Our Best Posts on Money, Investing and Building Wealth

Raise your hand if you hate seeing these things go down? Here’s some bad news, they don’t always go up. New to RadReads? Hi, I’m Khe Hy. Nearly a decade ago I quit my 7-figure job on Wall Street to become a writer. I explore topics like money, happiness, ambition, relationships, productivity and more. I […]

Warren Buffett has $145 billion dollars.  How much is he planning on giving his kids? “Enough so that they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing.” (Translation, $1 Billion per kid.) Now your Boomer parents have way less.  But they’re sitting on giant homes. They’ve locked in super-low interest rates. And […]

The HENRYs are a coveted demographic. They’re young, educated and tend to be concentrated in big cities. They are High-Earners with an asterisk. Not Rich Yet. HENRY. HENRY’s are typically in their late 20s and 30s and earn between $300,000 and $500,000. Just as I familiarized myself with this acronym, I discovered a new term: […]

The fed cut rates and markets are in a tizzy. But I didn’t realize they were this happy. Yes, if you bought at the lows of the credit crisis, you’ve 10x’d your investment. These are the kind of multiples you’d expect on VC funds, not something you can buy commission-free on your phone. As a […]

I want you to run a thought experiment. Imagine you wake up to a giant surprise. It’s Tuesday morning and on Monday night a mysterious benefactor showed up. And they slid a cool billion dollars into your bank account. What would Tuesday look like? First, blow it out! Ok, I know what you’d do with […]

There are two types of people in this world. There are maximizers. And satisficers. You know the former. They optimize their spending to MAXIMIZE credit card points. They research every single high-yield savings account to MAXIMIZE their interest. They have over-engineered diets to MAXIMIZE their longevity. And they are stuck in their high-paying jobs so […]

I live and die by a single investment strategy. It’s simple AF and goes as follows. Whenever you go to bed wondering: “I have NO idea what the world is going to look like tomorrow?” That’s the ultimate buy signal. But this strategy’s much harder than it seems. Meet my “Bear Market Journal” I specifically […]

What would you do if you sold your company for $25 million? I can think of a few things. I’d probably go surf Kelly Slater’s manmade wave. Maybe buy a mountain home. Or a Porsche. Don’t you worry; I could keep coming up with ideas. What’s something I wouldn’t do? Immediately give it all away. […]

“You can give a child resources, but you can’t teach them resourcefulness.” This is one of the many gifts of being the kid of first-generation immigrants. And as a parent, I want to instill this resourcefulness in my kids. Am I in the minority? I guess so. According to Pew, nearly 60% of parents provide […]

There’s a common marital fight in the Hy Household. It’s not about the dishwasher. It’s not about the merits of Tiger-styled Parenting. It involves travelling. Economy Plus, to be specific. This question leaves us a house divided: When does the trip begin? Is it the moment you leave your house? Or the moment you land […]

There is a camp for kids who aspire to be YouTubers. It’s to be expected. After all, Internet Clout is one of the highest forms of social status these days. (Fun fact, 50% of teenagers between the ages of 13-18 want to be social media influencers.) But there’s a plot twist. The most prolific YouTubers […]

An Investment Banker takes a trip down to Mexico where he meets a local fisherman. The banker brings the fresh fish back to his villa and it’s the most delicious fish he’s ever tasted. The banker comes back the next morning with a question. “Why do you only fish 2 hours a day?” he asks. […]

He used to receive knickers in the mail from smitten fans. (Translation: women’s undergarments.) Then it all stopped. The fans started mailing him bullets. They burned an effigy of him in front of his parents’ house. They spit on him in the streets. After a controversial red card in the 1998 World Cup, David Beckham […]

The Internet got very mad at Emma Chamberlain. Since most of you have never heard of Emma, she’s an OG YouTuber. She landed a Joe Rogan-esque deal with Spotify during the pandemic. At the ripe age of 22 years old, she’s reportedly worth $20 million. But she wouldn’t know. She hasn’t checked her financial statements […]

Imagine being having $20 million and being scared of losing it all. Now imagine having $100 million and “sleeping with one eye open.” Yet, the scarcity mindset is a terrifying boogieman. Who strikes at all levels of wealth. It’s a fear that lurks around the corner. A fear that the “rational brain” can’t overcome by […]

I want you to picture an endurance race. It’s between two 21-year-olds working on Wall Street. One only invests their personal money in real estate. The gritty fixer-upper kind with shitty tenants, leaky septic tanks and non-stop cash-out refis. The other taps a button and buys a single index fund. 20 years go by. Who […]

Next month I’m doing something crazy. I’m going to a bachelor party. In Munich. For 3 nights. It’s a 12-hour flight from LAX. But here’s the crazy thing. I don’t drink beer. And my cheap ass wouldn’t spend the extra $700 on Premium Economy. So instead I have a middle seat. For a red eye. […]

400 weeks is a long ass time. Think about it, what’s an activity you’ve done 400 discrete times? A lot can happen during 400 weeks. That was the case for our family. Two kids were born. We moved to LA I surfed 1,500 days. All this was anchored by a single activity. Writing a weekly […]

My friend’s a successful hedge fund manager in NYC. But expensive toys aren’t his thing. However, he recently splurged on a Porsche Taycan. And immediately regretted it. Why? He feels like a D-bag at the soccer pick-ups. The maintenance is stressful. He can’t shake the immigrant guilt of having nice stuff. “I should’ve just bought […]

“I took a red-eye to New York for a 45-minute meeting.” Absurd, we both agreed. My friend’s a partner at a “Big 3” consulting firm. 22 people flew from across the country for this meeting. He’s 43 with 3 kids under the age of 7 and lives in LA. (So smack in the middle of […]

Leaving Wall Street cost me $900,000. Yup, the “Golden Handcuffs” are real. Bonuses are deferred. So by definition you leave money on the table. At 35, I said f** it. I want to own my time, surf every day & watch my kids grow up. 8 years later, I’m still standing. I’ve learned a lot […]

Guys, I screwed up. I left Wall Street at 35 without a plan. I was constantly told: “You’re throwing away your Peak Earning years.” The haters were right. I’m now 43 and my net worth is exactly the same as it was at 35. I screwed up my retirement. And that’s great news. It’s time […]

Is there a perfect amount of money we need to be happy? Why are people with plenty of money so scared of “losing it all”? And why can’t money do the tricky job of helping us create meaningful and purposeful lives? I brought all of these questions to my friend, Carl Richards. He’s a Financial […]

“Five’s a nightmare. Can’t retire.Not worth it to work. Five will drive you un poco loco, my fine feathered friend.Poorest rich person in AmericaThe world’s tallest dwarf.The weakest strong man at the circus.” This is a make-believe comment from the make-believe show Succession. In the scene, one of the naive heirs (Conor) to the patriarch’s billions (Logan […]

We’re surrounded by scarcity.  The day starts with “I didn’t sleep enough.” Then the rush to get the kids fed and out the door is accompanied by the nagging feeling that as parents we’re “not present enough.” Next, a commute skimming articles on our phones and listening to podcasts at double speed. There’s too much to […]

Here’s a tale about two friends. And our divergent approach to investing. This friend (who we’ll call Jim) and I are of the same “cohort.” We were both born in 1979. We both went to fancy colleges. Our kids are the same age. And we both spent significant chunks of our careers on Wall Street […]

I love ice cream. Jeni’s. Ample Hills. Salt and Straw. Van Leeuwen. If it’s cold, creamy and chocolate-y – I love it. But as a 42 year old, ice cream and the Notorious B.I.G. have something in common: Mo ice cream, mo problems. (That is a terrible dad joke.) You see, the Chocolate Gooey Brownie […]

This post was adapted from a @radreadsco Instagram story. If the old adage “paying rent is like burning money” is true, then our family has (and will) continue to burn it for many years to come. Two years before I left Wall Street, I made the conscious decision to de-risk our financial picture by selling […]

Last week, we hung out with our man Sherman paralyzed by his $1.2 million salary and bereft of agency over his own life. He’d played his cards right – attending the right schools, developing unique skills and landing in a lucrative industry. Yet the path to financial independence was sealed off to him. Well that’s […]