Responding To CRINGE Investment Advice | BEST and WORST

What's up you guys? It's Graham here. So, I would like to think of myself as being social media savvy. You know, I got a YouTube channel. I got an Instagram account that I post on every now and then. I even have a Facebook group that I browse every single day.

But there's one thing that I cannot seem to wrap my mind around, and that's TikTok. Straight up, anytime I spend more than a few minutes on this app, it just makes me realize that I am getting old. I just recently turned 30, and already I'm starting to feel like the old man just sitting in front of this house on the porch yelling at all the kids to get off his lawn.

But anyway, TikTok is slowly evolving from comedy clips and bad acting to a place where entrepreneurs can share their business advice and teach everyone else how to be wealthy, all in the span of 30 seconds. So with that, I'm going to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone for a little bit. I'm going to try to do what all the cool kids are doing, and I'm going to be sorting through all of the business and entrepreneurial TikToks.

I'll review them and tell you whether or not they're legitimate or the cringiest thing in the entire world. I'm going to be doing all of this before it gets banned here in the United States for violating privacy protection laws. So with that said, if you wouldn't mind just ticking the like button for the YouTube algorithm, it'll be greatly appreciated. You can also, you can also talk it too.

I have no idea if that worked. Maybe we just go back to smashing the like button for the YouTube algorithm like the good old days. Thank you so much, and let's begin looking at some TikToks here. I have them up on my computer, so we're going to be starting off with this one by Ryan.

And this is a really easy one to start off with because it doesn't have any annoying background music. These are my neighbors over here. These are two million-dollar homes. [Music] And then you have my house, which is across the street.

When you're looking at buying real estate, buy the smallest house in the best area. I have no complaints about being the smallest house in the neighborhood. Those guys' properties are going to push my value up. First of all, those don't look like houses; those are office buildings. Just kidding.

It's actually pretty decent advice. Any time you invest in real estate, you never want to be an outlier for the area. Typically, you'll get better resale and rental value by being one of the smaller homes just surrounded by a lot of more expensive homes. So this is true.

The only case where I think this would be a bad idea is if there's a zombie apocalypse, and all of a sudden, he is the easiest target because he's just outside of those gates. But really though, if we look at those gates, like those look like really flimsy gates. Who are they trying to keep out of with this? At that height, what's the point?

But overall, you know what? I agree with them, and it's pretty good advice. Although it's still quite the comment to say that he is the smallest house in the area while still having a two-car garage, what looks like to be about 3,000 square feet, and a pool. I think it's really more like having the smallest mansion in the area.

And now we got another one. What they don't teach you in college: how to make ten to twenty thousand dollars a month. Oh man, I wish that would actually be a class though! Just how to make a hundred thousand dollars a year one-on-one.

Spend the whole semester just learning practical skills that will actually make you money, like how to negotiate your salary, how to network with other people, which careers are most in demand, should you do the 401k matching, what to say to your employer, when should you go off and start a business, and how much money should you have saved up. Should you live with your parents until you're 45 years old?

Just like real, honest, real-world stuff—that's what we need to know. But no, we get to learn that here on TikTok instead. So let's give this one a shot and see what this is all about. Here's something else they don't teach you in college: it's how to make 10 to 20k a month without any cash, credit, or a degree.

So you want to drive around your city looking for rundown houses. Okay, once you found one, take down the property address. Here's another one. Look at this one, crack foundation. I love how the caption is, “There is so much money out there!” That's literally someone's house you're filming!

If you didn't know the context behind this, it looks like he's just casing places to rob. Like, oh look at that one! There's so much money in there. Then you go home. You go into the site called truepeoplesearch.com, punch in the address, hit search, and it will skip trace and find the property owner phone number for you.

Then you call the seller up, make an offer to buy their property using this formula. Now first we got this term here: ARV, which is called after repair value, which is what the home is worth in perfect condition once you fix it up. And then you subtract 30 percent off of that.

Then we're going to be subtracting the cost to repair the property, and then we're going to be subtracting your fee from that too. Then we may as well just subtract your soul while we're at it. And what's left over is how much money you offer the seller.

So here's a quick example of how this would work. Let's say you find a property that would be worth four hundred thousand dollars fully fixed up. We're going to immediately go and subtract 30 percent off that, so now that's going to leave us with 280,000.

But it's gonna take us a hundred thousand dollars in repairs, so now we're gonna knock that off as well. And then of course, you need a ten thousand dollar fee for finding it. And that means we're going to be offering these sellers one hundred and seventy thousand dollars for their home that would be worth four hundred thousand dollars fully fixed up.

This to me seems more like a “how to insult a homeowner with a really low offer” tutorial. Would you consider 120,000 dollars for your property, all cash, and we can close on the date of your choice? No! Why would I consider that? My home is worth five hundred thousand dollars! Where did you get my number? Seriously, I get calls like this every now and then, and it's a joke.

I know what they're doing, I know what my home is worth, and I'm not going to take a 50 percent discount on it just so you could go and pitch it to a real buyer. Once I sell and accept my offer, I'm gonna go to this website here, and I'm going to send them a purchase and sell contract for them to sign.

Then you go on Craigslist, put in, “We buy houses,” and look—all these investors are going to pop up. You're going to call them up and see if they're willing to buy the property over from you for 10 to 20,000 or more than what you got on the contract for. That, my friend, is called wholesaling, and that's how you make your money.

But then it says 100% legit if done correctly. I would question anything if they have to use the words, “100% legit.” Now as far as the legality of this is concerned, in California it's a bit of a gray area. It's totally okay to use your own money to go and buy real estate without needing any real estate license.

But if you go and advertise or solicit that house to somebody else, then that's not allowed without a real estate license, and that's a bit iffy. You're also going to need to establish proof that you had the intention and means to purchase the property yourself, not that you just drove around an area, got a home under contract, and then pitched it to some random people on Craigslist.

If this is done honestly and ethically, then I don't have any problems with it as long as it follows the law. But I will say this: even though you can make money wholesaling real estate, I rarely ever see someone successful long-term wholesaling real estate.

And most people who I see making money wholesaling real estate are just teaching other people how to wholesale real estate. So I'm gonna go ahead and rate this one a four out of ten. It's really good that he's getting people thinking of ways to make money, but practically and logistically, this is a very difficult one to do.

Okay, so next we got another person that I reviewed a while ago. Her name is Addison, and she is one of the larger entrepreneur influencers on TikTok. If I remember correctly, most of her content was her dancing with the text, “I became a millionaire at 25,” and then she just asks you to follow her to figure out how she actually did it.

But she never actually tells you how she did it. It's more of her dancing to her becoming a millionaire at 25. But let's see how this new one compares and whether or not it's good advice. By the way, I can't play any of the music in the background because I don't want to get any copyright claims.

But yeah, it's actually way more fun to watch this without any music or any context of what she's dancing to. So after watching this, it seems like these are good statistics. The only thing I found surprising was that she says it takes you until you're 32 years old on average to become a millionaire.

I think maybe she meant to say that it takes you 32 years of working and saving on average to become a millionaire because really, there's no way the average millionaire became a millionaire at 32 years old. For that to be an average, half of millionaires would have to become a millionaire earlier than that.

So of course, I had to do my own research on this, and according to Fidelity and The New York Times, the average age where people cross the one million dollar net worth mark is in their late 50s. And even the book “The Millionaire Next Door” says the average age of millionaires is 62 years old.

So I just got to say right there, her saying 32 years old is just, it's got to be very false. Now, don't get me wrong. That certainly doesn't mean you cannot be a millionaire in your 20s or 30s. After all, if you were a millionaire by 25, I'm sure you would be dancing on TikTok too.

But it's certainly not common, and it's not easy, and a lot of people take much longer than that to achieve. We could just do the math here. If you want to be a millionaire at 32 years old and you start working at 22 years old, without any student loan debt, you would need to invest an average of 65,000 dollars a year after taxes in order to achieve that goal.

That realistically means you need an average income of 140,000 dollars a year beginning at the age of 22, while also living frugally for that entire decade. Or really, who am I kidding? You could do that with 15,000 dollars in a few months with Tesla call options on Robinhood.

But if you're gonna go with the traditional save money and investing route, it's gonna take you a while to get there, and you're gonna need some pretty well-performing investments. Besides that though, it's not bad advice, and I see what she's going for with this as she mentions here: almost 10% of the population is a millionaire, so it's not as elusive as what many people think.

So I'm gonna go ahead and rate this one a six out of ten because it's not bad advice, but I do question that 32-year-old statistic. And next, we got this one: how to buy a Rolls Royce.

We're at countless jobs from the age of 15 all the way up to 24. I had to learn how to be a lone wolf by separating myself from friends and family members to be able to get to where I'm at today. At the age of 24 years old, I decided to start my own business.

I worked about 18 hours a day for a year straight to be able to get him. I wanted to make sure that I had millions of dollars in the bank account before I treat myself to almost 100k car. To this day, I surround myself with only about five people around my circle that are on the same mission as me.

Success can be very lonely at the top. That's why a bus has 50 seats and a Rolls Royce has four. Yeah, you know, by that logic, imagine how wealthy you would be if you bought a bicycle that only has one seat! Just kidding.

But yeah, it doesn't really tell us how we actually went and bought a Rolls Royce. All we know is that he was lonely. He has only five friends, which is more people than I end up seeing in a given month. And he worked about 18 hours a day for a year, and then of course, a Rolls Royce just magically appears with really dramatic music behind it from all of this.

So I just got to say, I respect the fact that he waited until he had 50 times the amount of money it would take to go and splurge on a car like this. I think it's really important that people don't just make money and then the first thing they do is go and buy a fancy exotic car.

There's nothing wrong with wanting those things, but by the time you get them, ideally, you want that to be such a small percentage of your overall net worth that you don't even notice the money has gone. So I agree with that, but everything else didn't really tell us what he did to afford a Rolls Royce.

I really just want to see a full income breakdown from him. Like, how much money does he make from Amazon FBA? How much money does he make from teaching people how to make money on Amazon FBA? How much money does he make from his investment? I want to see everything! I want to see a breakdown of how much money this guy is making! That would be a lot more valuable than I think this is.

So I'm going to go ahead and give this one a 5 out of 10 because it's not bad advice, but it doesn't exactly tell us anything about how he was able to afford a Rolls Royce besides having five friends, working 18 hours a day, and feeling lonely.

So now we got another one here: five habits that will make you become a millionaire. First of all, what's up with all these guys in Rolls Royces? I think this is now replaced with the Lamborghini that used to be a few years ago for anyone who is teaching how to make money online.

Okay, so here's what we got: we got working out, meditation at your office table, study the Bur method, okay, put all that money in real estate, read, and then follow him. Now, one thing I find kind of suspicious here is that throughout this entire thing, he's wearing the exact same outfit.

I think that's the secret to becoming a millionaire. You just want to wear the same thing after your workout in the morning and just keep that on all day long. Look at Steve Jobs; he wore the same thing every single day.

That's why he was so rich. I also see a lot of these habits to become a millionaire include reading, and I gotta say I did my fair share of reading back in the day: "The Four-Hour Work Week," "Think and Grow Rich," "Awaken the Giant Within," "How to Win Friends and Influence People." All of those were phenomenal books.

Those books are really a good platform to build on, but then after a while, you want to just go and make it happen. But I will say we gotta rate this one, and I'm gonna give it a six out of ten. None of this is really bad advice, and honestly, I think it could benefit most people who end up following it.

But then I came across this guy. He is giving you completely unsolicited stock market investing advice that is one day going to make you rich. Alright, everyone knows this guy, right? Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Coastal, whatever.

Yeah, so 4.1 billion, check that out, net worth multibillionaire Virgin, whatever! Who knows? But online it says he's worth 4 billion, so that seems kind of legit to me. This man started Virgin Galactic—great company. Guy loves space, you know? He's into space race, all that stuff.

Check this out! Check this out, man. You see that? This is your chart! How's it been on the market long? Like, it says he's into space and all that stuff—like galaxies and stars and jets and airplanes and, and, and sci-fi. Seems like a good company to invest in.

There's its peak right there; you can see that it's at about 15 bucks right now. I say it's a buy! Give it two months, three months, maybe even less—easy cash out! Okay, seriously though, by this logic we have a billionaire who's into space, that's money!

Except when you actually go and look at how Virgin Galactic stock has performed since he posted this video about 30 days ago, it's actually up 25%! This guy kind of reminds me of the Robinhood due diligence where you take the most obscure things possible and you try to twist it into some narrative, and it ends up actually being really good advice, and ends up working.

No joke though, I actually like this guy the most from everyone I have seen on TikTok. He just, he seems himself, he's honest, there's no ulterior motive here, there's no hidden agenda, it's just him giving his own thoughts on different stocks and why he's excited about it, and he is himself!

So for that, I honestly have to give this a 9 out of 10 because he's not pitching anything to you. He doesn't make any money on whether or not you buy Virgin Galactic stock. Let's be real here. He's doing it because he's having fun doing it, and that I honestly believe is the most important from all of this.

So this guy: 9 out of 10. And then we got this one right here; it looks like it's gonna be right out of an episode of Scared Straight, where he's gonna talk you into staying out of trouble and not going back to juvie. But let's give it a shot.

Go to this website, type this into the search bar, scroll down to this post for example. We're gonna pick this one. Check out the guidelines, but we're not gonna be the ones writing the article. Go to upwork.com, search for a copywriter with these filters.

We're gonna pay someone between three and six dollars to write this article for us. Here's an example of people that I found. Send them the guidelines and have them write the post, submit the article, make your money.

Okay, that actually seems like really interesting advice! But my first thought was, why don't the people in the Philippines just cut you out and go directly to them and make all the money? So I went and checked this out myself. I went on the same website.

I even clicked on the same article that he clicked on. Now first of all, this is a magazine that reaches 3.8 million readers every single month. No way is a magazine like this just letting random people out there outsource the work and then paying them for the full amount.

It says they require you to submit previous articles that you've written for consideration, and then they want a writer with anecdotes and a strong narrative flow, who writes with a sense of humor. I guarantee you are not getting that for three dollars, or even 10 dollars, an hour!

They also say features should be queried about six months in advance. You will receive a written response within six weeks. So this is not you just going and paying someone three dollars an hour in the Philippines so you could submit it to a magazine that has 3.8 million monthly readers and then you get paid the full amount for doing absolutely no work whatsoever!

If it were really that easy, why is the magazine just not going and doing this themselves? So I have to say I give this one a 2 out of 10 if it actually works because like 99% of all of these how to make money online in minutes for typing and like doing all this crap or watching videos online or whatever, they promote—none of it really works.

Okay, so that's our episode of watching TikTok business and financial advice for the day, and I gotta say it was mostly pretty bad advice. But at least it gets people thinking about becoming an entrepreneur or finding creative ways to make money online.

Like I remember reading "The Four-Hour Work Week" when I was about 17 years old and just thinking to myself, “Wow, I could make 60,000 dollars a month being able to sell a weight loss pill online and I could just outsource all of the work somewhere else, and I'll just sit back and collect money and work like two hours a day.”

I mean obviously that never happened, but it did get me thinking of different ways to make money down the line, and it was inspirational. So I really think at its core, at the end of the day, that's what this is all really about.

This is not so much about the day-to-day intricacies and practicalities of making money, but instead, sometimes when you're young, all you care about are fancy cool cars and really easy ways to make money without going to school. And even though they rarely ever work out, it at least gets you pointed in the right direction and thinking the right way about how you can make money.

And how you could smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm and get your two free stocks down below in the description by depositing 100 on a Weeble with one of the stocks valued all the way up to 1,400 dollars!

So with that said you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it! As always, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and the notification bell! Also, feel free to add me on Instagram. I post it pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there as my second channel, The Graham Stefan Show.

I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that. And lastly, if you guys want those two free stocks, use that link down below in the description. Like I said, Weeble is going to be giving you two free stocks when you deposit 100 on the platform, with one of the stocks potentially worth all the way up to 1,400 dollars.

So let me know which two free stocks to get. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time!