- Hi my name's Graham Stephan,
I'm 29 years old, I'm a real estate agent, investor,
and YouTuber, living in Los Angeles
making 1.6 million per year.
[upbeat music]
I have zero dollars in credit card debt,
zero dollars in student loans,
1.8 million in savings,
and just over four million dollars
in real estate investments,
but I've spent $585,000 on this duplex,
and then I spent another $80,000 remodeling it.
My mortgage is just over $2,800 a month,
and my utilities are about $110 a month.
Well I chose to buy and live and a duplex,
because I really wanted to save the extra money
and at least have some other rental income coming in
to subsidize my cost of living,
and this place took me about six months to find,
but when it came on the market, it was a really good deal,
and I knew I could rent out the other unit
to basically pay for my mortgage
and most of my property taxes,
and that way that would allow me
to essentially live here completely rent or mortgage free.
So growing up, my parents did not have any sort
of abundance of money or anything like that,
and I definitely saw how hard they worked,
and a lot of times it really was paycheck to paycheck,
so I think seeing that really forced me to go
in almost an extreme in terms of saving and investing,
and really making that a priority
so I would never have to worry about money.
Even as a young kid, I would always just be obsessed
about saving everything I could get,
and even from birthday's and Christmas's,
have an envelope with just all my like $20 bills in there,
and I'd get really excited when I would hit like $100.
I actually got more enjoyment, I think,
from saving than I did from spending.
So I became a millionaire by working as a real estate agent.
Originally, I planned to go to college,
but when I didn't get in to college,
I was basically screwed.
I had really bad grades in high school,
and I figured I needed to do something
and get some work experience for a year
before I reapply to colleges.
I got my real estate license,
ended up really loving the career,
and then after I sold my first house,
I was just like, I'm never going to college after this.
So I've chosen to focus really on the luxury,
high-end market here in Los Angeles.
I would say my average price point
is somewhere between two and three million dollars,
but the most expensive home I've sold is
about seven million.
So my YouTube channel is just my name,
it's Graham Stephan, and it's mostly
about personal finance and investing,
and how to invest in real estate.
My YouTube income varies month-to-month,
but usually it's anywhere between $150,000 a month
and $250,000 a month.
Welcome to my living room.
For the most part, this is really decorative.
I don't spend a lotta time in here.
If I have any friends over,
none of us are really hanging out in this room,
it's mainly meant for just looking aesthetically kinda nice.
This over here is my couch
that doesn't really get used that often.
These are the pillows that actually came
with the couch, I don't like them at all.
Looks a little too patriotic, red, white, and blue,
but, you know what they're here,
again, we never really use it that much.
So these two chairs, I originally found on Wayfair,
but then what I did to save money,
is I did a reverse image search on Google
and I found the exact same chairs from another company
for half the cost.
So in terms of furnishing my place,
I was able to get the majority of it at wholesale cost,
so it really only cost me about 30% of what it would
if I bought it at retail.
The other thing I found, is that you could shop online
and usually find the exact same item
and product somewhere else for a lot cheaper.
Lot of furniture is sold via drop shipping
so that people mark up the cost,
and they make a lot of profit from it,
but if you just do a reverse image search on Google
of the item you want to get,
almost always you could find it somewhere else
for significantly cheaper,
and that's what I'd done if I didn't get it at wholesale.
[upbeat music]
This was actually given to me by a subscriber, Russ,
what's up man?
Your Lamborghini is right there
that you ended up sending me.
I do end up getting sent some things
from subscribers.
They'll find out my work address,
and then send me things like a lotta letters,
or sometimes gift cards to Starbucks, is a popular one,
or also Subway, and then of course,
without further ado,
you have probably my most prized possession,
this is an autographed picture from Kenan and Kel.
This is certainly one of a kind.
I've had this for such a long time.
This is another thing I found
at some antique store.
I think it's some sort of like replica ray gun.
Someone's gonna comment down below
and tell me what this is a replica from,
but my inner child came out when I saw this,
and I was like, you gotta get this.
This is just too cool not to buy.
So up here, you have my three
YouTube subscriber play buttons.
The gold one is for hitting a million,
and then the two silver ones are for hitting 100,000.
Then I have a candle here, and a few people
may have seen my video with Molly,
who also did a Money Tourist
here on the channel and Glamour.
- Over here, we have our Mahogany Teakwood candle.
It's my favorite, and we probably go through one a week.
It's kind of bad.
- She was spending way too much.
She's spending like $30 a week on candles,
but I was telling her, you can get candles
for a few dollars each at Ross,
you have no idea how expensive they are,
and I think this was like three bucks,
but it looks like it could be a 15 or $20 candle.
It's a great way to save a lot of money.
This is something that I actually did myself with a friend.
A contractor wanted like $600 to go and redo this,
because Spanish tile is, believe it or not,
really expensive, but I found a place
that ships directly from Mexico,
and this was two dollars a tile.
So I got it shipped, did the whole thing
for really under about $160.
This is my dining room and the dining room table
is something that I never actually use for eating,
I mostly just use it for editing videos
really late at night.
For some reason, this is my favorite spot,
just to sit there and edit.
The chairs are something that I absolutely hate them.
I was looking through a catalog
when picking out the furniture,
and I thought these were meant to match this set.
It doesn't match, these look like Grandma chairs,
but I hope that nobody notices,
so I just push them in and just leave it.
These are thing that I bought from Ross.
I like fish, but I didn't buy it specifically for the fish,
I thought it was just too good of a price not to get.
So over here, you have my bar,
and this is something I never really use.
This just visually, looks kinda cool and fills the space.
I almost never drink.
This is Diet Coke mixed with water.
It's not actually Jim Beam Honey.
Same with this, you woulda had no idea
that this is not Jack Daniels,
instead it's just Diet Coke and water,
and you find the right mixture
and it looks exactly like Jack Daniels.
All of this is really just for decoration,
and I want to make it seem like I have a fully stocked bar
when in actuality, I have a stocked bar full
of watered down Diet Coke and water,
and by the way, proof it's just water,
[guzzling]
Ah, so this is my kitchen,
I remodeled it about two and half years ago.
There used to be a big wall up here
that I decided to take down, open up,
so now it brings in a lot more natural light.
I got the quartz countertops here,
which are horrible to keep clean.
I thought it would be a really good idea
to have white countertops,
and then I realized that anything you put on them
is gonna leave a bit of a mark.
So I spend way too much time trying to keep these clean.
So a lot that I have in my kitchen,
isn't really that functional,
but I think it looks kinda cool.
Like a lot of this, I made to look
really just aesthetically pleasing with things
that I've kind of got for free.
Like this seller was moving out and are throwing it away,
I said well, I'm gonna put it in my kitchen,
and same with some of these other things in here.
Admittedly, I don't really have that much in here
because I don't really cook that often.
So I have a basic set of plates
that I got off Amazon.
I prefer actually to use some of the paper plates
so I don't have to do any dishes,
and then I keep these sitting here,
just because they look kinda good
and it makes it look like I have some stuff
in the cupboards,
and then of course, we always gotta rep the merch.
This is one of the slogans I have
and you can find it exclusively at grahamstephanstore.com.
So I got some other stuff over here
that kind of fills the space a little bit,
some olive oil, marinara sauces, pasta,
and then this is something I actually found at Ross.
I saw this on sale for like five bucks.
Thought, you know, it would kinda go here.
It looks pretty beachy and fits nicely in this space,
and then most importantly, I have my Mr. Coffee coffeemaker.
Not sponsored, of course, but I do really like Mr. Coffee.
So this whole coffee thing really became another little bit
on my channel, because I never go out and buy coffee,
'cause I could just make it at home for 20 cents,
and that's just what I've always done
just to save the extra money.
So underneath, you have my trash can here,
and one of the cool things I do to save money,
is I reuse the old grocery bags,
and actually save a lot of money on doing this.
I don't buy garbage bags.
Just put this over, and look,
it's pretty much the same thing
and you don't need to buy any garbage bags.
So I don't really do that much cooking
but I will make breakfast every single morning.
I religiously eat the exact same thing.
It's two eggs, cheese, ham,
and then sometimes if I'm feeling really adventurous
I'll have half a bagel with coffee, of course.
I spend about $200 a month on groceries,
and another $150 a month eating out.
I also like to look for happy hour's,
'cause if you're gonna go out to eat,
you may as well just go and find that two hour window
where things are gonna be half price
and just eat as much as you can then,
and that's gonna usually save you
about like 30 to 50% in your food bill.
Happy hour sushi, or all-you-can eat sushi,
is the one thing that I just, I love it.
Anytime I can go and eat sushi,
or find all-you-can-eat sushi,
I will find a excuse to do it.
Normally this is about $1,200,
but I waited for a Labor Day sale
and got both of these for 800.
Welcome to my bedroom.
The bed frame I got years ago from IKEA.
The mattress was given to me for free by Casper.
I represented them as a company many years ago
as a real estate agent and they gave me a free mattress
when I found them a house, which was pretty cool.
This is my Nicholas Cage pillowcase.
A subscribe sent this to me.
I joked about it in one of my videos,
and now I own one.
I never thought I would say this
but I sleep on Nicholas Cage every single night
and I will see you in your dreams.
So this is the only T.V. in my house.
I really don't watch that much T.V.,
so I don't have one in the living room,
but every now and then
if I want to watch Netflix or YouTube,
I can turn this on here, again,
I really don't watch that much T.V.
Then over here, I have my YouTube Subscriber play button.
This was given to me as a gift
during one of the speaking engagements I went to,
so I set it up, I hooked it up here,
and it keeps track of my second channel.
So this is where all the magic happens,
and I film all of my videos.
It's a 400 square foot garage that I remodeled
to turn into my studio.
I had it dry walled, added electricity,
recessed lighting,
and I added some sound deadening materials,
just so that it's not as echoey in here.
This table I got from Urban 9-5.
I really liked these restoration hardware desks
with the aviation style,
but they were all like three to $5,000
but I found that Urban 9-5 had the exact same desk
for under 1,000 bucks.
I bought two books.
These are totally random eBay books that I bought
for $1 each that makes it look like I'm a lot smarter
than I really am, and then this dinosaur skull here,
this is a replica from Wayfair,
and I got it, I thought it looked really cool.
I spend way too much time making a video.
I would say every video that I make
usually takes about eight to 10 hours to produce,
and some of that is researching the topic,
actually planning out the video, filming the video,
and then editing it,
and trying to piece together a good title and thumbnail.
So as far as my equipment, I keep it very simple.
I have a Canon 70D with a Sigma 1.8 lens
that I use to film most of my videos,
and then I have a Canon 80D
with just a wide-angle kit lens
for any wide-angle shots I need,
or if I'm filming out somewhere,
I tend to use that camera.
For audio, I just use a Comica wireless mic.
They ended up giving me that for free to test it out
and just review it, and it's free,
and I really like it.
As far as lighting is concerned,
I have an LED Ring Light
that I use as my main source of light
and then I have two LED panels
that I use for more like soft lights as well.
It might look a little weird to see the towels on my lights,
but what I found is that these towels work really well
for light diffusion's, that way it's not too harsh
on the background.
These towels work perfectly for that.
So I taught myself everything when it comes to editing.
I had no idea what I was doing.
So, I went on YouTube
and I searched like how to edit on iMovie,
and even to this day, I'm using iMovie,
the free software on my Mac and that's it,
and I figured I would use iMovie,
just because it was free.
Why spend extra money if I didn't have to
and it was already there, so, you know, why not.
I would say my favorite thing about this place
is that it doesn't really cost me anything to live here,
and that gives me a lot of financial peace of mind
just knowing that, you know, worst-case scenario,
if just everything stops entirely
that I will be totally fine here,
and I don't have to stress about it.
Glamour, thanks so much for stopping by
and for you watching,
if you have not already smashed the Like button,
make sure to absolutely destroy it
for the YouTube algorithm.