Hi there, Mr. Wonderful here, a.k.a. Kevin O'Leary. And today I'm gonna have a look at a video I've never watched, called Millennial Money: Living on $1.6 million a year in Los Angeles. Before you start, smash the like button like I'm doing here. That helps the algorithm. Alright, now I'm going to watch this thing. We'll see if I like it or not. You know, I like to tell it like it is. I always believed that I would be a millionaire. And I think originally my goal was to try to hit that by 30. I ended up surpassing that by a decent amount. This is the moment. My name is Graham Stephan. I'm 29 years old. I make $1.6 million per year and I live in Los Angeles, California. And welcome to, wait for it, Millennial Money. So I'm a full-time real estate agent, real estate investor and YouTuber. You know, when I first started watching I thought, this guy's gonna be a dick. But now, as I'm just seeing the first few frames, it sounds like he's for real. My mortgage is just over $2,800 a month. The market value of the other unit next to me is about $2,500 a month. Then between the equity I get and the tax write-offs using the garage as my office, it basically works out to be a free place for me to live. Okay, that's pretty shrewd. This guy knows what he's doing. He's basically bought two properties and he's using the tax code fairly and legally to try and live in his place for free because he's profiting off the amount he's getting on rent after he services the mortgage. Good idea. So I spend about $200 a month in groceries, and I do price shop between grocery stores. I'll kind of make the rounds and just stock up on whichever item is the cheapest at which store. Every morning I have my same two eggs with ham and cheese and a half a bagel with store-bought, generic-brand cream cheese is my favorite to do that. I refuse to spend money on two things: number one, I think everyone knows is coffee. I think it's absolutely ridiculous, the markup of coffee at Starbucks and Coffee Bean and a lot of those places out there. So I just make it home for 20 cents. I love this guy. This is exactly what I'm talking about. He's not an idiot. He knows exactly what he's spending his money on. He's got it graphed out. He's very, very conscious of not wasting a single cent. Nothing wrong with that. That's very smart. Coffee is a big money waster. You get really hosed when you buy it. Also, designer clothing. I don't see the point in going and spending $700 on like Gucci shoes. So I end up saving about 99% of my income just because my income is so high and I keep my expenses so low. And most of the properties just kind of like pay for my living expenses. So anything else I make is really just seen as a bonus and I save and invest it. Now the one thing I would disagree with him on is, you know, buying really cheap clothes. I'd rather say, look, that's okay for jeans and a T-shirt, maybe, but every once in a while buy a spectacular piece that's going to last you a lifetime. I like to buy great suits. I want to look good. But I don't waste money. All of my suits are the same. I just have 25 of them. They last forever. Alright, you got it? Oh, can you keep -- Can you watch the whole thing? Oh, there's more? Graham is a realtor? That's the same thing? Got it. So I got into real estate basically as soon as I turned 18 years old because I had no other options. I didn't get into college. I had really bad grades in high school and I saw getting my real estate license, honesty, as a way where I could just get one year of work experience and then reapply to colleges. But it turned out to be a career I really loved so I ended up living with my dad for the first few years. I moved out in my early twenties and that was when I bought another property. This guy's living proof you don't need secondary education to make it. I mean, you know, everybody says you gotta go to college. Look, I'm not against going to college, but it is no way a prerequisite for being successful. He's living proof. The first property I bought was when I was 21 years old. It was a short sale for $59,500 in San Bernardino. It was a foreclosure that was being sold by the bank. And at the time, I had been saving up as a real estate agent, basically using all my commissions, just putting it in a savings account. I bought that property in cash. It actually appraised and was refinanced for like $260,000. So he took advantage of a dislocated market, 2007, 2008, some part of 2009. Housing had been crushed. He took advantage of that. He bought it out of foreclosure from the bank. Obviously, it was a great trade. You can't do it all the time. But he was able to do it because he'd saved his money. My investing strategy really hasn't changed since I was 21. And all of it has really just been about real estate. If anything, I'm just looking to buy more expensive real estate now that makes a little bit more money. But otherwise, I've just kept doing the same thing over and over again. Nothing wrong with doing what you're great at. That's clearly what he's doing here. Graham is focused on real estate, bringing in about $15,000 a month. But here's what you should be doing while this is happening, because real estate is just one sector of the economy and goes through cycles, too. If you're investing, diversify out of real estate. Now, obviously, it's hard for him to do that because he wants to keep buying more houses. But it's very prudent sometimes to put something aside and just buy the overall market, an index or something so you get diversification of your net worth. Because when real estate slows down, you have other investments that can continue to perform. I had no idea that anyone would actually watch me and I had no idea that I could actually make any money doing this, so I started it really just with the intention of having fun. I'd always wanted to do it, but I also felt like, "Who would want to watch me?" And I felt like I didn't have the personality for it. I just felt like, you know, I should probably postpone it. But I just made a video one day, spur of the moment. It was a slow open house. And I just filmed with my iPhone on the selfie side, just talked about how I got started in real estate. And that was such a fun experience and I remember that video getting like nine or 10 views and just being like, "Oh my God, like nine people have seen this video." So I started making more videos and once I started doing about two videos a week, the growth really just exploded, it seemed like. So he's really figured out how the algorithms work and how to produce content that people want to just generally check in on every week. And when you have a million subs, you basically have a business. You're a broadcaster. That's what you're doing. So he really has figured that model out. Kid's a hustler. So right now, probably like 85% of my income is affiliated with YouTube in some way or another, and then the remaining 15% is through real estate sales or real estate investments. So since I've always been self-employed, I've never had a formal, like, 401(k). But I do have a SEP 401(k). I throw some money in there at the end of the year just if it's left over, just as a hedge. But then as far as savings are concerned, I always like to keep about $20,000-$30,000 in one of my checking accounts just to cover anything that could come up in the short term or to draw from if I have any expenses that come up. But other than that, all of my other money is spread out through several high-interest savings accounts. His monthly income is $150,000. You know from before that he told you $15,000 of that came from his rental income. This kid is a YouTuber. He's making the majority of his income running a broadcasting facility. That's the way you should look at it. That's a big number for YouTube. You can only do that if you have a million-plus subs. And he does. That's extraordinary. So coin collecting was actually something I really got into as a kid. For some reason, I found it really cool to collect like old American coins and paper money. And what I would do is go across the street from where I would work to a bank. And the bank teller knew me and she knew me because I would go in and always ask for like any old money that she would have. Some lady came in the bank and exchanged $200 of all just like perfect condition $10 bills from 1934. So some of these are worth up to $200 depending on the condition. Others are worth more like $40 to $50. So I wouldn't really consider these an investment. Like I think it's probably way better for me to put my money in the stock market than it is for me to get like, you know, old money and just keep it for a long time. But this is just a fun hobby. Coin collecting, old note collecting, you can make money doing that. I find it boring. I have some coins I've collected, including some gold coins. I bought them for the gold. But I'd much rather collect watches. You know what I like about watches? You can wear them. Very much like gives you a little jolt there. So I bought my Tesla in April of 2019. You get so many rebates back for it. The financing is so cheap, everything that went on with the car, I calculated that it was going to cost me $70 a month out of pocket net in the first year. Not counting the opportunity cost of then having all the money left over that it could then go and reinvest. So I figured, like, depreciation is going to be minimal. And I got some really great tax write-offs from it. So it's going to almost be a free car. I figured, like, oh, you know, that's the video I'm gonna make. Then that video ended up getting now almost six million views. I think the total cost of the car with everything all at the door with taxes and like all of the options, everything was like $44,000. So I ended up making money from getting a car. I actually don't think a car is that necessary anymore. Bottom line. But if you're gonna own a car, own a Tesla, it's very efficient. He's figured out a way to take advantage of tax incentives to make it under $100 a month worth of cost. But so many ways to transport yourself these days. Cars also have insurance costs to them. You have to store them. I'm not a big fan of owning anything anymore when it comes to transportation. But he's done it well. Nothing wrong with that. And he enjoys driving it. So I have an amazing girlfriend and her and I share a lot of the same values in terms of saving and spending money. And I find it fun that she is just as frugal as I am. So we can have a great time trying to figure out like where is the best happy hour spot and like how we could save a little bit more money doing this. And she's the one too that's also very encouraging of like, "We don't have to go out tonight to happy hour sushi." She doesn't sound like that, by the way. But she encourages me to like, you know, we could go cook food at home or instead of going out to see a movie, we could just pop something on Netflix. Always great to have a partner that shares your economic values. You really don't want somebody that spends their brains out. That's why he's so happy. She's a wonderful gal, it looks like. But she also is in sync with the way he spends money. Very smart. Okay, I know it sounds weird, too, but I do end up rewarding myself every now and then at McDonald's from the dollar menu. Not a chance in hell I'd eat that. Look, the guy's in shape. So maybe indulging once in a while. But I'm really uptight about what I put in my body. It's not something that happens too often, but it does become this thing where it's like, that's my treat. Look, I'm not going to eat fast food, but I am going to buy a great bottle of wine. So in terms of net worth goals, I really don't have any and I have no desire of becoming a billionaire. I don't even know what I would possibly do with that amount of money. I would like to hit $10 million. I feel like that would be just a decent number. $10 million is a good number. You know, they say it's almost impossible to make the first million. He's already done that. $5 million is next to impossible. $10 million gets easier, actually. Once you have $5 million, you're investing in other things and it helps you grow your net worth. You don't need to be as extreme as I am. You don't need to skimp on every purchase at all. You don't need to work 12 hours a day, but you do need to think outside the box. Yes, you do. You have to do all of that stuff. Don't listen to him. Listen to me. Yeah, you've got to skimp. Yeah, you've got to work 15 hours a day. That's what it takes. It's very competitive out there. No one is more frugal than I am. Well, let me rate Graham on a scale of one to 10, one being a horrible saver and 10 being just brilliant. I'm gonna give him an 8.234. He's got a little bit more to go in terms of diversification. He wasn't a 10 because he didn't diversify enough, but he's really good at staying focused on saving and making money. Thanks for watching. And don't forget to subscribe to CNBC Make It. And while you're at it, why not subscribe to Ask Mr. Wonderful on YouTube? You'll find some interesting data on there too.
Thought it was funny that 80% of his income comes from him talking about how rich he is on YouTube.
Fucking can’t stand that guy on the right.
"I'm 29 and I make 1.6 million a year"
Like 98% of his income isn't from recurring sources. He might have made 1.6 million last year, but that doesn't mean he's making 1.6 million a year.
"that helps the algorithm" I wonder what intern told him this 5 minutes before
/uj spreading the rest in HY savings accounts? Jesus dude, you're losing out on so much money by not putting it in the market. He could put $50k of that $150k in the market every month and he'd be at $10m in no time.
Stupid poors, why can't you be rich like me??
Initially misread oShares as iShares and spent 10 minutes wondering why Blackrock was sending one of their management team to film a youtube reaction video...
Clickbait
I didn't see the serious tag and thought both of these guys were a satirical take on something. Christ, it's real. "That helps the algorithm" <-holy shit fellow kids