With 3.35 million subscribers as of August 2021, Graham Stephan is one of the top-watched Millenial finance YouTube personalities.
With his popular content, such as where he details how he bought a Tesla for $78 per month, Graham's videos are watched by thousands of Millenials each month who are looking to improve their finances.
Are you curious to learn about how Stephan reached his level of success? Do you want to know how you can learn from his story to improve your own finances?
Keep reading to learn everything we know about Graham Stephan.
Who Is Graham Stephan?
If you've never seen one of his videos before, Graham Stephan is an American real estate agent-turned YouTube personality and influencer.
His well-known YouTube channel shares his tips on Millennial finance, including budgeting, stock market tips, and cryptocurrency.
On his "about" page on his YouTube channel, Graham states that he created the channel to share his successes, failures, and experiences with real estate so he can help others who are looking to do the same.
When he's not talking about finance, Graham loves to talk about cars and share his favorite new models with his viewers.
Early Life
Graham Stephan was born in Santa Monica, California on April 22, 1990. As of 2021, he is 31 years old.
He was raised in Santa Monica as his father was an animator, writer, and story artist for Disney. Despite his father's success in the movie industry, Graham decided to take a different direction with his own career.
As a teenager, Graham explored his entrepreneurial interests when he was working at a fish aquarium store. He helped the store owner keep an inventory of the exotic fish that the store imported.
Graham also had a love of music and played as a drummer in a band when he was 16 years old. The band would often play in small venues like cafes.
While working at the fish aquarium, Graham learned how to take pictures of inventory and Photoshop them onto the store's website. This job helped him learn marketing, as he would need it shortly after.
Real Estate Career
When he was 18 years old, unlike many of his peers, Graham decided not to go to college. Instead, he decided to get his real estate license and become a realtor.
And this proved to be the right move. Since 2008, Graham has sold over $120,000,000 of residential real estate to date. He's also sold real estate to celebrity clients like Orlando Bloom and Chloe Moretz.
By the time he was 26, Graham had several properties across the Los Angeles area and reached $1 million in net worth.
His success in real estate makes him well-positioned to help aspiring real estate agents learn about the business on his YouTube channel.
But even though Graham got his start in real estate, his main source of income these days is YouTube, where he earned well over $1 million in revenue in 2019 alone.
YouTube Channel
Graham's main YouTube channel focuses on sharing financial tips, including tips on cryptocurrency, investments, and how to save money on rent.
He first started his YouTube channel in 2016 because he loved watching YouTube. Even though he was making a good income in his career as a realtor, he decided to film a video for fun.
He shot this first video on his iPhone and used it to explain how to become a realtor. He didn't think anyone would watch it as he didn't think he had the right "personality" to become a successful YouTuber.
But when around 10 people watched the video, Graham got excited and motivated. Once he started making two videos a week, his channel started to grow.
Rapid Success
One of Graham's first popular videos was when he was profiled by CNBC's Millennial Money, an interview show in which he explained how he managed to save and invest his money so that he could live in Los Angeles on $1.6 million per year.
Graham's smart financial tips have gained him a large following online. One example is how he was able to live without paying rent in L.A. because he bought a duplex and rented out half of it.
Due to the popularity of the CNBC video on social media, Graham's channel experienced rapid growth. This growth laid the foundation for his popular platform with millions of subscribers today.
Even though Graham didn't achieve his goal of earning $1 million with his YouTube channel in 2018, he achieved this goal only a year later.
Other YouTube Channels
Aside from his main YouTube Channel, Graham also has three other YouTube channels where he explores various topics.
These channels let Graham explore topics he enjoys without having to worry about his videos ranking on YouTube.
The Graham Stephan Show
His second most popular channel is The Graham Stephan Show, where he also talks about money, business, and finance. This channel gives Graham a more "free" approach as he doesn't worry about optimizing this channel for the YouTube algorithm.
On The Graham Stephan Show, Graham also likes to post about topics unrelated to finance, such as reaction videos.
Millennial Money Reactions
One of Graham's most popular video series is where he reacts to episodes of CNBC's Millennial Money. Millennial Money is a series that interviews millennials in different cities and within different income ranges. Each person on the show explains how they spend, save, and earn their money.
Since Graham loves saving money and being frugal, his reactions to the Millennial Money videos are often quite funny.
Aside from giving us entertainment, Graham's reactions to Millennial Money are actually a good way to learn about finances. In the Millennial Money videos, they usually show a pie chart that shows the millennial's spending.
Graham often critiques these spending charts, which can give a lot of valuable advice to people who might be struggling with the same things, such as spending on unnecessary clothes or electronics.
Iced Coffee Hour
The Iced Coffee Hour is a podcast co-hosted by Graham Stephan and Jack Selby, who helps produce the podcast.
As of August 2021, the Iced Coffee Hour had 179,000 subscribers. The podcast features entertaining topics such as confronting popular YouTube stars about how they spend their money.
For example, in this video, Graham, and Jack confront a reef aquarium content creator about spending $1.8 million on a koi fish.
The Iced Coffee Hour also includes helpful podcasts about money, such as how to earn $100 per day on the stock market. The benefit of a podcast is that you can listen to financial advice or interesting finance-related topics while driving or commuting home from work.
The Stefamily
The Stefamily is Graham's fourth YouTube channel that he started in March of 2021. While the channel still has Graham's personality, it's mostly about fun content that doesn't fit into his other YouTube channels.
Some of the videos that Graham posts on The Stefamily include videos where he shops at the most expensive store in Las Vegas or eats only at Starbucks for seven days.
These videos are entertaining to fans because Graham is known for being frugal and for specifically refusing to buy Starbucks.
On the Stefamily channel, fans entertain themselves while Graham reacts to the high prices in these stores and goes against his money-saving habits.
Personal Life
As seen on his YouTube channel, Graham loves cars. When he made his first real estate commission in 2006, he bought himself his dream car, which was a bright orange Lotus Elise.
He also has a playlist on his YouTube channel called "Car Adventures," where he shows some of his cars, profiles interesting cars he sees on the road, and shares tips on how to save money when buying a car.
Graham is also currently dating fellow YouTuber Savannah Smiles. Savannah is a 22-year-old lifestyle YouTuber based in Las Vegas. Her content varies from fun reaction videos to financial advice, such as her popular video where she explains how she saved $100,000 by the age of 22.
Financial Philosophy
Even though Graham is a multimillionaire, he doesn't waste his money or spend it on frivolous things.
Graham's financial philosophy is that of saving as much money as you can so that you can reach your goals.
He's famous for the 20¢ ice coffee that he makes at home, as he doesn't believe that you should spend $5 for an expensive ice coffee every day.
The root of Graham's financial philosophy comes from when his parents had to file for bankruptcy. Graham then saw the importance of saving money for essential expenses such as food, gas, and rent.
Of course, Graham also enjoys his life, as he bought himself a nice house and likes buying luxurious cars. At the same time, he tries to do all this in a way that's smart with his money so that he can save and enjoy his life at the same time.
Income Streams
Like many financial advice channels, Graham emphasizes the importance of developing multiple income streams. The idea behind having more than one income stream is to insulate yourself against difficult economic times.
For example, if you're a freelancer, you may have one major client go out of business and lose your greatest source of income. The same thing happens if you work from 9-5 and lose your job.
But when you have several sources of income, you won't be left in a panic even if your biggest income stream dries up.
Graham's success exemplifies the benefits of having more than one income stream, as he makes money on more than just YouTube.
While YouTube is his main source of income, Graham also gets income from his rental properties, real estate commissions, affiliates and sponsors, his Teachable courses, and his other three smaller YouTube channels.
Online Courses and Net Worth
Graham's real estate and YouTube success allow him to sell popular courses on the platform Teachable.
These include his Real Estate Agent Academy, which took him a year to make, and his YouTube Creator Academy.
He launched both of these courses in 2018 and they give him $30,000 of income each month. Plus, he is only required to pay $90 per month in overhead to use the Teachable platform.
As of 2021, Graham's net worth was approximately $6.5 million.
What Is Graham up to Now?
In the fall of 2020, Graham moved out of California, where he had lived his entire life. He cited high taxes as one of the main reasons. This frustrated him because he didn't know where his tax money was going or how it was being spent.
Instead, he moved to Las Vegas, where he built a custom home with beautiful high ceilings and modern decor.
Graham was also part of the cast of Selling Sunset, a Netflix reality show released in 2019. Selling Sunset currently has three seasons and features The Oppenheim Group, a real estate firm, and how these elite real estate agents sell homes to their affluent clients.
Graham also continues to invest, particularly in real estate, and is also one of the investors here at Yotta.
Graham's most recent videos on his main YouTube channel are about the stock market bubble and an overview of his least favorite banks and their fees.
Start Saving Like Graham Stephan
We hope you enjoyed this article on everything there is to know about Graham Stephan.
If you're a fan of Graham's, you might have learned something new and inspirational about his personal story and how he became successful.
If you haven't seen Graham's YouTube videos yet, consider checking them out to learn about finance while being entertained.
Like Graham, we at Yotta want to help Americans achieve financial security while having fun. To learn more about banking with us and to jumpstart your savings, get started with Yotta today.
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