it could spill over even to maybe a car repair or the dishwasher goes out or something like that. So that could be another layer of how you budget monthly to make sure you have those funds set aside, but the rest always goes into your investment portfolios. That's a really good perspective here.

3:25I think what could be another sort of way to think about it is maybe even have like a little piggy bank, right? So to Robert's point, maybe aggressively for the next maybe like two or three months, aggressively pile up cash into this kid-specific piggy bank of a couple thousand dollars and let that sit aside on a high-yield savings account, keeping up with inflation, and then kind of carve out maybe$100 or$200 a month and just random, unexpected, miscellaneous items for the kids that you just kind of have in mind while also keeping this piggy bank in case something big comes up, right? I know shoes get expensive, sporting gear gets expensive, depending on if it's a traveling team, a local team, right?

4:02Totally empathetic to that. So I think at the end of the day, though, the missing component here, though, Robert, that a lot of people, including myself, struggle with is being honest with their budget. I sometimes say to myself, oh yeah, I only spent$300 eating out last month or yeah, I spent$200 doing this or a couple hundred dollars doing that. I'm not going to do it this month, right? That's not going to be a normalcy of me when in actuality, it turns into a normalcy, right? And I do have to keep finding myself pulling more and more money out of the miscellaneous quote unquote budget item, which to Jessica's point here, makes it hard to invest and save.

4:35So I think just number one, what's super important for anyone is to just be very Be transparent and honest with your budget when you build it from scratch and give yourself some grace. It's okay to have good and bad months as it relates to budgeting. Yeah, another take on this is to look at it similar to what I do with businesses. We try to look at when we build these small businesses as having a benchmark of money in, say, the general account or the emergency account. So you might want to look at that as, okay, we're going to build this to$1 ,000 or$2 ,000. And then you keep it at that benchmark and then you spend out of that.

5:07But when it goes over that benchmark, then you invest that, put that back into the general budget for investing in other expenses. So I think looking at having a benchmark of whatever you feel comfortable with having would be a great strategy. And then the rest goes back into your investment portfolios. Really good question, Jessica. Our next question comes from, I think it's Joe. Their font on their Instagram is kind of weird to read, but I think it's Joe. So let's go with Joe. So Joe's asking, hi, Robert Nauston. I'm an avid listener of the podcast. Thank you so much, Joe. And my question relates to supporting family members, especially those that are parents monetarily.

5:44So I've graduated college. I'm doing well financially. My parents, they didn't have the same opportunity and they're not doing that great financially. How do I follow my own wealth building journey to make sure that I'm building wealth for my future while also monetarily supporting my parents? Joe, this is a great question. Many people deal with it, and it is a very, very difficult situation. Because on one hand, you want to help your family. You want to do the most that you can do. But on the other hand, you need to make sure to take care of yourself, because especially if you're younger, you have a long road ahead in your wealth building journey.

6:17So if you give too much on one side and you don't leave enough for yourself on the other side, then you could put yourself in harm's way later on, which then who's going to take care of you? I've been down this road many times, especially when I was younger, because I was very successful at a younger age. My mother did not have any money as well. I helped her buy a house. I helped her get a new car. I did a lot for her, which was fine because it ended up working out for me. But then when silly bands happened and the whole world knew what happened with me financially, family members that I hadn't spoke to in years, some decades came out of the woodwork.

6:51Hey, can you help me with my house payment? Hey, can you help me with my school? Can you help me with my car? And it was endless. And I had to basically shut it off because all I did was deal with friends, family, cousins, everyone asking me for loans. And I will say this, probably 70 or 80 % of those people never fully paid me back. My own lawyer stiffed me out of$42 ,000. One of my oldest friends on earth stiffed me out of$60 ,000. So my takeaway as a whole is, yes, you want to help and you feel like you want to help more than you should, but you have to look out for yourself. So only you can tell where that fine line is, but you have to know it because otherwise you will be constantly saying yes and find yourself in harm's way yourself down the road.

7:44Yeah. From my perspective here, I think at the end of the day, if you aren't willing to just gift that person the money, you shouldn't try and loan it to them, right? I never want to have that weird relationship where my parents owe me money or something. It's like, I'll just gift you the money. I don't want it back. I love you all. Use this how you'd like. But here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to gift someone money at my own expense. So to Robert's point, look out for yourself. You should definitely take that seriously. You want to be maxing out that Roth IRA. You want to make sure you have that fully funded emergency fund.

8:12You want to be investing up to the match with your 401k. You want to be doing the right things and you don't want to do good by your family or your friends at the expense of yourself, right? So that's not what we're talking about here. Now, as it relates to helping your parents monetarily, that might go beyond just giving them money or actual money, but maybe education, maybe resources, maybe programs or services to help them become better with their money. And that also goes for other family members, if that's friends, cousins, uncles, aunts, things like that. But I think it's a fine line to walk.

8:45And at the end of the day, you never want to, to Robert's point, put yourself in harm's way to help someone else, knowing that it could go bad at the end of the day and really knock you off your wealth building journey. Yeah. And another way to look at this, as I think through this further, based on my experience, and I know it might sound harsh or insensitive, is to really think about having a good contract. I always say to people in their wealth building journey or when they're building their businesses, at the end of the day, the best paperwork wins and it truly stands so accurate through all courses of life.

9:14And that is if you have to, or you're in a position where you want to still have a contract that's legally bound to make sure that you have a recourse if you decide to want to, because at the end of the day, we all want to be heroes for people around us and people that we love, but you never know where that's going to be in a year, two or five years. So keep that in mind, whenever you're doing anything when it relates to money and lending and borrowing to others. Really good question, Joe. So our next question comes from Moses M. Moses says, is it legal to transfer 401k funds to a Roth IRA? I have$26 ,000, which is a accumulation of my contributions and match for my employer.

9:55Can I roll this money into a Roth IRA? So this is a really good question, Moses. And it's something I personally have done myself. So here's what happened. I had a 401k at my old employer. There was about maybe$18 ,000 or$19 ,000 into it. And to your point, they were contributions from myself and the match of the employer. Now, what you need to be thinking about is that Roth designation, right? So at the end of the day, if you have a 401k and a Roth IRA, you're going from a traditional 401k to a Roth IRA, right? which means that that Roth designation means that it's after tax funds. So why that's important is because once you are ready to retire at 59 and a half, you can pull money out of your Roth IRA without spending a dime in taxes.

10:39And it's pretty cool. We like that. We prefer that. Now, what's hard here, Moses, is to your point, going from the traditional to the Roth. To make that jump from the traditional 401k to the Roth IRA, and for anyone else listening, you have to pay taxes on the funds. Because as you remember, 401k contributions, normal traditional 401k contributions are tax-free contributions, which means you're able to, and I actually think we covered this a couple episodes ago, kind of demystifying the 401k and the 403b, but you're able to write them off your taxes, saving you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year in tax liability.

11:11Well, you can't save that money, right? And then go back and say, oh, I also want the tax-free money in retirement, right? So you got to pay taxes at some point. So yes, it is totally legal to roll over 401k funds into a Roth IRA. You just have to be ready to take that tax liability, which is$26 ,000 here. So definitely set some money aside in the future when Uncle Sam comes knocking. Yeah, I don't think there's much that I can add to it other than just remember it is a taxable event when you do the conversion. And it's better to get it out of the way now while your taxes are what they are because you don't want to do it down the road in 20, 30 years.

11:43And worse off, you want to take the hit if the 401k is underperforming, because not only are you taking a smaller hit now, but if you leave it, then you're going to underperform for years, if not decades down the road just to avoid that tax hit. So I always think it's better to take it now than later. Good question, Moses. All right. So our next question comes from Katie W. Katie says, I'm 22 years old. I just graduated college and I got my first job and I moved into my first apartment. Congrats, Katie. Super excited for you. She said she's making$82 ,000 a year. She pays$1 ,500 in rent and she has$12 ,000 in student loans.

12:19She wants to begin paying off the student loans. She said that she wants to begin investing for retirement, maybe start some side hustles, things like that, but just doesn't know where to start. Doesn't really have a strategy in mind. Robert, she wants to hear your perspective. Wow, Katie, that is very thorough and thank you for all the information. So I'm going to take a stab at it. First, congrats on the job. Congrats on the 82K. that is a great place to start. As far as the student loans go, I'm on a little bit of a different strategy with student loans because I still believe the government's going to create more and more programs to help people with that debt.

12:53So I would say if the student loan debt is currently at 6 % or less, I would still keep paying the minimum payments and make sure they're timely because you don't want to get in trouble with your student loans. But I would also be looking at getting my Roth IRA set up immediately and get that started. So with the 82K, here's where you start. You go to the link in my bio on Instagram or TikTok. You grab our budgeting tool. It's really, really nice. It's really comprehensive. You get your budget totally dialed in. Then you're going to Google immediately after you finish that and you're like, yes, and you're super excited.

13:25You're going to Google, how do I calculate my debt to income ratio? You're going to do that next. You know where you're at. That's going to tell you how much money you have left over every month after you pay all your bills and how much of that you can put into investing. So you've got that figured out. You've got your individual brokerage account with your Roth IRA set up. And then you're gonna start putting some money into the Roth IRA, depending on where you're at. You're gonna put in$100, 500, whatever you can to get started. You're gonna then invest into a mixed bag of index funds that we like.

14:00Some of them are VOO, QQQ, VTI, VT. And if you want to get a little more aggressive, AIQ is a really good global artificial intelligence index fund that we like. So that's where I would start. Then on top of that, I would really look at getting an Acorns account set up, get your roundup feature going. That'll round up all of your daily purchases, which we believe is like free money because it's just a fun way to build some side hustle wealth kind of because it's being invested as it's deposited into your account. And then also I would look at getting a public.com account set up right away as well.

14:38And the money that I put into the public.com account, and there is a link in the show notes for public, you get some free stock. With the public.com account, what I like is you can get your treasury bills set up. So you could start buying some treasury bills right now because they're paying five and a half percent. And then also I would look at splitting that money and putting some money into Bitcoin as well. Those are the three places I would start out of the gate once you get your budget and your debt to income ratio figured out. That was a really good breakdown, Robert. I think something to consider, Katie, right?

15:11I'm 27. I'm five years older than you. I was in your shoes very recently. Something I did was, to Robert's point, I built out the budget. I knew exactly how much money I was spending, exactly how much money I was receiving, and what that delta looked like on a monthly basis. I then took that delta and bought myself a little bit of wiggle room, AKA my emergency fund, right? It started with a thousand, then it was 2000, then it was 5 ,000, then it was$10 ,000. My goal was 10 ,000 because I knew that that was a good, solid emergency fund. So in case, you know, the sky comes falling down, a family member dies, I'd have to go to a funeral, my car breaks down, like anything bad happens.

15:45I don't have to go take out high interest credit card debt. I don't have to go borrow against my future, right? By maybe taking out a 401k loan. I don't have to do these desperate acts that always come with making financial mistakes. Definitely focus on building up that emergency fund to$5 ,000 to$10 ,000. Dave Ramsey says three to six months of expenses. I think that's totally reasonable as well. And then once I had that, to me, it was like, okay, now that I'm totally secure, all is good, time to start investing. So that's when I started doing the Roth IRA, the investments that Robert's talking about here, doing all that fun stuff and making sure that compound interest is working for me.

16:20Assuming you're doing both of those things or have done both of those things, I would also think about, you know, what do you want to buy your first house? Is it going to be a duplex? Is it going to be a triplex? Definitely should think about house hacking, right? You know, when does real estate come into the equation? Because I would imagine you want to own real estate by the time you're, you know, in your late 20s, early 30s. So make a plan to say, okay, I need to have X amount of dollars for a down payment on this type of a duplex or triplex or quadplex, I need to go take out an FHA loan, which is at three and a half percent down.

16:50What is that dollar amount? And how can you begin working toward that from a savings perspective while you're also investing and making sure that you're leveraging compound interest for the future? So that's kind of how I would begin to think about it. I think it really just takes a lot of my recent experience, Robert's longstanding investing experience, and then sort of this end goal of sorts for a house. And you're really trying to pull that together into a good five, seven, eight year plan. Love it. That was amazing. Good question, Katie. All right. Our next question is pretty good. It comes from Phil C.

17:18Phil says, I have a condo that's worth$240 ,000. I have a 15-year 2 % mortgage on that condo that I still owe$120 ,000 on. Should I do a cash out refi or a HELOC on this to take the money out and go invest in more real estate? Robert, what are your thoughts? Phil C., that's a great question. And I get asked this all the time. So let's break it down real quick. Cash out refi can be a great strategy. You just need to check the fees to do so and look at it from this standpoint. A cash out refi is generally going to have a lower interest rate for you. So it's going to be cheaper to do. But there are more risks with a cash out refi than a HELOC because remember, a cash out refi is more of a first mortgage and a HELOC, a home equity line of credit is more of a second mortgage.

18:10So you do have the foreclosure risk by doing the cash out refi, whereas you don't with the HELOC. So just keep that in mind when you're strategizing and figuring out which way to go. Both of them are good strategies because we always talk about having, you know, money tied up in equity in a home because money tied up in a primary home is dead money. And so many people like yourself have a hundred, 200,$300 ,000 in equity that's just sitting there doing nothing. So I love the fact that you want to pull it out. And I think it's a great idea. And what I would do is consider the HELOC versus the cash out, get all of your terms figured out, get your interest rates figured out, and then see which one mathematically works better for you to pull that money out and buy another property.

18:56Yeah. So I'm actually, I think I'm gonna be on the other side of the equation here, Robert. If you asked me this question two years ago, I would be hand in hand with you on this, but I just Googled in real time the average interest rate on a HELOC in America right now, and it's 9.7%. And I'm assuming cash out refi is going to do the same thing. You have a 2 % mortgage rate. It's going to be 8 % mortgage. This is not a really good idea, in my opinion, to even take money out despite it. You're sitting on about 100 grand, right? Maybe even closer to 60 or 70 ,000 in equity after that 80-20 rule is brought into the equation, I would be hard pressed to think that even after you take this money out, sure, you could go get real estate with it and you probably could make some money, but are you making more than this 9.7 % interest rate you're paying to even borrow that money?

19:42I don't know. That's going to be for you to figure this out. So follow Robert's instructions here, get the interest rates, run the math, figure it all out for you. I don't know if you're going to be making actual profit cashflow on this considering the 9.7 % interest rate environment we're in right now. With that being said, if it was a 2%, 3%, 4 % interest rate environment, then yeah, totally, go get your bag. With interest rates so high right now, I'm just a little weary about that. I'm not sure if the math checks out. Agreed. And let me put a little more depth and perspective to this. So recently I helped a person get a HELOC on their home and it was much lower than that.

20:17I think it was 6.75%. This was maybe 60 days ago. So we have to keep in mind the totality, kind of that ownership cost of which version is better and if the timing is right. The way I do look at it though, if you can get that HELOC or you can get that cash out refi for a reasonable rate is that there is other opportunity costs involved here. When you're buying the new property now is a good time to buy. So if you were able to buy this other property for 50 or a hundred grand less than you would be able to in six months, then it's a either or situation because when the rates come down and say that HELOC or cash out is at 6%, also that property that you want to buy is going to be probably back up 50 or 100K.

21:00So it really is a numbers game and a timing game for you to figure out your best strategy. Really good question, Phil. So our next question comes from Paul. Paul says, I love the show. Thank you, Paul. My wife and I are 33 years old and have saved consistently for retirement. Our first baby is due in December. Congratulations, praying for a happy, healthy baby for you too. In the last few months, we have paused contributions to our Roth IRA to save up for when the baby comes. We plan to start contributions back again in January and we'll have about$800 a month to invest across our Roth IRA and a 529 plan.

21:35What do you think we should do? Ooh, okay. So I want to take this one first, Robert. Go for it. First off, congratulations on the baby praying again for a happy, healthy baby and thinking about now this idea of building generational wealth for your child, leveraging that 529 plan. Just so we're all on the same page again about what that is, it's a college savings account or investment account rather, that allows you to contribute any real amount of money you want to this plan. Some, I guess, state by state have different sort of limits and things like that and different stipulations to consider.

22:07But at the end of the day, it's a way for you to invest toward college for your children. And then you can use that money to one, pay for college. But if your kid doesn't go to college, you can roll 35 ,000 of that into their Roth IRA at 18 years old, which compounded over their lifetime will be over$1 million in retirement after adjusted for inflation like 80 years into the future, assuming two and a half percent. So it's a really great wealth building tool for children. Really, really good idea here, Paul. Now, how would I kind of mix things up? So from my perspective, I opened up a 529 plan for my nephew who was born about two months ago.

22:42I contributed$3 ,000 initially to the plan, and now I'm contributing an additional$150 every single month from now for the next 18 years. And that'll be about, I think,$90 ,000 to$95 ,000, assuming historical returns of the stock market by the time they're 18. I would argue that$90 ,000 to$95 ,000 is a good amount to have stored away for college. And even if they don't go to college, you now have the$60 ,000 balance that you can leverage for your potential future children's college expenses, So it's this really cool plan. I think at the end of the day, Paul, you could likely max out that Roth IRA at$550 a month, which we know it's going to increase over time, while also being able to just take the difference there, that$250, which might turn into only$200 or$150 over time, and use that and deposit that and invest it through the 529 plan.

23:28I think you do both those things,$800 a month, you are golden. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. BJ's Wholesale Club makes holiday hosting so easy, we called in the ultimate host to talk about it.

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