# How To Climb The Investing Ladder (8 Tiers) ## Метаданные - **Канал:** Charlie Chang - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWNQZGsVsn4 - **Дата:** 13.05.2026 - **Длительность:** 17:37 - **Просмотры:** 1,393 - **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/51245 ## Описание ➡️ Open a SoFi high yield savings account here: https://bit.ly/sofi-hysa-offer ^Up to $400 bonus + one of the highest APYs right now. SoFi will be at the top of the page! ➡️ Top HYSAs for 2026 (Barclays, Synchrony, CIT & more): https://bit.ly/top-hysa-2026 💰 Get a bonus with WeBull Investing here: https://bit.ly/webull-bonus ^Easy way to buy stocks and ETFs   Most people either leave their money sitting in a regular savings account earning basically nothing… or they jump straight into super risky investments trying to get rich fast and get absolutely wrecked. The reality is there’s actually an entire investing ladder in between that most people completely skip over.   ► Get access to my FREE side hustle courses: https://www.sidehustlemastery.com   My favorite finance + business products: 💳 My favorite credit cards: https://yourbestcreditcards.com/card-finder/?ccid=2004 🏦 Favorite online savings accounts: https://bit.ly/top-hysa-2026 Get a bonus with WeBull Investing: https://bit. ## Транскрипт ### Introduction [] Hey, it's Charlie and in this video, I'm going to show you guys exactly how to climb the investing ladder. From super safe, boring stuff that earns you 3 or 4% per year, all the way to investments that can return 20, even 30% or more. Here is the thing. Most people, they either park their money in a savings account and never move up, or they jump straight to the really risky stuff and get burned. And there's actually this whole ladder in between that a lot of people completely skip over. So, my goal today is to walk you through every single rung on that ladder. We're talking eight different levels of investing from the most conservative to the most aggressive. So, you can figure out exactly where you should be putting your money based on where you're at right now. Now, I've personally invested on every single level on this investing ladder and I'll share you what's worked for me, what hasn't, as well as the mistakes that I've made along the way. So, let's get started. Okay, so starting at the bottom of the ladder is the high-yield savings account. You guys ### High Yield Savings Accounts Explained [0:50] might be thinking, "Okay, this is too conservative. I shouldn't put my money in this. " But, you would be wrong. Actually, I have about 7 to 8% of my own net worth in a high-yield savings account right now. And what I'll say is if your money is sitting in a regular bank account earning 0. 01%, 0. 2%, 0. 3%, you're losing a ton of money to inflation every single day. A high-yield savings account is the first and easiest move that you guys should make, in my opinion. And yeah, right now there are a lot of high-yield savings accounts that pay between 3 to 4% APY. And that's actually super, super high if you compare it to the national average with about 0. 3, 0. 4% and even higher if you're comparing it to your Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America checking account. Now, the great thing about high-yield savings accounts is that they are completely liquid, so you can pull your money out whenever you want. They're also FDIC insured up to $250,000, so there is basically zero risk. In my opinion, this is where your day-to-day expenses should come from, as well as your emergency fund. Now, the downside with these high-yield savings accounts is that their rates can change. So, if the Fed actually cuts rates, your high-yield savings account rate also drops. This is not going to make you rich, but it's a super easy win for money you want to keep safe and accessible. I have a link down below to my favorite high-yield savings accounts. The one that I recommend the most right now is the SoFi account. It pays up to 4%. Now, this could change depending on when you're watching this video, but that's the main one that I recommend to my friends and family. Okay, so that's rung one. Now, let's talk about something that gives you a similar return but with a really nice tax advantage that most people don't know about. Next on the ladder are going to be things like Treasury bills and municipal bond ETFs. So, T-bills or Treasury bills are basically you lending money to the US government for a short period. So, yeah, it's super safe. ### Treasury Bills and Municipal Bond ETFs [2:29] Right now, a 3-month T-bill pays about 3. 7%. Now, I know this rate looks a little bit lower than a high-yield savings account, but the thing that most people forget is that the money you're making from your T-bill, it's exempt from state and local taxes. So, you live in a high-tax state like California or New York, your effective return could actually be slightly higher than a high-yield savings account. Now, municipal bond ETFs take this even further. So, the interest you make is typically exempt from federal income tax. It can also be exempt from state tax, too. Currently, I'm invested in something called VTEC. This is a Vanguard California tax-exempt bond. It pays low 3%, but all the income I make from it is exempt from federal and state tax. So, that saves me a lot of money. So, yeah, if you're in a high-tax bracket yourself, a municipal bond ETF paying low 3% tax-free could be the same as earning 5% or more before taxes. This is very popular for wealthy investors. It's not just the APY or percent, it's the number you actually keep. And while wealthy people don't put all their money in T-bills and these types of bonds, it's likely going to be one of their more conservative investments along with having a high-yield savings account. You guys can buy T-bills and these bond ETFs through pretty much any brokerage. And I'll actually have a list of my favorite brokers down below in the description. Okay, so the next rung is something that you guys have definitely heard of, and it gives you a guaranteed locked-in rate. Now, you guys is CDs, certificates of deposit. So, what CDs are is they ### Certificates of Deposit (CDs) Overview [3:52] lock your money up for a set period. So, it could be 1 year, it could be 3 years, 5 years, or whatever. And in exchange, you get a guaranteed rate. The biggest advantage with this is that your rate is locked in, no matter what happens with the Fed. So, right now, 5-year CDs are paying around 3. 5% and so, that's pretty solid, but the biggest trade-off is liquidity. You can't touch that money without paying an early withdrawal penalty. So, CDs are really good if it's money you know you won't need for a while. Right? Like, maybe you want to buy a house in 3 to 5 years, then maybe you'll get a 3-year or a 5-year CD. What a lot of people do is they'll do a CD ladder, so they'll buy CDs at different terms, so that they mature at different times and that gives you a little bit more flexibility. Overall, I'm not the biggest fan of CDs just because I think the rate is quite low for locking your money up for that long, but the rates of returns are technically a little bit higher than your high-yield savings or T-bills or bond ETFs. Okay, number four. This is index funds and this is basically where ### Index Funds and S&P 500 Benefits [4:48] things get exciting. In my honest opinion, I think this is the sweet spot for most people watching this video, getting index funds is probably going to be one of the smarter choices. So, basically, when you're buying an index fund, it's like buying a big basket full of different companies. Instead of investing in just one company, you're investing in a bunch. Now, the most popular index funds are probably going to be ones that track the S& P 500. So, that's going to be the 500 biggest companies in America. So, when you buy one share of this S& P 500 index fund, you're basically buying a tiny chunk of 500 different companies. Now, the S& P 500 has averaged about 10% returns per year historically. And actually, over the last 10 years, it's been closer to 14 to 15%. As you can tell, this is a lot higher than the other ones that we've talked about. And so, I think it's a perfect blend of, you know, somewhat conservative while being a little bit more risky. Because yeah, the S& P 500 can definitely lose value year-over-year. Some years you might be negative, really positive. And so, it's definitely a lot more volatile. And my favorite thing with this is that you're not picking individual stocks, which can be a little bit risky. Instead, you are buying the entire market of the index fund that you're buying. And so, yeah, that means it's a super, super diversified investment. One of the best things about index funds is that the fees can be super, super low. So, for example, a lot of my money is in VT SAX. This is a Vanguard S& P 500 ETF, and the expense ratio, the fee for this is just 0. 04%, which basically means for every $10,000 you invest, you're paying $4 in fees per year. There's also no stock picking stress, and historically, it beats most professional fund managers. It's funny cuz Warren Buffett, he actually bet a million dollars that an S& P 500 index fund would beat a group of hedge funds over 10 years, and he actually won. That's why the majority of my net worth is actually in index funds. I just like to dollar cost average into index funds every single month. I don't really look at what the price is. I don't try to time the market. I just buy different index funds and let it sit. So, overall, I'm a huge believer in index funds. If you want to build long-term wealth. All right, so now, if you want to try to actually beat the market, yeah, some people they can do it. The next rung up is buying individual stocks. So, this is where you're picking specific companies that you really believe in. For example, let's say I have a huge hunch that, let's say, Amazon is going to do really well. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put my money directly into Amazon stock. So, instead of buying an index fund that contains Amazon, I'm going to buy direct shares. Now, the upside is that you can massively outperform the markets, and the downside is that you can also massively underperform. For example, if you bought Nvidia stock in ### Investing in Individual Stocks Risks [7:21] 2020, then you're probably up like 2,000% or something crazy like that. But at the same time, if you had bought Peloton at its peak, you're down 95%. And the crazy thing is, if you're down 95%, getting back to that original value means you need to 20x. So, yeah, it's a lot easier to go down than it is to go up. Now, the thing with buying individual stocks is that it requires actual research. So you need to understand the business, you need to read earnings reports, you need to pay attention to the industry, you might want to track a price, all that stuff. Not everyone should be doing this. If you guys don't have the time to research, stick with index funds. Even for me, right? Like I love investing and I keep up-to-date with the market, but still a majority of my money is in index funds. And that's because I don't think in the long run I can outperform just the overall market. I'd rather use that mental energy and time to grow my business, increase my income, live a great life, than to spend it researching different companies. And just like everything else, the more risky a company is, the more it can grow, but also fall. So you can invest into growth stocks, so these are mostly tech companies that are growing revenue really fast. But also, you never know, right? It could come crashing down. What I like to tell my friends is, if you want to invest in direct companies, make sure that you're really well researched on that company. You also actually really need to believe in that company. Like don't just listen to social media. I'd still say the safer route is just to go index funds for a majority of your invested money. And save some of your money for the individual companies. Next up on our investing ladder is real estate. Real estate is super powerful because of one word, and that is leverage. Basically what this means is you can put 20% down on a house, right? If you buy a $1 million house, you only need to have $200,000. And with that $200,000, you control 100% of the asset, that whole $1 million. And so that basically magnifies ### Real Estate Investing and Leverage [9:10] your returns, right? It magnifies it by 5x. If the house goes up by 10%, it's worth 1. 1 million now, you have a $100,000 delta. That basically means you made 50% on your 200k. You also get rental income on top of the appreciation, plus you get tax benefits like depreciation. So the whole formula is rental income plus appreciation plus any tax benefits. And it's very common to see returns of, let's say, 15 to 20%. Now, there's some absolutely big downsides with real estate, and the first is that it's not liquid, right? Like, you can't just access your money tomorrow. It's likely going to take at least a couple months to get out. Tenants can also be a headache if you are a landlord and you have tenants in your properties. There's also a ton of hidden costs like maintenance, vacancies, property management, taxes, all that stuff. Now, the upsides, of course, you have the leverage, and you also have the big tax benefits. I'm not going to get into this too much in this video, but there are some huge tax benefits to buying investment properties, doing a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation, and using that to offset your active or passive income. That's why a lot of people use real estate to actually reduce their taxable income and pay a lot less in taxes. I will say to invest in real estate, you don't need to actually buy physical property. You can invest in things like real estate investment trusts. These let you invest in real estate basically through the stock market. So, you buy a share of this REIT, and it's like owning a little piece of real estate. I currently have one investment property that I bought in 2017. It's appreciated a good amount. You know, we've also received rental income. But, I will say that there is a lot of work involved, so it's not super, super passive like some of the other investments we talked about. But, when it's done right, it is a great investment. Okay, so next, we're getting into the really interesting stuff, and these are investments that most people don't even know exist. So, those investments are called alternative investments. And yes, this is a very broad category, but we're talking things like private credit, private equity funds, art, collectibles, wine, cars, farmland, stuff that most people know about, but don't really think about investing their money into. Now, these ### Alternative Investments and Crypto [11:10] used to only be for really, really rich people, but there are tons of platforms that have opened up, and they allow you to actually invest in alternative assets. An example of an alternative investment that I've personally done in the last 1 and 1/2 years is vehicles. So, I'm actually up about $200,000 on this one single car that I bought. There's other cars out there that are up way more than that. We're talking like two to three X. And so, that's something that I love, right? I absolutely love cars and being able to enjoy these cars while still making money on them, it's pretty cool. I think I'm up about 25% per year on average for that car I was talking about. But, of course, there's a lot of cars that lose money. There's cars that have double, triple in the last one or two years. That's just one example of one sector in these alternative investments. I know a lot of people are also collecting Pokémon cards, other types of collectible cards. Wine is also a huge one, art pieces. There's a lot of stuff that's quite rare that has a lot of buyers. And a good amount of these can make pretty solid alternative investments. Now, one great thing about alternative investments is that they typically don't move with the stock market. So, they're really good for diversification. The downsides are that they're usually illiquid, right? You can't just sell it whenever you want. There's also likely higher minimums, right? You might need to invest a lot of money to get into some of these alternative investments. There's definitely a bunch of legit alternative investments. There's also a bunch of overhyped and completely fake alternative investments. So, it's really, really important that you do your own research. Personally, I think that these types of investments make sense once you've maxed out your index fund contributions and you sort of want to diversify further. It's definitely not for beginners, so I don't think most beginners should invest into stuff like this. But, it's certainly fun and it can certainly make a lot of money. I actually also put maybe crypto in alternative investments. I actually carry a good amount of crypto myself. And while it sort of is like investing, you know, it's not really investing in a company that produces cash flow or something that has innate value. And so, I think it's a little bit safer to group crypto with alternative investments. But, yeah, you can make a lot, you can also lose a lot of money. I've lost a hundred thousands of dollars on certain crypto investments, but I've also made hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on other crypto investments. So, again, super high risk, super high reward. Okay, so, last is going to be venture capital and angel investing. If you've invested in these types of deals, congratulations. This is basically the riskiest type of investment you can do, but with the highest possible ROI. VC and angel investing basically means you're investing in startups. These are early-stage companies before they actually blow up. Now, the return potential is absolutely insane, but so is the risk. For example, for every ### Venture Capital and Angel Investing Risks [13:42] let's say, 20 companies you invest in, I'd say probably 19 of them are going to fail. The vast majority of these types of investments are going to zero, and that is a given. Now, typically the best VC funds historically return maybe 25 to 30% annually, but the average VC fund actually underperforms the S& P 500. So, it's super, super top heavy. You have a few VC funds that are crushing it, but you also have a ton of other VC funds that are just performing really badly. Essentially, when it works, and when it doesn't work, it's really bad. So, actually, a perfect recent example is Goli Nutrition, which is a gummy vitamin company that I almost invested in about 3 years ago. They started with a pre-seed round of $1. 8 million. This is in 2023. And they hit a $500 million valuation on their Series B, and now they just sold for $1. 2 billion. I had the opportunity to invest in this company in 2023 with a $10 million cap, meaning the company was valued at $10 million. And had I invested that money, my money would have over 100x. Now, obviously, this doesn't happen that much. You need to invest in a lot of these really small companies to have one hit. But that one hit is going to make up for every single other company that went to zero. And yeah, that's the whole nature of venture, right? For every Goli Nutrition, there are 50 to 100 different startups that go to zero. If you have the money to invest in VC, what I would say is make 20 to 30 bets, knowing you're going to fail on most of them, but maybe one or two of them are going to hit. Of course, this requires a lot of money. You need to be an accredited investor. And also, this money is tied up for a long time. Some of the times, you won't see the money for 3, 5, 10 plus years. If for that are thinking about investing in VC, needs to be money that you can afford to lose completely. There are a lot of platforms out there like AngelList and Republic that make VC investing accessible, but you still need to be an accredited investor to apply for most of these deals. I'm going to continue writing smaller 10 to 25,000 dollar checks into these early stage companies, and my hope is that a couple of them are going to hit. All the other money that I've put into angel investments have not had an exit yet. So yeah, super risky. I might lose all that money, or maybe one is going to hit and I'll make a huge return. Okay, so those are all the different steps of the ladder, and what I'll say is if you haven't started investing at all, just start with a high yield savings account. Get that emergency fund set up, and that is rung number one. If you have your emergency fund already and you're not in the market yet, put some money into index funds, open up a brokerage account, and just start dollar cost averaging into the S& P 500. Once you've done that for a bit, you can start buying individual companies, you can get into real estate, maybe get some crypto if you like it, and then start looking at some alternative investments. I'll say what ### Building Your Investing Ladder Step-by-Step [16:20] you guys decide to put your money into really depends on your own risk tolerance. And once you have money that you can actually afford to lose and not care about, that's when I'd say you can start looking at venture and angel investing. The key is that you guys don't skip, right? Like don't try to jump from step one to step eight. Build your foundation and then start climbing up the ladder. I know rung seven or eight sound the most exciting, and a lot of people might want to jump straight to there, but it's very likely that you'll get burnt. So really guys, build that base first. All the resources I talked about in this video, I'll put them down below in the description. And seriously guys, there's a rung on the ladder for everyone. You don't need to be rich to start investing, you just need to start at the right level for where you're at. Anyways, hopefully this gives you guys a clear picture of all the different options out there for investing and growing your money, and hopefully it helps you guys pick your next investing move. If you got any ### Conclusion [17:08] value from the video, make sure to hit that like button, comment below what rung you guys are on, and then subscribe for more videos just like this. I make a ton of videos about personal finance, entrepreneurship, tutorials. And my whole goal is to help you guys live a financially successful life. Thank you so much for your time and I'll see you in the next video. Peace.