• As the pandemic drives a volatile real estate market in the US, a hot real estate market could mean the time for investors to buy is only going to get more competitive the longer you wait. 
• But some locations are better suited than others for profitability, according to longtime real estate investor and property management CEO Tony Julianelle.
• Salt Lake City, Boise, and Portland are three of the seven cities that made his list. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Good property investors should always have a pulse on the market. 

And as the US continues to combat an unpredictable real estate climate brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the likely sellers' market could mean now is the right time for investors to start thinking about their next move. 

Longtime investor and Atlas Real Estate CEO Tony Julianelle, who has built a $3.5 million real estate portfolio from scratch, told Business Insider that while real estate investments are great opportunities for investors looking to generate passive income, some cities are more likely than others to lead to profits. 

With long-term market appeal, financing costs, and a number of other financial factors varying by state, Julianelle said some locations protect an investor's bottom line better than others.

That said, these are the cities he said investors should keep an eye on if they're looking to build a real estate portfolio.  

SEE ALSO: 5 cities real estate investors should target in the 2020s, from a property manager who built an $8 million portfolio from scratch

SEE ALSO: How a 41-year-old 'house hacker' built an $8 million-plus real estate portfolio that would let him retire now — if he wanted to

1. Boise, Idaho

Boise is a dense suburban city home to around 225,000, where 60% of residents own their homes. The city is ranked 32nd on the list of best cities to buy a house in America and 51st on the list of best cities to raise a family in America. 

The median home value in Boise is $230,800, and the median rent is $910. 

2. Salt Lake City, Utah

With a population of almost 200,000, Salt Lake City is ranked as one of the best places to live in Utah. Of the residents, 52% rent and 48% own their homes. The city is ranked 26th on the list of best cities for outdoor activities in America, and 41st on the list of healthiest cities in America. 

The median home value in Salt Lake City is $289,200, and the median rent is $938. 

3. Reno, Nevada

Reno is home to around 240,000 residents, where 48% of residents own their homes. The city is ranked 17th on the list of best cities for outdoor activities in America and 48th on the list of cities with the best public schools in America. 

The median home value in Reno is $299,700, and the median rent is $967. 

4. Portland, Oregon

Portland is home to about 640,000 residents, of which 53% own their homes. Portland ranks third on the list of best cities for outdoor activities in America and 15th on the list of best cities for young professionals in America. 

The median home value in Portland is $383,600, and the median rent is $1,187.  

5. Knoxville, Tennessee

Knoxville is home to around 185,000 residents and a dense suburban area feel, where 46% of residents own their homes. The city is ranked 52nd on the list of cities with the lowest cost of living in America and 88th on the list of cities with the best public schools in America. 

The median home value in Knoxville is $128,800, and the median rent is $815. 

6. Denver, Colorado

Denver is an urban city home to almost 700,000, where homeowners and renters each represent 50% of the housing market. The city is ranked 11th on the list of best US cities for young professionals and 27th on the list of healthiest places to live in America. 

The city's median home value is $357,300, with a median rent of $1,217. 

7. Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is home to around 660,000 residents, where 54% of residents own their homes. The city is ranked 47th on the list of best cities to buy a house in America and 57th on the list of best cities for young professionals in America. 

The median home value in Nashville is $216,500, and the median rent is $1,033. 

• Location has long been touted as the most important factor when it comes to investing in real estate. 
• But there's a location strategy investors can use to analyze a market's long-term viability, according to Tony Julianelle, a Colorado-based investor and CEO of a property management firm. 
• Julianelle has built a portfolio worth $3.5 million and counting, and he says buyers investing for the long term should look to cities with natural boundaries if they want to make smart long-term deals. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Real estate experts know how important location is when it comes to making a new investment.

And according to seasoned investor Tony Julianelle, who also serves as the CEO of property management firm Atlas Real Estate, there's a way for buyers to assess a city's long-term investment potential and make the most of their investments.

The rule is simple: look for cities with natural boundaries 

Julianelle said certain locations have better appreciation because of their geographic boundaries, and pointed out that places with natural restraints like Denver and Boise are cities with strong long-term investment potential. 

"Denver is naturally constrained by mountains," he said, adding that the city's value is bolstered by its clearly defined natural borders.

Adding that scarcity of land builds property value, Julianelle mentioned the astronomical values of property in places like Manhattan Island — a famous natural boundary — where high prices are driven by demand for property that is naturally irreplaceable.

In contrast, "Oklahoma City is a pancake," he said, emphasizing that the city's development can simply keep spreading outward, and Kansas City, for example, stands in a similar position.

"It's [Oklahoma City] never going to out-appreciate the new construction," he said. "You don't want that."

SEE ALSO: 3 cities in Colorado real estate investors should target in 2020, from a 2-decade industry veteran and property management CEO

SEE ALSO: 7 cities real estate investors should target in the 2020s, from a property management CEO who built a $3 million portfolio from scratch

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The rise and fall of Donald Trump's $365 million airline

• Popular Instagram account "Rich Kids of Instagram" (RKOI, now "Rich Kids of the Internet") was founded by 27-year-old James Ison in 2020, wrote The Times' Jessie Hewitson.
• Ison posted a picture of billionaire Michael Dell's son that went viral and teamed up with two anonymous New Yorkers to create RKOI.
• Today, RKOI has over 372,000 followers and charges wealthy millennials up to $2,000 to be featured.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Infamous Instagram account "Rich Kids of Instagram" (RKOI, since renamed "Rich Kids of the Internet") had humble beginnings.

In a recent profile for The Times, Jessie Hewitson wrote that James Ison, age 27, started the account in 2012 after posting a single picture that quickly went viral: Zachary Dell, son of billionaire Michael Dell, feasting on a buffet in a private jet.

Ison was an econ university student enamored by the wealthy world, Hewitson wrote, a sharp contrast from his modest childhood upbringing. Soon after he began reposting pictures of the children of millionaires and billionaires, two New Yorkers (who remain anonymous) who were separately doing the same reached out to Ison. The resulting collaboration was the beginning of RKOI, according to Hewitson, where you now have to pay up to $2,000 to be featured.

RKOI currently boasts over 372,000 followers and an endless stream of wealthy young millennials pictured living their lives to the fullest, from driving Bugattis in Switzerland and taking yacht trips to Montenegro to attending the Royal Ascot and splurging on $50,000 watches. Their summers are especially lavish.

It's become so popular that spin-off accounts began cropping up, such as Rich Kids of Turkey and Rich Russian Kids. Many started as satires, wrote Tom Sykes for The Daily Beast, but nevertheless became a place for the youth to flash their riches.

Despite the wealth that RKOI has brought Ison, Hewitson described him as down-to-earth, someone who forgoes flashy cars and refuses to post tasteless pictures of people surrounded with stacks of cash.

Ison has since befriended some of the rich kids, building trust to help him launch his next venture: RKOI Concierge, which Ison told Hewitson is an "Ask Jeeves for the 0.1%."

Read the full article at The Times »

SEE ALSO: Bugattis in Switzerland, yacht trips to Montenegro, and $50,000 watches: Take a look at how the 'Rich Kids of Instagram' are spending their summers

DON'T MISS: Outrageous photos show how the kids of billionaires spend their parents' fortunes

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 7 secrets about Washington, DC landmarks you probably didn't know

• Profitability on vacation rentals can vary significantly based on location. 
• For investors looking to acquire new rental properties, vacation rental management platform Vacasa outlined the top markets with the greatest yearly rate of return. 
• Georgia and North Carolina each had two towns make the list, with a Montana city taking first place. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Smart investors know how important location is in selecting an investment property. 

And for investors looking to maximize their returns, some markets are better than others. 

In a new report from Vacasa, North America's largest vacation rental management platform ranks the top places to buy a vacation home in 2020 based on average cap rate, also known as yearly rate of return.

With over 25,000 vacation rentals under management, Vacasa's market data takes into account annual gross rental revenues in addition to median home values, and points to the most profitable locations for buyers to invest.

These are the 10 markets that came out on top. 

SEE ALSO: 7 cities real estate investors should target in the 2020s, from a property management CEO who built a $3 million portfolio from scratch

10. Blue Ridge, Georgia

Median home sale price: $291,595

Cap rate: 6.3%

9. Ellijay, Georgia

Median home sale price: $226,685

Cap rate: 6.4%

8. Palm Springs, California

Median home sale price: $459,857

Cap rate: 6.4%

7. Conway, New Hampshire

Median home sale price: $238,930

Cap rate: 6.5%

6. Corolla, North Carolina

Median home sale price: $560,599 

Cap rate: 6.9%

5. Dauphin Island, Alabama

Median home sale price: $289,623

Cap rate: 7.8%

4. Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Median home sale price: $269,523

Cap rate: 7.8%

3. Poconos, Pennsylvania

Median home sale price: $200,190

Cap rate: 8.2%

2. Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

Median home sale price: $379,248 

Cap rate: 8.6%

1. Big Sky, Montana

Median home sale price: $541,842 

Cap rate: 9.2%

• Michael Talley bought a $4,500 used ambulance from a landscaping company and turned it into a $30,000 home.
• The home is complete with a king-sized bed, a 42-inch TV, and a rooftop deck with a solar panel and a small patch for golfing. Talley spent about $10,000 on repairs and converting the space.
• Talley told Business Insider that when transforming the ambulance for his everyday life in Austin, he focused on making it beautiful and having as much open space in the vehicle as possible.
• Take a look inside the solar-powered tiny home.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Michael Talley found the used ambulance on Craigslist in late 2018. At the time, the vehicle belonged to a landscaping company.

 The ambulance was no longer being used for medical purposes. At the time, the vehicle served an Austin-based AstroTurf landscaping company. 

Source: Intalleyvision/Instagram

After renovating a school bus and a van, Talley wanted a new challenge. He found this 1992 Ford E-350 7.3 Diesel on Craigslist for $4,500, due in part to its incredible engine, he said.

After relocating electric boards, rewiring electrical, and cleaning out mold, Talley took some time in the empty space to imagine what the home would look like.

"It's always easier to build something new than to try to alter something that already has been built," Talley said. Envisioning the final product is one of Talley's favorite parts of the process.

Talley utilized the bones of the ambulance's layout to his advantage. For example, he used these countertops for the kitchen.

Knowing where the kitchen would be located helped Talley plan a layout for the rest of his vehicle.

Talley prioritized fitting a king-sized bed in the ambulance because he is well over 6 feet tall.

To do this, Talley constructed a bench that converts into a bed three times its size.

This way, his feet didn't hang over the bottom of the bed while sleeping.

Throughout the renovation, Talley used a variety of materials, including concrete countertops, a copper backsplash, ...

... and hardwood bamboo floors.

Talley told Business Insider that he got the lumber for this build from various suppliers.

To the right of the kitchen counter, Talley installed a fridge and a freezer.

Talley told Business Insider that space is a hot commodity in a tiny home, so he tries to keep it as spacious as possible by not stuffing too many features in it.

For example, this home didn't have a bathroom or shower, but Talley said when he was living on the road, it wasn't really necessary. He could always go to a gym to shower and use public restrooms.

Instead, he saved room for a comfortable bed and still felt like he had plenty of extra space to move around. "You realize how much more time you spend outside of it than you do in it," Talley said about living in a vehicle.

Talley said it's best to think of your bus, van or ambulance build like a really nice car when it comes to designing your layout, instead of a really small house. "The smaller you go, the more flexible flexibility you'll have on the road," he added.

Talley told Business Insider that the paint job was one of the hardest parts of this project. First, he had to scrape the AstroTurf and decals to prep it for a new color.

Then he decided on a style. Inspired by old Chevy Suburbans, Talley went with a vintage green with a white pinstripe.

Outside the ambulance, Talley used an industrial locker for storage space.

On the rooftop, Talley installed a solar panel. The ambulance had 600 watts of solar and Lithium-Ion batteries. Talley had the seller throw in some additional Astroturf when he bought the vehicle and used it to make a small golfing green.

Talley left the driver's area as it was.

Back in the living space, a barn door leads to the driver and passenger seats, just behind the 42-inch TV.

This is what the finished product looked like, which Talley lived in for half a year before selling it for $30,000.

Talley is working on another ambulance build now, and this one will have a bathroom, he told Business Insider.

• The coronavirus pandemic has changed the calculus for people who retired, sending the economy into a recession as well as a surprisingly booming stock market.
• But self-made millionaire early retirees who largely rely on investments to fund their lifestyle told Business Insider they're not worried about their money.
• Some are relying on cash cushions and others are investing during the downturn. 
• It shows the importance of having smart savings strategies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus pandemic has the stock market surging despite terrible news about the coronavirus pandemic.

But there is still a lot of uncertainty about what is coming next, after almost six months of worsening headlines about the spread of the pandemic.

It can be scary news for everyone, especially those who have taken on an alternative lifestyle. Consider early retirees; the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement has grown in popularity over the past 20 years among those seeking financial freedom. But many of these early retirees rely on investments, especially in the stock market, to fund their living.

Business Insider spoke to several people who retired before age 40 as self-made millionaires to see how they feel about the current economic situation. Will they still be able to fund their lifestyle? Or will they need to return to work?

Turns out, most aren't very worried for themselves, and it's because they planned for their early retirement anticipating economic downturns. It all shows the power of a smart savings strategy.

Here's how they're handling it — and what they're doing with their money right now.

Note that this is not investing advice.

SEE ALSO: How to grow a successful startup from cofounders who started with a $30,000 loan, were profitable in their first year, and doubled revenue every year since

SEE ALSO: 7 cities real estate investors should target in the 2020s, from a property management CEO who built a $3 million portfolio from scratch

Chris Reining is gradually investing in stocks.

Chris Reining retired at age 37 as a self-made millionaire. He told Business Insider the stock market drop earlier this year was a "quick, scary fall."

"What I've been doing is staying fully invested," he said. "Any extra money generated by my portfolio, I'm using to buy stock. But I'm investing in stages, knowing the market could fall further."

He said he anticipates a "horrible economic fallout" in the near term. "But there will be a point when investors stop selling," he said. "A point when people go back to work. A point when life returns to normal. Someday it will all be in the rearview mirror. So my long-term bet is the economy recovers and the market moves higher."

He added: "The timeline is anyone's guess. So, as for how to play the uncertainty? I'm old-fashioned. I don't try. I stay invested."

Still fully invested five months into the pandemic, Reining's approach has stayed the same. "I haven't changed my strategy," he said. "Haven't pulled out of the market. Haven't freaked out."

Justin McCurry is counting on his seven years' worth of living expenses that he's saved in bonds and cash.

Justin McCurry of Root of Good retired at age 33 in 2013 with an investment portfolio of $1.3 million, which he built with his wife. He told Business Insider he was fortunate to retire early, during a bull market. "We watched our portfolio roughly double in value by the peak in February 2020 and it's still about 50% higher than when we started this early retirement journey," he said.

Because they have about six years of living expenses in bonds and another year's worth saved in cash, he said they won't have to sell stocks for "quite some time."

"I shifted from a 100% stock portfolio back in 2017 and 2018 by selling some equities and buying those bonds just so that I wouldn't have to worry during the next big recession," he added. "Very smart move in hindsight because I'm sleeping well at night!"

He said they can survive a very prolonged recession for two reasons: They paid off their mortgage in 2015 so their core monthly expenses are very low, and the bulk of their discretionary spending is on travel — which they won't be doing during the pandemic.

"We have the short- and intermediate-term spending needs covered right now," he said. "Long-term, I think we will be okay as our current spending is much lower than the classic 4% rule would allow us from our portfolio."

Not a lot has changed for McCurry's investment strategy through the ups and downs of the pandemic market. "We are still at a 90% stock allocation with 10% in bonds/cash," he said. "All the investments are in index funds and I don't try to jump in or out of the market."

The one most notable change in the family's budget, however, has been the shift in travel spending, which, now zero, was once an $8,000 to $10,000 yearly allocation. To make up for it, McCurry says, the family has taken on a number of DIY home improvement projects.

Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are relying on a cash cushion and plan to cut back on living expenses.

Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung of Millennial Revolution retired from their computer engineering jobs at age 31 as self-made millionaires. They recently wrote the book, "Quit Like a Millionaire."

Leung told Business Insider they started investing in 2008, but even though earlier this year he saw "Dow drops like I've never seen before," he said the couple is "not scared at all, and we're probably the most pessimistic, cautious people." Leung explained this is because they don't rely on just the stock market.

Instead, they have a cash cushion — a reserve fund in a savings account to pay for living expenses to avoid a full stock portfolio withdrawal during down years — to act as a buffer during a declining stock market. This cushion allows them to last four to eight years without selling stock, he said.

Shen added: "In the worst-case scenario, we're projecting we'll be able to drop living expenses so that we won't need to withdraw from the cash cushion at all."

Five months into the pandemic, nothing has changed in the pair's investment strategy. 

Like Shen and Leung, Tanja Hester is also relying on a three-year cash cushion.

Hester, blogger of Our Next Life and author of "Work Optional," saved about 37 times her annual spending with her husband to retire early at age 38.

She told Business Insider she suspects the US is in the beginning of a real recession. "Given how long the bull market was, we always knew there was a virtual guarantee that it would end and we'd see a recession in the first few years of our early retirement," she said, adding that their financial plan is built to withstand such downturns. "We use a much more conservative safe withdrawal rate than the oft-quoted '4% rule.'"

A big component of their plan is the three-year cash cushion that she said gives them the ability to go years without selling shares: having three years worth of expenses in a high-yield savings account.

"Depending how long we all end up socially distancing and isolating ourselves, that money could stretch a lot longer because we're spending very little right now, with no travel happening," she said. "But we'll aim to keep spending a bit lower as long as the markets are dramatically down, something our budget allows because it's not a rock bottom budget with every fun thing already scrubbed out of it."

Now, months into the pandemic, Hester said her money management strategy has gone largely unchanged. 

Steve Adcock is reinvesting his dividends and living off a high-interest savings account.

Adcock, who retired with his wife at age 35 as a self-made millionaire, is a bit optimistic about the economy. He told Business Insider he doesn't think the fallout the coronavirus pandemic has caused will create a "long-term devastating change."

"I believe we will pull out of this and march forward as we slowly get back to normal," he said. And even if it does last long-term, he said, he and his wife wouldn't need to pull from their stocks in a down market for three years.

At the start of the pandemic, they were reinvesting their dividends and living entirely off their high-interest Ally savings account. "Before retiring, we accumulated three years of living expenses in our savings account," he said. "Most people thought that we were keeping way too much in cash, but we definitely appreciate all that cash right now."

Now, five months into the pandemic, Adcock said he's made some slight changes to how he manages his money. "We are beginning to spend a little bit more money now," since they had curbed spending before the stock market rally, on fears of how bad the recession would be.

"We aren't going wild or anything, but we've increased our spending by about 20% in the last month or so, mainly on discretionary items. As early retirees who are tied to the stock market, this is very typical," he said. "When the market is down, we cut back. But when it's doing well, we feel a little freer to extend our lifestyle a bit. The key is to not go overboard. But, we've been retired long enough now to recognize when we are being reckless with our spending."

Grant Sabatier has diversified his stock portfolio, and he's moved.

Sabatier, blogger of Millennial Money and author of "Financial Freedom," retired at age 30 after building up a $1.25 million net worth in just five years. "I've always recommended saving one to two years of living expenses in a high interest savings account," he told Business Insider. With a little over two years saved in cash, he was living off that and not touching my investments."

After the first 8% drop, he said he reduced his exposure to Amazon and diversified his portfolio a bit more. Before that drop and the onset of the pandemic, he said he was looking at investing beyond stocks and savings accounts and at investing in real estate and in another website "in an always-in-demand niche to diversify and create more passive income."

Five months into the pandemic, Sabatier said a lot has changed. "I moved from New York to Ohio, where my cost of living is 60% less! I have also started investing more aggressively and diversified more into individual equities."

"While most of my portfolio has been in VTI/VTSAX, I've been acquiring more individual companies that I believe will outperform the market over the next five years," he said. While not a big advocate of individual stock investing, he said he feels he can have a higher risk profile as his net worth has grown. "I've also been looking at investing in a home in an area that will be less impact by climate change over the next 10-plus years."

Sam Dogen was using the downturn to fund his children's college savings at first. Now he's buying a house in San Francisco.

Dogen, of The Financial Samurai, retired from his Wall Street job eight years ago at age 34 with $3 million. He told Business Insider in March that he thought an economic recession was "all but a certainty" at that point. "Hopefully, we'll see a V-shaped recovery in the second half of the year as the coronavirus gets better contained. But it's going to be really tough going for a while."

Planning to make use of the downturn to fund both of his children's 529 college savings plans and build a larger dividend stock portfolio, he told Business Insider in August that he had superfunded his daughter's 529 plan with $75,000, meaning five years worth of funding is done. He and his wife also contributed $15,000 each to their son's 529 plan and plan to contribute at least a combined $20,000 per year. (He referenced a related Financial Samurai post.)

In March, he said he has a conservative portfolio, with just 20% of his net worth in equities, but that's now risen to about 25%. "We are no longer actively buying equities now that the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are at record highs," he said.

Dogen's plan instead is to build up cash to buy "a nicer home on the west side of San Francisco with panoramic ocean views and nice decks. We're spending so much more time at home now that the value of a home, at least to us, has gone way up. We want more space for a home office and home school."

"We also love decks where we can relax and watch the sunset. With mortgage rates at all-time lows, we want to take advantage and live our best lives now. As we all know by now, tomorrow is not guaranteed. The pandemic has made us want to spend more of our hard-earned money today."

• Amy Morin is a psychotherapist, licensed clinical social worker, mental strength coach, and international bestselling author.
• Many people mistake mental strength for being above mental challenges, or easily handling any upsets that come their way.
• Instead, Morin explains, mental strength is found by creating "a lifestyle that assists you in reaching your goals" — setting yourself up for success is the best way to prepare for inevitable battles.
• Here are six things you may be doing that are holding you back from developing mental strength. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Everyone possesses mental strength to a certain degree. But as a therapist, I have found that most people aren't as mentally strong as they can be. This is usually because they fail to set themselves up for success.

If you want to build the mental strength it takes to reach your greatest potential, you need to create a lifestyle that assists in reaching your goals. And you must also eliminate the obstacles that are draining your mental strength and sabotaging your efforts. Here are six reasons you aren't as mentally strong as you should be.

SEE ALSO: 7 simple things everyone can cut out of their life right now to reduce anxiety, according to a psychotherapist

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1. You aren't setting limits on energy vampires

It'd be great if you could surround yourself with positive people only. But this is not realistic. Whether you've got a family member who criticizes you too often, or you've got a coworker who perpetually insists the sky is falling, energy vampires can drain your mental strength fast.

When you don't want to cut them out of your life completely (perhaps you love your aunt or can't change departments at work), you can still set limits. This may mean excusing yourself from an unproductive conversation, saying no to someone who asks to borrow something, or declining an invitation to an event you don't want to attend.

Creating healthy boundaries ensures that your time and energy are going toward the things and people you value most. And it'll help you stay mentally stronger as you work toward your goals.

2. You believe your brain more than you should

Your brain loves it when you stay in your comfort zone. It'll try to convince you that you can't succeed or that you're not good enough to do anything different. But remember that your brain can lie to you. You're stronger than you think.

If you want to grow stronger, you have to accept that you are more capable and competent than your brain sometimes gives you credit for. This means stepping outside of your comfort zone when there's no guarantee of success. Just keep in mind that you're better able to handle failure than you might realize. While failing feels bad, you're resilient enough to handle the discomfort.

3. You avoid things that scare you

You might think the absence of fear is a sign of strength. But this is far from true. If you never feel scared, it's likely that you aren't pushing yourself to do challenging things.

Doing things that scare you a little — whether it's anything from giving a volunteer presentation to launching a business — helps you grow stronger.

Just like you need to create tension on your biceps to grow bigger arms, you also need some tension in your life to develop bigger mental muscles. Challenge yourself to do more regardless of whether you succeed. You'll learn valuable life lessons in the process.

4. You don't pay attention to your emotions

Your emotions affect every decision you make. Research shows that people play it safe when feeling anxious. You're more likely to take impulsive risks when angry or embarrassed. And during a negotiation, you're likely to settle for less when you're feeling sad, because you won't want to risk being rejected.

Yet there's a good chance you spend very little time thinking about your feelings. Consequently, you may not notice how your emotions are clouding your judgment.

Invest a few minutes into thinking about how you're feeling. Just naming your emotions can help you gain insight into how your feelings affect the way you think and the action you're likely to take. Labeling your feelings can also help take a bit of the sting out.

5. You're too busy

A busy schedule can make you feel important. But a full calendar also leaves little room for reflection, personal development, and mental strength training.

Building mental muscle often requires more "being" and less "doing." Practicing mindfulness, for example, requires a conscious effort. You won't see immediate results. And you might even feel guilty for not being "productive."

But everyone has room in their busy lives to grow bigger mental muscles — if mental fitness is a priority. Once it is, you'll become more effective in every aspect of life.  

6. You aren't intentional about your media consumption

Everything from the news you watch, to the people you follow on social media, affects your mental fitness. But most of us are passive about what we consume on a daily basis. Endless scrolling and mindless channel flipping can drain you of mental strength for a few reasons.

Research consistently shows that news stories increase our anxiety. Allowing yourself to be bombarded by the news all day long can cause you to focus on catastrophic events.

Studies also show that our mood tends to plummet after spending just a few minutes on social media. We tend to compare ourselves to other people and assume they live better lives than we do.

Being more intentional about your media consumption can help you stay strong. In fact, you can even use media to help you build mental muscle. Follow inspirational people on social media, use apps that help you stick to healthier habits, and take online courses that help you develop a healthier mindset.

• Imperial, a luxury yacht broker, is chartering a new superyacht called Lana that's more than 300 feet long and comes with a spa and a beach club.
• The vessel, which can hold up to 12 guests and 31 crew members, will be available for charter, or private reservations, starting in the spring.
• It typically costs around $150,000 a week to charter a luxurious superyacht for a week, per CNBC.
• Take a look inside the superyacht that costs about $2 million a week to vacation on.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: Take a look inside the National Geographic Endurance, a new Arctic cruise ship that's designed to explore polar waters and where reservations are available starting in June

DON'T MISS: A historic Charleston mansion that survived over 200 years of wars, earthquakes, and hurricanes just hit the market. Take a look inside.

Benetti, an Italian shipbuilding company, has built a new superyacht, and it's more than 300 feet long.

Source: Imperial Yachts

While there are no official criteria to categorize a yacht as a superyacht, Bill Springer, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Ocean Home, wrote for Forbes that "all superyachts are opulent enough to be equipped with an object that represents the epitome of luxury."

Source: Imperial Yachts, Forbes

This particular superyacht, known as Lana, will be available for charter for about $2 million a week beginning in the spring.

Source: Imperial Yachts

This is more than the cost of a typical week-long superyacht rental, which can come to about $150,000, per CNBC. Kismet, the 312-foot superyacht that Beyonce and Jay-Z traveled on in 2018, costs about $1.3 million per week.

Source: CNBC

It features amenities like a gym, a spa, and a helicopter landing pad.

Source: Imperial Yachts

Clusters of couches and chairs are spread out on Lana's decks for groups to hang out.

Source: Imperial Yachts

The sun deck comes with a heated pool that's about nine yards long.

Source: Imperial Yachts

The same deck has a dining room seats about 12 people.

Source: Imperial Yachts

Sculptures that decorate the yacht's interior mimic the flow of the ocean, according to the company website.

Source: Imperial Yachts

Lana holds 12 total guests per trip who can stay in one of the eight suites aboard the ship.

Source: Imperial Yachts

Seven of them are referred to as VIP guest rooms, and each room has its own color scheme.

Source: Imperial Yachts

The eighth room is a master suite.

Source: Imperial Yachts

This is the ship's beach club, which is an entertainment area with a waterfront.

Source: Imperial Yachts, Boat International Media

Lana also features a cinema room with a movie screen and a sound system.

Source: Imperial Yachts

The spa includes multiple treatment spaces like a steam room and massage area.

Source: Imperial Yacht

On the main deck, there's another large dining room ...

Source: Imperial Yachts

... and more lounging space.

Source: Imperial Yachts

Lana is a motor yacht and can cruise at 16 knots with a maximum speed of 18.5 knots.

Source: Imperial Yachts

• Some parents, skeptical of school curriculums and eager to level their kids up before they enter the working world, are investing in extracurriculars that'll teach their children essential life and business skills. 
• The activities — including race car driving, selling baseball cards, and social etiquette — can cost several thousand dollars a year.
• Parents Jacqueline and Jonathan Sanchez invested more than $50,000 into building a real estate company to give their four- and six-year-old kids hands-on experience running a small business. 
• "Our oldest doesn't ask us to buy him the latest toy," Jonathan said. "Instead, he asks us frequently what kind of a business he should create."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Uncertainty around how schools will reopen in the fall has many parents questioning the feasibility of typical curriculums to deliver proper learning and life skills to their kids. In response, some parents are ponying up large sums toward activities outside the classroom in the hopes of giving their children an edge in the future world of work, whatever that might look like.

"There is a panic parents are experiencing now during corona times to keep their children and teens engaged in enriching learning experiences and/or involved in meaningful and lucrative extracurriculars — even from home — so that students don't lose their edge, fall behind, or 'miss out,'" said Cindy Chanin, a Los Angeles-based national education expert and founder of Rainbow EDU Consulting & Tutoring who's coached the kids of Emmy award-winning actresses, Broadway performers, inventors, and athletes.

Sharon-Frances Moore, president of Shances.com, a business readiness and etiquette business, has also seen the lengths some wealthy parents will go to give their kids an edge in a job market that may be more than a decade away. 

Moore shared that a New York-based hedge fund president once hired her to teach business readiness, media training, and social etiquette to his child's Girl Scout Brownie troop, which had an average age of six. 

"The troop contained a child whose father directed four generations of their family's wealth management and a multimillion-dollar philanthropic trust, the children of two major league sports players, the child of an award-winning television producer, and a foreign ambassador's daughter," Moore told Business Insider. "I was told that these six-year-olds, who by the elementary school they attend were on track for an Ivy League education, had potential careers in the top levels of business and entertainment. The parents agreed that the children needed to learn how to work a room, behave in a formal setting, and eat properly."

The hedge fund manager hired a private chef to cook a four-course meal for the children to accompany Moore's class teachings, she said. 

Katie Provinziano, founder and CEO of Westside Nannies, a boutique staffing agency based in Beverly Hills that specializes in placing professional nannies, newborn care specialists, and private educators with families — often high-profile and celebrity families — across the US, also noticed this trend.

"With most schools, camps, and activities closed, parents are desperate to make sure their children aren't falling behind," Provinziano said. "As a result, we've seen requests for private educators skyrocket up over 800% in recent weeks as parents seek out extra educational support for their children during this time."

Read more:Wealthy parents are investing in high-end, 'backyard' camp experiences and private excursions to give their kids a taste of summer in light of COVID-19

These private teachers, she said, offer a wide range of extracurriculars to assuage the fears of worried parents, creating everything from sensory bins for toddlers to teaching math through a game of hopscotch. 

Some parents are hiring nannies with special skills that they hope will translate to their children, she added. 

"Nannies who are bilingual or have advanced sports skills are in particularly high demand — for example, a nanny with a background as a professional dancer for a little girl who loves hip hop or a manny (male nanny) who was a title one baseball player for a family with three little boys are two recent examples," Provinziano said. 

Read more: Some wealthy parents are eager to give their children multicultural experiences, from elaborate trips to nannies that speak multiple languages. During COVID-19, they've had to get creative.

Private educators, she said, average $30 to $60 per hour and nannies are $25 to $35 per hour depending on their education and experience, as well as any specialized experience — prices that can rack up quickly over weeks and months of instruction, particularly when more than one child is involved. 

Race car driving and selling baseball cards boost kids' extracurricular resumes

Mona Stone, a surgeon and the mother of two toddlers, is keeping her motorsports-driven kids engaged by spending time at a local race track outside of Dallas.

"They spend a couple of hours when they are there learning the track," Stone said. "Our kids are both interested in racing, which is a pretty expensive sport. However, it is very competitive and keeps them very busy." 

Each child's kart costs $4,000, according to Stone. Other accoutrements of the sport — including a helmet, suit, shoes, and memberships to the track — cost an additional $5,000 in total for each youngster.

The interest runs in the family: Her husband builds karts for kids as young as four years old.

"My husband was a paid driver and now owns his business coaching kids racing," Stone said. "Some of his best drivers are current Formula 1 and Indy drivers."

He's also a sole importer for karts from Italy.

"As a result, a lot of what my kids see at a young age is their dad competing or putting karts together," Stone said. "They spend probably an hour every day just hanging out with him in his workshop. My daughter, who just turned four, is now going formally to the local racing track and rides her size kart."

Once the pandemic is under control, she said, she and her husband plan to take their kids to several major race tracks inside and outside of the United States. 

"We plan on having the kids go from kart racing to formula racing in Europe," Stone said.

Chanin shared that she currently works with an LA-based family with a 14-year-old son who's taken his hobby of sports trading cards to a whole new level, creating a website to showcase and market his coveted collection. 

"Might I add that he worked with an Adobe Creative Suite expert and learned the basics of web design so that he could fully participate in the concept, design, and launching of his online enterprise?" Chanin said. 

Instead of pursuing an NYC-based internship that his parents lined up with a high-profile stockbroker, playing sports at his favorite sleepaway camp, or attending the annual card-trading symposium in Chicago — plans derailed by the pandemic — Chanin's client refocused his efforts from the comfort of his home. This is thanks to the support of his parents, who'd called Chanin in a panic about how to re-envision the summer of COVID-19 in terms of enriching extracurriculars.

"We discovered that their son is passionate about the 'business of sports' as well as investments and finance in general," Chanin said.

This summer alone, she said, the teen has traded upwards of $100,000 worth of baseball cards. He and his parents are hoping that his experience might position him for a highly competitive undergraduate business program, as well as a side business of his own that will make him an asset to dream vocations ranging from a venture capitalist to stock advisor to major league sports team manager. 

"He is just shy of sophomore year, so he has plenty of time to build his narrative and portfolio," Chanin said.

Along with his sister and younger siblings' extracurriculars, the family has spent over $100,000 on their kids' extracurriculars this year, according to Chanin. But she added that the son's card-trading wins could easily cover the family's balance for all of the kids' activity expenses combined. 

One family invested $50,000 in a real estate business to teach their kids how to run it

Jonathan Sanchez, an engineer, and his wife Jacqueline, a pharmacist, are real estate investors and the founders of ParentPortfolio.com. They have a four- and six-year-old. 

With the growing trend of overwhelming debt for young adults, the couple shared that they wanted to educate their children to be financially wise. 

"However, we just didn't want to tell them how to manage money," Jonathan said. "We wanted to show them how to do it." So they started a real estate company to offer their children hands-on experience with running a small business. 

They have invested a little over $50,000 in the business to date. Real estate is an ongoing conversation in their household throughout the day. 

"As we continue to teach our kids about our small business, this is something we ultimately plan to pass down to them in the future," Jonathan said.

The parents involve the kids in every step of the process, from analyzing potential investments to going on site of a rehabilitation project to understanding how to scale the business. 

"When I look for potential investments in my local area, my six-year-old son and I sometimes look on one of those online real estate marketplaces," Jonathan said. "First, I show him on the map where are good areas to invest in. I explain to him that we like to invest near universities and hospitals because it is a popular area. Next, we go through the pictures of a property to see if there are opportunities for us to add value and negotiate for a lower price."

When it's time to make improvements to a property, the Sanchez's bring their kids along. The parents literally use a dry-erase board to draw pictures of people, houses, and banks to describe what scaling up looks like. 

"I use arrows and simple numbers to explain how tenants 'borrow' the house and 'pay back' the bank for us," he said. "I even explained how a cash-out refinance works so that we can buy more houses."

The couple's four-year-old daughter, they shared, follows in the footsteps of her older brother. 

"Her common phrases [include], 'Are you working on the business?'" Sanchez said. "She and her brother play Monopoly Junior together pretending to collect investment properties."

COVID-19 has changed how the family goes about grooming their kids for a career in real estate, but not the spirit of it.

"Due to the pandemic, I am a little hesitant to take the kids out of the house where I can't fully keep an eye on them," Sanchez said. However, he still shares with them some of the projects he's working on. For example, he's currently helping out on a rehabilitation project where he's installing drywall and floor tiles. 

"I share with my kids pictures regularly to show them the transformation of a room," he said.

The Sanchez's are actively looking for their next investment property — but in today's market, it's been difficult finding a deal that meets their criteria. They're using the circumstances as a teachable moment for their children when they come home, reporting things like, "We missed it" or, "It's not a good deal."

The parents plan to increase their children's responsibilities and involvement in the family business in the near future. 

"They can help out in small repairs, such as painting, bookkeeping, and organizing the bills," Jonathan said. "Our intention is for them to see and understand why we make certain decisions in hopes they can make sound and valuable decisions in the future."

Over time, they plan to introduce their kids to their real estate attorney, certified public accountant, and insurance broker. 

"So, if they decide to pursue a higher education, they at least know how to integrate themselves into our business niche," Jonathan said.

Earlier this summer, Jonathan was explaining to his son how to make a blueprint and how to plan out a room. The elementary school student ended up drawing a blueprint of his dream bedroom. 

"Our oldest doesn't ask us to buy him the latest toy," Jonathan said. "Instead, he asks us frequently what kind of a business he should create."

SEE ALSO: Parents in places like Florida and California are asking for their money back from private preschool programs and forming their own learning pods in preparation for this fall

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• Jason McCarthy, 29, is a UK-based private tutor who teaches English through the online education platform DaDa, which is for children ages four to 16. He also tutors and coaches privately outside of the platform.
• His clients include affluent students from China, the US, and the UK. McCarthy is also the founder of DigiNo, an information site and job directory for people looking to teach online.
• McCarthy started tutoring part time on the weekends to earn some extra cash, but loved it so much he made it a full-time job in 2017.
• He's noticed working with wealthier families that the kids are surprised by the fun elements of his teaching — they're often overwhelmed with strict private lessons and extracurriculars.
• Once, he saw parents giving one another a massage in the background of a tutoring session, and frequently his kids take lessons while in the car on the way to other commitments.
• Here's his story as told to Robin Madell, a freelance writer. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

I started tutoring part time on the weekends to earn extra money on the side of my full-time job as a technical writer for a software company.

I was making around $1,500 per month — but I soon fell in love with tutoring. Of course, when you're tutoring students from well-to-do families, the money you're getting paid for such a fun and rewarding job quickly encourages you to increase the amount of days you teach also. Parents will often pay a per-class rate of around $52 per hour or package rates of $11,400, where students work with me for 15 hours per week for just over 14 weeks.

I found myself actually leaving my full-time office job in June 2017 to tutor five days per week rather than only on the weekends. Soon I was actually earning more than my full-time job for half of the hours worked. This is something that comes to my mind often as I'm strumming a ukulele and singing the alphabet to a laughing student.

I've been privately tutoring English to kids for a number of families online, getting a virtual view into their lifestyles.

I will generally teach for three hours per day with six students, ranging from students ages five to 16 (my current students are primarily 11 to 12 years old). 

When tutoring on the DaDa online teaching platform, each session is scheduled at 28-minute intervals, and at the end of these classes, I also complete company-required feedback forms for each family that spell out what the student did well, what they can improve, and areas to work on to prepare for their next class. I teach my students through an online video platform with a digital whiteboard and do my best to keep them engaged throughout.

Children with wealthy parents are often signed up for a plethora of extracurricular activities.

Therefore, their classes with me often land in between their piano lessons, golf practice, and other language classes. This often leaves them too tired to remain engaged.

This is why I strive to make the classes as fun as possible. I play the ukulele and use puppets and digital effects to get them laughing and enjoying the learning experience. I often engage them in free talk and listen to them talk about their many travels, including skiing holidays and trips to mountain hot spring resorts. 

If I have a student from a wealthy background, then I know that the way to make it fun is to focus on things away from their strict routine. One particular student once informed me that the weekend is the only time of the week when they can watch TV or movies.

Sometimes I find images to use as conversational cues. For example, if I know he or she loves superhero movies, I'll get images of superheroes and construct a tournament to decide who's the strongest. We do this tournament one round at a time and then continue to work on less-engaging material such as pronunciation and grammar. 

Whenever I notice the student's concentration begin to slip, it's time for the next round of the tournament:

"Who would win between Spiderman and Batman?" I ask as I bring up the images on the virtual whiteboard.

"Spiderman," says my 14-year-old student.

"Why?"

"Because he has powers and Batman does not."

I would expand on this until I got them laughing. As soon as they're laughing, we're ready to carry on with the work.

The major difference I find when teaching wealthy kids is that the children are often surprised by the fun elements of class.

They're used to their tutoring being a more strict learning environment.

This is the exact reason why one day I was worried when an eight-year-old student's mother decided to sit in on the class. In my mind, I questioned if she would approve of the emphasis of fun within my teaching.

I proceeded with the usual routine of wacky English songs and games. At the end of class, the mother wished to talk with me and I waited with bated breath for her feedback. She was dressed in her sportswear, which contrasted with her overall rigid and strict demeanor. The mother waited for her son to leave the dining room and asked:

"Would you do adult classes for me?"

This was an offer I certainly considered, but was never brought up again — I assume it was forgotten by the mother in the midst of her busy schedule, and I didn't get the opportunity to remind her as she never sat in on class again — a sign I took as her approval of my tutoring methods for her son.

The unique element of tutoring online is that the classroom is essentially two physical rooms connected by two computers. I've had younger students simply decide to get up and leave the room, leaving me sitting there with my brain fizzing at what to do. I can't possibly follow them through my laptop screen and ask them to return to class. Eventually, their parents will find them and return them to class. 

Oftentimes the online classes take place not in the student's private room but in the family living room, which has led to some incredibly bizarre moments.

I'd once been teaching a 10-year-old student their possessive nouns as they sit in their living room when suddenly in the background I noticed the father enter and lay down on a table. The mother then proceeded to give him a massage. It became incredibly hard to stop my eyes darting between my student and the makeshift health spa going on behind them.

There are also instances where the classes take place on the student's phone or tablet while they sit in their parents' car. One parent used to book the classes to fall within the travel times between school and meetings with the student's personal trainer at the gym. I would teach among the sounds of traffic as the student rocked from one side to the other in their seat each time the car turned a corner. This was far from an ideal learning environment, but the parent was obviously eager to utilize every moment of the day for their child's academic development.

While many were being forced to work from home, I was already fully adjusted to the lifestyle of 10-second commutes from bed to office. 

Naturally, the pandemic has seen a rise in bookings, with affluent parents eager for their children not to fall behind in their studies when out of school. The parents are certainly eager for the classes to be much more academic so that their child remains competitive upon their return to the classroom in a post-pandemic world.

It seems the future of online education for children has become a mainstream necessity much quicker than I predicted. I'm very grateful to have discovered it when I did and have a lot of experience under my belt — even if one of those experiences was accidentally locking myself out of my house right before class.

Luckily, I had my laptop with me in my bag, so I found shelter in my front garden and set up my classroom. The classes went well — after I explained to every student why I was teaching outside in the rain. An embarrassing moment, but still a great display of the flexibility required for tutoring students online.

SEE ALSO: Parents are spending thousands on the latest gadgets, coding bootcamps, and tech tutors for their toddlers to prepare them to compete in a digital world

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Review: Is the Amex Platinum the best card for you?

If you want a premium rewards credit card— one that offers benefits like airport lounge access and annual statement credits for travel — the Platinum Card® from American Express should absolutely be on your shortlist. It has a $550 annual fee, you get some great perks in return, including access to fancy Centurion lounges at airports around the world. 

While most of its benefits are related to travel — such as complimentary elite status with Hilton and Marriott and up to $200 in annual airline fee credits — the Amex Platinum has added some new limited-time perks, such as statement credits for select streaming services, to keep the card relevant during the coronavirus pandemic. If you don't travel much to begin with, though, this probably isn't the card for you.

The Platinum Card earns American Express Membership Rewards points that you can transfer to more than a dozen travel partners, including both airline and hotel programs. It also offers a strong welcome bonus of 60,000 points after your spend at least $5,000 in your first 3 months of account opening that can jumpstart your award travel. In fact, Business Insider's David Slotnick found that he was able to get $2,000 in value during in his first year with the Platinum Card when he factored in the welcome bonus.

The main competitor of the Platinum Card is the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, which also has a $550 annual fee. The Sapphire Reserve could be a better pick if you want high-value options for using your points that don't involve travel, since Chase's Pay Yourself Back program lets you redeem for groceries, home-improvement purchases, and more with a 50% bonus in point value with the Sapphire Reserve. But if you travel frequently and want as many hotel and airport lounge perks as possible, the Amex Platinum is hard to beat.

Bottom line: If you want as many premium travel perks as possible, the Amex Platinum could be the right card for you. The $550 annual fee is high, but you get a long list of benefits such as various airport lounge access options, complimentary elite status with two hotel programs, and annual statement credits for airline fees and Uber. 

Amex Platinum versus other Amex cards

*on up to $25,000 spent at US supermarkets per calendar year, then 1x

**up to $10 in statement credits per month when you use the Amex Gold card at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth's Chris Steak House, Boxed, and participating Shake Shack locations

Amex Platinum versus other premium travel cards

*on up to $60 with DoorDash in 2020, and up to $60 with DoorDash in 2021

Using Membership Rewards points

The Platinum Card earns Membership Rewards points, the currency of Amex's loyalty program. They can be exchanged for statement credits or cash back, used to book travel through Amex's travel website, or transferred to any of 19 airline and three hotel transfer partners (transferable points like these are among the most valuable).

Membership Rewards points don't have a fixed value, so it's a bit tricky to figure out how much they're worth. To get an idea, we can look at valuations published by the travel website The Points Guy. The website's team approximates the value of each Amex point point at 2 cents, though it's possible to get a lesser or much greater value depending on how you use them.

The Platinum Card comes with a welcome offer of 60,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first three months after opening your account. Based on The Points Guy's valuations, those are worth about $1,200 which alone makes up for two years of the annual fee.

If you transfer them to airline frequent-flyer programs and use them to fly round-trip to Europe — or even one-way in first class — you could end up getting a much higher value.

Amex Platinum card features

Airport lounge access

The Platinum Card offers access to various airport lounges, not just the Priority Pass lounges you can access with the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and the Citi Prestige (though you can access these, too).

This includes:

• Amex's proprietary Centurion lounges, located at more than 10 airports in the US and with one location in Hong Kong. These lounges offer comfortable seating, complimentary cocktails, and food created by award-winning chefs. Access to these lounges is limited to holders of Platinum Card or Amex Centurion cards.
• If you're flying with Delta and carry a Platinum Card, you can also access any Delta Sky Club lounge. With more than 30 locations, Sky Clubs offer snacks, complimentary soft and alcoholic drinks (with more "premium" drinks available for purchase), fast WiFi, and a place to unwind. Some also feature showers.
• International American Express lounges (with locations in countries like Argentina, Australia, and Mexico)
• Escape Lounges, with locations in the US and UK
• Finally, the Platinum Card comes with a membership to Priority Pass membership, a network of more than 1,200 airport lounges around the world. With that membership, you and two guests can access any lounge location (as long as there's room) to enjoy free snacks, drinks, newspapers and magazines, showers, and more.

$200 airline fee credit

Every calendar year, the Platinum Card offers up to a $200 credit toward incidental fees on one airline of your choice.

It doesn't cover tickets but applies to a wide variety of things such as checked bags, flight-change fees, in-flight food and drinks, fees for traveling with a pet, airport-lounge day passes (if you don't already have complimentary access), and sometimes even things like seat assignments and extra-legroom upgrade fees at one airline.

Up to $200 in Uber credit each year

The Platinum Card offers up to $200 in statement credits toward Uber rides each year. The credit is broken into chunks — each month, you'll get a $15 credit added to your linked Uber account, with an extra $20 for a total of $35 each December.

If you travel regularly or live close to a city, this is an easy perk to get value from. You can also put the credits toward UberEats orders.

In addition, your account will be upgraded to Uber VIP status. There aren't a ton of perks with this, and it's available only in some cities, but you'll only be connected to drivers with at least a 4.8-star rating. 

Up to $100 in Saks credit each year

The Platinum Card offers up to $50 in statement credits when you use the card to make a Saks purchase from January to June, and up to $50 again from July through December each year.

Elite status with Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy 

The Platinum card comes with Gold-level elite status at both Marriott and Hilton loyalty programs. 

If you stay at hotels even a few nights a year, these benefits can be extremely valuable — Hilton offers Gold elites free breakfast for two each morning. 

Up to $100 to cover the application fee for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck 

TSA PreCheck and Global Entry are absolute musts for just about any traveler. Once you enroll, you can use special lanes to breeze through airport security — you won't have to remove shoes and light coats, and you can leave your laptop in your bag. With Global Entry, you can use a fast lane when you return to the US from abroad, which makes clearing immigration and customs easy and quick.

The programs cost $85 to $100, and American Express will provide a credit for that fee every four years (memberships are valid for five years).

Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts

Amex Platinum cardmembers can access the Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts program. When you book participating hotels through Amex Travel, you'll enjoy perks including room upgrades, free breakfast, late checkout, free Wi-Fi, and a unique amenity at each hotel, like a credit to use at on-property spas or restaurants.

Amex Platinum concierge

Platinum Card holders also get exclusive concierge service. The concierge service can be helpful for things like getting tickets to shows orhelping you plan a trip itinerary. While the services are complimentary, you're responsible for paying for any services booked or purchases made on your behalf

Limited-time benefits to use during quarantine

It's also worth noting that American Express has added some limited-time benefits to account for the fact that Platinum cardholders can't take advantage of perks like airport lounge access during the coronavirus pandemic. The Platinum Card is offering up to $320 in statement credits when you use it to pay for select U.S. streaming and wireless telephone services (up to $20 per month) from May 2020 to December 2020. Additionally, Amex cardholders will notice more non-travel Amex Offers available in their accounts online, including cash-back deals and opportunities to earn bonus points on wine purchases.

Amex Platinum costs and fees

As discussed above, the Platinum Card has a $550 annual fee. This isn't waived for the first year, so you'll start paying it as soon as you're approved for the card. 

The card doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, but it does have an APR of 15.99% to 22.99% (variable) when you use the Pay Over Time financing option (rather than paying your statement balance in full each month). Additionally, there's a late payment fee of up to $40 and a returned payment fee of up to $40.

If you're considering this card, make sure you're able to pay your statement balance in full each month — both because the interest fees will rack up quickly if you don't, and there are better cards to consider if you need to carry a balance from month to month.

• Related Content Module: More Credit Card Coverage

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• While some states have seen population losses during the pandemic, people are flocking to Idaho.
• 194% more people moved into Idaho than left the state since March, according to data from moving marketplace HireAHelper.
• Its capital, Boise, was becoming a hot destination even before the pandemic: Its population grew by 18.2% from 2010 to 2018, and Forbes named it the fastest-growing city in the US in 2018.
• Microbreweries, luxury condos, and Brooklyn-esque coffee shops have been popping up in the Pacific Northwest city of 229,000 people.
• In November 2019, I spent four days in Boise's thriving downtown area, which is full of locally owned bars and restaurants, microbreweries and cider houses, and new luxury apartments.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Everybody wants to live in Idaho right now.

While states like New York and California have seen mass exoduses during the pandemic, others have seen a more people moving in than out. In Idaho, 194% more people moved in than left the state since March, according to data from moving marketplace HireAHelper.

Well before the pandemic, its capital city was experiencing a major growth spurt. Forbes named Boise the fastest-growing city in the US in 2018. Its population grew by 18.2% from 2010 to 2018, and by more than 3% from 2017 to 2018.

Most out-of-state transplants have been coming from California, primarily from the Los Angeles metro area. Almost 80,000 people moved to Idaho in 2018, and more than 21,000 of them were from California, according to US Census data.

According to locals, people are finally figuring out how great of a place Boise is to live. In 2019, Boise was named the best place to live for millennials, as well as the best US city to buy a house.

Last November, I spent four days in Boise exploring the city and talking to business owners and residents. As someone who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan, I was curious to get a feel for Boise's downtown and see what kind of lifestyle it offers for big-city transplants. After four days, I can, for starters, say this: Boise does not disappoint.

Keep reading for a look at its vibrant downtown area, which is bustling with breweries, farm-to-table restaurants, coffee shops, and new luxury apartments.

SEE ALSO: More people have moved into these 9 US states than moved out during the pandemic

DON'T MISS: 4 days in the fastest-growing city in America: Microbreweries, millennial transplants — and locals who are already afraid of getting priced out

Boise, the capital of Idaho, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the US.

Boise saw an 18.2% population jump from 2010 to 2018 and was the fastest-growing city in the country from 2017 to 2018, according to Forbes.

Roughly 25% of out-of-state transplants in Boise came from California, followed by Washington, Utah, Oregon, and Texas, according to the Boise Valley Economic Partnership's marketing manager.

While many welcome Boise's growth, some say the influx of new residents is pricing out longtime locals. The average home price in Boise jumped almost 12% from 2017 to 2018, and average rent has increased by roughly 7% in the past year. But wages haven't kept up, leaving many residents struggling to afford their living costs.

Some also say the growth has brought with it big-city-like traffic.

Despite the reported increase in traffic, Boise residents' average commute to work is just over 18 minutes, compared with the US average of 26.4 minutes.

In New York City, the average commute is more than double Boise's, at 40.8 minutes. In San Francisco, it's 32.8 minutes.

Boise may have stayed more or less under the radar until recently, but now it seems the secret is out that the Idaho capital is a desirable place to live.

In 2019, Boise was named the best place to live for millennials, as well as the best US city to buy a house. And it has a burgeoning tech scene.

Last year, I spent four days in Boise exploring downtown and other areas, interviewing business owners, and chatting with locals.

I was pleasantly surprised by the liveliness of Boise's downtown area during my visit last November.

"In the last 10 years, Idaho's economy has become more diverse, which can easily be seen in the boom downtown," Wes Jost, the senior vice president and manager of Zions Bank's Idaho commercial-real-estate group, told me. "New people and businesses are continuing to relocate to Boise, placing our area in growth mode for the last six to seven years."

That boom was clear during my visit.

Boise is a city of just of 229,000 people, but throughout my time there, downtown was bustling with people walking and biking, grabbing a coffee in the plethora of trendy cafés, and even sitting outside in the sun on a brisk November day.

Many parts of downtown Boise have a funky, artsy vibe.

I spotted several colorful murals in alleyways and on the sides of buildings.

One block, dubbed the Basque Block, includes a Basque museum and cultural center and the Basque Market, which sells Basque foods and Spanish wines.

Boise has a Basque community of about 16,000, one of the largest in the US.

The Basque people come from the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains on the border of Spain and France. They have their own distinct Basque language.

The Basque Block is also home to what claims to be the country's first restaurant-distillery, Bardenay.

On my last night in Boise, a Friday night, I stopped into Bardenay for a drink. Inside, I found a boisterous atmosphere, with people of all ages filling up the large space.

I paid $7.50 for a huckleberry lemon drop cocktail, which is made with "Bardenay lemon vodka, triple sec, fresh-pressed sweet & sour and handpicked Idaho huckleberry puree." And the price was a welcome relief from New York City, where cocktails can easily go for double that price.

The restaurant-distillery serves a variety of dishes, from sandwiches and burgers to tacos and sea-bass gnocchi.

In addition to its distillery, downtown Boise is home to at least seven breweries, six taprooms, five wine bars, and a cider house, according to the Downtown Boise Association.

One of the breweries, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, originates in Bend, Oregon, and opened its Boise location in 2013.

Boise Brewing Company on Broad Street opened in 2014 and brews at least 14 beers — from blonde ales to stouts to IPAs — and one cider. It hosts trivia nights, live music, fundraisers, and "brewery yoga" on Sundays.

Other local breweries include Barbarian Brewing, Payette Brewing Company, White Dog Brewing Company, and Woodland Empire Craft Ale.

Bittercreek Alehouse is a popular Eighth Street beer bar that opened in 1996.

You can choose from more than 40 beers on tap, starting at $2 for a half-pint and $5 for a pint.

Dave Krick, the owner, said he got lucky that he picked Bittercreek Alehouse's Eighth Street location back in the '90s. Today, Eighth Street is clearly one of the most happening streets in the area.

"I don't think I could've predicted the future of where we landed, but I just loved downtown Boise," he told me. "I loved Eighth Street 'cause I grew up down here and it's where I wanted to center my life. And lucky me, so did a lot of other people."

The premise of his business was simple, he said: "I love beer. I wanted to make a place that people could come and discover good beer." He added that "in those days, it was much more of a geek thing than it is today."

I stopped in for lunch one day and got the Huntsman burger, which comes with Gloucester cheddar and Stilton bleu cheese, pickle, onion, tomato, applewood smoked bacon, a side of house-cut organic Idaho potatoes, and a draft cider. (I'm not much of a beer person.)

The burger was $15.50, which is certainly not the cheapest burger to be found in Boise, but it was perfectly juicy and worth every penny.

One evening as it started to get dark and a bit chilly, I stopped into the Meriwether Cider House just around the corner from Bittercreek.

It serves 20 ciders on tap, including Meriwether ciders and ciders from all around the world.

I tried the $7 hot mulled cider, which was very effective in warming me up on a brisk November evening.

Boise has a diverse nightlife scene, ranging from lounge-y cocktail bars to quirky arcade bars and classic dives.

On my last night in Boise, I went from the Bardenay distillery to Press & Pony, a dimly lit cocktail bar with a speakeasy vibe.

My last stop of the night was the Spacebar Arcade, a retro underground bar where you can drink cheap beers while playing Pac-Man and pinball.

And don't forget the dive bars.

On the same Main Street block are Cactus Bar, which claims to be the oldest bar in downtown Boise, and Pengilly's Saloon, which has $2 well drinks on Tuesdays.

But it's not all breweries, cider houses, and dive bars. Boise's downtown is integrated with nature, with the foothills rising to the north and the Boise River flowing through.

The river is surrounded by a 25-mile stretch of tree-lined trails called the Greenbelt.

One morning I spent about half an hour strolling down the Greenbelt from my hotel to the heart of downtown, and I passed several joggers, cyclists, and people walking their dogs.

I heard from several Boise locals that the community is very active and focused on fitness, which rang true from what I saw downtown.

I passed by an indoor cycling and yoga studio called UpCycle Studio, which has a kombucha and cold-brew bar.

Also downtown is a Pivot Lifestyle and Fitness by KA, a fitness center founded by Kristin Armstrong, a local three-time Olympic gold medalist in women's cycling.

There's also a Crunch Fitness west of downtown and a Pure Barre studio near the river.

Many people get around downtown via bicycle.

The city has a bike-rental program, but most people appeared to be riding their own bikes.

Another common mode of transportation was electric scooter from two of the major companies, Bird and Lime.

When it comes to food shopping, I found two mainstays of millennial grocery shopping. Boise's first Trader Joe's opened downtown in 2014 ...

... and there's a 42,000-square-foot Whole Foods downtown that opened in 2012.

When it opened, the Whole Foods was seen as a competitor to the beloved Boise Co-Op just north of downtown.

But the co-op seemed to be thriving when I visited — and in fact, it opened a second location in the Boise suburb of Meridian in 2015.

The flood of newcomers to Boise has prompted the construction of several new apartment buildings downtown, including the luxury Fowler building.

The Fowler opened downtown in 2018.

"We get a mix of residents who are new to Boise and those relocating downtown from other parts of the city," Casey Lynch, the CEO of Roundhouse, the Fowler's developer, told me. "As a fast-growing city, we see people moving from all over California, Seattle, and other expensive coastal markets."

New condos and apartments in downtown Boise are "growing up like weeds," Eric DeBord, the owner of Red Pheasant Realty in Boise, told me.

"The condos are quite expensive, and that's led to a lot of new apartment projects with plenty more in the works," he said.

In the Fowler, the average rent for a one-bedroom is just under $1,500 a month. That's about $500 more expensive than the median rent for a one-bedroom in Boise, $980, according to Zumper.

More than 1,000 residential units are in the planning stages in downtown Boise, The Idaho Statesman reported in May 2019.

I did see a few single-family homes downtown, but they seemed few and far between.

It was immediately apparent when I started hanging out downtown that Boise has a growing and thriving coffee scene.

There are more than 20 coffee and tea shops downtown, according to the Downtown Boise Association.

One of the places that epitomize this scene is Form & Function, a hip, minimalist coffee shop on the ground floor of the Fowler that opened in January 2018.

At about 11 a.m. on a Thursday, Form & Function was buzzing with a crowd of stylish young people swathed in cozy sweaters and fleece, beanies, and boots. Even the baristas wore beanies.

Floor-to-ceiling windows let in plenty of sunshine.

One of my favorite coffee shops I discovered was Flying M, a funky, colorful spot that's been around since the '90s.

A local I met told me Flying M was considered a safe space for LGBTQ people.

Inside is a gift shop and a spacious seating area with a mishmash of colorful chairs and tables.

Some of the customers seemed to be friends meeting to catch up. Others appeared to be working on their laptops, and others still were just reading the newspaper over coffee.

My latte and snickerdoodle cookie came out to less than $5, half the price of what most coffee shops in New York City would charge.

One of downtown Boise's favorite restaurants is Fork, which sits in an old bank building.

Eater named it one of the 25 essential restaurants in Boise.

Another downtown restaurant that made the best-of list is the Wylder, a relative newcomer to the Boise dining scene.

It sits in the corner of the ground floor of the Fowler next to the Form & Function coffee shop.

David and Lizzy Rex opened the Wylder after moving from Santa Monica, California, in 2017.

I had dinner there one night and was surprised to find that the restaurant was packed on a Wednesday evening. It felt like a cool New York restaurant, except less crowded and also somehow cozier.

I ordered the most popular menu item, according to Yelp: the honey-badger pizza, which costs $18 and comes with Italian sausage, ricotta, caramelized onions, and spicy honey. It was one of the best pizzas I've ever had.

David, who used to spend summers in Idaho as a kid, told me the Wylder's pizza dough takes 48 hours to make and is made from the highest-quality flour and ingredients they can find.

When it comes to breakfast, one of Boise's most popular spots is Goldy's Breakfast Bistro.

At the recommendation of several locals, I had breakfast there one morning. I'd been warned that the lines can be out the door and down the block. Even on a Thursday morning, I had to wait for almost 10 minutes before getting a seat at the end of the bar.

I ordered a drip coffee and eggs Benedict with a side of home fries. The portion was surprisingly large, and the hollandaise sauce was rich and creamy.

My meal would've come out to less than $15, but I didn't even get a chance to see my receipt, because the elderly man next to me — a Korean War veteran — ended up sneakily paying my bill after we chatted throughout the meal.

Boise has a burgeoning tech scene. I stopped in one morning to visit Jelli, a Silicon Valley radio ad-tech now owned by iHeartMedia. It opened an office in downtown Boise in June 2017.

Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty told me Boise was an alternative to the "high costs and sort of broken nature of some of the economics" in the Bay Area.

"One of the things that we noticed when we were looking at Boise was how we really enjoyed the downtown voices, specifically the culture there," Dougherty said. "It felt very progressive. There are tons of fun little farm-to-table restaurants, great coffee shops ... It reminded me a little of Austin maybe 10 years ago, or Portland, or something like that."

Boise is the longtime home of Hewlett-Packard's imaging-and-printing group, which introduced the HP LaserJet printer.

After registered nurse, the most in-demand occupation in Idaho is software engineer.

Downtown Boise also has a varied and quirky shopping scene.

I saw secondhand book shops, a healthy-dog-food store, a store that sells artisan roasted nuts, chocolate shop, clothing boutiques that sell clogs and Free People dresses, and chains like North Face and West Elm.

Though Boise's downtown is relatively compact, even after four days I still wanted to continue exploring everything it had to offer.

Beyond the dynamic restaurants, bars, and shops, the people I encountered downtown were all incredibly friendly — almost "annoyingly friendly," as Krick, the Bittercreek owner, jokingly put it — and eager to chat.

And it's worth noting that the mix of entertainment, dining, and wellness options is extremely well tailored to the millennial lifestyle, especially since downtown is so walkable. Plus, the prices I paid for coffees, meals, and drinks were all a welcome reprieve from NYC prices; the city's relative affordability is also a good fit, financially, for a generation as cost-conscious as millennials.

Coming from New York City, I can certainly see the appeal of Boise: It's a manageable size, yet it has everything you need. And I don't think I've ever visited another city where the residents — perhaps partly because many of them came from big cities like Los Angeles and Seattle — are so unabashedly delighted to live there.

• On August 11, Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his choice for vice president on his 2020 ticket.
• Harris, a Democratic senator for California, has also held positions as district attorney for San Francisco and attorney general for the state. She has homes in both LA and San Francisco.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigned for Harris in Iowa in December 2019.
• Forbes reported that an overwhelming majority of her 2019 donors came from California and she unsurprisingly has a fan base in the two power centers of the state — Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
• In 2019, The Hollywood Reporter noted that almost half of the entertainment industry's key players in its THR 100 list had made donations to Harris' campaign in its early stages.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Representatives for Kamala Harris didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. 

SEE ALSO: Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's VP pick, comes from a family of lawyers and Stanford graduates. Meet the family.

SEE ALSO: Meet Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's pick for vice president

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Kamala Harris have known each other for 30 years.

When Harris ran for reelection as California's attorney general in 2014, Benioff cohosted a fundraiser for her campaign, according to a tweet from Recode's Teddy Schleifer.

"Kamala is one of the highest-integrity people I've ever met and is a phenomenal prosecutor," Benioff told Recode in February 2019. "She is truly an impressive leader with a strong legal and public service background."

However, Benioff is unlikely to publicly support the Harris-Biden ticket in the run-up to the 2020 election: earlier this year, he told Recode that since buying Time Magazine, he will "no longer make political positions or funding."

Harris attended Facebook cofounder Sean Parker's wedding in 2013.

Harris and Facebook billionaire Sean Parker appear to be longtime friends. When Parker got married in a lavish California ceremony in 2013, Harris was in attendance. 

Parker has donated to Harris' campaigns in the past, cohosting her attorney general reelection fundraiser in 2014 and contributing to her senatorial run in 2015. 

In late 2019, Parker was slated to host a fundraiser for Harris' presidential campaign at his home in Los Angeles, which was canceled when Harris suspended her campaign in December.

Laurene Powell Jobs has already voiced her support for Harris as Biden's vice presidential pick.

Shortly after news broke that Biden had selected Harris as his running mate, Jobs, the founder of Emerson Collective and widow of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, tweeted her support.

"Joe Biden you made a great choice!" she wrote.

Jobs has been a supporter of Harris since at least 2014, and donated to her Senate campaign in 2015. When Jobs was interviewed by journalist Kara Swisher at Recode's Code Conference in 2017, she brought Harris along because she thought "you would find it more interesting," as Recode's Teddy Schleifer noted. 

And in 2018, Jobs interviewed Harris at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where they discussed President Donald Trump and Harris' views on a lack of bipartisanship in congress. 

Jobs also donated to Harris' campaign for president before Harris left the race last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Harris helped Sheryl Sandberg promote her book "Lean In" in 2013.

Harris and Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, have been public allies since 2013, when Harris helped Sandberg promote her best-seller, "Lean In." As part of a PR campaign for the book, Sandberg asked Harris to supply a photo of herself and an example of a time she "leaned in."

In 2015, Harris participated in a talk with Sandberg on cyberbullying at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, according to Huffington Post. 

When Harris ran for Senate in 2016, Sandberg contributed to her campaign, giving the maximum amount legally allowed for an individual donor, Huffington Post reported. When she won, per the report, Sandberg told her by email, "CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!! We need you now more than ever."

On Tuesday, Sandberg posted on Instagram about Harris' nomination, writing that it's
"a huge moment for Black women and girls all over the world – and for all of us."

A slew of other Silicon Valley bigwigs have supported Harris in the past.

Many notable tech CEOs and investors have raised money for Harris in the past, though not all have publicly endorsed the Harris/Biden ticket yet:

• Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and her husband, Zach Bogue, cohosted a fundraiser for Harris' reelection campaign for attorney general in 2014. Mayer also donated to Harris' Senate campaign in 2015, according to VentureBeat.
• Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr and his wife, Khan Academy Chairman Ann Doerr, also cohosted the fundraiser and donated to Harris in 2015, as did SV Angels founder Ron Conway. John Doerr also contributed to her presidential campaign, according to Recode. 
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has been a Harris donor in the past, both when she served as attorney general and when she ran for Senate. 
• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive supported Harris' bid for reelection as attorney general.
• Former eBay CEO and current Nike CEO John Donahoe contributed to Harris' Senate campaign in 2015.
• David Drummond, Google's former chief legal officer, donated to Harris in 2015.
• LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman raised money for Harris' presidential bid, according to The Wall Street Journal.
• Twitter board member Omid Kordestani and his wife, Gisel, both contributed the maximum individual amount of Harris' presidential campaign, according to the Journal. 
• Zynga founder Mark Pincus is a longtime supporter, hosting a fundraiser for her Senate campaign in 2016, the Journal reports. 

JJ Abrams, a filmmaker best known for his involvement with the recent "Star Wars" trilogy, called her "the real deal" and "a powerhouse" in a 2013 Vanity Fair article.

Abrams has written for Vanity Fair that he and his wife, Katie McGrath, first met Harris when she was the district attorney of San Francisco and they became friends. 

"What struck me upon hearing her speak was that we had stumbled upon the most unusual of creatures: an authentically inspiring human being who happened to be in politics," he said. 

Abrams and McGrath hosted a fundraiser for Harris at their home in March 2019. Shonda Rhimes was a co-chair. Each co-chair donated $10,000 and the tickets were priced at $2,800, which is the primary election maximum.

Harris once called Universal Pictures Chairwoman Donna Langley "an advocate for vital voices" at a 2014 Vanity Fair event.

At Vanity Fair's Power of Women event, Harris introduced Donna Langley on stage with praise for her advocacy work and her successful career as a studio executive. 

After Biden announced his pick, Langley told Variety, "Kamala demonstrates a level of passion, grace and grit, that separated her from the pack. I've always believed in her leadership and she is the right VP candidate to face the challenges our country has ahead of us."

Vanity Fair reported that Langley has supported Harris since around the time of her bid for attorney general in 2010. 

Other top NBC executives such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jeff Shell have put their support behind Harris.

The LA Times reported that Katzenberg, the former DreamWorks Animation top dog, donated $2,800 to Harris' presidential campaign in 2o19. He also donated to her competition in the initially crowded field of contenders for the Democratic nomination. 

Shell, the CEO of NBCUniversal, opened the doors to his Beverly Hills home for a Harris fundraiser in February 2019. The guest list included Katzenberg, Eva Longoria, and Scooter Braun.

Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBCUniversal, contributed $2,800.

Harris has been an associate of the Getty family for several decades, even attending the wedding of Billy, George and Ann Getty's son, in 1999.

According to a 2019 Politico story, Harris had Sunday dinners with the Getty family, heirs to one of America's great oil fortunes, from early on in her political career in the late 1990s, when she was deputy district attorney for Alameda County.

The same story reported that Harris was seen at social events at the time with Gavin Newsom, who was then a city supervisor and is now the governor of the state. It has been widely reported that Newsom was a friend and business partner of the Gettys. (The Los Angeles Times reported in 2018 that eight prominent and wealthy San Francisco families supported Newsom's political career, including the Gettys.)

George and Ann Getty contributed to Harris' presidential campaign.

However, as Forbes reported, in keeping with the Biden campaign's promise to not receive any donations from executives with ties with the oil industry, it's unlikely that a Biden-Harris ticket will see any future contributions from the Getty family.

In July 2019, Ryan Murphy told Variety that his dream ticket would be Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.

"I would be very excited by that," Murphy told Variety's Marc Malkin. 

On August 24, CNBC reported that Murphy and his husband were organizing a virtual event featuring Harris, with the exact date to be decided. The host list includes big names JJ Abrams, Don Cheadle, and Chuck Lorre, and the tickets will be priced between $10,000 and $500,000.

Harris has enjoyed support from other Hollywood A-listers stretching all the way back to her bid for district attorney in 2004.

Spike Lee hosted a sold-out fundraiser for Harris' presidential campaign at his house in Massachusetts and the tickets were priced between $100 and $2,800.

David Robb reported for Deadline that before Biden entered the presidential race, Harris was the clear favorite among the Hollywood set as A-listers such as including George Lucas, Chris Rock, and Shonda Rhimes were some of those who contributed the maximum amount allowed in a primary election, $2,800. 

"This Is Us" creator Dan Fogelman gave Harris' campaign $5,600, split between the primary and the general election. Harris also got upwards of $5,000 from Eva Longoria and Elizabeth Banks. 

Other key players in Hollywood have supported Harris in past election efforts.

For instance, actor Jamie Foxx, supermodel and TV host Tyra Banks, and filmmakers Aaron Sorkin and Steven Spielberg supported Harris' bid for attorney general in 2010, Gene Maddaus reported for Variety. 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spoke at a Hollywood fundraiser on August 21 that brought $7 million to their campaign.

The virtual event was hosted by Amal and George Clooney, Jennifer Lucas and Byron Allen, Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti. 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their respective spouses, Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff, spoke at the event. 

• Rapper and fashion designer Kanye West is Hollywood's newest billionaire.
• Forbes inducted West into the three-comma club on April 24.
• Film directors and television personalities dominate the list of Tinseltown's wealthiest — but it doesn't contain anyone who has built a career solely off acting.
• Many of Hollywood's billionaires, including Jay-Z, made their fortunes from business ventures.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A lot of Hollywood entertainers are extremely wealthy — but fewer than you might think are actually billionaires.

What sets these five billionaire entertainers and studio executives apart from their peers is not only that they excelled in the industry, but that they leveraged their success to make investments that provide significant income beyond their salaries.

Hollywood's billionaires' club may not stay small for long, however, as more and more stars launch their own clothing and beauty lines. Two celebrities — Jay-Z and Kanye West — became billionaires in the past two years alone, thanks to their solid investment strategies.

Tinseltown's three comma club actually once had a sixth member — Kylie Jenner. Forbes named the 23-year-old influencer the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2019 only to revoke the title a little over a year later, saying that Jenner's team inflated her wealth in documents they provided to the publication about Jenner's assets and her company's revenue.

Keep reading for a closer look at how the Hollywood celebrities who are also billionaires built their respective fortunes.

SEE ALSO: Inside billionaire Warren Buffett's unconventional open marriage, which allowed him to live with one woman while staying married to another

DON'T MISS: 'Concierge doctors' who charge $10,000 a month for house calls and easy access to coronavirus tests have been cast as the villains of the pandemic. We talked to 6 of them to hear what they think the real problem is.

Kanye West is Hollywood's newest billionaire, although his exact net worth is disputed.

West may have made a lot of money from his hit albums, but it's his streetwear brand Yeezy that made him a billionaire, Forbes reports. Forbes estimates that West is worth $1.3 billion. Meanwhile, West has claimed that he's actually worth $3.3 billion.

According to Forbes, West's fortune is divided between a $1.26 billion stake in athletic wear brand Yeezy, $17 million in cash, $35 million in stocks, $21 million in real estate, $3,845,162 worth of vehicles, $297,050 of livestock, and $53 million in debt shared with his wife, Kim Kardashian West.

Jay-Z's investments made him the world's first billionaire rapper, with a net worth of $1 billion.

Jay-Z pocketed approximately $500 million from his 14 No. 1 albums before taxes, but a large portion of his wealth comes from his business ventures, Forbes reported in 2019. He founded a clothing line that he sold to Iconix for $204 million in 2007 and co-owns cognac brand D'Ussé, in addition to owning music streaming service Tidal.

Jay-Z bought Tidal for $56 million in 2015. In 2017, Sprint bought a 33% stake in the company for $200 million, which put the company's valuation at $600 million. Jay-Z's stake was worth $100 million last year, according to Forbes.

In 2019 alone, Jay-Z earned a total of $81 million, according to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, which put him at No. 20 among the year's highest-earning celebrities.

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is worth $2.5 billion.

Born to a single mother in rural Mississippi, Winfrey started out as a news anchor before spending 25 years hosting "The Oprah Winfrey Show." The investments Winfrey made with her share of the show's profits are now worth about $2 billion, Forbes estimates. She became a billionaire in 2003, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Winfrey, now 66, leveraged her show's success to build a media empire and amassed a fortune of $2.5 billion in the process, according to Forbes. She owns 25.5% of her television network OWN, an 8% stake in WW International, and has a content creation deal with Apple TV+.

Oprah has also voiced characters in "Charlotte's Web," "The Bee Movie," and "The Princess and the Frog," in addition to starring in "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and "Selma," among others, according to The Oprah Magazine.

Three-time Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg is worth $3.7 billion, according to Forbes.

The box office success of "Jaws," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," and "Jurassic Park," among others, have made Spielberg the top-grossing director of all time.

According to Forbes, most of Spielberg's fortune comes from his films, but he has also profited from his role as a consultant for Universal theme parks and the sale of DreamWorks Animation to NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion in 2016.

Spielberg co-founded DreamWorks Pictures alongside Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. While Forbes estimates that he's worth $3.7 billion, Bloomberg's Billionaires Index puts his net worth much higher, at $6.73 billion.

George Lucas, the creator of the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" franchises, is worth $5.7 billion, Forbes reports.

Lucas may be the brains behind two of the most well-known film franchises of our time, but he made most of his money by selling his production studio Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion in cash and stock in 2012, according to Bloomberg.

"Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," released in 1999, was the top-grossing film Lucas directed and produced, raking in nearly $1.03 billion worldwide, according to IMDB.

While Forbes estimates that Lucas is worth $5.7 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index pegs his net worth markedly higher, at $7.62 billion.

While Lucas originally aspired to be a racecar driver, he decided to pursue filmmaking after nearly dying in a car crash. Lucas studied filmmaking at USC before founding Lucasfilm, according to the university's website. Lucas retired from his studio in 2012 in order to turn his attention to independent films, according to The New York Times.

• President Donald Trump's grandfather moved to the US from Germany in a steamship in 1885.
• In the 135 years since then, the family has produced real estate magnates, one federal judge, and the current president of the United States.
• Mary Trump, President Trump's niece, released a book about the Trump family on July 28. The book catalogs many stories about Trump and his siblings while they were growing up and their "toxic" family. 
• On August 22, the Washington Post released voice notes secretly recorded by Mary Trump in which Trump's older sister, retired federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, criticizing him for "lying" and "cruelty."
• Trump, Melania, all his adult children, and some of their partners are slated to speak at the Republican National Convention this week. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Trump family has been making headlines for decades — first as bigwigs in the real estate world and now as some of the most powerful politicians in America.

On August 15, Trump shared that his younger brother, Robert Trump, had died. He didn't specify the cause of his death. 

"He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace," he wrote.

The following weekend, Trump held a funeral for Robert at the White House. The same weekend, the Washington Post released a series of voice notes recorded by his niece, Mary Trump. In the notes, Trump's older sister, retired federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, can be heard criticizing him. 

"His goddamned tweet and the lying, oh my God. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit. But he's appealing to the base. What they're doing to the kids at the border, I mean," Barry says. 

Seven members of the Trump family, plus Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, are speaking at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Here's a look at the dynasty behind the first family of the US.

The White House and Trump Organization didn't immediately respond to request for comment for this article from Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Meet the Cuomo family, the New York political dynasty that's become the face of America's response to the coronavirus pandemic

DON'T MISS: Meet the de Blasio family, the first family of New York City

Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump — born Friedrich Drumpf — emigrated to the US from Germany in 1885 at the age of 16.

Friedrich Trump was born in Kallstadt, Germany, and arrived in New York on a steamship. 

"He didn't know English. He couldn't possibly have known English. He didn't have anything like a high school diploma. He was literate, but in German," Gwenda Blair, the author behind the 2000 book "The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire," told the Washington Post.

Friedrich Trump's family in Germany had modest means and ran a small vineyard. Once he landed in New York, he lived with his older sister on the Lower East Side in Manhattan.

A few years later, Friedrich moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he ran multiple businesses, like restaurants and hotels, across the region in former mining towns during the Gold Rush.

For years, the family claimed they were Swedish.

Per a 2016 New York Times story, the Trump family for years claimed they were Swedish.

Jason Horowitz, the author of the NYT article, added that this is said to have been born of a desire to make good with their Jewish friends and customers.

"He had a lot of Jewish tenants and it wasn't a good thing to be German in those days,'' John Walter, Donald Trump's cousin, said of Fred Trump, Donald Trump's father, alluding to the time between World War II and the 1980s.

The Trump family's roots can be traced back to Kallstadt, a small German hamlet. The town also produced Johann Heinrich Heinz whose son Henry J. Heinz is the man behind Heinz ketchup.

In 1902, Friedrich married Elisabeth Christ, a former neighbor in Kallstadt.

Elisabeth, who was 11 years her husband's junior, was five when Friedrich first left Germany. He met her during a visit home in 1901.

Elisabeth moved to America with her husband after their wedding. By then, Friedrich was an American citizen. He shuttered his businesses on the West coast and turned his attention to Queens. 

In 1904, the family went back to Germany only to be deported shortly thereafter.

Government officials ruled that Friedrich be deported as he had never fulfilled his mandatory military service and had failed to notify authorities of his move to the US. Friedrich wrote a letter to prince regent of Bavaria in 1905 requesting that he be allowed to continue to live there, but his petitions were rejected.

Upon their return to the US in July of 1905, Friedrich, Elisabeth, and their daughter lived in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City.

Friedrich Trump died of the Spanish Flu in 1918.

Friedrich Trump was 49 years old when he fell sick in May 1918. He started feeling ill in the afternoon and died "almost immediately" according to the Washington Post and biographer Gwenda Blair.

Per estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 675,000 people died of the Spanish Flu pandemic in the US.

Friedrich and Elisabeth had three children: Elizabeth, Fred, and John.

Elizabeth, Friedrich's oldest and only daughter, served as a bookkeeper for her younger brother Fred during his early years in the real estate business. Her son, John Walter, was a self-appointed Trump family historian.

Friedrich's youngest son, John, has received significant media coverage over the past few years, in part because of President Trump's repeated mention of his uncle throughout his presidency. At one point, he called his uncle "a great super genius."

John Trump had a storied career as an engineer, working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 40 years. Among some of his most noted contributions was a breakthrough in X-Ray technology that advanced cancer treatment and research. 

Frederick Christ Trump, Donald Trump's father, was born in 1905 shortly after his parents were forced to move back to the US from Germany.

Per a 2018 Independent story, Fred Trump's first business venture was adding garage extensions to houses as a teenager.

Fred Trump built his career as a real estate mogul in the mid-1900s through construction projects in Brooklyn and Queens and parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia during World War II. 

His July 1999 New York Times obituary called him a "self-made man" who built "27,000 apartments and row houses in the neighborhoods of Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay, Flatbush, and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and Flushing and Jamaica Estates in Queens."

In 1973, the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation for "discrimination against [B]lacks in apartment rentals." Fred and Donald were both named as defendants on the suit. Donald Trump called the charges "absolutely ridiculous." 

At the time of his death, his estate was estimated to be somewhere between $250 million and $300 million. 

A 2018 NYT investigation found that President Trump has received over $400 million from his father's real estate empire, adding that "much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes."

Responding to the Times investigation, the Trump family said, "All appropriate gift and estate tax returns were filed, and the required taxes were paid. Our father's estate was closed in 2001 by both the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State tax authorities, and our mother's estate was closed in 2004. Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago, and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls." 

In 1936, Fred Trump married Mary Anne McLeod, a Scottish immigrant.

The couple met and fell in love at a dance. 

McLeod had immigrated to the US from the Scottish Hebrides in 1929 as a teenager. Like Friedrich Trump, she already had family in the US. She became a naturalized US citizen in 1942.

Fred and Mary Trump had five children: Maryanne, Fred, Elizabeth, Donald, and Robert.

Trump's oldest sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, is a retired federal judge.

Barry has degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University. She has a son, David Desmond, who is a clinical psychologist. 

According to Town & Country magazine, she was nominated to the US District Court by President Ronald Reagan 1983 and the US Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

"I knew better even as a child than to even attempt to compete with Donald. I wouldn't have been able to win. He was building models when he was very young. Huge buildings," Barry told New York Magazine in 2002.

On August 22, the Washington Post released a number of voice notes where Barry can be heard being critical of her brother. In the recordings, Barry refers to Trump as "cruel" and comments on "the phoniness of it all."

"Every day it's something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and I'll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before," the White House said on behalf of Trump in a statement shared with Business Insider.

Fred Trump Jr.'s career was a mixture of aviation, entrepreneurship, and joining the family business.

A Washington Post article referred to Fred Jr. as "tall, blond and movie-star handsome" and "the opposite of Donald Trump — soft-spoken, playful, and often joking."

Fred died in 1981 at the age of 46. He struggled with alcoholism, and President Trump has said that Fred's death has had a "tremendous impact" on him.

Fred had two children with his wife Linda Lee Clapp — Fred Trump III and Mary Trump, both named after his parents. 

On July 28 Mary Trump published a tell-all book about the president. The book, titled "Too Much and Never Enough," documents the president's childhood and includes anecdotes of him and his siblings as kids. 

She also wrote that Trump disparaged and ignored his father as Fred's health condition grew progressively worse due to Alzheimer's disease and that her side of the family was cut off from the family health insurance after they contested Fred Trump's will after his death.

Prior to the book's release, the late Robert Trump filed a motion to block Simon and Schuster from publishing the book, with the primary objective being that in writing the book, she was violating a confidentiality agreement that her branch of the family had entered into while settling a contentious dispute over the estate of Fred Trump Sr. Judge Hal Greenwald of Dutchess County, New York, issued a temporary restraining order barring the book's publication. This later was overruled by an appellate judge.

Elizabeth Trump Grau, 78, has stayed out of the family business.

In "The Art of The Deal," President Trump called Elizabeth "bright but less ambitious."

Elizabeth attended Southern Virginia University and went on to work at Chase Manhattan Bank, although there are conflicting reports of her exact role at the financial institution. 

She's married to producer James Grau. The couple lives in Florida. 

Robert Trump, the youngest Trump sibling, died on August 15 at the age of 71.

Robert Trump, a former top executive at The Trump Organization, told Page Six in 2016 that he supported his brother running for president "one thousand percent." He also donated $100,000 to the Trump Victory PAC.

On August 15, Trump shared that Robert had died and released a statement saying, "He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again."

Donald Trump married his first wife Ivana Marie Zelníčková, a former skier and model, in 1977. Born and raised in Czechoslovakia, Ivana became a US citizen in 1988.

Ivana and Trump were married for 14 years and have three children together: Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka. The couple broke up amid reports of infidelity on Trump's part.

During their marriage, Ivana was involved in her husband's business in varying capacities — running various hotels and casinos, and designing the interiors of properties. 

In 2017, Ivana said that President Trump had made her an offer to be the ambassador to the Czech republic. She said she turned it down because "it's four years in Prague, so bye-bye to Miami, bye-bye to New York in spring and fall, bye-bye to Saint-Tropez in summer."

Ivana published a book titled "Raising Trump" in 2017 about raising her children. "Donald might not have been the greatest husband to me, but he was a good father to the kids," she wrote.

Ivanka Trump, Trump's oldest daughter, is a Senior Advisor to her father.

Named Ivana after her mother, she goes by her nickname, "Ivanka."

Ivanka, 38, attended Georgetown University for two years. She transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where she secured a degree in economics. 

Ivanka starting modeling as a teenager and walked the runway for Versace, Business Insider previously reported.

She's also dabbled with helping the Trump Organization in deals and negotiations as well as starting her own lifestyle brand— The Ivanka Trump Collection. 

After assuming her role in the White House, she stepped down from both the Trump Organization and her fashion line. When Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and others dropped her fashion line, citing poor sales, she shut down her brand in 2018.

She's married to real estate developer Jared Kushner, who is also a senior advisor to the president. They have three children: Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore. 

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Trump's sons, have taken charge of running the Trump Organization during their father's presidential term.

Donald Jr., 42, and Eric, 36, went to the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University, respectively. They're both executive vice presidents at Trump Organization. 

Donald Jr. was married to actress and model Vanessa Trump for 13 years and has five children with her. He's currently in a relationship with former Fox News television host Kimberly Guilfoyle. Guilfoyle was formerly married to the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

Eric is married to television producer Lara Trump and has two children with her. In 2018, E News called them "the most normal, least controversial couple" in the Trump family. He has made media appearances on networks like Fox and CNN to defend statements made by his father.

Eric has been involved with his father's 2020 reelection campaign, specifically with establishing a rapport with high profile donors and campaign finances, as Business Insider previously reported.

Per a Wall Street Journal story, Eric called 2019 a very profitable year for Trump Organization. In a statement to WSJ, Trump called Eric "an outstanding young man who has never let [him] down."

Brian Spegele and Rebecca Ballhaus reported for the WSJ that after the economy recovers and once Trump has left public office, the organization will focus on expanding its luxury hotel business. In the meantime, Eric has been tasked with the tricky business of reopening properties post coronavirus shutdowns.

Trump married Marla Maples in 1993 and separated after four years of marriage, per a 1999 New York Post story.

Their daughter, Tiffany, was born in October 1993. Two months later, the couple got married at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman wrote that "where Ivana was the austere European with royal aspirations, Maples was a beauty queen from the Bible Belt." 

After separating from Trump in 1997, Maples raised Tiffany in California. Tiffany, now 26, graduated from Georgetown Law School in May 2020. 

Speaking to NYT in 2019, Marla said, "I'm not in the White House. I have friends on both sides. I will just walk in the middle. I'll do everything I can to remind people that any type of anger or judgment can truly have such a negative impact on ourselves, and absolutely on our environment."

Trump has been married to Melania Trump, born Knauss, since 2005. They have one son, Barron Trump, who is 14.

Melania Trump was born in Slovenia and moved to New York in 1996 when she was 26 years old. Her White House profile says she appeared in "high profile ad campaigns and [worked] with some of the best photographers in the fashion industry."

Per a Brides story, Melania and Trump met when he was on a date with another woman. Guests at their wedding included Bill and Hillary Clinton.

One of her most widely-known efforts as the First Lady is the "Be Best" initiative focused on "major issues facing children today."

The program has been criticized for lack of proper policy or a path towards concrete legislation. In May 2020, CNN's Kate Bennett wrote that "most of its accomplishments in terms of advancing funding for children's issues under the banner of 'Be Best' come via partnerships with programs that already exist within the federal government."

Washington Post correspondent Mary Jordan published a book titled "The Art of Her Deal" in June 2020 that includes accounts of Melania renegotiating the terms of her prenup after Trump's 2016 election win and a contentious relationship between with Ivanka. 

• President Donald Trump is threatening to ban popular viral-video app TikTok in the US over claims that it poses a national-security risk through its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
• ByteDance is entertaining TikTok acquisition talks with US tech companies to assuage concerns from the president. Microsoft is the favorite, and a potential deal is valued between $10 billion and $30 billion.
• Trump has issued two executive orders aimed at banning TikTok is recent weeks. Questions remain of the legality of Trump's orders, or whether they're enforceable at all.
• TikTok filed suit against the Trump administration Monday over the August 6 executive order that bans "any transactions" between Americans and ByteDance beginning in September.
• TikTok alleges the US government failed to afford "due process" and has no evidence to back up its national-security claims.
• Here's everything that's happened to threaten TikTok's future in the US, and what we know about what's to come.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: No, Donald Trump can't 'ban' TikTok

Lawmakers' concerns about TikTok trace back to when the app first landed in the US in November 2017, when TikTok's parent company ByteDance bought a US-based app called Musical.ly. Musical.ly was shut down in the US a year later, and was merged with TikTok.

Musical.ly was a watered-down version of TikTok: Its capabilities were limited to creating and sharing 15-second lip sync music videos. ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly was valued at $1 billion.

Source: Business Insider

China has been a target of the US government since Donald Trump took office in 2016. He's blamed China for the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and accused Chinese companies of using their products to spy on US citizens for the state government.

As TikTok's popularity soared in 2019, lawmakers took a closer look at the app's ties to China. They've raised concerns of potential risks to US national security, the privacy of young users, and content moderation.

In 2019, TikTok paid out a $5.7 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations it illegally collected personal information from children under age 13 without parental consent.

Children's privacy advocates have since accused TikTok of breaking the terms of the FTC settlement by failing to alter policies, and refusing to delete videos and other content obtained illegally. As a result, the FTC and US Justice Department are now looking into allegations it failed to live up to its 2019 agreement.

Beyond national security, TikTok has faced allegations it censors certain types videos, including content categorized as political, "culturally problematic," and coming from creators the company says are more prone to bullying.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider

A federal investigation was launched in November 2019 via the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a group that has the authority to approve or reject foreign business dealings over national-security risks. The review focused on ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly.

During Trump's presidency, CFIUS has blocked deals in which tech corporations from China and Singapore were poised to take over US-based companies. Last year, CFIUS ordered the Chinese parent company of the gay dating app Grindr to sell the platform because the deal had not been submitted to CFIUS for review when it happened — the same justification for allowing CFIUS to review of the ByteDance and Musical.ly deal.

Source: Business Insider

The Trump administration first publicly said it was considering banning TikTok in the US in early July, although no details were provided about how that would happen. Experts have said there's no identifiable way Trump could legally ban the app in its entirety.

In separate comments made in early July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited national security fears as a reason for a potential ban. A few days later, Trump said he was looking to ban the app as a way to punish China over the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: Business Insider

Reports emerged toward the end of July that the Trump administration had begun weighing two actions it could take against TikTok: a nationwide TikTok ban, or an order that ByteDance divest its TikTok operations in the US.

Source: Business Insider

To get ahead of Trump's calls for a ban, ByteDance started exploring the option to sell off TikTok's US operations, and entertained offers from US investors and tech companies. Trump acquiesced, and gave ByteDance until Sept. 15 to finalize a deal to sell off TikTok's US arm.

Trump gave ByteDance until September 15 to find a US buyer. If an acquisition hasn't been finalized by that date, Trump says he'll ban TikTok — although it's unclear how he could do that.

The valuation of TikTok's US operations have been pegged anywhere between $10 billion and $50 billion, a high pricepoint that few US companies could afford. Microsoft is the only company to confirm it has entered conversations with ByteDance.

Microsoft has confirmed it's looking to acquire TikTok's operations in US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 

Source: Bloomberg, CNBC

Other names in Silicon Valley have been floated as potential buyers, including Oracle and Alphabet. Twitter is reportedly in "preliminary" talks with ByteDance — but the company would have to raise billions to afford TikTok's massive price.

Source: Wall Street Journal

However, it's possible that these acquisition talks for TikTok's US operations could amount to nothing. Reports have indicated that ByteDance is only entertaining US buyers as a way to temporarily appease Trump — but has no plans to sell off its massively popular app.

Source: South China Morning Post, Business Insider

Despite ByteDance's offer to sell the app, Trump has taken the offensive. He issued an executive order in early August to bar Americans from making "any transactions" with TikTok or ByteDance, set to take effect in mid-September.

Source: Business Insider

A week later, Trump issued a second executive order based on CFIUS's completed review, which concluded "unanimously" that Trump should retroactively unwind ByteDance's Musical.ly acquisition. Trump's executive order extended the deadline for ByteDance to sell off its TikTok US operations until November.

Source: Business Insider

However, TikTok isn't going away without a fight. TikTok filed a lawsuit Monday against the US government, challenging Trump's August 6 executive order. TikTok will challenge the administration's national-security accusations and assert its right to due process.

TikTok says it will claim it was deprived of due process, afforded under the Fifth Amendment, with Trump's August 6 executive order. The lawsuit also will argue that no evidence has been found to support the Trump administration's accusations that TikTok poses a national security threat and has provided the Chinese government with access to user data.

Trump's executive order could, at the very least, be delayed as the courts review TikTok's lawsuit. TikTok could file an injunction, allowing the delay of Trump's executive order until the lawsuit is complete.

It also remains to be seen whether ByteDance will follow through on its talks to sell off TikTok's US operations. But it seems that the company is waiting to part ways with its 100 million users in the US until it's forced to do so.

• An English ferryman is offering a cruise to see all-but-abandoned cruise ships off the coast of Dorset, England.
• With cruise ship operations on pause worldwide, cruise lines including Carnival, Cunard, and P&O have anchored their fleets.
• Captain Paul Derham's "ghost ship tour" lasts 2.5 hours and takes passengers within 130 feet of the towering vessels. 
• Home to a stretch of Instagram-worthy, fossil-filled cliffs known as the Jurassic Coast, Dorset is a popular resort destination.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The view from Dorset's Jurassic Coast has looked a little different lately.

With international travel at a standstill, major cruise lines have taken to anchoring their ships in the waters off southwest England. Manned by skeleton crews, the ships are running on generators and returning to port to fuel up every few weeks, BBC reported.

The ships, which include Cunard's Queen Victoria, Carnival's Valor, and P&O's Azura, have become something of a tourist attraction, prompting vacationers and locals to pause and snap photos of the unusual sight.

Captain Marcin Banach of the Azura has been documenting the views from his vantage point on Twitter:

Now, in a very meta move, an English ferryman is taking passengers on cruises to see the abandoned cruise ships up close.

Captain Paul Derham's "ghost ship tour," advertised on his Facebook page, departs for Poole Bay from Mudeford Quay in Christchurch and can accommodate up to 20 people seated outside. The tours last 2.5 hours, cost £20 ($26) for adults, and are organized on short notice depending on weather and tides.

Derham's first two ghost ship tours sold out within two hours after he posted about them on Facebook, he told BBC.

Before purchasing Mudeford Ferry, Derham worked for P&O Cruises for three decades and was deputy captain of one of the ships anchored off the Dorset coast, he told Wessex FM. 

This background has served him well on tours. "I know what goes on inside the ships and having served on one or two of them, I can even recite stories," he said in an interview with the radio station.

Passengers are asked to bring their own food, and Paul takes care of the views, bringing passengers within 50 meters, or around 130 feet, of the ships that rise 20 or stories above the waterline.

One cruise ship captain has taken to waving at the ghost ship tours with a six-foot-long piece of plywood, Derham shard with BBC.

Derham is not the first travel operator to offer a creative solution to pandemic travel restrictions. Australia's Qantas airline recently resumed its sightseeing flights over Antarctica, Business Insider's David Slotnick reported. The 12-hour "flights to nowhere" cross over Antarctica and return to their starting point, appeasing travelers' desire for a change of scenery without the need to deal with travel restrictions, since (technically) it is a domestic flight.

SEE ALSO: Australia's Qantas is reviving its 12-hour sightseeing flights over Antarctica, which land right back where they started

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NOW WATCH: For $159,000 you can fly around the world on this 27-day luxury air cruise

• At just 28 years old, Emmanuel Tarpin is one of high-end jewelry's rising stars. 
• Tarpin has amassed an elite list of clients over the last five years, winning the Rising Star prize from Fashion Group International and Designer of the Year' at the 2019 Town and Country Jewelry Awards along the way.
• Speaking to Business Insider, Tarpin opened up abut about his early career, the future of his brand amid the pandemic, his thoughts on fine jewelry as an investment asset, and how his designs caught Rihanna's eye.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The sun was still blazing as evening settled in Paris. It was 6 p.m., and jewelry designer Emmanuel Tarpin was in his apartment, winding down his day.

At around a quarter past the hour, Business Insider called — a little bit late, but the goal still the same: to find out how this 28-year-old became one of the most buzzed-about jewelry designers in the world almost overnight.

"I've had a passion for jewelry since I was a child," he told Business Insider. "We always talk about the passion and creation of the fashion designer, but the jeweler these days always has to be discreet, and I think that's a shame." 

Tarpin graduated in 2014 from the Haute École d'Arts Appliqués school in Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied jewelry design. Afterward, he began working in the Van Cleef & Arpels High Jewelry workshop on the jewelry bench, where he refined his design techniques and craftsmanship. 

But after three years, he was ready to try something new.

"It was frustrating to make jewelry that didn't have my own designs," he said. "I wanted to start something that was my own, and I wanted to evolve, to try new things, to try my own designs, and to create my own brand." 

So in 2017, he launched his eponymous jewelry line and flew to New York City. Nobody there knew his name, but he was determined to show the jewelry industry's top players that he could, just as effortlessly, play their game. 

"I got an appointment with Christie's in New York and I showed them my first jewelry design piece, and they really loved it," he said. "Immediately, they put it up for auction." 

His first pair of earrings sold at Christie's for $25,000 in 2017, with the auction house describing him in its post lot text as "a promising young jewelry designer." And just like that, then 25-year-old Tarpin became a rising star.

Today, the jeweler has built a roster of clientele so exclusive that he works with them only by private appointment. He's not sold in stores or online and doesn't even have his own gallery — yet, at least. 

"Everything is one of a kind" 

Like most millennial entrepreneurs, leading an intimate, authentic brand is important to Tarpin. 

"I love to take time with my clients. I want them to see my universe, what I create, and where my inspiration comes from," he said. "I always traveled a lot with my family and that always inspired me. I also love nature. I grew up in Annecy [in southeastern France], with an ambience of nature." 

Tarpin doesn't make many pieces a year and says it takes a few months for him and his jewelry team to bring his projects to life. For the designer, picking the gemstones is one of the most important parts of his process, and one he tries to do all by himself. 

"I love white diamonds, but also I use a lot of colored stones like emeralds, sapphires, and even fine stones — not precious ones — but even like tourmaline," he said. "Everything is one of a kind." 

After designing a piece of jewelry and meeting with a client, he then instructs them carefully in how to wear their new accessory: with simple clothes that will help bring attention to his designs. "It's always great to have a very simple dress that will allow the beautiful detailing to be seen on the jewel," he said.  

Instructions like these helped bring even more attention to the young designer, and in January 2019, he was presented with both the Rising Star prize from Fashion Group International and Designer of the Year at the Town and Country Jewelry Awards.

Later that month, Rihanna's stylist called. The singer loved a pair of his earrings. "And that's how it all started — in quite a simple way," he said of his work with the world's richest female musician.

That February, Rihanna stepped out wearing a pair of Tarpin's black aluminum yellow gold seashell, 14-carat diamond earrings. She was on her way to Beyoncé and Jay-Z's exclusive Oscars afterparty at the Chateau Marmont, wearing a leopard print Alexandre Vauthier mini dress.

Jewelry can be a smart investment — but perhaps more importantly, it's art

Fine jewelry has long been seen as a good investment, sitting alongside other "investments of passion" like wine, whiskey, art, classic cars, and even Birkin bags, as items that typically increase in value over time.

But as the Financial Times' Kate Beioley writes, jewelry can be a hard asset class to tap into. 

Like blue-chip art, most demand follows a very select and specific sub-class: diamonds and exceptional gemstones. And in the past few years, the jewelry market hasn't been the most stable. Artnet reported that in 2019, global jewelry sales fell from $1.8 billion to $1.15 billion. All of which is to say: Consumer tastes are changing and the clarity, color, carat, and cut of a jewel have never been more important. 

Despite a volatile market, the pandemic brought forth conflicting messages — that the jewelry sector is set to take a massive financial hit, but also that when the going gets tough, people who can afford it still do buy diamonds.

Luxury retailers Moda Operandi and Olivela both told Business Insider that they saw an uptick in jewelry sales amid the height of the pandemic, and even Tarpin reports that the pandemic hasn't hit his business too hard. 

"For what I create for my clients, nothing has changed a lot," he said.

Ultimately, Tarpin is not a fan of viewing jewelry as an asset class, and when asked about its investment value, the young designer shied away. To him, it's art; he views jewelry as "sculpture you can wear." 

"Of course, there is the idea of investment, but I don't really think of that when I create a piece. Jewelry is something very intimate, very personal," he said. "After the pandemic, maybe people will think differently about how they buy jewelry. Maybe they will actually think more about feelings and buy things they enjoy."

SEE ALSO: A millennial entrepreneur who runs a high-end watch retailer explains why now is the time to invest in watches — and which timepieces are the most valuable

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NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• Jonathan Spears is one of the top real estate agents in the country, with over $600 million in career sales, and he's still just 28 years old.
• He manages a team of seven and works primarily in the high-end market in northwest Florida. His team has more than $121 million in sales this year. 
• In an interview with Business Insider, he broke down why he advises agents not to make predictions in an uncertain market.
• Clients always appreciate it when you stick to facts, he said, and that builds trust. The same goes for teamwork and collaboration.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jonathan Spears is no ordinary real estate agent. 

At just 28 years old, he has over $600 million in career sales and was named one of the country's top 100 brokers in 2020 by Real Trends, ranked by volume.

Even when he was younger, Spears was a go-getter. At 14 years old, he enrolled in college at Florida State University. He then began his real estate career in 2010 at 18 and has spent the past decade building his expertise in northwest Florida.

Now an agent for Sotheby's International in Destin, Florida, Spears leads a team of seven and has had a promising 2020, with more than $121 million in sales year to date. Some of the keys to his success include hiring to his weaknesses, scheduling out his days, and keeping in touch with both his personal and business relationships.

However, when it comes to what not to do, Spears explained that beginner agents should not make predictions on the future of a marketplace, especially in uncertain times. 

"Focus on facts and put away the so-called 'crystal ball,'" he told Business Insider in an email.

As a real estate agent, he said you have to think less like a "salesman" and more like an "adviser" when there are volatile signals for both you and your clients. 

Building trust among homeowners and prospective homebuyers is a crucial way to build your clientele and land deals in the future, Spears said. "Be a steady leader with a facts-based approach and a keen understanding of the market that your clients can trust."

Building trust within your own team during uncertainty

With leadership more important now than ever amid uncertainty, Spears' initiative applies not only his clients, but to his own team too, which he relies on to stay ahead of the game. 

Though his schedule is crowded with showings, prospecting calls, and follow-up emails, Spears said he starts every day with a 15-minute huddle at 9:15 a.m. that brings the team together to prioritize the day's schedule. The morning is reserved for the most important tasks of the day.

Among the group's collaborators are Spears' assistant, who was hired five years ago to handle the data side of things while Spears focuses on networking. A team manager who focuses on production also finds himself at the heart of Spears' successful operation. "He is paramount to being able to help our team members while I'm out there producing," Spears said.

"I'm very outgoing. I want to be in front of people. I do not want to sit in front of a computer all day and work on systems and processes," he added. "But it's systems and processes that help me properly manage not only all of the relationships that I have, but my team's."

That said, Spears success says a lot about learning the importance of a team, and his advice for industry newcomers follows suit. 

SEE ALSO: How to stay productive in a challenging times, according to top NYC real estate broker Ryan Serhant

SEE ALSO: The CEO of a top Manhattan brokerage reveals what leaders should focus on during trying times

Join the conversation about this story »

• UK employment in the retail sector is at just 55% of its August 2019 levels, according to the CBI. Jobs are being cut at their fastest rate since 2009 — and more pain is to come.
• Further job cuts are also expected across Europe, according to a study by McKinsey & Company.
• But visitors are gradually returning to UK high streets and shopping centres, and retail sales are starting to rebound.
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UK retail jobs have been cut at the fastest rate since 2009 during the COVID-19 pandemic — and the worrying trend is set to continue in September, according to one of the country's biggest business organizations. 

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI)'s latest survey of retailers found that the employment in the retail sector has nearly halved over the past year. It sits at just 55% of its August 2019 levels — far worse than the figure in May, when employment was at 80% of 2019 levels. The CBI expects retail employment to fall further in the next quarter, dipping below 50% of 2019's figures.

British retailer Marks & Spencer is among those that have laid off staff during the pandemic. Over the past three months, it has announced 7,000 job cuts — 10% of its total workforce. Many of the cuts fall on managerial or administrative roles.

The trend is mirrored across Europe. A study by McKinsey & Company suggests that up to 59 million jobs across Europe are at risk of a reduction in hours or pay, temporary layoffs, or permanent redundancies, and that the retail sector will be among the hardest hit.

The drop in retail employment in the UK comes despite the government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which allows companies to temporarily lay off their staff with 80% of wages, claiming back the money from the government. 

This scheme proved popular among retailers as high-street stores closed under lockdown restrictions — government stats show 73% of employers in the wholesale, retail, and motor vehicle repair sectors used the scheme for a total of 1,812,000 employees, or 40% of staff in these sectors.

Reasons for optimism

A recent increase in retail footfall has created optimism within the industry. Data firm Springboard said that footfall across the UK increased by 4.1% in the week ending 22 August, and by 6.8% in London. 

And some UK retailers have been hiring: Supermarket giant Tesco announced on Monday that it would be permanently hiring 16,000 new members of staff to meet demand in online sales. It is expected that many of these jobs will be offered to temporary workers Tesco took on at the beginning of the pandemic.

In other positive news, the CBI survey of 63 retailers showed only a small decrease in overall retail sales. On average, respondents said that sales were only 27% lower than in "normal" conditions, compared to 79% lower in June.

However, the number of shoppers is still significantly below pre-lockdown levels, with 61.2% fewer visitors to central London high streets than this time in 2019. Footfall in retail parks has seen the largest rise, according to Springboard, with these sites now reaching 89.4% of last year's mid-August visitor numbers.