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Vivian 2 is the host of the VOX media podcast Networth and chill she's also known as your Rich BFF on social media
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where she's become a financial Guru of sorts dispensing advice and tips to millions of followers viviant welcome
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thank you so much for having me so I love I love there's been iterations of what you're doing for many years and
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lots of newspapers I used to work for all kinds of stuff and I just love this kind of thing but what you're doing is
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really particularly um you know important for young people so if for people not familiar with your Rich BFF
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can you explain what it's about um and you have find a way as many writers in this are do to make it understandable
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and accessible especially to young people I'd love to know what you think traditional media gets wrong when it
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comes to financial literacy so explain what Rich BFF is and then how how is it different from previous iterations of
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this yeah I think for a really long time a lot of us have just wanted to be heard
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or even seen um and traditional Financial media has very much catered to folks who look like Scott and probably
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have as much money as he does um I joke but transparently like it really hasn't offered much to women to people of color
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to young people people who grew up low income immigrants anything of that nature and it's really hard to find good
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reputable information in this space because when you Google the words Roth IRA you get 3 million hits
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and if you don't know what you don't know you really don't know which of these links to even click so it's really
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hard to begin that Journey because jargon is so um rampant in the financial news media that we're seeing in writing
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on TV everywhere um but what y Rich BFF does essentially is it is a financial Equity platform that's breaking down
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this information for the Next Generation so that everybody can have access to it
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and then implement it into their daily lives it's actual usable actionable tips versus oh in theory this could happen
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it's you know this is how you actually make your life better okay and and talk about what who
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are you aiming at what does Rich BFF mean is it just you know because it's fun on social media or what's the what's
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the concept behind it yeah the big concept behind it is you know my friends had come to me for this kind of
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information for these tips for this advice and the whole premise everybody focuses so much on rich but the real
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word that we should be FOC focusing on is BFF I'm not lecturing you like a college professor I am not talking to
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you like I'm a parent I'm not talking to you like I'm better than you smarter than you richer than you I'm talking to
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you as a friend what advice would a rich friend give you in this Arena if they wanted to see you succeed if they wanted
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to see you do well excellent Scott so I I'm just full disclosure I love viven too I I I I
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don't know if you've noticed this I'm not quite stalker level yet but I'm constantly retweeting your stuff I think
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you are a gift stalker I you are a gift to young people I love your content I love the optimistic tone you bring
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you're like the first person under the age of I don't know how old you are 30 that talks about
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1202 and there's this myth that you're not supposed to talk about money which I think is nothing but an attempt by the
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rich to keep poured down to create a sort of taboo and I love how you're breaking that taboo what I want do is
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repurpose a question we just had because I got insecure that I didn't answer it correctly so I want to I want to give
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you a shot at it but a gentleman in his 50s said him and his partner have saved some money not a lot but they're really
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risk averse so they have it all probably in money market and they've missed out on a lot of returns so what would you
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suggest someone in their F or someone with a little bit of money that wants to start
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investing what would be your asset allocation recommendation kind of loosely yeah I think with terms of like asset
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allocations um what I typically recommend is you take your age and you round to the nearest tens so tens 20s
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30s 40s 50s um and then you actually subtract by 10 again so this person is in their 50s we are minusing that number
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by 10 again so 40 and that is what percentage of your portfolio roughly should be in fixed income assets whereas
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the rest of it should actually still be in um the public Equity market so stocks
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uh in particular I recommend Brader index funds through ETFs with the lowest possible expense ratios um the reason I
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say this is just because now that they're in their 50s even if they are feeling a little behind they don't have
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to feel like the world is ending yes they want to do some sort of preservation of their existing wealth so
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that they're going to have money to draw from in their later years but also still
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having more than 50% of your portfolio in the P public Equity markets allows you to participate in that continued
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growth odds are good the second they turn 59 a half they're not going to need every single Dollar in that account um
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so this just gives them a chance to have a portion of their money continuing to work pretty hard while another portion
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of it is still set aside because they are getting closer to retirement and the other big hot tip that I would encourage
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them to think about is catchup contributions um for everybody who is above 50 and starting to get a little
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closer to retirement you can actually contribute more to your um individual retirement accounts whether they be of
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the traditional or Roth variety or your employer sponsored accounts than the average person could that's younger than
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that um and it just gives them a chance to literally catch up yeah maximize things like that on that um especially
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matching stuff do yeah yeah so what when there's going to be big obviously the stock market's been on a tear people are
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worried about it being on a tear right now and most people in the stock market are people that look like Scott right
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it's not everyone's not in the talk Market it's a small group of people but it tends to affect us mentally tall and
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handsome what do you mean looks like me what do you mean looks like me yes more diverse than you think it's about
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rich people it's not about a specific gender race I understand but oddly enough they tend to look the same um so
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what do you think the biggest I'm just te I tease I tease what do you think the biggest change for the economy and
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markets when Trump takes office I mean just going off of what he has openly said um really istically we're going to
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see corporate tax cuts we're going to see roll backs on regulation we are already seeing one of the richest most
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money cabinets ever period um and what is problematic to me about this is this is very much going to see a further
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k-shaped diversion between The Have and Have notss um folks that are already investing are going to be able to
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participate in these profits right because when corporations are given tax breaks and are rolled back on regulation
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they're going to prioritize one thing and one thing only they're going to make money they are going to do right by
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their shareholders which is excellent if you are a shareholder but when we actually look at the distribution of
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wealth of who is actually investing versus who isn't it's much easier when you have discretionary funds to invest
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if you are more worried about buying apples than Apple like you're not going to be participating in that upward
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growth so we're going to see and tariffs on TP forgot to mention right which he said on this interview
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yesterday he's like yeah it could cost more oh well yeah but that kind it could cost more oh well like that's really
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unfortunate because when you actually think about how rich people and broke people spend and I say that like very
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glib tongue and cheek but like we still all have to buy some of the same things right like regardless of if you're super
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moneyed or not you're buying toilet paper but the ultra luxurious organic triple ply toilet paper is probably only
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a couple dollars more than the crappy generic brand that's one ply we all still have to buy it and unfortunately
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these tariffs are going to make toilet paper a much larger portion of someone who is a lower income individual a
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larger portion of their paycheck than it is versus someone who is in the higher net worth area so we're going to see
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people you know in the bottom 50% really struggle with their cost of living they're realistically not always going
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to be able to invest because they don't have those discretionary funds shit's going to get tough for lack of a
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better phrase but for the top 50% like especially people who are high net worth this is going to be a golden era of
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moneymaking this election generally speaking was both the people who are voting for both parties we voted against
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our own best interests only one specific set though knew that we were doing that
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right like so you're talking about these Coastal Elites voting blue realistically
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having more money the top 10 top 1% of folks a lot of them voted for KLA Harris well against their own best interest
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knowing that we would be taxed more I you know transparently voted that way but I have family and relatives who
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voted the opposite side and they're trying to tell me that they are going to benefit and I said no people like me
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people who a huge portion of my annual like monies comes from Investments not just my labor I am going to benefit not
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you and I think it's a it's a hard conversation to have especially around the Thanksgiving dinner table with
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family with friends but like I think we all voted against our best interests financially speaking uh so One Financial
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tip or habit you'd recommend for people going into the you I have two sons just understanding money now I spent a lot of
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time them learning about things like paying the rent and cost and my one son's leaving college and I'm like so
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what are you going to do to make money I was like and you know the mom train is ending soon um or relatively soon so
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what Financial tip or habit would you recommend besides getting a job obviously going into the new year oh man
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this is a good one I would say find your eeky guy but in part I really encourage
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people to prioritize the can I make money of this so ekiga is a Japanese term essentially saying that you are
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able to find your purpose once your thing uh fits four categories one of which is do I like doing this am I good
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at it does the world need it and can I make money so once you found something that F fits into all four of these
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circles it's like the center of the V diagram and we give this advice especially to students going into higher
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education of Follow Your Passion you know whatever you want to do like whatever your hobbies are no I'm so
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sorry the world doesn't need another DJ and no one's going to pay you for it exactly like we need plumbers we need
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electricians we need people who have real skills and I laugh because I come from a Chinese immigrant
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family so that was never on the table for me like I was never going to be allowed to major in certain majors
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because there was no opportunity to make money and my parents weren't going to be
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able to help me after school or anything like that um if you come from generational wealth you have the luxury
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of following your passion but if you are a regular shular person with a regular shmegular family and not to mention
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lower income pick a job that is going to create the lifestyle that you want prioritize your lifestyle because you
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are not defined by your job but if you do not have the life that you want you're going to be sorely unhappy I find
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when you make a ton of money at something you start really liking it you start really loving it you know I deal
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with this really difficult woman I I deal with this really difficult woman on this podcast and I don't love it but
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we're making bank I like podcasting so Vivian um I love what the answer you gave is
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largely the same answer I gave to this gentleman in his 50s except your domain expertise is deeper in mind I love this
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idea of of catch up this regulation letting you catch up faster in your 50s that's fantastic information anyway the
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thing about lowcost index funds is you're still stock picking you're just stock picking at a macro level cuz
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there's different index funds there's QQ there's NASDAQ which is more aggressive
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there's still some quote unquote selection around which indices you invest in do you believe and this is a
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loaded question because obviously I'm putting forward a bias here that the American Market has gotten so expensive
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relatively speaking to emerging or non-american markets based on traditional pees that people should be
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thinking about index funds outside of the US and maybe maybe rebalancing their portfolio and putting more money I mean
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you're basically your whole rap and it's the most powerful rap is around diversification that you don't need def
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find the needle by the whole Hy stack but do you think given how expensive the American Market is and quite frankly how
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cheap some of the emerging or non-american markets that people should be thinking about allocating a greater
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percentage of their portfolio to index funds outside of the US yes absolutely um it's so funny I
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feel like you uh teed me up for this one but you don't want to again be Overexposed in any one specific Arena
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and I think to your point like even with General us index funds like what is it like 85% of the returns came from six
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companies like you are to to a degree like very very exposed um I love looking at I I believe the ticker
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is vxus so that's like a Vanguard fund um every single different us so if as long as you are it makes sense
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right like vxus um every single brokerage has their own version of this so make sure you're getting the one
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that's at The Brokerage you are investing with so you aren't paying additional fees but you cannot only just
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invest in index funds domestically speaking but having something like that who is that is going to give you broader
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band exposure across the globe is very very smart I think the tricky piece is what because people don't want to sit
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there and be like okay well which of these countries has like a strong economic you know situation right now
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South Korea right yeah exactly like they don't want to sit there and be like okay
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like should I invest in like a bricks country like they want to just have it done for them and if you want that I
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think there are again index funds out there that are going to be able to help you do that in a very easy way where you
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can buy one thing and get exposure to the rest of the globe great okay perfect then we'll have you back and talk to us
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about Bitcoin we're not going to go into it time but we'll talk about that next all right cuz a lot of young people are
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trading in it people can find you on social media at your Rich BFF and your podcast is net worth and chill what a
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good name thank you so much Vivian