Our Hot Takes On Financial Planning & Money

What if some of the most popular financial advice is actually wrong? In this episode, we share our biggest financial hot takes! Austin, Josh, Jordan, and Chase talk through controversial opinions on budgeting, debt, investing, career choices, and wealth-building strategies that challenge conventional wisdom and spark real conversation. Whether you agree or completely disagree, it might make you think differently about money, retirement, and the habits that truly create long-term wealth!

For the video version, show notes, and transcript, visit thewealthmindsetshow.com/s2e37

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Transcript

You’re listening to The Wealth Mindset Show where Hixon Zuercher Capital Management’s team of finance professionals, portfolio managers, and a life coach come together to tackle complex topics in finance and retirement planning so you don’t have to. From investment strategies and wealth management to tax planning, retirement income, and aligning your money with your values and purpose, The Wealth Mindset Show offers the tools to thrive.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the Wealth Mindset Show where the Hixon Zuercher team will have conversations on managing wealth, navigating retirement, and making smart decisions for a secure, meaningful future. I’m Austin Wilson, chief investment officer at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

I’m Josh Robb, director of wealth management at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. And joining us today is Chase Rose and Jordan Shaw. They’re both wealth advisors here at our firm and we’re going to do something fun. We’re going to be talking about hot takes. And we’re going to be walking through why we think they maybe aren’t as good of a take as people think. Jordan, can you start us out by just defining what a hot take is?

Austin Wilson:

And I’ll preface this by saying, I had no idea what a hot take was until we were tasked with this episode.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

Jordan-

Josh Robb:

You were still wrong halfway.

[1:10] – What’s a Hot Take?

Austin Wilson:

I was still wrong and had to change my angle. Jordan, tell us what a hot take is.

Jordan Shaw:

And I had to research it myself. According to that light research that I did, a hot take is a statement from an individual that may or may not be founded in any sort of fact, but it is largely controversial and skewed by one’s perspective and life experience. Hopefully we can get through these without yelling at each other too much.

Josh Robb:

A good measurement of that is if you say it, people are going to argue back with you, right?

Austin Wilson:

That’s right.

Josh Robb:

It creates some sort of conversation because you make that statement thinking everybody’s going to agree with you and all of a sudden more than half the people are like, “You’re crazy.” Yeah, that’s a hot take.

Jordan Shaw:

These are very opinionated statements. I want to preface all of these by saying these are opinions.

Josh Robb:

These are our opinions.

Austin Wilson:

And some of them like mine are facts.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Chase Rose:

Okay. Sure.

Josh Robb:

That’s a hot take.

Jordan Shaw:

We’ll all argue that.

[2:00] – Life Updates: Ice Cream Cake, Bike Wagon, & 4 Mile Walks

Austin Wilson:

That’s a hot take. But before we get to that, what’s going on with life? Chase, what’s new? Ice cream shop is rocking and rolling, first of all. Your wife made you a birthday ice cream cake.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. She made one for Tony too.

Austin Wilson:

Banana cream pie.

Josh Robb:

Two in a row.

Chase Rose:

Tony had raspberry chocolate chip.

Austin Wilson:

Best ice cream cake I’ve ever had in my life.

Josh Robb:

Hot take.

Chase Rose:

We’re going to plug Kip’s Dairy Whip real quick. If you need an ice cream cake or any events.

Austin Wilson:

Your sponsored.

Chase Rose:

We’re sponsored. Sponsored by my employment at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

Sponsored by ice cream cake.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, there you go.

Austin Wilson:

Seriously amazing. But you’re rocking and rolling and busy.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. She is very busy. I help her on the weekends. I do the books for her. We’re both definitely a lot busier this time of season than we were just a few months ago. We don’t get to see each other as often as we used to, but that is all in the long-term plan. We’re gutting it out now and hopefully we reap the benefits.

Josh Robb:

Your first hot take is running a business is easy.

Chase Rose:

No. No, not at all.

Josh Robb:

All right. Jordan, what about you? What’s going on with life?

Jordan Shaw:

Let’s see. Lately the warmer weather, just outside with my little girls, taking them around. I’m one of those Ohio dads now with the trailer behind the bike and the two little girls fighting over who gets to look out the sides. And so that’s fun.

Josh Robb:

When weather is nice, it makes it so much easier to just get out, burn some energy and oh yeah, it’s nice to have that weather.

Austin Wilson:

What about you, Josh?

Josh Robb:

We’re in the middle sports season. If I’m… In the evening, chances are I’m at some sort of sports field doing something.

Austin Wilson:

It’s always sports season.

Josh Robb:

Yeah, I think it feels like that. Yeah. But this is outdoor sports for the most part, which I do enjoy. Baseball, softball, a lot of those things, which is fun for me.

Austin Wilson:

And yeah, we are excited about the warm weather too. We instead of pulling kids behind, we are the crazy family who goes on four mile walks after dinner. We’re enjoying the warmer weather and yeah, we’re going to hopefully do that here tonight after some homemade pizza.

Josh Robb:

I keep trying to talk you… Make it a round trip instead of going straight four miles and then needing some to pick you up and take you back. It’s so much easier.

Austin Wilson:

Yes. We just do a four-mile loop, but it’s still quite the walk.

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

And in fact, Findlay’s very flat, but we do have one hill in the whole thing.

Josh Robb:

You find it.

[4:03] – Hot Take #1: Cash Isn’t King

Austin Wilson:

We find it. We do it. Hot takes. We’re going to go with hot takes and I’m going to start us out here. My hot take is cash isn’t king. And we’re going to preface this by saying I’m not talking about when you buy something off Facebook Marketplace as a negotiating power to have a big wad of cash. That actually is-

Josh Robb:

That’s all they take, isn’t it?

Austin Wilson:

That kind of is king when you do that, but I’m talking about when you’re talking about… I feel like a lot of this is TikTok stuff, whatever. And we’re going to reference that five times today, I think. But always talking about stacking up cash and holding a bunch of cash and they want a bank account with a million dollars in it and all this other stuff like cash is not an investment people. Cash is a tool to be used to buy actual investments. You should have some cash, by the way. You should have enough cash to live on comfortably month to month. You should have enough cash to cover some emergencies and some short term needs.

But outside of that, you do not need cash. Cash is not going to perform well at all and it’s not going to perform better than inflation certainly and especially not as good as something like even bonds or especially stocks over the long run. My hot take is that cash isn’t king and that people should focus less on stacking cash and more on stacking financial assets.

Josh Robb:

Okay. I would say the fact that cash does not keep up inflation, that alone-

Austin Wilson:

That’s it.

Josh Robb:

You can’t be king if you can’t even beat inflation. When you are talking about-

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely. Yeah. Purchasing power matters.

Chase Rose:

However, it is important to know, as a opposition to your stance.

Josh Robb:

Bring it.

Chase Rose:

I’m not saying I fully disagree with you, but when it comes to what you mentioned, negotiations or just having cash available can always be helpful, especially during transitionary periods if you’re going-

Josh Robb:

Oh, totally.

Chase Rose:

… through retirement or you’re buying a home. But that all goes into planning, making sure you understand what you’re expected to need to purchase or spend money on or things like that and having the cash in place for that. But what I would say is liquidity is king, because as much as cash isn’t king, which I agree with, liquidity is king. Not only getting your money invested to grow long term, but being able to access that if you-

Austin Wilson:

Or some of it.

Chase Rose:

… need to tap into it, even for minimal tax implications as well, because you can have a ton of money in IRAs, but you got to pay tax to get into those. I would say liquidity is king as an opposition to your stance, but cash I agree is not.

Austin Wilson:

Absolutely.

Josh Robb:

Good. Jordan, what do you got? What’s a hot take you have?

[6:21] – Hot Take #2: Lower-Stress Jobs Can Lead to Greater Wealth

Jordan Shaw:

Yeah, my hot take is that lower stress jobs that pay less relative to other jobs that are higher stress can lead to greater wealth than those other jobs.

Austin Wilson:

You’re going to have to lean into that one.

Josh Robb:

Explain that.

Jordan Shaw:

Yeah. This one, the lower stress jobs, obviously if you’re looking at the rest of your life not looking at finances, you would choose less stress for overall wellbeing and health. If you’re choosing a lower stress job, maybe you’re not getting paid as much, but you have less medical bills perhaps from not going to the doctor and taking care of yourself like you would need to if you had the higher stress jobs. And also you might choose a lower stress job and it might be lower stress because you enjoy what you’re doing a lot more. It’s a better fit for your personality and thus you tend to build a career into that a little bit more than if you were in some high stress environment where you are constantly forcing or being forced to move departments or even change industries trying to just chase the money that might not be the best long-term financial suit for you.

Austin Wilson:

You’re saying it’s all about sustainability.

Jordan Shaw:

Sustainability.

Austin Wilson:

You’re saying, here, let’s play this out. You’re saying that a lawyer who makes $250,000 a year, because they could get burnout, one example, might be less beneficial in the long run for building wealth than someone who makes $80,000 working at an Amazon warehouse.

Jordan Shaw:

I believe it.

Austin Wilson:

Okay.

Josh Robb:

I see that.

Jordan Shaw:

Go ahead.

Josh Robb:

I was just going to say, I see that in the sense of you say, “Hey, that career may have lasted 10, 15 years, but a low stress job, that may last 30 years.” And so in that instance, especially if they’re saving, they could have that ability to again, create more wealth. I think the other side of it too, at least from my perspective, is a lower stress job in wealth creation the other piece of that is just your satisfaction life. And I think when you’re satisfied, you spend less time trying to fill that satisfaction. If you’re happy with your job, you’re less filling it and you’re outside by spending on extra stuff. Your life style looks different because you’re happier.

Austin Wilson:

I like it.

Chase Rose:

On one hand, I would say that the less stress you have over time, theoretically you should live longer. The longer you live, it’s actually worse for a financial plan.

Jordan Shaw:

Longevity risk.

Chase Rose:

Longevity risk. But also I would look at it this way as well. Wealth is not created through having a high income. It is created through what you do with that income, right? Live below your means and save the difference. We all know that. Let’s say that same person in question, you’re comparing two different jobs. Let’s say it’s the same person. Let’s say someone is going to work a high income for a short period of time and a low income for a longer period of time doing something they enjoy. I would find, especially if you start the higher income job earlier and even if you get burnout, you can still transition to that lower income job later on.

Austin Wilson:

Compounding early dollars.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. Use the money that you make early in life, compound it. Do you have an argument for that?

Josh Robb:

You use the word can. Can lead-

Chase Rose:

Yeah, I did.

Josh Robb:

… can lead to greater weather.

Chase Rose:

Very gentle hot take there. Very mild thing.

Jordan Shaw:

My argument there is you don’t know how long you’re going to live.

Chase Rose:

That’s true.

Jordan Shaw:

Take the lower stress and live life outside of work as best you can.

Chase Rose:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

I like it. I like it. All right, Josh.

[9:42] – Hot Take #3: You Can’t Budget Your Way Out of Poverty

Josh Robb:

Yeah. Mine is you cannot budget your way out of poverty.

Austin Wilson:

Hot take.

Josh Robb:

I mean, you hear Dave Ramsey, which I agree with quite a few of the things he says, but it’s all about budgeting to get out of that debt place you’re in. And I have a couple reasons why I feel this statement. The first one is, one, when we’re talking coming out of poverty, if you’re low income, there are expenses that you really can’t get much lower. If you’re paying your utilities, paying your rent and food, at some point you can’t cut anymore. Just budgeting alone cannot get you out of poverty starting at a low income point because at some point you’ve cut and trimmed everything to the point where all you’re doing is essentials and if you don’t have anything above that, your budgeting in and of itself doesn’t help. Income matters. To get out of poverty, needing income works.

And the second one is you probably got into that situation not so much because you were just a crazy overspender, but the mindset and your willingness to sacrifice really has a bigger impact. We talk about this a lot. It’s really the underlying fundamentals, the habits that give you the long-term success. I think of this like dieting. You could temporarily go on a crash diet, drop back down, but as soon as you get off of that, where you’re going to be? Back to where you were.

Austin Wilson:

Right.

Chase Rose:

Sure.

Josh Robb:

Budgeting alone can’t get you out of poverty unless it is alongside that mental shift and that willingness and dedication to want to get to that next stage because budgeting is hard and at some point you get tired of it, you get burnout and then you slip and then the question is, do you come back or do you just say, “Oh, well, I messed up.” And then you go back to where you were. Budgeting in and of itself can’t fix that issue with poverty. There has to be one, income above to grow you out and then two, a willingness and a mindset to actually get you through the finish line.

Austin Wilson:

I think that that’s something that the whole personal finance side of things does not put enough emphasis on is it’s almost always focused on cut, cut, cut, cut, cut spending, which by the way, should and could be done in most instances to some extent, but it’s much easier to add income in a lot of cases than it is to cut spending because you can cut the low hanging fruit and then be left with some fluff, but not a lot and you’re living pretty lean, but it’s easier… But that last little bit to make a difference is going to be easier to come from, get a better paying job, something else, get a side job, whatever that would be rather than try to cut the last little bit of fat off the bone. It’s a lot easier to do this. And that’s something I think we should focus on more is focus on, there’s two, there’s income and output of your money, focus more on the income side at some point and that’s going to help.

Chase Rose:

Sure. Yeah. Budgeting alone certainly won’t fix the problem, but budgeting can be your biggest help-

Josh Robb:

Oh, it’s essential.

Chase Rose:

… if you use that.

Josh Robb:

You can’t get up poverty without having some budgeting aspect to adjust that. But that in and of itself can’t do it.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, absolutely.

Josh Robb:

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Austin Wilson:

Chase hit us with a hot take.

Chase Rose:

What’s that?

Austin Wilson:

Hit us with a hot take.

[14:08] – Hot Take #4: Your Biggest Financial Risk Isn’t the Market… It’s You

Chase Rose:

Hot take. Your biggest financial risk is not the market, it’s you. And I think this maybe isn’t as much of a hot take as I thought initially in my brain, but basically what this means is we have this investment opportunity everyone has available to them in the stock market and bond market. That’s what we typically focus our ideas on because historically speaking, the best place to grow wealth.

And we have enough data historically to really be confident in where we’re going in the future. We don’t know what the next year has in store. We don’t know what the next five years has in store, but over the long term, we know that the best way to generate wealth and grow your wealth is through stock investing. And if you give your plan, if you test your plan enough with a financial advisor and you go through all of the steps that you need to, at that point, you’re really minimizing the risk that you have as far as investing goes as long as you have a diversified portfolio. But the biggest detriment to your plan is what you do and what you’re spending money on and the habits that you have over time because you can have the perfect investment portfolio. You can have the perfect market as a wind to your sales into retirement, but if you spend more money than you sustainably can, you are the risk in your retirement portfolio or in your retirement plan.

Austin Wilson:

Or if you make poor market moves.

Chase Rose:

Exactly. You buy high or buy high and sell low.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, that’s the wrong way.

Chase Rose:

Yeah, for sure.

Austin Wilson:

You should just always buy.

Chase Rose:

Yeah.

Austin Wilson:

Exactly.

Chase Rose:

There you go.

Josh Robb:

We’ve talked about that though in of that the only time you should sell is if you need cash flow-

Austin Wilson:

Need money. And you were going to do that anyway. That’s billing to your plan, so it doesn’t matter what the market’s doing.

Chase Rose:

Exactly. The primary thing I want to focus on with this is we talk to a number of people who come in, we’re kind of sitting down and talking about their goals and talking about their risk tolerance. And many people are scared of investing into stocks because they’re just scared of what might happen to their retirement plan. The reason why I made this hot take is because stocks are not the risk. The risk is what you do, how much you spend, and things of that nature.

Josh Robb:

Or even when the timing is not the risk. Oh, what if I put it in at the wrong time?

Chase Rose:

Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Got a few more hot takes to get to here. Here’s mine.

Josh Robb:

All right.

[16:24] – Hot Take #5: You Need More Than an S&P 500 Index Fund

Austin Wilson:

I hear people say all the time when they’re putting in their 401k, building out the 401k, “Oh, all I need is the S&P 500. I’m done. That’s all I need.” Hot take is no, that’s not going to cut it. By the way, that can do pretty well and has historically done pretty well. To build a well diversified portfolio, you need things outside of the S&B 500, especially when it comes to equities. 40% of the equity market in the world is outside the U.S. Well, so you should probably have some exposure to almost half of the global market. That’d be international developed markets. That would be emerging market stocks.

By the way, a lot of these places in the emerging markets, a lot higher growth rates than we have here in the United States. Both of those areas have a lot better valuations than we have in the United States. Now, I’m a home biased guy and I think the U.S. is great and should command a premium, but sometimes that gets out of hand. There’s also areas like small and mid-cap stocks in the U.S. that really need some exposure. It can be pretty small, but some exposure because sometimes those can do very well. I think a globally diversified equity portfolio has U.S. large cap stocks like the S&P 500, of course, but also mid-cap, small cap U.S. stocks, international developed stocks, and emerging market stocks.

If you have all of those things together in relatively world equity market like proportions, you’re going to have a much smoother ride and better risk adjusted returns.

Josh Robb:

Would you include cash and bonds in that statement or not?

Austin Wilson:

That depends on where you are.

Josh Robb:

It depends. It’s a great answer.

Austin Wilson:

Of course Josh loves it depends.

Josh Robb:

Great answer.

Austin Wilson:

If you are relatively early, again, this is not a recommendation, but if you’re young and relatively early in your investing career and you have a lot of time to save, you probably don’t need fixed income. If you get closer to retirement, you want to take away some of volatility, you can start adding fixed income if it fits what you need. That’s really depends. But in terms of equities, I think diversification is more important.

Chase Rose:

Now answer me this, Austin.

Austin Wilson:

Bring it.

Chase Rose:

I am an equity investor. I have been investing for the last 15 years and I would argue that because of my investing experience, the S&P 500 is superior.

Austin Wilson:

Past performance-

Josh Robb:

Over the last 15 years.

Austin Wilson:

Past performance is no guarantee of future results I’ll say that to begin with. And I will say that over the long run, small caps have done exceptionally well and a lot of periods actually outpaced large caps. We have really long phases decades at a time where international stocks outperform the U.S. We have not been in for the last 15 years, an environment where any of that has worked consistently even to that matter like growth and value stocks. If you just were to put all your money in the U.S. large cap growth stocks, you’d be sitting pretty right now and why would I ever change? Well, what has worked for the last 15 years is probably not going to always work going forward. That’s where diversification is key. But yes, you’re right, it absolutely has worked.

Chase Rose:

Human nature is to form your opinions based on your recency bias. And so for someone who’s been investing for 15 years or less, or even someone who’s been investing for longer, but they have been invested for the last 15 years, might have that opinion that the S&P 500’s all you need.

Austin Wilson:

It’s all you need.

Chase Rose:

But as you mentioned-

Austin Wilson:

I’m saying it’s not.

Chase Rose:

Yes, I would agree.

Austin Wilson:

I still think if that’s all you have, it’s better than nothing.

Chase Rose:

Sure.

Austin Wilson:

But maybe we can do a little better.

Jordan Shaw:

And if you’re hearing this and you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh, well, I just need to diversify,” but you have no other real context. There could be, this is me kind of combating this hot take a little bit, there could be some danger of diversifying into the wrong things outside of the S&P 500.

Austin Wilson:

True.

Jordan Shaw:

If you have five seconds to look across from someone and you have no idea what their investing experience is like, sometimes just saying, “Just find an S&P 500 index fund,” solve some of those longterm problems.

Austin Wilson:

It’s better than nothing. And it’s better than buying one stock.

Jordan Shaw:

Yes.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. It’s still a diversified piece, not fully diversified, but it diversifies out of single stock risk-

Jordan Shaw:

Exactly.

Josh Robb:

… or one sector or something.

Austin Wilson:

Ooh, I should have had another hot take, not even putting this on the list, but Bitcoin, I would not put all my eggs in that basket…

Josh Robb:

I don’t think that hot… I think the majority of people…

Austin Wilson:

There are so many people that go crazy with it.

Josh Robb:

I still think they’re the minority. They’re loud, but I think they’re minority.

Austin Wilson:

They’re crazy. Okay. Next hot take, Jordan Shaw.

Jordan Shaw:

Ooh, hot take.

Austin Wilson:

This is pretty hot.

[20:18] – Hot Take #6: One-Income Households Can Build Wealth Better Than Two

Jordan Shaw:

One income house, single income households, yes, in 2026-

Josh Robb:

What?

Jordan Shaw:

… can build wealth better than two income households.

Josh Robb:

Okay.

Austin Wilson:

Explain.

Jordan Shaw:

Well, the obvious is if you have a family and the rising costs of daycare and childcare and things like that, you just cut that right out of the budget entirely if you have a single income and the other, your spouse is willing to stay at home and watch the kids. The other reason why I think this is possible is because having two income sometimes there’s different tax ramifications. When your income is so high, you fall into higher tax brackets or you may get adjusted to a higher standard of living that is not sustainable long term. If you have a single income and it’s a modest income even, but it forces you to live within your means, it forces you to really take a serious look at your budget and see what things do you need to cut or not. And it can build a better long-term projection because you’re starting from a reasonable place instead of starting from a really high income few years starting out maybe and then something unforeseeable happens and you take a cut, it’s a lot harder to adjust the other way.

Josh Robb:

The where this falls apart is there’s the term DINK, D-I-N-C or K-

Austin Wilson:

Double income, no kids.

Josh Robb:

… yeah. Whether you say kids or children either way, but double income, no kids breaks that down because it eliminates the biggest expense you talked about.

Jordan Shaw:

Which is child.

Josh Robb:

But I would agree with you on that if you’re sacrificing a secondary income to supplement all those costs, then some trade-offs may show up in areas that give you more of a leg up.

Austin Wilson:

I think the hurdle rate for what it takes for that second income to make sense is a lot higher than it’s ever been. Childcare costs are higher than they’ve ever been. It’s just very, very hard. Therefore, you’ve got to make more money than I think proportionally you would’ve had to in the past to make working outside the home-

Josh Robb:

And then that bumps you to tax bracket. And, Jordan-

Austin Wilson:

… and so then your incremental take home is less.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. What am I netting out of all that? Yep. It definitely can be the case. When I saw you write that down, I thought, hmm, interesting, but I see your-

Austin Wilson:

Where I think that there is some benefit is the benefits side of things can be a lot more lucrative with two different-

Josh Robb:

Yes.

Austin Wilson:

… jobs.

Chase Rose:

Especially if you are each having subsidized health insurance through your employer.

Austin Wilson:

Health insurance, retirement benefits, all these other things.

Chase Rose:

Exactly. Double the match.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

If your income from the secondary earner is being utilized for savings, I would argue your lifestyle never changes, but you double your savings. It just depends on how and what you do with that money.

Chase Rose:

There’s also another aspect that maybe I wouldn’t fully agree. If you’re in a situation like, let’s say for example, you’re each lawyers. If you’re two lawyers and you have family at home, I would assume that most attorneys or lawyers can, this is just a stereotype obviously, but if you’re earning a high income, each of them, I would say that two incomes is going to be better in the long term, but if it’s like a low entry level job or something of the sort, then I would tend to agree with you.

And I think this has shifted over time. 40 years ago, 50 years ago, one income households was the norm. And then we’ve kind of moved into this over the last 20, 30 years or so where it’s been more two income households just because you couldn’t afford not to. And now I think we’re moving back to your point, the one income household is because childcare has increased at such a high rate, health insurance, things of that nature.

Austin Wilson:

Well, and another thing is it just depends on how you define wealth. If you’re looking at wealth in dollars in most instances, the two income house is going to have more dollars in most instances, not all. But if you’re looking at wealth in terms of wellbeing of children, and I know where my kids are all day and what they’re being taught and all this other stuff, that can often outweigh the financial side of things rather quickly. If you’re looking at holistic my life wealth, that is where I think you also get that benefit. Another hot take, Josh Robb.

[24:14] – Hot Take #7: Hustle Culture Isn’t the Answer

Josh Robb:

All right. This one goes to social media, TikTok, Instagram, but kind of the hustle culture-

Austin Wilson:

Hustle.

Josh Robb:

… is not the answer to generating a ton of wealth. A couple things for that. One, what I’m looking at there, because we talked about this and getting out of poverty, is increasing your income is one of the best ways to help get you out of there. I’m not saying that going out getting another job is not useful and doesn’t have its place. The idea here is just the idea that you get a couple or two or three of these things that are, I even want to call them get rich quick schemes. This idea of like, “Hey, you go out and do this, and then all of a sudden you’re going to be super wealthy.”

Austin Wilson:

Drop shipping, real estate investing.

Josh Robb:

Yes. All those things. The idea is they’re pushing this concept of all you got to do is these couple simple things and then you’re just going to be raking in the money. In all honesty, what really happens is the people who consistently work hard and over time grow their experience and increase their position are the ones that are successful. It’s not the get rich quick schemes. And that’s what you see online all the time is start buying real estate, passive income. You won’t have to work a day-

Austin Wilson:

It’s easy-

Josh Robb:

… in your life.

Austin Wilson:

… everyone’s doing it.

Josh Robb:

Yeah. And it’s not that easy. It doesn’t usually work. And more often than not, if you just spent all that energy growing your primary career, you’re going to be-

Austin Wilson:

Far better.

Josh Robb:

… in a better place than if you keep going on these tangents trying to sign up for this or do that or take this. That’s my opinion.

Austin Wilson:

Yep.

Josh Robb:

Maybe it’s not as big a hot take, but TikTok people think that it is all the time.

Austin Wilson:

Chase, your last hot take.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. The Ramsey Army is going to be after…

Josh Robb:

Watch the comments section for this one.

Austin Wilson:

Pitchforks.

Josh Robb:

I think we’re all in agreement with you.

Austin Wilson:

We are. We are.

Josh Robb:

Bring it.

Chase Rose:

All right. You-

Austin Wilson:

Dave.

[25:48] – Hot Take #8: You Shouldn’t Wait Until You’re Debt-Free to Invest

Chase Rose:

… should not wait until you’re debt free to invest.

Austin Wilson:

Amen.

Chase Rose:

Now at the most basic level, if you are avoiding contributing to a 401k in which you are receiving a match for your contributions, that is probably, in my opinion, one of the worst financial decisions you can make, unless you absolutely cannot afford to make the contribution.

Austin Wilson:

Yes.

Chase Rose:

A standard contribution to get the full match is 5%. If you can’t afford to put 5% in your 401k, there’s an issue with your personal financial situation, but also the fact that you would rather not get a 100 or I guess an almost a 100% return on your investment right away is ridiculous to me. But additionally, most of the time when you look at the standard personal financial life, you start off with higher debt early on, especially when you’re buying your first home, you have student debt, things of that nature and you slowly pay that debt off over time.

The best time to invest is the time in which the standard U.S. American has the most debt because you have time compounding-

Austin Wilson:

Compounding, yep.

Chase Rose:

… on yourself. Now, if you have $50,000 of credit card debt that you’re paying 25% on every year, you should not be investing. You should be paying that off-

Josh Robb:

Yes. That’s a caveat to it.

Chase Rose:

Yes. Exactly. But depending on what type of debt you have, if it’s a mortgage-

Austin Wilson:

Student loans.

Chase Rose:

… car loans are pretty obvious. Student loans, depending on the rate that you pay, you should not focus fully on paying off debt and avoiding investing entirely because you’re missing out on the biggest… The eighth wonder of the world, as Warren Buffett says, is time compounding. You’re missing out on a lot of that.

Austin Wilson:

Like you said, that’s not such a… And Josh and I have hit on this for years on this podcast, but that is not a hot take at this table. Sadly, it is a hot take in some financial circles, but we’re totally in agreeance there. And another thing, so my bonus hot take, because we’re going to wrap this up, bonus hot take, just don’t take financial advice from TikTok. We talked-

Josh Robb:

That’s a great idea.

Austin Wilson:

… about that before.

Josh Robb:

Don’t take a lot of advice from TikTok-

Austin Wilson:

Don’t take any life advice from social media. That’s just dangerous. Find life advice from people who’ve lived life.

Josh Robb:

That’s a normal take.

Austin Wilson:

That’s a normal take. All right. Well, thank you, Jordan and Chase for joining Josh and I today. If you found value in our conversation, don’t forget to subscribe to The Wealth Mindset Show on whatever platform you’re on, that way you don’t miss any episodes. Visit us at thewealthmindsetshow.com for more resources or if you’re ready to invest with us, head to hzcapital.com. Otherwise, we’ll talk to you next episode. Have a good one.

Josh Robb:

Talk to you later. Bye.

Thank you for joining us at the Wealth Mindset Show, where we tackle the complexities of finance and life planning to help you align your wealth with your values. We hope today’s conversation provided value and clarity as you navigate your financial journey.

Your hosts work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management, and all opinions expressed by them or any podcast guest are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions and the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that statements, opinions, or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment and any investor attempting to mimic index performance would incur fees and expenses that could reduce returns. Securities investing involves risks, including the potential loss of principle and there is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.