저자: MeetKevin · 외국인
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24세 Christina의 버지니아 거주 생활비·재무 사례를 재무 전문가 Kevin과 Lauren이 리액션. 주요 주장: 부모님 집에 얹혀 살며 저축은 유리, 그러나 2,000달러 현금 저축은 비효율이므로 투자로 전환해야 함, 동생 대학 등록금 5.5만 달러 지출은 큰 기회비용 실수, 사업(컵케이크)은 마케팅 확대 필요, 개별주보다 인덱스펀드(다우·S&P·러셀·나스닥) 분산 권장. 근거 수치: 연봉 10만 달러, 월 저축 2,000달러, 기부 월 670달러, 저축 약 5.5만 달러.
다듬은 글
Hey everyone, Meet Kevin here with Meet Lauren. And we are back after our own Millennial Money and reacting to our own Millennial Money video, which was really crazy and totally surreal. But now we are back again to react to yet another Millennial Money, and this time it's living on $100,000. I love the K.
Cuz that's that really goes back to Runescape, cuz 1337K. Got the poster over here. Anyway, in Fairfax, Virginia. Sounds good. I'm excited. Let's do it. All right. All right, here we go. For someone in their mid-20s who still lives at home with their parents, I thought it would be really cool to represent that population and share my pros and cons of living at home and the pros and cons of the finance part of it as well.
This is super smart. It's so relatable right now, because so many college students are going back home to live with parents, because colleges are closed or it's distance learning. This is good. she's in her mid-20s, so she should be out of college, you know? But she could be going for a doctor degree.
Maybe, but I mean, just without seeing anything, I'm for that if you have a game plan. If you are making 100K a year and you want to save it, you know, and you like your parents, I mean, we saved a lot of money living at your parents' place when we were 18, 19, 20 before we bought our first place, because you got like no expenses.
Exactly. And they like our parents, or my parents. They provided all the toilet paper. You know, like all of those little things, they add up, you know? Yeah. Hi, my name's Christina Trung. I'm 24 years old. I make around $100,000 per year and I live in Fairfax, Virginia. If you're ever on Millennial Money, make sure you get a bunch of hundreds in your wallet.
So they're like, "Do you have any cash?" I'm like, "Oh shoot, I have like some old babysitting cash I used to get for babysitting before the pandemic." I'm a project manager for a digital consulting firm in the DC area. I also own a cupcake company called District Cupcake. We do Oh, this is so smart.
Even if she's barely making money on this, she can now write off because she has a business, she could write off so many more expenses. I mean, all of these cooking supplies, write-offs. You need a phone for business, you need a computer for business, right? Write-offs. Like this is what I talk about in my money course and I talk about on my channel, too, is get a side hustle.
Very, very smart. events and office catering in the DC and Northern Virginia area. Thankfully, I've been very blessed to still have my job during the COVID pandemic. I think right now I'm working a She is in a room of write-offs. Those cabinets, Everything. Those cabinets, everything. Those containers, the KitchenAid mixer.
Write-off. I've always wanted a KitchenAid mixer. want a pink one. Write-off. She gets it for 50% off. a little bit more because there's less of a line between work and life balance. That's she's saying that for the IRS. Brilliant. Hey, immigrant, me, too. Yeah, and my brother's wife immigrated from Vietnam.
that's right. parents. My dad came here first, but they actually met in English speaking school, which is an immigrant love story, I guess. That is really cool. immigrant love story. My mom went to English speaking school. that. Yeah. And she speaks better English than your dad, and your dad never did, right?
He He refused to go to school. Interesting. Yeah. promised that he would tutor my mom, which did not happen. He just wanted to go on a date with her, and the rest is history. Being so young and seeing my parents struggle with their finances gave me the mindset of not wanting the same for myself or for my family.
That lesson has stuck with me growing up, and even in in anything that wasn't going towards student debt repayment or my apartment rent, I was saving up everything. Smart. Good. Move back home after college. Okay. Okay. So, I moved back in with my mom, dad, and sister because I wanted to one, pay off my student loan debt, and also be able to pay for my sister's college.
And the rent in this area is not too favorable, so That's really generous. Pay for generous. Like, what's her sister doing? We'll find out. Decided to stay here for a couple years and pay off all my debt and save up for my sister's college tuition. Wow. exactly what I was saying before I even watched it.
It's like, if you have a game plan and it makes sense, move back in and then you save so much money and get like a slingshot ahead in life instead of trying just because society tells you to to have your own place and then you're just like, you know, floundering in the water almost drowning, you know?
a good point. Yeah. I I am confused though why she would be taking a pause on and maybe there's a reason here, but I it does confuse me why she would be taking a pause on building her own net worth by helping her sister now. And and while I think that's generous, and I'm all for being generous and giving, I think giving is very important.
It if it comes at a cost of you not building your net worth, you actually end up being able to help your family less. So, if your parents need help in the future, look, who's who's going to be able to do more damage in in helping people, so to speak? Somebody who's been able to build up a portfolio of of 10, 20 million dollars or somebody who just got out of debt and they can help you with a few thousand bucks.
You know what I mean? Yeah, is she completely paying her sister's college? I mean, alternatively, could her sister have financial aid or do other things to get some other sources of money to help, you know, do it yourself type thing? Maybe the older sister could partially help. I don't know what her involvement is, but it's I do agree with what you're saying.
I I would personally rather be in a situation where like if if my parents needed help at some point in the future, I'm capable of doing that because I did everything I could in my 20s to build my wealth. Yeah, and those are the years to do it, too. So. Budget. Unfortunately, my mom has been laid off due to coronavirus and I'm paying a little bit more each month towards our mortgage and utilities because of that.
Our family split our household budget by mortgage, utilities, and any subscription services. So, I pay for 4 to 500 a month on the mortgage. Okay, let's pause on that for a second. 4 to 500 bucks for mortgage to be with a family, that's that's not bad. That's that's a drop in the bucket, honestly, and she's still saving saving money being at home.
$2,000 a month in savings. I hate savings. Like this $2,000 should be zero. Oh, and it's blocking a little bit. That $2,000 should be zero, and it should be merged in there with investments. Or you should just cross out the savings and put investing. Yes. All This This whole thing over here could be all yellow or or all green, rather, and it could be 3,366 bucks in investments.
even see she does do investments. Okay, that's good. So, then we she puts the money into a 401k, Roth, and brokers. That's fine, so it's all mixed up over there. Max out your Roth, that's fine. Donations, though, 670. This is what I'm talking about. Like this I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful, but I I I take a a Warren Buffett approach to this.
I Warren Buffett said, "I can make so much wealth with the way that I invest that I'm going to be able to donate game-changing amounts of money in the future." I 670 bucks a month, if you're donating this Look, it's it's great. I'm not saying don't donate. Like this is it's noble, it's wonderful, but that should be going into your investments.
You should be growing this. The savings should be going into your investments or or call the 670 your emergency fund and stop saving money and invest it all. Yeah, I totally agree. Totally. Uh and again, not saying it's not good to be generous. Be generous and give, but you got to I I think it's the the analogy of like uh in um like an airplane I was thinking the same THING WITH THE MASK.
YEAH, it's like you put your mask on first and then your child. It's like get yourself to point where you are completely safe. I mean, the mom's been laid off, uh you know, there are struggles with money and her sister's college whatever. It's not at that point yet where your mask, you know, you were able to put the uh the child's mask on.
Right, exactly. Focus on building that side hustle instead, you know? Get that Get Get the cupcake business to where it's it's growing and expanding and and use that money to invest in yourself or your business rather than donating it. And then in the future when your business is kicking butt, you can donate millions of dollars.
My my opinion And then at the end the end result is kind of a win-win for everybody, you know? Everybody wins that way. Yeah, you have more security and and and society gets more benefit. Yep. $100 for utilities and $160 for all of our phone lines. Uh so, she pays all of the phone lines. So, she I mean, she's really contributing to the household here as well.
The business, $200, that's really low. Social media supplies, she See, Is she working out of the home? Probably. Al- Although, it did look like there was a commercial-style kitchen. So, maybe she rents something. of the garage or I don't know. If See, me, I would I would take this donation savings money and that e- that has to go into this business or investments.
Yeah. Like but like ah, okay. Let's I'm going to keep going on that. for food, that's just for her. I mean, I she must have her own separate food within her family. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, even you eat out. I mean, $200 a month, that's almost nothing compared to our budget. Uh transportation, 149.
Utilities, 135. Miscellaneous, 103. What's What's in that category? Let's see where the triangle entertainment and shopping. I mean, that's she spends like nothing on herself. Yeah. Yeah. Uh she gives more a very selfless person and like that's amazing. But yeah, going back to what we had said, you know, put your own mask on first.
And I I think it's wonderful and noble what she's doing. But yeah, she's she's handicapping her business and her uh investing future, her wealth. And which is her family's wealth in the future essentially as well. Right. I really enjoy credit card shopping. I like to look at the latest deals and points that I can get.
I just got the Chase Preferred credit card. So, they changed their welcome offer. If you spend $4,000 within the first 3 months, you get $750 worth of travel credit, which is awesome. I try to use credit And if you combine that with the Chase Sapphire, you could get an extra 50% back. But then again, nobody's traveling right now.
Like we have so much so many points we have right now. traveling's going to happen once COVID's done. I hope so. I'm excited. cards as much as I can. I have a little system set up where I know which card to use when I grocery shop, which card I should use when I buy clothes or entertainment, and how to get the best cash back deal for that.
She's going to say the system. We have a system, too. Or is this Sharpie on the back of the card saying groceries, gas? Or or even take a little label maker and and you can label make it in the back and put what the percentage is. Uh that's really helpful because sometimes you're at the store and you're like, "Ah, which one was it again?" you know?
Uh but but lately we haven't been at a store, so it doesn't matter. Let's hear it. I started a cupcake company because my mom and my sister love baking, and we always would make cakes or cupcakes for family or family friends, and I really wanted to monetize it. So, started this company officially the beginning of this year.
We had a few pop-up shops. We work with our corporate clients to do event catering, and we do individual orders. I mean, this is brilliant. Yeah. And And this is brilliant. The corporate events is going to have a problem right now. You know, I would almost if I were doing this this cupcake sales right now, I would do whatever I could to figure out how can I deliver cupcakes to people?
To get How can I get on Uber Eats? How can I get on uh you know, what what I would DoorDash? All these things. area, so it's like there's a you know, a ton of people there. It's not like you're living in some you know, There is money to be made in this business. do like they have that like Night Owl Cookie Company or whatever where it's like open all night long.
There are seriously so many times where I'm like, I would love like something right now at like 10:30 p.m. And then they if they deliver, that'd be an idea, right? I like the idea of delivering all the time. I don't like the idea of having a store that's open all the time because then you've got employees standing there.
And I mean, you've got an employee working 10 hours in the middle of the night. You're paying, you know, two 300 bucks to stay open at a night. You got to sell a lot of cupcakes. Good point. Good point. do any of the baking. I always ask to like help out, but my mom and my sister tell me to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible.
So, I just do deliveries or like fold boxes, all that boring stuff. Oh, okay. Good. Good. I mean, so they got deliveries. 10x this. This is where Grant Cardone would just like grab you and shake you and go 10x this business. People want cupcakes at home right now. They're not eating out at restaurants.
Deliver them cupcakes. 10x this. Pass out flyers. Do Do figure it out. That sounds like she's kind of like the maybe the business aspect of it cuz they're like don't touch the cupcakes and then, you know, Not actually cooking it. Yeah, which is fine. Hey, they're all working on it together. Smart to turn it into a business and not a hobby though because if you have a hobby, you don't get to write off your losses.
If it's a business and there's an intention of making profit, you get to write off much more. In the beginning before COVID, we had a pretty consistent stream of sales because we were mainly targeting corporate clients who have reoccurring meetings or events. We're making around like 500 a week from that.
Unfortunately, because of COVID, our orders have fluctuated a bit. So, some weeks we're making 10 cakes and other weeks we don't have any orders. Yeah, see you're not making money here. You know, you were spending more money on this business than you were making if you're doing 10 cakes a week. they just started and then it seems like COVID just hit them, you know.
this is an opportunity. COVID cupcakes, that's what you need. know, get your COVID-19 cupcakes right now. Like, I whatever. Had like the the greens or the spiky thing as the frosting. Lauren, that's a brilliant. You It has like little stakes that come out and they're COVID balls with the spike proteins or whatever.
Get your COVID-19 cup Come on. Like, this is an opportunity. People want delicious, fresh baked stuff delivered to them. You're in DC, it's a dense area. There're plenty people doing Uber Eats. They make their money off the delivery fees anyway. Do a $30, $40 minimum. 10x this business. an Instagram thing, too.
So, someone's like, "Got COVID." And then it's like, "Psych, cupcake COVID." Oh my gosh, that's a really good idea. You know, we should start a bake shop. Not doing that. Take the idea, though. Right now, our finances are a little bit up and down, but I have high hopes for the company. And everything that we're making, we're reinvesting back into it.
So, me, my mom, and my sister You're not making anything right now, though. That's the problem. Like, I I admire when when we say we're reinvesting everything, but you're still putting $2,000 a month into savings. You know, we we got to change the strategy here to to get this business really moving.
take any money from the company. I was able to pay for college because my cousin actually is a super genius and got scholarships to Kevin. All All Kevins across the board super geniuses. Thanks. You said it, not me. And she had a Virginia 529 plan which she actually gave to me and that funded around half of my college tuition.
Oh, so she's paying forward. it forward for her sister. And it seems like the whole family is very close in in giving which is But 529 plan, the guy's brilliant. Kevin He's a genius. Kevin is a genius. I want to meet Kevin. Kevin was able to put money into an account, get a tax deduction for it, and then able to to to basically pay forward towards his cousin's expenses for college.
I think it's wonderful. The 529 plan is actually really good for tax deductible investing in in education expenses. I paid off my subsidized student loans first throughout my college years through various jobs and internship money and I paid off all of my unsubsidized student loans the end of 2018. So right now I'm completely debt-free.
Nice. to pay my sister's college tuition because my cousin paid for around half of mine. Because he gave me that gift of education, I really want to do the same for my sister and not have that hanging over her head or my parents' head. Yeah, and it's wonderful. It's so nice to be debt-free and be out of that.
But now get together and and go 10x that business. Yeah, totally. Christina has around $55,000 saved most of which will go towards her sister's tuition. Oh, no, no, no. Uh the money the the opportunity of what that 55 could do. Like take take a Well, first of all, why are you spending 55K on tuition?
Yeah. Like there it better be for a really good degree that's going to make more than 55K first of all. Second of all, student loans the federal student loans aren't that expensive. And often times you're not making payments while you're going to college anyway. She's starting in the fall. So you're going to blow 55K that's going to do nothing for the next four years before her sister can even start producing money.
Like you'd be better off taking the student loan. Uh 55K oh my gosh if this were invested for the next four years or even into her cupcake business the opportunity cost is huge. This is This is a massive mistake in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Like pay that tell her you'll pay off her student loans with the interest that accrued in 10 years.
Yeah. I think like a secure thing cuz you're saying between the cupcake business or investing I would solely invest and try to you know manage the cupcake business otherwise cuz it's very unknown what could happen with the cupcake business right now but investing is more of a sure thing and I think that the money potential in just solely investing would be better.
Yeah. That's a good point of clarity. I mean we we don't want to say hey throw all your 55K into the business blow it on Facebook ads and next month you're you're done. and then it didn't yeah. But but you could you could do you could expand this business with not a lot of money. Make your COVID cupcakes start sharing them on social distribute flyers and start getting orders in in neighborhoods and see how you can you can spread your business see what kind of you know take up rate you get when you distribute flyers and you start actually marketing this business more and growing this business.
That I think is very important. If you have that commercial location which it looks like you do I don't know if it's like in a downtown spot but hey open up the door you know put a little table outside the door and hey look we got a location now that you can pin on Yelp and get reviews for cupcakes.
So when people Google YouTube or Google a cupcakes I'm thinking YouTube all the time. You come up. Yeah. So many things that we could do here that don't cost a lot of money. So good point on that. And yeah you know investing you throw this money into the stock market depending on what you pick you probably do pretty well but if they can explode this business that's an opportunity as well.
Specifically, what would you suggest with stock-wise if she chose stocks for that money? Yeah, I I mean, for how conservative they are, they've they got to get their feet wet with just index funds. Do not pick individual stocks. Pick your favorite index funds. You know what I do? Pick Pick four index funds.
You know, put 25% into the Dow, 25% in the S&P, 25% in the Russell, and 25% in the Nasdaq. And there you go. Like, you are like diversified if diversified. Because otherwise, I don't think they're going to do it. No. Because if they put if they put super safe. If they put a thousand dollars into Tesla and it goes down 20% next month, they will never buy stocks again.
Yep. She's saving the rest for a down payment on a home. There's not going to be any left. All right, Christine's family was living in Arizona when they were hit by the '08 financial crisis. Okay, so we have recent trauma as well that is going to That makes them scared to invest and save and yeah. this is this is what's creating the saving culture.
Which the saving culture, it's um it makes sense, but it is so wealth debilitating. Mhm. All right, let's see it. We were having trouble making our house payments and eventually had to decide whether or not to sell my mom's nail shop and foreclose our house. Mhm. Apparently, sold a bath and salon and their home at a loss.
Sold the salon and their home at a loss. Oh, so they avoided foreclosure and just probably maybe came out of pocket for selling the home. Yeah. Uh or or who knows exactly what happened. It's not exactly clear there, but some people do that. It's called feeding the kitty. Uh you know, you're like, "Ah, man, I'm upside down 20 30k.
Let's just Let's just avoid foreclosure, pay off that debt, you know, and and and move on." This lesson I've learned about money is to have an emergency fund saved up, especially seeing everything happen with the pandemic and my mom losing her job, having that emergency fund that I set up initially has really helped our family throughout this time.
And it's it's so noble. They care so much about about their family and taking care of everybody. I think it's so wonderful. I like my emergency fund to be like a She invested in a Roth. A Roth could be an emergency fund for you because think about it. You put your money into a Roth, you can withdraw that money penalty and tax-free of whatever you invested.
So instead of putting $2,000 into a dumb savings account every month and I'm sorry, I don't want to come so offensive and I'm not offending her. just doesn't do anything for your growth. It so Yeah. Put it into a Roth. At least you could take the principal out if you needed it as an emergency fund. There's your emergency fund.
2,000 Something I wish I learned about money 10 years ago is the power of compound interest. That's something that Do you talk about the power of compound interest but you're saving? I'm currently He did. doing right now, but I wish I had started a little bit earlier. But you're still not. Look at this.
$732 a month into her 401. $500 Well, we haven't talked about her No, she She does have a primary job. So she probably gets a match. She does project management. That's right. Project management. So she's going to get a match, so that's good. I agree with that. $500 into a a month into the Roth, good.
So she's maxing that out. That's great. That $134, that should be $2,134. I agree. Her emergency fund's right there. 500 bucks a month in the Roth. Mhm. I also have a WeBull and Robinhood account where I Yes. I hope she got two free stocks from you? Lauren, it's four free stocks right now. If you go down to the link down below and deposit $100 with WeBull, you will get four free stocks worth up to $1,600.
I'm talking about return on your money, you'll get at at $21, which is like a 21% rate of return. There you go. Instantly. That was just like totally like like propped up for you for a slam dunk. That's just like with the placement. Don't forget by the way. Why she Next she needs to talk about life insurance.
I have a couple hundred dollars worth of stocks in there, but eventually my goal is to be more financially literate so I can invest a little bit more. Hop to it. Faith has played a big role in my life, especially growing up. I was not too spiritual, but since I've come to know the word of God, I've been really involved in my church community as well as attending church every Sunday now virtually, but it's great to have that community of believers that I can depend on and call my friends.
I donate around 6 to $700 a month to the Rover Foundation, which I found out throughout my church. The charity goes to different third world countries to provide education and spread the word of God to It's so awesome. It's so awesome. but it's just it's back to the mask analogy of the the plane. I and I can see too, you know, she's saying third world countries, you know, she came as an immigrant family, probably struggling in Vietnam and she highly relates to it.
immigrants always have to be struggling? No, no, no, you're you're you're right. I mean, the the donating thing, look, it's wonderful and especially it's common. Church goers will put aside 10% of their income or or maybe not necessarily always 10%, but whatever. I mean, $600 a month, that could be.
She said she makes 100K a year, around 100K a year. in the graph in the beginning like 600 something donations. Yeah, so that's $7,200 a year. Yeah, that's probably close to 8, 9, 10% of her income depending on how her income fluctuates. That's very common with with church. I I have to say if I were going to church, I would I would sign me up for donating big in 20 years.
Let me show you. Let me show you. for you later. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We could even like earmark it in the investment portfolio. Like, this is yours. It's coming. Look how much I grew with this year. children in need, and I'm very passionate about that. All right, looking ahead. I feel very comfortable living in Fairfax with this salary, mainly because I'm living at home.
But ultimately, when I do end up moving out, I hope to make a little bit more just to be able to put a down payment on a house and pay off my mortgage each month. So, hopefully See, she's got enough money for a down payment right now. She does, yeah. I think I thought it was DC earlier. It's Fairfax, but still, big city.
Within the next year or so, I aim to make about 120 to 130k. Great. It feels really good to be able to help my parents out. I know that growing up, they have worked 12-hour days to be able to provide for me and my sister. So, just to be able to do the same and not have them worry about how they're going to pay off their mortgage or how they're going to pay for my sister's tuition is a really great feeling for me, and it makes me feel like I'm working towards something more than just myself.
All right, that's awesome. I mean, I mean, look, great story, so noble, so so noble. Everything she's doing is so selfless and on it. and I love that just tight-knit family that's going through something really awesome. they should all get together on the idea of investing together. Because they want to build, you know, build success and security and safety together.
So, get into investing together. You know, have have an investing night, 20 minutes every night or whatever. like thing they do with the COVID going on, they are already home all day. They can, you know, analyze and do have work to go to. We can't say that they're home all day. But regarding the pandemic, yeah, people are home much more.
Yes, exactly. We know what you mean. Uh but yeah. get into investing. Stop that savings account. Ah. It's a a common trend though. Like I you know I haven't watched too many of these that when I just started reacting like maybe a month or two ago with you but Because of ours. Yes, but I mean you see it almost every time.
Almost every time the savings is substantial and I think it's a a massive mistake for our culture. It it comes out of the fear of 08. And that It's a huge mistake. completely millennials. You know that's the age group that they were affected by the 08 thing. You graduate high school or college in 08 a lot a lot of millennials did and and it's like oh crap.
And a lot of things came with the 08 crash too. It's like the families were struggling that probably meant more divorces and just like the the trauma that you remember as a millennial is huge. You know what they could do on that that parents house there if she's having to help pay the mortgage, it sounds to me like her parents have a hardship which that would qualify them for 12 months of mortgage forbearance.
That does sound like a hardship and I think that's a good idea. 12 months of mortgage forbearance. Check if your loan is federally backed. You can watch my video on this metkevin.com/forbearance. You know you obviously check the details before you just sign up for it. But they could postpone 12 months of their payments, invest that money and pay it back in 20 years.
AKA it'd be a free, you know, probably 24 grand for them. There you go. You know, if if they're paying about $2,000 a month. That That's millennial. That is millennial money. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you next time. Bye.
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