Former Financial Advisor: “Do Not Buy A House!” Do THIS Instead! @humphrey

Humphrey Yang 0:00 What I'm going to tell you right now is going to be very different.

Marina Mogilko 0:02 What are the worst decisions people can make with their money in 2025?

Humphrey Yang 0:06 Right now, I don't have that cash. It's all fully in the market.

Marina Mogilko 0:09 How do you stay sane when the [chuckles] market goes down?

Humphrey Yang 0:11 Ideally, I just keep all that money in the investing portfolio forever.

Marina Mogilko 0:14 Let's talk about crypto.

Humphrey Yang 0:15 Oh, I have a 5X. I want a 10X.

Marina Mogilko 0:17 How complex everything is.

Humphrey Yang 0:19 People saying you should sell everything.

Marina Mogilko 0:21 And you do the same for your meme coin strategy, right?

Humphrey Yang 0:23 Not financial advice.

Marina Mogilko 0:24 Hey, guys.

Marina Mogilko 0:25 Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. It looks like 2025 is gonna be a wild ride for everyone who is interested in investing, starting a business, anything to do with finance. So today, we have a financial expert here, Humphrey, uh, who we're gonna talk to about building wealth in 2025, mistakes you can make with your money in 2025, and, like, general wealth-building advice. 'Cause I feel like for a lot of young people, it looks like 2025 could be a great year to start building wealth, especially when you see markets growing. It's like, it's a good place to start, right? [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 0:59 Yeah, exactly.

Marina Mogilko 1:00 Everything's falling.

Humphrey Yang 1:01 Yep.

Marina Mogilko 1:01 Um, let's talk about that. Uh, can we start, uh, with, like, a general

Marina Mogilko 1:06 budgeting strategy for people in 2025, how much you save, how much you invest?

Humphrey Yang 1:11 I'd like to say, for most people, that they should try to aim to save 20% of their income if they can. If they can do more, that's great, but most people... I think the average personal savings rate in the United States is about 4%, so if you can get up to 10, 15, 20%, that gives you a lot more flexibility, and that will help you save and invest more in the long run.

Marina Mogilko 1:31 When you say save, like, okay-

Humphrey Yang 1:32 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 1:32 ... I'm putting aside 10%, does it stay as cash, or does it go into a high-yield savings account? What would be the strategy there?

Humphrey Yang 1:40 Yeah, I would stockpile some cash until you have at least three to six months of an emergency fund saved up. So if your monthly expenses are $2,000 a month, that's what you need to live, you should at least save 6,000 or up to 12,000. Put that away. Put that aside. That's high yield. Put it in a high-yield account. You don't touch that money. That's just for emergencies. And then anything else you make on top of that and you can save, then you should invest that. That's the general guideline, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 2:07 What should be the investment

Marina Mogilko 2:08 strategy for someone who's just starting out?

Humphrey Yang 2:10 Yeah, so investment strategy super depends on the person's risk tolerance and their time horizon. So if they need the money next year, I probably wouldn't say you should invest, because let's say you need... Let's say you need money for a wedding, right? And you know you're gonna spend money on the wedding. If you invest that money and it goes down in value, you would probably feel pretty bad about it, and if you can't afford your wedding [chuckles] when you want to afford your wedding, that's not gonna be good. Let's say your time horizon is 40 years, so you want that money to be your retirement money. Then in that case, invest all you want, and you don't really have to worry too much about it. Kind of put it into the market and forget about it. Um, for most people, so I'm gonna get to the what you should invest in now, for most people, I think ETFs are pretty solid, and those are just exchange-traded funds. That just means you're buying one fund, and within that one fund, it encompasses, let's say, 500 other s- stocks within that fund. So by buying that one fund, you are buying literally 500 stocks all at once.

Marina Mogilko 3:08 Do you just buy that fund, or is there a split, like, it has to be like-

Humphrey Yang 3:11 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 3:11 ... I need 20% international, an ETF that tracks Bitcoin, right? We just have-

Humphrey Yang 3:15 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 3:16 ... these.

Humphrey Yang 3:16 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 3:17 What would the, the strategy be there? Let's talk about long term.

Humphrey Yang 3:19 Sure.

Marina Mogilko 3:19 Let's talk, like, 10 years.

Humphrey Yang 3:21 So there are a lot of ETFs. You don't just buy a random ETF. You typically want to buy an S&P 500 ETF. That's the US stock market. You can balance it out with international ETFs, so the rest of the world has a ETF called, uh, I think it's, like, All World Minus US, so basically, it's like every- [chuckles] it's like every other stock in the world besides the United States, so you could do that, and then you could also balance it with bonds.

Marina Mogilko 3:47 Investing, diversifying your portfolio should always be part of your life, regardless of how much money you have, because you're laying this foundation. Did you know that 88% of millionaires are self-made? That's right, 88%. According to Fidelity Investments, these individuals did not inherit their wealth. They built it themselves. So the road to wealth is not about how much you inherit. It's about what you can create, and guess what? 2025 is a great year to start a business. The first thing you need to do is to adopt entrepreneur's mindset, and every successful entrepreneur needs a website for their business. In 2025, I'm starting a new company helping kids eat healthy, and of course, I'm gonna have a website, and I will use Hostinger for this. Hostinger is the easiest and the most cost-effective way to get your business online and start earning more today. With Hostinger's business plan, you can build up to 100 websites and have access to cutting-edge AI tools, like AI website builder, AI writer, AI heatmap, and AI logo maker. Let's walk through it. First, you'll choose the AI website builder. It's perfect for anyone, no coding experience required. Enter your brand name, select your website type, and tell the builder a little about your business. Hostinger's AI does the rest. Watch as your website comes to life. You can easily customize your designs with a simple drag-and-drop editor. It's fast, easy, and professional. Need content? Use AI Writer to generate high-quality articles or blog posts in minutes. Looking for a logo? Let the AI Logo Maker create one that matches your brand's identity. Want to understand how visitors interact with your site? The AI Heatmap shows you exactly where people are clicking. Now your business is online, professional, and ready to succeed. Hostinger helps you take your idea and turn it into a real business, all for a fraction of the cost. Start your entrepreneurial journey today with Hostinger. Use the code Marina to get a discount for the business plan, and remember that 2025 is the year of change. It's time to build your future by yourself.

Marina Mogilko 5:44 Um-

Humphrey Yang 5:44 What's the percentage? Yeah, so a typical percentage, let's say you wanted a three-fund portfolio, which is a very famous portfolio. It's, um, a lot of people online like the three-fund portfolio because it's very well-balanced, as well as it does well in times of prosperity, but doesn't have as much downside risk.... uh, the, the typical split on a three-fund portfolio is something like 50% in US stocks, 25 to 30% in international stocks, and then the rest would be bonds. But sometimes bonds for a younger investor is not risky enough, so that's something you kind of have to balance and weigh with yourself. Like, if you're a riskier type of investor, you might do more in US stocks, 'cause US stocks are probably, uh, they have the greatest potential for upside, but they could also go down, too. Same thing with international stocks, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 6:36 And

Marina Mogilko 6:37 where does, uh, crypto, real estate, everything else fall into, like, how do you-

Humphrey Yang 6:41 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 6:42 - decide about those things? And, like, even individual stocks-

Humphrey Yang 6:45 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 6:45 ... 'cause Nvidia-

Humphrey Yang 6:46 Yeah, I know.

Marina Mogilko 6:47 That's, like, [chuckles] one of the best investments ever.

Humphrey Yang 6:49 Yeah, so I think there's this... So we'll talk about how to build wealth, because what I just kind of laid out for you in terms of the three-fund portfolio is a very safe way to compound your wealth. But if you wanna build wealth faster, typically you need to take a little more risk, and the more risk could involve individual stocks. It could involve you getting into real estate. It could go- it could be that you buy some crypto. Um, but for the general person who doesn't really wanna spend too much time investing, the portfolio I laid out earlier is perfect. Uh, you might wanna add 5% in alternatives, like crypto, uh, or real estate. You could do that.

Marina Mogilko 7:23 But then, so, like, 'cause I'm thinking about myself, like, what, what number do you reach when you start thinking about

Marina Mogilko 7:30 something alternative? Like, okay, let's say, I don't know, 100K invested in the stock market. Is that the time to think about other things?

Humphrey Yang 7:40 Yeah, that's a tough question. I think you can always think about it, but higher numbers, better for thinking about other things, because the way capital works, you know, if you get 10% on 100K, that's a lot more significant than 10% on $100. So as your numbers and your portfolio balance grows, you can maybe set aside a portion of your portfolio to take higher concentrated risks, so that you could try to make more money faster.

Marina Mogilko 8:03 But you never start with it, right? You start with-

Humphrey Yang 8:05 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 8:06 ... ideally, you start with something that's-

Humphrey Yang 8:07 I, ideally, you wanna get your base up to at least $100,000, and then you kind of-

Marina Mogilko 8:12 Mm

Humphrey Yang 8:12 ... from there, maybe you take small, concentrated bets on things that you believe in. I think the danger of taking big swings when your portfolio is in, i- $100,000 already, is that you could, you could go to zero again, or it could be really demoralizing. Let's say you, you get your portfolio up to 50,000, and you spend half of it, and you put it into a individual stock that goes down 80%, then you're kind of right back where you started. Maybe, maybe you lost a few years of progress, and that can be really frustrating. So instead, what I like to see people do is get that momentum and keep that momentum going. Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 8:45 Just invest, invest. How often do you

Marina Mogilko 8:47 check your balance?

Humphrey Yang 8:48 Uh-

Marina Mogilko 8:48 And how do you do regular investing? What would be your advice? Is it, like, manually or you can automate it?

Humphrey Yang 8:53 You can automate it. So you can do something in your brokerage account or even your Roth IRA or IRA or 401 (k) , where you contribute a certain amount every interval. So typically, every two weeks is good, every month is good, too, but that's called dollar-cost averaging. You just wanna always buy into the market. Typically, people-

Marina Mogilko 9:11 Is there a good

Marina Mogilko 9:12 day? [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 9:12 [chuckles]

Marina Mogilko 9:12 I know for crypto, weekends are good, right?

Humphrey Yang 9:14 Uh, I don't think there's ever such thing as a good day.

Marina Mogilko 9:17 No? Okay.

Humphrey Yang 9:17 I think it doesn't really matter. As long as you're consistently investing, I think that, that's more important.

Marina Mogilko 9:21 Um, does it buy into, like... So you auto- you tell it, like, every second Monday of the month-

Humphrey Yang 9:27 Sure

Marina Mogilko 9:27 - you buy this-

Humphrey Yang 9:28 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 9:28 ... this and that. And every brokerage can do that?

Humphrey Yang 9:30 Most brokerages have that feature, yeah. It's just called recurring investment.

Marina Mogilko 9:34 Can you recommend maybe two or three brokerage

Marina Mogilko 9:36 apps?

Humphrey Yang 9:36 Yeah, my favorite brokerages are probably Fidelity. That's, like, the biggest kind of well, most ca- one of the most well-capitalized brokerages in the United States. Um, another one I think that's very beginner friendly, that got a lot of hate in 2021, was Robinhood, but they've made a lot of improvements since. You just have to kind of be careful there. It's a little more gamified.

Marina Mogilko 9:56 And do they have a automated?

Humphrey Yang 9:58 They do have automated.

Marina Mogilko 9:59 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 9:59 Yeah, you can automate it. And then some other ones, like Schwab is fine. M1 Finance is good, too. Um, in general, the bigger the, the brokerage, usually the better.

Marina Mogilko 10:08 So you mentioned those different accounts.

Humphrey Yang 10:10 Sure.

Marina Mogilko 10:10 You mentioned, like, brokerage-

Humphrey Yang 10:12 Yep

Marina Mogilko 10:12 ... like-

Humphrey Yang 10:13 Yep

Marina Mogilko 10:13 ... general investment, 401 (k) , Roth IRA.

Humphrey Yang 10:16 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 10:18 So if a person just starts investing-

Humphrey Yang 10:20 Mm-hmm

Marina Mogilko 10:20 ... and they're aiming for, like, 10 years-

Humphrey Yang 10:22 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 10:23 ... would you start a 401 (k) , or would you just put it in a brokerage account? Because 401 (k) , you can only start taking out money when you're, like, 70-something, right?

Humphrey Yang 10:30 Yeah, I believe it's, uh, I think 401 (k) ... Sorry, I get, I get a lot of the, the accounts confused sometimes, but I'm pretty sure 401 (k) , you can start to take contributions out or, sorry, your earnings out at 59 and a half. But then they start requiring you to take money out around the age of 70 and a half.

Marina Mogilko 10:50 Yeah, well-

Humphrey Yang 10:50 I think that's required minimum distributions.

Marina Mogilko 10:51 What's the general rule? Because when we started 401 (k) -

Humphrey Yang 10:54 Mm-hmm

Marina Mogilko 10:54 ... and we started only two years ago-

Humphrey Yang 10:56 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 10:56 ... because when I was talking to my husband, he's like: "Why would we just put money there?" And like, we're 34, like 33.

Humphrey Yang 11:02 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 11:02 "We're so active. Why don't we invest in business? Like, why would you invest in a 401 (k) ?" And I have my financial adviser, who was like, "Marina, you don't understand. Compound interest without-

Humphrey Yang 11:11 Sure

Marina Mogilko 11:11 ... tax, that's a writer for your business." So he's kind of making us contribute every year. But for me, psychology, again, I come from a country where we had so many turmoils, where our savings just disappeared. So what would be your general advice, like, do you start with a general brokerage account, or you go straight into tax savings strategies?

Humphrey Yang 11:31 Yeah, that's a great question. I believe with your audience, which probably a lot of them are non-US based, is my guess, you're gonna have a lot of skepticism when it comes to the 401 (k) . That makes total sense. And sometimes it's better to take control of your own destiny and just, like, take that money and go buy a house with it or buy a rental property with it, and you can tangibly see the money there. I get that, too. The reason why the 401 (k) in America is so good is that it's a forced savings mechanism, so it forces people to save that normally wouldn't save. If you're already a great saver, like, let's say you save 50% of your income, and you are a better active investor, or you feel like you can do some business with it, maybe you do that instead.... uh, if you need the money in 10 years, like what you just said, then you probably wouldn't invest it in a 401 [k] [chuckles] because-

Marina Mogilko 12:20 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 12:21 ... you gotta take that money out eventually, and if you put it in a 401 [k] , you're not gonna be able to take that money out for years.

Marina Mogilko 12:25 But you can borrow against your 401 [k] .

Humphrey Yang 12:27 Yeah, you can borrow against it.

Marina Mogilko 12:28 There are strategies.

Humphrey Yang 12:29 There are some strategies-

Marina Mogilko 12:30 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 12:30 ... Yeah. But I would say in general, most people, if they need the money before they retire, brokerage is fine. Yeah, you're gonna be taxed on it, but that's better than, let's say, paying penalties because you're withdrawing from your-

Marina Mogilko 12:41 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 12:41 ... 401 [k] .

Marina Mogilko 12:42 Because the balance is a great, like 10% or-

Humphrey Yang 12:44 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 12:44 ... plus tax.

Humphrey Yang 12:45 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 12:45 I feel like a lot of people who are watching, they also just moved to the US, and they're, like, starting to realize how complex everything is.

Humphrey Yang 12:50 Very complex. Now, the 401 [k] is worth it if your employer gives you the match-

Marina Mogilko 12:55 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 12:55 ... because that's just free money.

Marina Mogilko 12:57 And also, if you have your own business, 'cause that's a write-off.

Humphrey Yang 12:59 Yes.

Marina Mogilko 12:59 And what I've realized, what my CPA told me, once you get your 401 [k] distribution, it goes onto your W-2. So if you're-

Humphrey Yang 13:05 Oh, interesting

Marina Mogilko 13:05 ... applying for a mortgage-

Humphrey Yang 13:06 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 13:07 ... that increases your W-2 income, so it's good for mortgage.

Humphrey Yang 13:09 Oh, that's good to know.

Marina Mogilko 13:10 So that was another key takeaway. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 13:12 Yeah, that's great. That's awesome.

Marina Mogilko 13:13 Cool. Okay, so we

Marina Mogilko 13:15 talked about saving, et cetera. Um, what about real estate? What about, like-

Humphrey Yang 13:20 Mm.

Marina Mogilko 13:21 Do you rent or... Do you rent or?

Humphrey Yang 13:23 I currently rent.

Marina Mogilko 13:23 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 13:24 Yeah, but in San Francisco, it's a lot cheaper to rent than to buy, so I live in San Francisco, the city.

Marina Mogilko 13:28 Is there a general rule? So you said in San Francisco, it's cheaper to-

Humphrey Yang 13:31 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 13:32 ... rent. Like, how do you calculate that?

Humphrey Yang 13:34 Well, I look at how much I pay in rent, and I look at the comparable amount that I would pay in mortgage and what type of house that would afford me, and f- for the same amount of rent, I would not be able to afford anything nice. It's just, like, I could get maybe, like, a one-bedroom condo, and I live currently in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom.

Marina Mogilko 13:53 So you're not-

Humphrey Yang 13:54 Apartment

Marina Mogilko 13:54 ... following the rule where you live under your means, and-

Humphrey Yang 13:58 No, I'm definitely living under my means, for sure. Yeah, but-

Marina Mogilko 14:01 But not too low.

Humphrey Yang 14:02 But not too low. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I still need space for, like, my studio, and, um, I realized I just kind of like a nicer place to live, so yeah.

Marina Mogilko 14:10 But don't you have FOMO of, like, missing out on prices rising-

Humphrey Yang 14:14 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 14:15 ... here?

Humphrey Yang 14:15 I do, here and there.

Marina Mogilko 14:15 'Cause they double every 10 years, right, here in the Bay?

Humphrey Yang 14:18 Yeah, m- mostly. Not San Francisco condo market. That's kind of-

Marina Mogilko 14:22 Oh, is it-

Humphrey Yang 14:23 ... stayed flat-

Marina Mogilko 14:23 That's like-

Humphrey Yang 14:24 ... in the last 10 years

Marina Mogilko 14:24 ... a crazy market.

Humphrey Yang 14:25 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 14:25 It stayed flat.

Humphrey Yang 14:27 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 14:27 The prices are so low, and nobody wants them. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 14:29 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 14:29 'Cause you can't really rent it out.

Humphrey Yang 14:30 If I can afford something down here and pay, you know, put a good down payment on it, I would probably do that. So down here would be the Peninsula-

Marina Mogilko 14:39 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 14:39 ... uh, 'cause real estate tends to appreciate quite well down here.

Marina Mogilko 14:42 Yeah, and what I realized, a lot of people who bought here, they pay twice as much in mortgage versus what we pay in rent, but they are, um... They have this upside when the property-

Humphrey Yang 14:53 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 14:53 ... just, you know, gains-

Humphrey Yang 14:54 Appreciate

Marina Mogilko 14:54 ... a couple million. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 14:55 Yeah, especially in the Bay Area, where that's very, very common. I would say across the country, there are some cities where real estate hasn't appreciated in the last 10 years, and so that's what you kind of have to consider. Like, where do you live? How does the appreciation look historically? Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 15:09 If it looks good historically, how- [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 15:11 Might be a good idea.

Marina Mogilko 15:12 [chuckles] Is it-

Humphrey Yang 15:12 Might be a good idea, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 15:13 Yeah. Is it an indicator that it's probably gonna continue growing?

Humphrey Yang 15:17 Um, I mean, in, in the finance world, you always say-

Marina Mogilko 15:22 Yeah, 'cause it's not a predictor

Humphrey Yang 15:23 ... past performance-

Marina Mogilko 15:23 Yeah, yeah

Humphrey Yang 15:23 ... is not a predictor of future-

Marina Mogilko 15:25 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 15:25 ... results, but, I mean-

Marina Mogilko 15:26 'Cause I'm always worried, like Hawaii, right?

Humphrey Yang 15:28 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 15:28 It's grown so c- crazy in the past 10 years.

Humphrey Yang 15:31 Yeah, exactly.

Marina Mogilko 15:31 I'm like, "Is it gonna continue or not?" [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 15:33 Yeah, I think th- [sighs] those are, those are tougher questions, and those kind of come down to more-

Marina Mogilko 15:37 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 15:37 ... personal-

Marina Mogilko 15:38 Yeah, yeah

Humphrey Yang 15:38 ... beliefs and decisions with their money. Yeah, with people's money.

Marina Mogilko 15:40 Have you ever considered buying real estate?

Humphrey Yang 15:42 Yeah,

Humphrey Yang 15:43 yeah, definitely.

Marina Mogilko 15:44 Do you... Have you bought anything, or what's-

Humphrey Yang 15:45 No

Marina Mogilko 15:45 ... what's your plan here?

Humphrey Yang 15:46 No, I want to buy something probably in the next year or two. So yeah, I'm still planning to, but mortgage rates right now are quite high-

Marina Mogilko 15:52 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 15:53 ... so waiting.

Marina Mogilko 15:53 Are you gonna buy something to live in, or you're gonna rent it out?

Humphrey Yang 15:57 I would buy something to live in, personally, yeah. I think I thought about renting things out, but I don't really wanna be someone's landlord. I think that's what I've realized.

Marina Mogilko 16:06 Why not Airbnb, like, all the-

Humphrey Yang 16:08 I don't wanna have to deal with it

Marina Mogilko 16:08 ... depreciation things?

Humphrey Yang 16:10 I think I feel like I could give- just make way more money focusing on my main-

Marina Mogilko 16:13 With the stock market?

Humphrey Yang 16:14 ... Or yeah, or just-

Marina Mogilko 16:15 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 16:15 ... focusing on my main business. Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:17 Oh, interesting.

Humphrey Yang 16:18 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:18 But you can have someone manage it.

Humphrey Yang 16:20 I guess I could-

Marina Mogilko 16:21 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 16:21 ... yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:22 Okay. Okay, let's talk about-

Humphrey Yang 16:23 I know you have an Airbnb, so-

Marina Mogilko 16:25 No, like-

Humphrey Yang 16:25 We can talk about it later

Marina Mogilko 16:26 ... I'm just trying to understand, like, other people's strategies.

Humphrey Yang 16:29 Yeah, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:29 And I totally see how Airbnb didn't really do anything in terms of, [chuckles] like, income this year. It's just lost money, and, you know, it generated good revenue, but it still went to, like, covering the mortgage, et cetera.

Humphrey Yang 16:39 Mm. Did you spend a lot of time on it?

Marina Mogilko 16:40 No.

Humphrey Yang 16:41 Okay, well, that's good.

Marina Mogilko 16:42 Well, I spent some time.

Humphrey Yang 16:43 Sure.

Marina Mogilko 16:43 I went there filming, and, like, we bought the furniture-

Humphrey Yang 16:45 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 16:45 ... and we're, like, decide- we had to change the air conditioner, and we had to do the listing, the photo, like, everything.

Humphrey Yang 16:50 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:51 But that was cool experience for me. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 16:52 Okay, as long as you enjoyed it-

Marina Mogilko 16:54 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 16:54 ... yeah, for sure.

Marina Mogilko 16:54 Yeah, yeah. Um, but not as much as compared to, like, my, my business.

Humphrey Yang 16:58 Right.

Marina Mogilko 16:59 Um, let's talk about

Marina Mogilko 17:00 crypto.

Humphrey Yang 17:00 Let's do it.

Marina Mogilko 17:01 [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 17:01 I like crypto.

Marina Mogilko 17:02 I am so... [chuckles] Like, this year, I'm like, "Should I buy meme coins?"

Humphrey Yang 17:06 Maybe you should.

Marina Mogilko 17:07 Yeah, what do you think? Like, what, what would be the, what would be advice here?

Humphrey Yang 17:11 Okay. My crypto advice from what I'm going to tell you right now is going to be very different from my YouTube channel. On my YouTube channel, my audience hates crypto. I've already tried to talk about Bitcoin. I've tried to talk about Ethereum. People are very anti-Bitcoin, Ethereum on the channel, and so, uh, I just tend to shy away from it on the channel. I think my personal opinion is that crypto is one of the best ways to kind of level out wealth in a way. It's almost like, like a meritocracy. So if you're able to identify really great coins and get in them early, that's like... People actually do make a lot of money with that. However, for every one person that makes, let's say, a 20x or a 50x on a crypto coin, you have 99 people losing all their money, and I think that is incredibly difficult. That's the incredibly difficult part about crypto, and with crypto, your greed gets imagine- like, unimaginably high. You get so greedy 'cause you're like, "Oh, I have a 5x. I want a 10x," and then, um, that's hard to manage emotionally.... And if you're in a- if you're buying a lot of crypto, you have to watch it all day because it's 24/7. It never stops. So there are a lot of mental issues, not mental issues I wanna say, but it ta- it takes a toll on your mind if you're investing in crypto. However, I have seen people turn a small amount of money into a large amount of money just by buying the right crypto coin, but even knowing the right crypto coin is tough.

Marina Mogilko 18:41 And retiring at 20-something. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 18:44 Exactly.

Marina Mogilko 18:45 So how do you... Have you tried picking

Marina Mogilko 18:47 meme coins to invest in?

Humphrey Yang 18:48 Yes, I have.

Marina Mogilko 18:50 You have? How was it?

Humphrey Yang 18:51 Some are great, some are bad.

Marina Mogilko 18:52 How, what-

Humphrey Yang 18:52 Net, I've- I'm up.

Marina Mogilko 18:54 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 18:54 And n- I do-

Marina Mogilko 18:55 This year?

Humphrey Yang 18:56 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 18:56 You're doing it now?

Humphrey Yang 18:56 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 18:57 So how do you find them? Through friends' chats?

Humphrey Yang 19:00 Typically through friends' chats, yeah. I would say you have to be kind of plugged into a crypto community of some sort. You can do that by buying, like, let's say, let's say you have the most expensive NFT, right? Like, back in 2021, it was, like, a Bored Ape, right? They might have, like, a little insider group on Discord where you can kind of trade, trade, uh, ideas with each other. Um, the longer you're in the crypto space, the more you get to know the people on... In crypto. Sometimes there's crypto Twitter, so you get to know some of the influencers. Maybe if you know some of the influencers, that's great. If you work in crypto, right?

Marina Mogilko 19:34 So it's mostly insider information.

Humphrey Yang 19:36 Yeah, I think there is some insider information, but there's also just, like, keeping a pulse of what's going on in the crypto markets. And you can even make money not being an insider, but you have to keep a pulse on what's going on all the time. And you have to be able to move fast, and you have to be very objective and not get too emotionally, like, tied into it. That's what's, that's what's very hard. 'Cause even if you're right, if you're emotionally too invested, and let's say you stay in the coin for too long, you could lose all your gains, so...

Marina Mogilko 20:03 So you track every single day

Marina Mogilko 20:05 what's going on, and if you see it going down, you just sell?

Humphrey Yang 20:08 Something like that. I mean, I only- I'm only in, like, four coins right now, but I used to be in, like... If you're in 10 to 20, it's hard to track everything. But if you're just in four, then you just check every, you know, you just check the four.

Marina Mogilko 20:19 What is the platform that you're using for-

Humphrey Yang 20:21 Uh-

Marina Mogilko 20:21 Or is it a different platform for every-

Humphrey Yang 20:23 I have Coinbase,

Humphrey Yang 20:24 and then I have, uh, a Solana wallet on Phantom, and then I have a MetaMask wallet for my Ethereum transactions.

Marina Mogilko 20:31 Okay.

Humphrey Yang 20:31 So those are decentralized exchanges.

Marina Mogilko 20:32 But all your coins... Yeah, I have MetaMask, I have Coinbase, but I remember when I was trying to play with meme coins in 2021, I had to get on so many exchanges 'cause-

Humphrey Yang 20:42 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 20:42 ... they're all so different, different platforms. You know, they only launched on this exchange, and you're like, "Oh, I need to transfer money there and convert it into some weird coin to buy another weird coin."

Humphrey Yang 20:52 These days, it's a lot easier. Mostly, it's just on, like, either- you're either on the Solana chain or you're on, let's say, Ethereum or Base, which is Coinbase-

Marina Mogilko 21:01 So Phantom for Solana, Coinbase...

Humphrey Yang 21:04 Yeah. It's not financial advice, but, you know, if you're trying to get into it, that's what you would do, but it's very hard. I would say if you're completely new to crypto, you probably won't make money. You kinda have to have a good network of people that you already know. You kinda have to get into it a little bit, or maybe you buy into a community, something like that.

Marina Mogilko 21:20 Okay, let's, let's do a

Marina Mogilko 21:22 simple strategy then. Let's do Bitcoin.

Humphrey Yang 21:24 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:24 Uh, what would be your recommended percentage of the portfolio that goes into Bitcoin?

Humphrey Yang 21:29 Of crypto?

Marina Mogilko 21:30 Yeah. Uh, no, uh, in general.

Humphrey Yang 21:32 Oh, um, if you believe in crypto for the long term, which Bitcoin is the best asset of all those, I'd probably put 3 to 5% of your portfolio in Bitcoin.

Marina Mogilko 21:40 Three to five. Remember how it was 1 to 2%?

Humphrey Yang 21:43 It was?

Marina Mogilko 21:43 You know, like, three or four years ago, I'd ask everyone, everyone would be like, "1 to 2%." Now, I think BlackRock increased it from, like, 2% to 4% in their portfolio, and, like, suddenly my financial adviser is like, "Yeah, 5%." Holy cow, interesting.

Humphrey Yang 21:55 Yeah, 5%. I mean, 5% is not gonna kill you.

Marina Mogilko 21:58 Then it goes to 10, then it goes to... [chuckles] It's, it's taking over. I just... It's like, it's wild seeing this trend and, like, people believing in crypto and then suddenly not believing. It's just such a-

Humphrey Yang 22:08 Well, I think this year was pretty monumental for Bitcoin in particular because of the ETF and also a lot of these institutions adopting it. So I don't think Bitcoin's gonna go anywhere, let's say, in 20 years. Um, there was kind of the threat of the quantum computer chip. Did you see that?

Marina Mogilko 22:24 No.

Humphrey Yang 22:25 The, the Google, Google released, like, a quantum chip-

Marina Mogilko 22:27 Yeah, I saw that, yeah

Humphrey Yang 22:28 ... like, a couple weeks ago and, or maybe last week, and that kind of threatened Bitcoin because the whole idea was like-

Marina Mogilko 22:34 Oh, 'cause it take a lot of energy to-

Humphrey Yang 22:37 No, the idea was, like, the chip could just break crypt- uh, Bitcoin's encryption really fast. [chuckles]

Marina Mogilko 22:41 Oh.

Humphrey Yang 22:42 But-

Marina Mogilko 22:43 It didn't?

Humphrey Yang 22:43 No, it's not gonna happen, not yet, at least. I think that was, like, a, uh, a fleeting rumor or fleeting news, so that Bitcoin's price reacted a little bit, but then it just went back up.

Marina Mogilko 22:57 Okay, so the, the strategy would be, okay, if it's 5%, and you don't wanna get on those exchanges, you can just basically buy an ETF through whatever-

Humphrey Yang 23:05 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 23:05 ... like Fidelity, right?

Humphrey Yang 23:07 Yeah, you can get exposure through an ETF like Fidelity, yeah. The, like, Fidelity has their own ETF for Bitcoin, and they back it up with Bitcoin, so they buy Bitcoin to back their ETF, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 23:18 That's great.

Humphrey Yang 23:19 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 23:19 And if you have, say, $10,000 that you would put into crypto next year-

Humphrey Yang 23:24 Okay

Marina Mogilko 23:25 ... how would you do it, uh, by utilizing dollar-cost averaging? Is it, like, $10,000 throughout a year?

Humphrey Yang 23:31 Yeah, I'd probably do-

Marina Mogilko 23:32 How fast?

Humphrey Yang 23:32 I'd probably do, like, $10,000 across the year.

Marina Mogilko 23:35 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 23:35 'Cause a year is a pretty good time. It's a, it's a long, longer time in crypto.

Marina Mogilko 23:40 But for crypto, it looks like it's such a long time.

Humphrey Yang 23:42 It is a long time.

Marina Mogilko 23:43 I would say, like, for stock market, that sounds okay.

Humphrey Yang 23:45 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 23:45 But for crypto, you might l- [chuckles] like, miss on all the-

Humphrey Yang 23:47 You might, you might miss, but it... Crypto could also go down 70%, you know-

Marina Mogilko 23:52 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 23:52 ... in the summer or something.

Marina Mogilko 23:53 By summer, and you'll have-

Humphrey Yang 23:53 And you might be able to get it cheaper, so yeah.

Marina Mogilko 23:55 Okay, so-

Humphrey Yang 23:55 I'd say a year is pretty good.

Marina Mogilko 23:57 So for... Uh, will it apply to any amount of money that you have in mind for investing? Would a year be great for dollar-cost averaging? Like, if somebody saved up-

Humphrey Yang 24:04 Yeah, in cryptocurrency

Marina Mogilko 24:05 ... they've been saving, and they're like, "Okay, 2025-

Humphrey Yang 24:07 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 24:07 ... I'm gonna do it," so a year.

Humphrey Yang 24:09 Yeah. Yeah, I'd say crypto, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 24:10 Like, every-

Humphrey Yang 24:10 A year is pretty good

Marina Mogilko 24:11 ... every two weeks throughout a year.

Humphrey Yang 24:13 Yeah. Why don't you do- why don't you split up your $10,000 divided by 24 equal pa- equal payments and do it every two weeks?

Marina Mogilko 24:20 Mm-hmm.

Humphrey Yang 24:20 Or 26 equal payments over t- two weeks.

Marina Mogilko 24:22 And just ETF that tracks Bitcoin because a lot of people talk about, like-

Humphrey Yang 24:25 Mm

Marina Mogilko 24:25 ... Ethereum, that it has so much potential.

Humphrey Yang 24:27 That's... Yeah, it depends on how deep you wanna get into crypto.

Marina Mogilko 24:29 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 24:29 I mean, if you're just doing Bitcoin, then ETF is fine.

Marina Mogilko 24:32 And there are no ETFs for Ethereum, just Bitcoin?

Humphrey Yang 24:34 Uh, they're pending.

Marina Mogilko 24:36 Okay.

Humphrey Yang 24:36 I think they're-... they're not fully out yet, but-

Marina Mogilko 24:39 Okay, so Bitcoin, it would be the easiest.

Humphrey Yang 24:41 Yeah, if you want to buy Ethereum, you have to go on Coinbase or some sort of exchange that's available in your country.

Marina Mogilko 24:46 Mm-hmm.

Humphrey Yang 24:46 And then buy, you know, buy it through there.

Marina Mogilko 24:48 Okay.

Humphrey Yang 24:49 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 24:49 All right. Well, we talked about investing.

Humphrey Yang 24:51 Okay.

Marina Mogilko 24:52 These are all, like, good decisions. What are the worst decisions people can make

Marina Mogilko 24:56 and do things with their money in 2025?

Humphrey Yang 24:59 Yeah, so I really think it's, like, think about the things that kill your wealth early on, like, before you get to $100,000 in net worth, or let's say a big milestone, like, 50,000. If you kill your wealth shopping, doing dumb things, buying a new car you don't really need... Like, your, your case might be different. You might need a new car, and you have the funds that you could afford a new car.

Marina Mogilko 25:20 You know-

Humphrey Yang 25:20 For a lot of people-

Marina Mogilko 25:20 ... we spent, like, two hours yesterday with my husband, debating if $10,000 is worth saving, buying the new Model Y-

Humphrey Yang 25:26 Mm

Marina Mogilko 25:26 ... or the old Model Y. And I'm like, "With the new, you get the service-

Humphrey Yang 25:30 Yeah, sure

Marina Mogilko 25:31 ... you have the warranty and all of that." And I'm like: Is it worth the headache? But I could invest 10K in Bitcoin.

Humphrey Yang 25:36 Sure.

Marina Mogilko 25:36 It's just so hard to make those decisions.

Humphrey Yang 25:38 Those decisions are harder the less money you have, right? Like, actually, they're easier the less money you have, which is, like, if you don't have that much money, don't spend 10K on, on the-

Marina Mogilko 25:49 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 25:49 ... new Model Y when you can buy the old Model Y.

Marina Mogilko 25:50 How do you make those decisions? Do you come, come up with an Excel spreadsheet or-

Humphrey Yang 25:54 Hmm

Marina Mogilko 25:55 ... and, like, calculate the NPV?

Humphrey Yang 25:56 That's harder. No, that's definitely harder to make that decision, like, off the bat with, with, like... You kind of have to know your own personal situation, but your monthly payments

Humphrey Yang 26:06 or your monthly payment for transportation should not be more than 10 to 15% of your gross income. So all of a sudden, let's say you make 50K a year. If your car payment is, like, $800 a month, like, that's clearly a poor financial decision.

Marina Mogilko 26:18 And then there's insurance-

Humphrey Yang 26:19 Yeah. Oh, yeah

Marina Mogilko 26:19 ... and then there's the registration fee, which is-

Humphrey Yang 26:22 Exactly. So I think a lot of people spend too much money on cars. That's typically a wealth killer, especially early on in your wealth-building journey. And in America, it's very common, right? That thing, everyone wants a fancy car and then credit card debt, anything that's slowing down your wealth building. I think that before you get to a milestone number, you should just be as frugal as possible and just get there quicker. 'Cause the quicker you get to that bigger number, the better that money will compound for you, let's say, invested.

Marina Mogilko 26:48 Do you ever sell? Because

Marina Mogilko 26:50 if you see the market is all-time high, you're kind of tempted to sell, and you're like, "Oh, let's sell, wait for another dip, or use this, um, upside to just finance my lifestyle this year and maybe not work."

Humphrey Yang 27:03 Yeah, I mean, I... Okay, so my ideal holding period is typically forever. That's the best holding period, but sometimes, like right now, all my cash is fully deployed into the market.

Marina Mogilko 27:12 Mm-hmm.

Humphrey Yang 27:12 So I have, like-

Marina Mogilko 27:13 All of your... What about your-

Humphrey Yang 27:14 I have my emergency fund and, like, my business bank accounts.

Marina Mogilko 27:16 Is it for business or just-

Humphrey Yang 27:18 Both

Marina Mogilko 27:18 ... your personal?

Humphrey Yang 27:18 I have both-

Marina Mogilko 27:19 Both

Humphrey Yang 27:19 ... cash reserves for business and personal, but all my investing funds are deployed. Typically, I would like to see 10 to 15% of my cash in my portfolio. Like, that means of all my funds in my portfolio, I'd like to have 10 or 15% in cash.

Marina Mogilko 27:33 Do you feel bad about that cash just [chuckles] in the account-

Humphrey Yang 27:36 No

Marina Mogilko 27:36 ... when the market is growing so fast? No.

Humphrey Yang 27:37 Because, because what happens if there's a correction or something, something unexpected happens? Then I'll have some cash to buy that dip up.

Marina Mogilko 27:44 But that's in the high-yield savings account, or it's just a checking-

Humphrey Yang 27:47 That's just in my brokerage account. It's probably ear- I think it earns 4.5% in the money market.

Marina Mogilko 27:52 Oh, still... Okay.

Humphrey Yang 27:53 But I want to have extra cash in my portfolio in case there's a dip or a big correction, or I can get some stocks for cheap if something bad happens. Um, right now, I don't have that cash. It's all fully in the market. So I'd like to sell a little bit of my positions just to, just to replenish that cash pile going into 2025 because right now, everything's all-time highs. It's really s- it's, it's kind of frothy, they call it, which means that it's frothing to the top. Which means it's not quite a bubble, but it's like... multiples are high right now. So-

Marina Mogilko 28:24 So when- are you gonna sell this year or next year?

Humphrey Yang 28:27 I would probably- if I sold, it would probably be before December 31st.

Marina Mogilko 28:30 Mm-hmm.

Humphrey Yang 28:30 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 28:31 Um, when you said you have this money in your brokerage account and it earns 4.5%, is it a standard thing that brokerages, brokerage accounts do?

Humphrey Yang 28:40 Typically, yeah. Typically, if you're in the right brokerage, your money gets called swept into, like, a money market fund, which just means it's- it just sits in money market funds, and those money market funds typically pay around 4 to 4.5%.

Marina Mogilko 28:54 So if I transfer-

Humphrey Yang 28:54 Right now. It's right now

Marina Mogilko 28:55 ... Is that Fidelity, or-

Humphrey Yang 28:56 That's F- that's in Fidelity, but I think Schwab probably does it, too.

Marina Mogilko 28:59 So you just transfer your m- cash there, and they automatically start doing that, or it's just-

Humphrey Yang 29:03 Yeah, it's not a high yield, though. It's not a high-yield account. It's a money market fund, which means that-

Marina Mogilko 29:08 You can take it out anytime.

Humphrey Yang 29:09 You can take it out anytime.

Marina Mogilko 29:10 And with high yield, there-

Humphrey Yang 29:11 But, but the rate is not guaranteed either. It fluctuates a lot, too. Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 29:15 But with th- those high-yield savings accounts, sometimes they give you a period, a time period, like six months, and you can't take your money out before that, or if you take-

Humphrey Yang 29:23 Mm

Marina Mogilko 29:23 ... there is a penalty, or you lose the interest.

Humphrey Yang 29:23 That would be a certificate of deposit, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 29:26 CD.

Humphrey Yang 29:26 A CD.

Marina Mogilko 29:27 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 29:27 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 29:27 Wow, that's interesting, 10 to 5% cash.

Humphrey Yang 29:30 10 to 15% in cash in your portfolio would be nice. That's me. I'm a little more less risk on-

Marina Mogilko 29:37 Mm-hmm

Humphrey Yang 29:38 ... and I'd like to have some cash for opportunities.

Marina Mogilko 29:41 So when you sell your stocks, it's only to replenish the cash?

Humphrey Yang 29:45 Yeah. Ideally, I just keep all that money in the investing portfolio forever.

Marina Mogilko 29:49 Mm-hmm.

Humphrey Yang 29:50 I haven't withdrawn from my investing portfolio in, like, 10 years.

Marina Mogilko 29:53 Wow! How often do you make, um, investments

Marina Mogilko 29:58 that are not part of your plan? So you have automated-

Humphrey Yang 30:02 Oh, yeah

Marina Mogilko 30:02 ... investments.

Humphrey Yang 30:03 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 30:03 But, like, is there, like, a Monday every two months- [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 30:06 No

Marina Mogilko 30:06 ... you sit or, like-

Humphrey Yang 30:07 I'd say this year, maybe I've made four investments that weren't part of the original plan.

Marina Mogilko 30:11 Can you share?

Humphrey Yang 30:12 Yeah, I bought some Coinbase, bought some Nvidia, and I bought some Robinhood.

Marina Mogilko 30:18 I, I feel like everyone bought Nvidia. [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 30:19 Coinbase, Nvidia, Robinhood, I bought all those, like-- I bought Robinhood in February and March, and then a lot in June and August. Coinbase, I bought some, I think, in February, and then N- Nvidia, I bought before an earnings report. I, I remember earn- [exhales] Nvidia was trading for, like, 665, and I was like: Oh, I wanna buy the earnings just for fun, and it, like, went up a lot. Yeah.... but, you know, 665 pre-split, so now it's 66.

Marina Mogilko 30:44 So it's basically triggered by news,

Marina Mogilko 30:46 and-

Humphrey Yang 30:47 It's usually triggered by news, or I read, like, a quarterly report that I think is very, um, bullish for the company, and then I try to do some financial analysis on, like, what multiple is that company trading for, and do I think that's undervalued? So that was the case with Robinhood. Like, their user growth was off the charts. Everyone... They started innovating on all these products, right? They had, like, seven products coming out, including a credit card, which I thought would be really great for their business. Their average deposits were going up. They still had a long way to go before they reached, um, total addressable market for assets under custody. Like, Schwab has, like, $9 trillion under custody, and Robinhood had, like, $200 billion. So, like, there's a lot-- there's, like, a way, a long way to go, which I thought was good. And I also thought the price of the stock was beaten down because of the negative sentiment that it had from GameStop. Like, people just forgot about it. This was back in February. And I thought the multiples, I think, on it were pretty low. Like, it was valued... I don't remember the exact multiple, but it was valued lower compared to comparable tech companies.

Marina Mogilko 31:49 Oh, that's a lot of analyzing.

Humphrey Yang 31:50 Yeah, it was a lot-

Marina Mogilko 31:50 Do you do that every day?

Humphrey Yang 31:52 It was a lot of... No.

Marina Mogilko 31:52 No?

Humphrey Yang 31:52 That was only for that particular company. I was very interested in it, and I was reading a lot about their financials and reading a lot of their quarterly reports to make sure that I wanted to invest, uh, in that company.

Marina Mogilko 32:01 And you do the same for your meme coin strategy, right?

Humphrey Yang 32:04 No.

Marina Mogilko 32:04 No?

Humphrey Yang 32:05 Meme coins are kinda-

Marina Mogilko 32:07 You see, you buy, and that's

Marina Mogilko 32:08 it?

Humphrey Yang 32:08 Meme coins are like, the le- the less you think about it is typically the better it does. [chuckles]

Marina Mogilko 32:12 Okay.

Humphrey Yang 32:13 Yeah. I mean, you can do some research on it, but it's not gonna have the same... Like, you can't evaluate a meme coin like a stock. Like, a stock has fundamentals that it, that it has backing it, versus a meme is like, how good's the meme?

Marina Mogilko 32:24 Yeah. Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 32:25 It's not the same.

Marina Mogilko 32:25 When, uh, talking about, like, the individual

Marina Mogilko 32:28 stock investments-

Humphrey Yang 32:28 Mm-hmm

Marina Mogilko 32:29 ... what is the percentage of your portfolio?

Humphrey Yang 32:31 For me-

Marina Mogilko 32:32 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 32:32 ... it's 50/50 now. So it's 50% is individual stocks, 50%'s ETFs. But that's only because all my individual stocks grew so much this year, like Nvidia is up, like, a crazy amount. Ideally, I'd like to have, like, 60 to 70% ETFs and then the rest in individuals. Um, but right now it's definitely higher individual than ETFs.

Marina Mogilko 32:52 So basically, the strategy would be just, like, ideally, if you wanna follow your plan, you would sell some of the individual stocks to-

Humphrey Yang 32:58 Yes

Marina Mogilko 32:58 ... put it back in rebalancing?

Humphrey Yang 33:00 Or whenever I add money into my portfolio next-

Marina Mogilko 33:03 You're gonna buy ETFs

Humphrey Yang 33:04 ... I'll just buy ETFs to bring the weight back up. Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 33:06 Wow! So it looks like a lot of work for-

Humphrey Yang 33:09 It's a lot of work

Humphrey Yang 33:10 for, I would say, the... Like, if you're working at, like, a corporate job-

Marina Mogilko 33:13 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 33:13 ... and you just don't wanna worry about it, just do ETFs.

Marina Mogilko 33:14 Yeah, you just do the, the split that we talked about at the beginning.

Humphrey Yang 33:18 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 33:18 When does it make sense to hire someone to do that? Or does it-

Humphrey Yang 33:22 Yeah, no, no, it does... It definitely makes sense to hire someone to do it if you don't wanna pay attention to it, and you need more financial guidance than, than most people. Like, that you don't wanna do it yourself, and you don't feel like you even wanna focus your time on it. 'Cause I'm in it every day, so it's a little different for me. Like, I like it. But if you don't like it, number one, and you probably have, like, a portfolio of, I'd say around 100K, starts to make sense. Anything below that, they might charge you too much for their services.

Marina Mogilko 33:50 Yeah, and they charge, like, 1% or?

Humphrey Yang 33:52 Typical financial advisers will charge you 1% of your f- of your portfolio size a year. Um, if you're lower than that, they might have just, like, a minimum fee, but even 1% is a lot, because 1% will com- eat into your compound growth over time. However, they can also offer you a lot more, um, advice than just investing. They can help you with estate planning, retirement planning, uh, your kids' education-

Marina Mogilko 34:18 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 34:18 ... college planning, stuff like that.

Marina Mogilko 34:19 So-

Humphrey Yang 34:19 They can do a lot more

Marina Mogilko 34:20 ... what's your general recommendation?

Humphrey Yang 34:22 My opinion is, if you need more than investing advice, you go to a financial adviser. But if you just want investing, you know, like-

Marina Mogilko 34:32 Just do it yourself.

Humphrey Yang 34:33 Yeah, just do yourself.

Marina Mogilko 34:33 Just do those splits.

Humphrey Yang 34:34 Just do a split or do an ETF, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 34:36 Okay. I think my question that's gonna wrap this up will be-

Humphrey Yang 34:40 Okay

Marina Mogilko 34:40 ... how do you stay sane when the market [chuckles] goes down?

Humphrey Yang 34:43 I would say, I always like to think of what the stock market might look like in 30 years from now. And so, you know, in 30 years from now, it's probably gonna be a lot, a lot higher than it

Humphrey Yang 34:53 is right now.

Marina Mogilko 34:53 Is that what you say to yourself [chuckles] -

Humphrey Yang 34:55 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 34:55 ... when things go down?

Humphrey Yang 34:56 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, drawdowns of 20 to 40% happen, so, like, your portfolio could be... Let's say your portfolio is at $100,000. It could go down to $60,000 in a year.

Marina Mogilko 35:06 And if we remember-

Humphrey Yang 35:07 And that would suck

Marina Mogilko 35:07 ... Great Depression, it could go to-

Humphrey Yang 35:09 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 35:09 ... almost zero. But how do you... How... Basically, i- it's like a conversation that you have with yourself-

Humphrey Yang 35:15 Yeah, you do

Marina Mogilko 35:15 ... because when COVID happened, everyone was like: "That's pretty much like-

Humphrey Yang 35:19 Mm-hmm

Marina Mogilko 35:19 ... the Great Depression."

Humphrey Yang 35:20 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 35:20 "Okay, we're gonna lose everything. Let's..." Like 2008, and it keeps happening more often than it used to.

Humphrey Yang 35:27 Yeah. It, it's tough because I think, this goes back to not needing the money, right? If you don't need the money, and you can just leave it in the market and not touch it for a long time, then you're gonna be able to weather the-

Marina Mogilko 35:38 Then don't touch it.

Humphrey Yang 35:39 Yeah. The- you're gonna be weather, weather those storms a lot easier. But, like, let's say you needed the money next year, and all of a sudden it's down 40%, you might be like: "All right, I just gotta sell, 'cause I don't want, want it to go down more." So that makes you more emotional. I think the longer time horizon you have, the less emotional you naturally are, because you don't have to worry too much about it. 'Cause you know in, like, 30 years, it'll be... Like, during the 2008 financial crisis, or let's say the COVID crash, if you told yourself in 30 years it'll be a lot higher, you'd just leave your money in, and you didn't even have to wait 30 years. You just had to wait a year, and then it was a lot [chuckles] higher than it was, so.

Marina Mogilko 36:13 Yeah, same with cryp- with crypto, right? When Bitcoin went down so much, people were, like, selling off, panicking, and also, social media doesn't help. So everyone is... [chuckles]

Humphrey Yang 36:24 Yeah, I think that's the problem, is that investing takes a long time, and we live in an age where everything is, i- is instant. And you, you're overloaded with news and information, and CNBC, and people saying you should sell everything, and-

Marina Mogilko 36:39 Yeah

Humphrey Yang 36:39 ... it's not-

Marina Mogilko 36:39 Panicking.

Humphrey Yang 36:40 Yeah. Really, you should just invest and just, like, forget about it for, like, 15 years and come back and go, "Oh, great!"

Marina Mogilko 36:46 Yeah, that's the best.

Humphrey Yang 36:47 Yeah, that's, that's what you should do-

Marina Mogilko 36:49 Really hard

Humphrey Yang 36:49 ... but most people can't do it.

Marina Mogilko 36:50 Yeah.

Humphrey Yang 36:50 And so it's more fun to track the market because it's, like, something to do, you know? Something to talk about. It's like tracking your sports team.

Marina Mogilko 36:56 Exactly, yeah.

Humphrey Yang 36:57 All right.

Marina Mogilko 36:58 Thank you so much, Humphrey.

Humphrey Yang 36:59 Thank you for having me.

Marina Mogilko 36:59 Super useful. Pl- please subscribe to Humphrey's channel.

Humphrey Yang 37:01 Subscribe.

Marina Mogilko 37:01 He gives advice weekly or several times a week.

Humphrey Yang 37:04 Every week there's a new video.

Marina Mogilko 37:05 Every week, yeah.

Humphrey Yang 37:06 So put a link-

Marina Mogilko 37:06 He's amazing

Humphrey Yang 37:07 ... put a link below.

Marina Mogilko 37:08 Yes, yes. Thank you so much.

Humphrey Yang 37:09 All right, bye, guys.