A millennial paid off six figures in debt and built a $1 million net worth. She explains how she invests her money.
As a first-generation Korean-American, "it was really, really ingrained in me to go to a good school, whatever the cost," Han told Business Insider. "Especially if you're a child of immigrants, you need to make your parents proud and make their sacrifice coming to the country worth it."
She did just that, graduating from NYU — but not without racking up a six-figure tab. Between student loans and a small amount of credit card debt, she said she owed about $100,000 total.
"It took me a couple of years to actually start doing anything about my debt," said Han, who landed a job as a financial analyst on Wall Street and spent her early paychecks on clothes and nights out in New York. "I felt a lot of shame, and just overwhelmed about this debt, like it's never going to go away."
After about two years of avoiding her financial situation, Han had what she calls her "financial awakening." She was stuck in a job she didn't like, but needed the paycheck.
"I realized, if I want the life that I want to have, this debt is not going away. I'm going to have to address it.
In 2014, she made a couple of serious changes.
She increased her income, starting by negotiating a raise at work and eventually by creating additional revenue streams. Next, she reined in her spending.
"The other piece of it is actually having your expenses under control, so that when you do make more, all that can go toward debt and not just lifestyle creep," she said. "So I got really mindful about my spending."
Investing her way to $1 million
Han prioritized her high-interest credit card debt, about $5,000, and then started investing while simultaneously chipping away at her student loans.
Her wealth began to snowball as she created more revenue streams and had more money to funnel into investments. Her first side hustle was freelance bookkeeping on Upwork. She also hosted free personal finance meet-ups, which evolved into a profitable financial literacy business that she now runs full-time. Han generates revenue from her two online courses, brand deals, affiliate links, and book sales. She's also built a YouTube following of nearly 1 million subscribers and gets paid from ads.
"It exploded for me when I started my own business," she said, referring to her net worth. "In the beginning, I was investing small amounts of money. I was working a job and I was negotiating good pay and putting that toward my financial goals and investing more, but it's one thing to double $10,000 with good investment returns versus doubling $100,000."
That's why her advice, especially for young investors, is to "focus on the income side — the earning side — so that you can invest more."
As of 2025, Han is worth seven figures between her stock and real estate portfolios. BI viewed screenshots of her brokerage accounts and estimated equity in her rental properties.
Here's how she invests her money.
Stock market: Index funds and dividend stocks
When Han first started putting her money to work, "I got really excited about investing in gold and buying individual stocks to find the next big thing," she said. But reading about the financial independence, retire early (FIRE) movement sold her on a more long-term approach of buying total market index funds.
"I realized I take enough risk in my career on the income side of things that I would like my investments and really my entire financial life to be automated, boring, and safe," she said. "That's not to say, not profitable. It's just, I don't need things to be super exciting to do really well. Over 30 years, if you invest in a regular S&P 500 index fund, you'll turn $500 a month into a million, statistically, so it doesn't mean boring and automated isn't extremely profitable."
Han owns the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (VTI), the Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund ETF (VXUS), and the Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF (VNQ).
She owns two individual stocks: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) and Coinbase (COIN). She also buys dividend stocks and receives quarterly payments as a shareholder. She calls it "the laziest income stream you could ever build," because once you buy a dividend stock, you're completely hands-off. Of course, dividends are never guaranteed, and she noted that it does require a lot of money to build up this income stream to the point where it's significant passive income.
Real estate: Long-term rentals
Han started buying rental properties in 2022.
"I had some cash that I wanted to put to work, and my first thought was, 'I'll do index funds, obviously — just put more into what I already have,'" she said. "But I'd always been curious about rental property. It just seemed kind of daunting to get into it."
The opportunity presented itself when she was living out of a converted camper van and traveling across the country. While stopping through Las Vegas, she met a few real estate brokers and investors.
"They showed me some properties and I ran the numbers and realized, 'These actually cash flow.' Vegas, at the time, was a good market where you could find cash-flowing properties without trying too hard," she said.
"I did my due diligence, so I was like, 'OK, let's do it.' And it turned out to be a good decision, although there have been a lot of unexpected repairs and things that, of course, happen. But overall, it's been a good move."
Like her stock portfolio, she prefers the safer, more consistent version of real estate investing: hosting long-term tenants, rather than doing short-term vacation rentals.
"I know I could make a lot more with Airbnb and short-term, but it takes a lot more management and more repairs because there's a lot of turnover," said Han, who owns rentals in Las Vegas and Mexico City. "To me, it's OK to leave money on the table with my investments as long as, over time, they're going to get where I need them to be."
Riskier investments
Han has a sliver of her overall portfolio in crypto, including bitcoin and ethereum. She also does a little bit of options trading.
"There are always people who are like, you can optimize and make fast, bigger money by investing in individual stocks and renovating real estate, like fixer-uppers, rather than just long-term index funds and rental property that just give you boring cash flow every month," she said.
While she doesn't mind allocating a small amount of her money to riskier bets, Han prefers to drown out the noise and play the long game.
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