'The finance bros are gonna hate me for this': Money expert Tori Dunlap says the 'boring strategy' is what helped her become a millionaire at 27

Tori Dunlap, the money expert behind Her First $100K, is offering a decidedly less glamorous alternative. In a recent post, she joked that “the finance bros are gonna hate me for this” as she laid out five simple principles she credits with helping her build a multimillion-dollar net worth.

Boring advice

The five rules themselves are uncomplicated:

1. Only invest in index funds
2. Look for an expense ratio under 0.1%
3. Automate your contributions
4. Stay in the market
5. Ignore the noise

There is nothing particularly novel about any one of those ideas. That is partly the point. The strategy grew out of her own early financial goals. Dunlap set out to save $100,000 by age 25, a milestone she reached by saving and investing part of her income while working in digital marketing and building Her First $100K as a side hustle. By age 27, she said, her strategies had made her a millionaire. Now, at age 32, she says she is a multimillionaire.

Her First $100K has grown from a blog into a financial education platform aimed at helping women gain more control over their money. That mission has been tied to Dunlap’s criticism of a financial industry she believes can make investing feel more complicated and exclusive than it needs to be.

“Finance bros [are] playing gatekeepers, and in a much broader sense, the patriarchy as a whole prioritizes the voices of old, white men over almost anyone else,” she told Moneywise in 2023.

The compounding advantage

The appeal of Dunlap’s approach may be cultural in part, but the case for keeping investing simple ultimately comes down to math. Karen Holland, founder of Gifting Sense, told Moneywise that when it comes to building wealth, boring may be just what’s needed.

“Everyone’s looking for a silver bullet,” Holland said. “There isn’t one.”

For someone who starts young, she said, the math can work in their favor. Decades of consistent saving and diversified investing can allow wealth to grow without an investor constantly trying to predict the market’s next move.

“It’s not guaranteed, of course: income, savings capacity, investment returns, taxes, fees and life circumstances all matter,” she explained. “But starting early is enormously valuable because it gives compounding more time to work.”

Holland pointed to Warren Buffett as an extreme example of just how powerful compounding can be. Estimates suggest roughly 95% of Buffett’s wealth was accumulated after age 65, but he started investing as a child and continued on from there. His success is hardly representative of the average person, but Holland said the mathematical principle behind it applies more broadly.

“The longer money has to compound, the more powerful compounding can become,” she said.

Simple with caveats

But following a simple investing strategy doesn’t mean everyone will replicate Dunlap’s success. She has acknowledged that one reason she was able to save $100,000 by age 25 was that she graduated from college debt-free.

That gave her more room to put her income to work. The average federal student loan borrower owes about $40,467, according to EducationData.org, leaving less take-home pay available to save and invest while paying down that debt.

Dunlap was also putting a significant share of her income toward her goals. As she explained on an episode of Vivian Tu’s podcast, she invested 27% of her take-home pay, practiced value-based spending and negotiated her salary.