Latest news with #RoseHan
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
A millennial who retired early says she 'got bored' 6 months in and shares her top takeaway from hitting FIRE
Early retirement was everything Rose Han wanted — until it wasn't. "I thought FIRE was the goal for a really long time," she told Business Insider, referring to the financial independence, retire early movement. "And, at 32, I basically achieved a version of FIRE — living in my camper van and having freedom — and it was fun for like the first six months." But less than a year into early retirement, "I found that I got bored and didn't feel all that fulfilled." Han's financial independence journey began with a lot of debt: about $100,000 worth of student loans and credit cards. It forced her to increase her income, rein in her spending, and save aggressively, habits that she maintained after becoming debt-free and helped her achieve a seven-figure net worth. Only after quitting her Wall Street job did she realize she was chasing the wrong thing all along. "The question shouldn't be: How can I retire early and finally live my life? The question should be: How can I build a life I don't want to retire from?" she said. At least for her, she'd rather spend her time working on something that lights her up than sit around doing nothing. "It might sound a little idealistic, but I really think that it's possible. It just takes maybe a different way of thinking and some effort." Building a life you don't want to retire from The way Han sees it, there are two main paths to building a life that you don't want to retire from. "The ideal would be: What you love to do is what also makes you money, so you never have to retire, and it never feels like work," she said. "That's one possibility, and that's a sweet spot that I have more or less found, where the work that I do is what I love." Han runs a financial literacy business that began as a passion project. She hosted free personal finance meet-ups and started a YouTube channel to share her own experience with money, which evolved into a profitable business with multiple revenue streams: online courses, brand deals, affiliate links, book sales, and AdSense for YouTube. "It doesn't feel like work, and it makes you money. That's the whole package," said Han. The second main path — establishing a reliable income stream that will pay the bills while pursuing your passion on the side — may be more practical. "Elizabeth Gilbert talked about this in her book 'Big Magic.' She decided waitressing would be the thing that pays the bills so that writing would not need to have that pressure, and she could maintain her passion for writing," said Han. With this path, "you have a cash cow and you also have your passions. They don't have to be the same thing. It's like being the lawyer who has a rock band on the weekends." If, over time, your rock band starts making enough money to sustain your lifestyle, that's when you could decide whether to quit your corporate job and pursue music full-time. "I don't think you should just starve and pursue your passion. You also need to think about your cash cow," she added. "If you can make both one and the same, great. But if not, there are other ways to do it." Changing her mindset from accumulating money to accumulating experiences For years, Han poured much of her energy into making money and investing aggressively, but her single-minded pursuit of FIRE came at the cost of connection and deeper life experiences. "The overall emphasis on money and the accumulation of money has just gotten out of hand, because capitalism has gotten out of hand," she said. "It's taken us away from what really, really matters, which is time with our loved ones and relationships." Once she hit a $1 million net worth, one of her first thoughts was, "OK, well, now why don't I get to $10 million?" she said, a mindset she has since started to question. How much is enough, and at what point do you stop chasing more to enjoy what you already have? "I feel like that's one outdated piece of advice: Overemphasis on accumulating money and dollars versus accumulating moments and core memories that you can never replace," she said. She's not the only one waking up to this idea. She pointed to the "great resignation" of 2021 and 2022: "People were quitting their jobs because they were realizing, 'Oh, being away from home and working for somebody else who doesn't even really value me is not worth it anymore. I'd rather just have less money, but actually be able to do what I want with my time.'" For Han, her happiest moments have come since moving to the same city as her boyfriend. "The moments where we're just camping in our camper van, making a little fire, and my dog's running around the campsite, and it's just the three of us," she said. "Super simple moments that cost very little. That's what I live for."
Business Insider
30-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A millennial paid off six figures in debt and built a $1 million net worth. She explains how she invests her money.
Rose Han's parents moved from Korea to the US when she was a toddler. 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.
