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Two-time UFC Middleweight Champion Sean Strickland is recognized for delivering blunt opinions without much of a filter.
Now, he’s making use of that same type to personal finance — and hundreds of thousands of people are paying consideration.
“Listen little m————,” Strickland started in a post (1) on X, before laying out a strikingly easy plan for building wealth.
“Open a high yield account. Save up 3 month[s] of life. Then open a Fidelity go with FXAIX. Any solid fund. Invest every dollar you have in it.”
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In other phrases, Strickland advised his followers to first open a high-yield financial savings account and accumulate enough money to cowl three months of residing bills.
Once that security web is in place, he recommends directing every accessible greenback into a stable investment fund. He particularly talked about the Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX (2)), which is a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 index.
Strickland also defined what to do when you need to faucet that money reserve.
“When [you] draw from your high yield, stop investing, refill high yield,” he wrote. “Then back to investing. I believe in you.”
The thought is simple: If you withdraw money from your high-yield account, quickly pause your investments and replenish the money reserve. Once the money cushion is full again, contributions can return to the market.
As of July 24, the post has generated 5.2 million views and more than 33,000 likes, while screenshots and discussions of the strategy have unfold across Instagram, Threads and other platforms.
Perhaps the largest shock is not that Strickland supplied financial advice. It’s that beneath his characteristically profane supply, the strategy is remarkably sound.
Step 1: Build a financial security web
Strickland’s first step is to save enough money to cowl three months of residing bills.
Having that financial cushion gives respiration room when the surprising occurs, serving to stop short-term setbacks from turning into longer-term financial hardship. Whether it’s a medical invoice, a main car restore or an abrupt loss of income, that money can help you keep afloat while you determine out the next transfer.
So, how massive should the security web be?
Personal finance professional Dave Ramsey suggests (3) having an emergency fund that can cowl three to six months of residing bills. What issues most, though, is consistency — including a little at a time until your security web begins to take form.
To get began, a high-yield account like a Wealthfront Cash Account can be a great place to grow your emergency funds, offering both aggressive rates of interest and simple access to your money when you need it.
A Wealthfront Cash Account presently presents a base APY of 3.30% through program banks, and new shoppers can get an further 0.75% increase during their first three months on up to $150,000 for a complete variable APY of 4.05%.
That’s 10 occasions the national deposit financial savings fee, according to the FDIC’s June report.
Additionally, Wealthfront is offering new shoppers who allow direct deposit ($1,000/mo minimal) to their Cash Account and open and fund a new investment account an further 0.25% APY increase with no expiration date or stability restrict, that means your APY could be as high as 4.30%.
Once the emergency account is full, Strickland’s strategy shifts sharply from saving to investing.
More particularly, he said to “invest every dollar” into the Fidelity index fund that tracks the S&P 500 — or another stable fund.
To be sure, the quantity someone can comfortably invest relies upon on their income, obligations and financial targets. But Strickland’s broader strategy of steadily investing in the benchmark index has been extensively advocated — including by legendary investor Warren Buffett.
“In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is own the S&P 500 index fund,” Buffett has famously said (4). It’s a easy method that gives buyers publicity to 500 of America’s largest firms across a wide selection of industries, offering on the spot diversification without the need for fixed monitoring or energetic trading.
The magnificence of this method is also its accessibility — anyone, regardless of wealth, can take benefit of it. And even small quantities can grow over time with instruments like Acorns, a standard app that mechanically invests your spare change.
Signing up for Acorns takes just minutes: All you have to do is hyperlink your playing cards, and Acorns will spherical up each buy to the nearest greenback, investing the distinction — your spare change — into a diversified portfolio.
With Acorns, you can invest in an S&P 500 ETF with as little as $5 — and, if you signal up at the moment, Acorns will add a $20 bonus to help you start your investment journey.
What Strickland is investing in proper now
While Strickland’s core message is clear, shares aren’t the only asset catching his consideration.
In a follow-up post on X, Strickland revealed that he is presently investing in real estate.
“Yeah man I’m only liquid so much because I’m investing in real estate,” he wrote (5). “The moment I get it done every other dollar is going back into the market.”
He then summarized his view even more bluntly: “Saving money is losing money.”
That assertion requires some context.
Cash serves an important goal when it’s reserved for emergencies, upcoming purchases and near-term financial obligations. But over long intervals, inflation can steadily erode its buying energy.
That’s why wealth-building methods sometimes distinguish between money that wants to stay protected and accessible and money that can be dedicated to belongings with higher long-term growth or income potential.
Stocks are one option. Real property is another.
Becoming a real estate mogul
Rental properties can generate recurring income and offer safety against inflation, since property values and rents have a tendency to rise alongside the price of residing.
But high home costs can make shopping for a home more difficult, particularly with mortgage charges still elevated. And being a landlord is not precisely hands-off work — managing tenants, upkeep and repairs can rapidly eat into your time (and returns).
The excellent news? You do not need to buy a property outright — or deal with leaky taps — to invest in real estate at the moment. Crowdfunding platforms like mogul offer an simpler approach to get publicity to this income-generating asset class.
As a real estate investment platform offering fractional possession in blue-chip rental properties, mogul gives buyers month-to-month rental income, real-time appreciation and tax advantages — without the need for a hefty down cost or late-night tenant calls.
Each property undergoes a rigorous vetting course of, requiring a minimal 12% return even in draw back situations. Across the board, the platform options an average annual IRR of 18.8%. Offerings usually promote out in under three hours, with investments sometimes ranging between $15,000 and $40,000 per property.
Another option is to leverage multifamily real estate investing. In a report (6) ready by JPMorgan, Al Brooks — the firm’s vice chair of Commercial Banking — said, “I think multifamily housing is absolutely where you want to be as an investor.”
Accredited buyers can now faucet into this alternative through platforms such as Lightstone DIRECT, which gives accredited buyers access to single-asset multifamily and industrial offers.
Lightstone DIRECT’s direct-to-investor model ensures a high degree of alignment between particular person buyers and a vertically-integrated, institutional owner-operator — a refined and streamlined option for particular person buyers trying to diversify into private-market real estate.
