181: The BIGGEST Wealth Trap To Avoid
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify brought to you by Public.com. By the end of this episode, you'll understand why the five most expensive words in personal finance are, I'll start when I'm ready. And we're going to dismantle the three most common versions of that excuse so you'll never fall into this trap ever again. My name is Austin Hankwitz. 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 early 30s with a background in finance and economics.
What is the 'I'll start when...' wealth trap introduced at the start of the episode?
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 talking about in today's episode specifically?
In this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, we're talking about what I genuinely believe is the single biggest wealth trap that exists. And it's not a scam. It's not a meme coin. And it's not some shady financial product. It's a sentence. Five simple words. I'll start when I'm blank. So fill in the blank with whatever you want. I'll start when I make more money. I'll start when I'm out of debt. I'll start when the markets calm down. They all sound different, but they all do the same thing. They give you the permission to do nothing and stay sitting on the sidelines. And here's why that matters so much. The single most important variable in wealth building isn't how much you invest. It's when you start. Time is the one ingredient you cannot buy back, you cannot make up for, and you cannot shortcut around.
Every month you delay, the math gets harder and not a little harder, dramatically harder.
So today we're going to take those three common I'll start when excuses and break them apart with real numbers, real stories, real perspectives here. Because Robert, I've heard every single version of this from my friends, my family, and especially inside of the Rich Habits Network. Every single time the person is saying that they genuinely believe they're being responsible by saying, oh, I'll wait until this thing happens or I'm going to wait until I'm this age or this much, whatever, right? Like it doesn't feel like a trap. but it's dangerous because it feels like common sense, but it's a trap. And we're going to walk through every single excuse and make sure that you don't fall for them anymore.
So Robert, kick us off with this very first excuse and let's walk through it.
Definitely. I think this is a very important episode in the annals of history of all the episodes we've done over the years. The first excuse is I'll start when I'm older and make more money. This is the most common one. And honestly, it's the most expensive one. The idea that you need to wait until you're making six figures, or you're in your 30s, or you've got things figured out before you start investing is just wild to me. We talk about it all the time in the network. And I hear this constantly. People in their 20s always telling me, Robert, I only make 50K. What's the point of investing $100 a month? That's nothing. And I get why it feels that way. $100 a month doesn't feel like it's going to do much to change your life.
It feels more like a rounding error in retirement. but here's the real math that changed my perspective when I was first getting started. If you invest just $100 a month starting at 23 years old, and you earn an average return of 10%, which is roughly what the S&P 500 has delivered historically, by the time you're 65 years old, you have over $775,000. That's just from $100 a month. You've contributed about $50,000 of your own money and the rest over $724,000 in compound growth doing the work for you. So imagine long-term if you upped that to $200 a month or $300 a month, you'd have millions of dollars in retirement.
Now, the pain sits in as an excuse here because this episode is about like making sure people understand the excuse they're trying to tell themselves and to like really make that mindset switch here.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:36
2
What is the 'I'll start when...' wealth trap introduced at the start of the episode?
0:36–5:34
3
How does starting earlier affect long‑term investment outcomes and compounding?
5:34–10:20
4
Why is 'I'll start when I make more money' the most expensive investing excuse?
10:20–35:20
5
When should you prioritize paying off debt versus investing if you have different interest rates?
35:20–45:36
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Rich Habits Podcast
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