Cody Berman achieved financial independence by following a simple rule: Keep your expenses below your income and invest the difference.Between various side hustles and entrepreneurial ventures, he widened the gap between what he earned and what he spent throughout his early 20s. By 2021, shortly before his 26th birthday, Berman said he had about $500,000 invested in the stock market, 13 rental units producing about $3,700 a month in cash flow, and a digital-products business earning more than $10,000 a month.That was the point when he considered himself financially independent.Business Insider reviewed screenshots of Berman’s Vanguard, Schwab, and Empower accounts showing that his net worth exceeded $1 million as of 2026.Using the “lazy way” to build a seven-figure net worthLike many proponents of the FIRE movement, Berman invests much of his money in low-cost index funds.”It’s a lazy way to invest in a good way,” the author of “Retire by 30” told BI. “You just set it and forget it.”Index-fund investors don’t have to pick individual companies or try to predict which businesses will outperform.
“You’re not playing a guessing game. You’re not playing the lottery,” said Berman. “You’re just investing in the economy as a whole.”It’s an effective strategy, he added, pointing to Warren Buffett’s famous bet against a group of hedge funds, in which the billionaire investor wagered that an S&P 500 index fund would outperform a collection of actively managed funds over a 10-year period: “It’s not just me saying, ‘Pick the index because it’s easy.’ It actually works, too.”
Berman said he uses index funds to “build wealth on autopilot.”
Courtesy of Cody Berman
Berman also referenced a widely circulated Fidelity anecdote suggesting that some of the best-performing investors were those who forgot about their accounts — a reminder that frequent tinkering can hurt returns.”If you just set it and forget it and leave it in a low-cost index fund, that’s probably going to be the right answer for 99.9% of people,” he said. “This stuff isn’t rocket science. Once you know what index funds to buy, you can kind of set up a system on autopilot.”That approach appealed to him because it eliminated the need for in-the-moment discipline.”I’m such a systems guy,” said Berman, who automatically moves a set amount of money from his bank account into a specific index fund each month. “Systems beat willpower every single time.”Berman said he didn’t spend much time contributing to a corporate retirement plan because his stint in a traditional job was brief. Since becoming an entrepreneur, however, he has prioritized tax-advantaged accounts. He said he maxes out an IRA, a solo 401(k), and an HSA each year, while any money left over goes into a taxable brokerage account or real estate.Real estate investing: From rentals to syndicationsAfter starting with a house hack to eliminate their housing expense, Berman and his wife bought 11 rental units between late 2020 and mid-2021. They put roughly $200,000 toward down payments, he said, and the properties generated enough cash flow to cover much of their lifestyle.He liked that rentals provided recurring monthly income. “With the stock market, it’s not like I’m selling off investments every month to live. But with real estate, we’re actually getting rent in our account.”That said, he has been shifting away from rentals, which can be time-consuming due to maintenance and tenant management, and toward a more passive real-estate strategy: syndications, which allow investors to participate in larger real-estate deals without personally buying or operating the property.”I still want the real-estate exposure, but I don’t want to go out there and just buy a 20-unit apartment building myself and then have to get it tenanted and figure out how to set up all the maintenance stuff,” he said.He described the syndication strategy as “owning rental properties without actually having to own rental properties.”Whether it’s index funds or real-estate syndications, Berman is looking for the same thing: investments that can compound in the background while he focuses elsewhere.