I got really anxious one month because i was like i spent like 800 on ubereats this month. I was like that's bad. What's up guys, it's graham here and i'm not gon na lie. Today is one of those moments where i have to sit down and pinch myself to make sure it's real, because i'm about to sit down and talk business with someone who i've looked up to for years and that would be idubbbz.

That's a bit of a problem. Uh, this is just sort of a dad bod simulator. Now some of you might know him for his comedic rants or his edgy humor, or his content cop series that single-handedly destroyed careers while cumulatively racking up hundreds of millions of views, but lately he's taken a softer. More artistic approach to filmmaking, while he documents an inside, look into the lives of unconventional people and unconventional stories.

However, despite him creating content around others, very few people get to hear about him and today he's allowed me to turn the tables. So he could talk openly about his views on investing personal finance saving money and how he was able to grow from nothing into becoming the face of a million dollar business in real talk here, this entire money series was inspired by ian after watching his full force. Documentary something just immediately clicked and i told myself i want to do that, but in such a way where i could showcase the financial behind-the-scenes lives of the most successful people in their field and somehow that came true, pokeman michael reeves, kevin o'leary and the strad man. All disclose their business that no one else talks about, and today we literally have the person who inspired it all right here, ready to be financially confronted by me.

So if you enjoy these videos - and you want to see more like it just do me a really quick favor and smash the like button for the youtube algorithm, not only does doing that help me out a lot, but it's also totally free and it lets me Know you want to see more videos like this plus, if you smash the like button right now, i'll finally stop asking so thanks so much for doing that, and now let's go into the financial life and behind the scenes of idubbbz, it's a lot of fun. Uh reaching out to other people and collabing, and i think the sort of the financial stuff is like a lot of the stuff that people want to hear from their. You know favorite youtubers or whatever, but they just can't it's like not accessible. So do you have you come out and you know grill us get all the information.

It's like it's very fun. Is there anything that's off limits here that i can't ask you nope anything? No, i could ask you any question. I want you'll answer it. Yes, you'll be honest: absolutely what did you want to be when you grew up? Is that that's a genuine question? That's a genuine question.

Yes, i have no idea. I never thought really. I didn't give it too much thought i think um making money doing something i enjoyed was like the only sort of barometer. Then what led you to making youtube videos? I was watching a lot of game commentators online, so i did it as a hobby for a long time, a lot of past channels just dead and gone, but i played games.

I didn't get particularly better as time went on, because i was doing it sort of casually but uh. Eventually, you know i started making money and it started doing better when i would do different things. So i actually sort of grew out of the commentating over games and did more general commentary. How long ago was this like what age were you when you started doing that? Oh god, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about because i'm like, i always think about it.

I'm like oh yeah, i was young, but i was like early 20s. I was playing like minecraft and like it, commentating minecraft when you're like 23, isn't like isn't particularly glamorous, but it was fun at the time yeah. How much were you making back then? I would say, probably around two thousand to three thousand dollars a month, and that was exactly where i was like aiming for. I was like, if i can make this, i can rent an apartment, i could get food and that's that's pretty much all i needed.

You know that's all i really cared about. Did you go to school at all yeah? So i i graduated from cal state san marcos uh with a bachelor's in uh business management, and that was like that was super useful to me, because it was like this period of time where my parents could continue to hound me about getting a job and completing College and whatever else, and while they were hounding me about that, i was also doing youtube and it gave me like this weird little flux period, where i could continue to grow the youtube channel. So, by the time i was out of college, i didn't actually have to get a real job. I could just keep doing youtube.

Have you ever had a real job? First, the gap and then lego land never would have guessed. Yeah legoland was much better. I was doing a food and beverage, so i was flipping burgers and uh cutting watermelon. What did you spend the money on back then? I didn't spend very much money.

I i'm definitely. I definitely err on the side of saving but uh yeah. I'm not much to be honest, like gaming, uh stuff, like computer parts, that sort of thing when i was working at legoland, i had this uh. They have this day.

I don't know like legoland's not going to come after me. They had this day where it was like half price all lego products, uh for employees and uh. I was into like flipping it at the time, so i would buy half price lego products in legoland and flip them on ebay and that that definitely helped out the like 850 minimum wage that i was earning that was uh. That was a start, i think of like trying to earn a little bit more.

What do you think of the school system in general? It's going to be sort of the same thing that you hear from most people. I think my age, who haven't really experienced much benefit out of paying the ridiculous amounts that people are paying for school. It's generally useless. If you ask, i think anyone who's semi-successful, they'll say don't go to school.

Unless you you need it to become a doctor or lawyer, or something like that or a civil engineer, but uh, i think a mentor is like infinitely more useful than you know, four years of school, how did you figure out to be different? A lot of those unboxing videos i was just like, i think, in a lot of ways at wit's end in like video ideas, i'm like i can't come up with anything so i'll, just be a clown in front in front of the camera. For you know 30 minutes so recently, i've noticed you've shifted a lot from that content to more of the behind the scenes of making documentaries about other people. What caused that shift? I would compare it graham to a financial portfolio right. Okay, maybe for the past you know five years.

I've had like fifty sixty percent of my portfolio in commentary general commentary ranting, giving my take maybe like 20 30 into edginess and toxic behavior. That could you know, drag people in, but i need to start to sort of balance. My portfolio get a little take a little bit away from the edge because it's not great returns on that sure well well. Well, if it isn't the batman here to steal all my coyote urine, but the documentaries you're making i got ta say, are incredible: how much do they cost to make? Oh man, it's it's cheap, uh, the cost of an airbnb one bed, three dudes uh yeah! Not much, i would say, like i don't know like two thousand dollars now the question i'm really curious.

How much do these make something like the airsoft fatty one that ended up doing a lot better than i thought it would because they had. There was some questionable stuff in it um, but it did, i think, probably around twenty thousand dollars uh and that's like really good for, like my channel, because usually it's like much lower cpm rates, um and then beyond that, it's just whatever sponsor would give uh, which Is around about the same and then what about for ice cream man uh? That one was better because we had merch. We split the merch like roughly three different ways. It was dax me and dane and uh gosh uh net sales on that were maybe i don't know, 200 000.

Something like that. I think we kind of prefer doing that, because, obviously you don't have to put some weird ad in there or halfway through you. Don't have to deal with those weird requirements and uh. You know the fans walk away with something a little uh keepsake.

Let's just put it this way. Guys, if you want to own a piece of history, then you'll buy this shirt, so how's your business broken down right now, so we got me at the top and then we got an army of editors like three editors, okay, um one does like a stream highlights. Channel thing another one: does the documentaries and another one just sort of picks up the slack when i have a tummy ache or something beyond that, there's really nothing. How many hours a day do you usually work? It's very tough because when you're, i guess working from home self-employed whatever you want to call it you, you don't really track your time very well and what categorizes his work time is very weird like the the stuff i'm doing like you know.

Lately, i've been getting into twitch and i've been like just kind of watching other twitch streams, and you know doing research, not necessarily setting things up or anything, but i've just been brainstorming a lot of the time and that really kind of coincides with leisure. A little bit so it's really hard, i would say, if i'm being honest, it's probably around five to six hours a day. Happy new year's eve. Everyone, i hope yours is going better than mine - is how many different income sources do you have adsense is like 50 of the income.

Merch is like 30 and sponsorships is like 20.. Can you share approximately how much that works out to be uh roughly it vacillates between like 200 000 to 500 000 a year, so i think at the start. I was motivated by money, but they, you know you i'm sure, have seen it like. There's a lot of studies out there measuring happiness and it's like maybe a hundred thousand dollars is like peak utility that you can get for your money, and i tend to agree with that.

I think anything past that 100 000 per year kind of number. You just don't get any extra value. So i think basically, since i reached that number i've just been like yeah. You know what uh, what creative mark can i leave on the world? What can i do? I have a mobile game that i'm working on that's sort of been my project for the past three or four years.

Now, what about your investing? How much of this income are you saving, i guess, whatever i'm not spending, i'm saving. So it's probably close to 80 percent is being saved uh and then to get split in between my sep ira and uh, just a individual account and then a bunch of random things. I have two houses um and i recently started uh investigating the uh, like private crowdfunded, real estate, kind of stuff. Okay, that's been nice instead of actually having to buy properties.

Has this always been something you've been interested in or did this com, just as you started, making more money? Well, i think everyone's wired a little bit differently. I think you're someone who, like totally, is like gamifying your life, a bit where you're like i just love to see all the value. I can extract from different things. You know you uh, you know it's.

It's it's fun. It's fun, figuring out credit cards. How you can maximize the amount of money that you can make and uh you know, i think that's been maybe from when i was like 25 and older. I was more interested in like spending my time listening to financial podcasts or just general youtube videos talking about that stuff, so two houses.

What was the first house? You bought a single family residence for yourself? Yes, all the boomers in the world are just like obsessed with real estate and they just talk about real estate like it's the best thing ever, and i i sort of took that information to heart. So i was like okay i'll get a house. I like owning stuff um. It feels like i'm not throwing away my money.

What about the second place, uh for a rental yeah, so the first place. Actually i want to rent that out now i've left it i've paid it off completely. So i got a new place, just thinking like yeah i'll dabble in the rental property thing. So i don't know if it's gon na be my thing yet, but we'll see, why did you pay it off? Yes, i i know you were gon na.

Ask me about that: it is a huge weight off my shoulders. I do not like having this. You know, uh. I don't know what you call negative cash flow.

I don't like spending having having that money disappear and i wasn't confident that i'd be able to get renters in straight away. So i hate the idea of like okay, i got two mortgages that i got to keep up with and uh. You know i mean maybe that would be good. Maybe that would put the fire under my just to get renters in there yeah.

I just don't like the feeling feels really bad. So where else are you investing money? You mentioned tesla stock. Every year my tax guy says yeah put a bunch of money into your uh uh, sep ira. So i'll do that lately i've been opening just like more accounts and stuff.

For some reason, even though, like everyone, i know, puts all their money in like indexes and stuff, i've generally like avoided that i've just been picking and choosing i don't. I really don't know why. There's no one that has told me to do that or anything i just feel more confident in companies rather than these indexes. What are your biggest holdings? Definitely tesla.

I got in it like uh in like 2000 early 2017, or something like that wow. So like i've. Just been having a ball, how much did you invest? I mean it. I've only recently opened up individual accounts yeah, so it's all retired.

It was just my retirement account. So i do the max contributions uh in the sapphire array every year and that would pretty much be in tesla, amazon and nvidia and a couple other ones. So where do you learn about personal finance, or where do you pick up on some of these things? Just all youtube videos i mean like what you're doing for people is very good. You know it's like uh, there's a ton of financial people on youtube.

I think everyone has like a person that they can kind of model their behavior after a little bit. There's a lot of people who are like crazy about warren buffett, they're all about value, investing uh, there's people who are just crazy about tesla, now um, so i'll, just get a mix of what i think you know works for me. I've taken more of a like. What would i what stocks would i like to or technology? Would i like to see perform well in the long term, so like clean energy stuff things that are helping people out generally is the things that i will invest in and i was like well if it doesn't do well.

Um, like i just sort of write off saying well, i tried you know yeah. I tried to essentially fund uh, something that i i thought would be good for the world yeah. It's tricky, though, because, like i know that a lot of the uh you know money, i'm up right now. It just makes you feel like you're smart, but i know that, like a lot of these decisions, i've made have just been so casually done.

I'm not looking into their financials like. Obviously, if i looked into tesla's financials leading up to 2017, i wouldn't have put any money in there right yeah, so it can. It can trick you it can make you in investing, can make you think you're a lot smarter than you are welcome to the idubbbz tv makeup tutorial channel i'll. Tell you one thing: nvidia is another example.

I was like completely clueless. I was just like i like their graphics cards. They go real fast, they render really well and then one day it was like, i don't know, they're doing autonomous driving stuff. Maybe i'm not exactly sure what bumped them up to where they are now yeah.

It's just wild how many credit cards do you have four, not bad yeah? What's your credit score? It's it's scraping, 800.! Really yeah! That's fantastic! Pay! Everything off man, that's fantastic! I overpay oftentimes! So do you think now you're saving enough and you're making enough money? Oh definitely yeah yeah uh, it's sort of i i think of it like i. I can get a little anxious and stressed out about money. I know i have like no reason to at this point in my life, especially um, but i kind of view it as like a uh, a cushion occasionally i'll. You know see how much money's there see if it's overstuffed or under stuffed and uh, try to spend or save.

Accordingly, i got really anxious one month because i was like i spent like 800 on ubereats this month. I was like that's bad um. That is bad. It's not bad it it like um, especially for a person in your position.

You can totally afford to do it. I looked at my spending and like we probably spend pretty similarly and i'm like i've - oh like maybe like 40 000 last year in spending and that's like everything. That's like flights. That's you know.

I got two dogs that need surgeries and crap and it was like it was not bad and i'm paying for uh meals, for you know anissa, and i i'm usually the one doing ubereats yeah um, if you're doing it out of laziness. If you have nothing else to do, if you're sitting on the couch watching like bad reality, tv yeah, then it's probably better - you go to the grocery store or go and pick up oh yeah, there's under under a certain income level. You should never use those services in general. If you're just being lazy doing nothing, then i would rather use my time going to the grocery store.

If i'm in the middle of something i'm like, i got ta grind out a video i'm running behind. I got ta get something done, then it's better to pay the premium, so i avoid lazy spending if it's out of laziness yeah. But what about? Okay? Let's imagine this like futurology lifestyle, where you don't have to pay for a fridge. You don't have to pay for a damn microwave or a stove, or all this nonsense.

You just get food, deliver your door 3.99. The whole thing: oh whoa, yeah. I know that man, that's heavy, so look you could get seven of these for the entire week. You'll spend about 25 for an entire week's worth of lunch.

That's like one chicken wing in there yeah one chicken wing and the lettuce lettuce that don't fill you up. It does try it. So what are you motivated by right? Now? I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of a bunch of different things. So i really don't know where to put my focus like right now: we're working on the mobile game, pocket squirrel and that is really fun and i could see doing more game related stuff.

But then the documentary is also a lot of fun. It's that's more my speed and more my skill set, so i could see doing more of that. I think just kind of anything. Uh art related uh.

Anything where i can you know put my fingerprint anything. I put my fingerprints on including a tesla and then what's the best money advice, you've heard, save it baby, save it baby, just save it, but uh you can get better at saving it by not putting it in a checking account nor savings account. You can, at least in this current moment in time in history, you'd, probably be better off putting it into an index fund or something that is actually at least matching or beating inflation. Hey guys, i think you might want to consider hitting the like button.

Only if you want to, though you don't have to if it's going to add value to your life, hit the like button, otherwise there's no need to dislike it. Just leave just leave it blank and also subscribe. If you want to there's no need, you won't make money by subscribing, but you might you might learn some things. It would help graham reach 10 million subscribers, which i think is the next milestone.

Are you excited for that? Graham ecstatic? Yes, i want mine as well. My diamond play button. Good luck, guys, keep your chins up all right, all right! That's great thanks man! So what that said, you guys thank you so much for watching and if you want to see the entire unedited clip of this video, it was like 40 minutes long. I'm gon na be posting that, on my second channel, the graham stefan show the link to that is down below in the description just go ahead and subscribe to that channel and you'll see the video posted there very shortly, oh and also while you're down below in The description, if you like free money, which basically everyone likes free money, the free stock trading brokerage weeble, is going to be offering you four free stocks when you deposit 100 on the platform and those stocks could potentially be worth all the way up to one thousand Six hundred dollars so anywhere from eighteen dollars to sixteen hundred dollars is how much you're gon na get just for signing up and depositing a hundred dollars on the platform, and you can just go and sell those stocks afterwards.

If you want to take the money or you could use them in their free stock trading platform, so there you go, enjoy the free stocks guys! Thank you so much for watching and until next time.