★ The L-BEP Core Concept, Reshaping How We Think About Wealth: The author introduces the novel concept of the "Life Break-Even Point"—the moment when one's asset income curve intersects with the life cost curve, meaning that even without working, one can maintain their current standard of living. This book transforms abstract retirement anxiety into calculable, actionable numbers, helping readers map out their own wealth curves.

★ Beyond Investing—Building a Lifetime Asset System: This book goes beyond traditional personal finance topics like saving, stocks, and real estate, integrating digital assets, AI-era career changes, and retirement cash flow into a unified "Lifetime Asset Theory" framework. Starting from monthly expenses and asset income, it progressively covers investment, asset allocation, post-retirement cash flow, digital assets, and career and asset strategies for the AI era. With practical tools and worksheets in each chapter, readers can chart their own cost and asset income curves hands-on.

★ A Wealth Blueprint for All Ages: The book opens with the story of Kim Sang-cheol, a 53-year-old who receives a sudden honorary retirement notice. It highlights the universal dilemma of relying solely on current income without planning for the future. Yet this book is not just for those nearing retirement—it takes a full-life-cycle perspective, helping readers in their 20s through 50s clarify their lifetime expenses and build a complete order of spending, saving, investing, and asset income—gaining the freedom to live without being forced to compromise their dreams because of money.

Understand life's break-even point, and your wealth curve begins here!

The new book The Wealth Curve opens with the story of Kim Sang-cheol, a 53-year-old who unexpectedly receives an honorary retirement notice. He has worked diligently his entire life, yet now faces the harsh reality that his company will no longer provide for his future. He is filled with uncertainty about what lies ahead. "How will I live from now on? Can I maintain my current standard of living without a salary?" This is not merely Kim's dilemma—it is the shared situation of all ordinary people who rely solely on their current income without planning for the future.

Most people believe that the starting point of financial management is earning more money and chasing higher returns. But this book argues that we must first answer a core question: How much money do we actually need to live our entire lives? Only by clarifying our lifetime expenses can we concretely plan how much to earn, how much to save, and how to invest.

Professor Ahn Yoo-hwa, an international economics and finance expert, introduces the core concept of L-BEP (Life Break-Even Point). From the moment we are born, we generate a cost curve—a continuous stream of expenses required to sustain life: housing, living costs, education, healthcare, and retirement. Our goal is to build our own asset income curve and, ahead of schedule, bring these two curves to their intersection. Asset income here refers to passive income—income that flows in steadily without labor or work. True financial independence is not about the total amount of assets, but about building a financial system that can sustain life even when you stop working.

Following Kim Sang-cheol's story, readers transform vague retirement anxiety into calculable numbers, itemizing lifetime expenses and assets across the full life cycle. The book starts with monthly expenses and asset income, progressing layer by layer to cover investment, asset allocation, post-retirement cash flow, digital assets, and career and asset strategies for the AI era. Each chapter is accompanied by the author's commentary, practical tools, and worksheets, enabling readers to draw their own cost and asset income curves.

The core of this book is not about teaching people to work desperately to earn more, but to first calculate the total cost of living for a lifetime, and then build a complete order of spending, saving, investing, and asset income around it. If you have only ever asked yourself "How much money do I need to earn?", this book will give you a new perspective on the value of money—one that encompasses your entire life.

Ahn Yoo-hwa

An economist who interprets the flow of money, and a specialist in lifelong asset planning through numbers. An international economics and finance expert, she is the author of the bestseller The Flow. She has long been engaged in research on the global economy, asset markets, corporate finance, investment, and digital finance.

Academic background: Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Jilin University of Chemical Technology, Master of Laws from Yanbian University, and Ph.D. in Business Administration (Finance) from Korea University.

Born in Jilin Province, China, she served as a professor at Yanbian University from 1993. From 2008 to 2015, she worked as a researcher specializing in China at the Korea Capital Market Institute, studying international finance. Since 2016, she has taught financial theory, investment theory, and Chinese capital market practice at the Graduate School of China at Sungkyunkwan University. She has concurrently served as the Director of the China Securities Administration Research Institute, engaging in research and consulting on the economies and finances of both China and South Korea. She has also served as a member of the Presidential Committee on National Intellectual Property and the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as a non-executive advisor on China affairs at Yulchon Law Firm, making significant contributions to the development of the RMB financial market for the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Korea Securities Depository.

Her primary research interests include international finance, corporate finance (IPOs, M&A, private equity), fintech, blockchain, and metaverse finance. She excels at translating complex Chinese economic and digital finance topics into content accessible to the general public. She operates the YouTube channel "Ahn Yoo-hwa's Economic Investment Theory" (250,000 subscribers) and hosts the program The Ahn Yoo-hwa Show, as well as the online and offline community "Times INBEST."

Her research and lectures go beyond broad economic discourse, integrating seemingly disparate topics—exchange rates, interest rates, debt, pensions, stocks, real estate, Bitcoin, and artificial intelligence—into a unified framework for the ordinary person's life. She does not merely analyze market trends, but consistently asks: How can ordinary people protect their wealth, work, families, and later years in times of great change?

[Preface] At Fifty-Three, Laid Off
[Before You Read] A 3-Minute Map to Find Your Life Break-Even Point

Part One: Turning Anxiety into Numbers
01 Anxiety Without Numbers Is Fear
02 The Secret of the Two Curves

Part Two: Assigning a Mission to Each Dollar
03 Grandmother's Six Envelopes
04 The Silent Leak of Money

Part Three: Plotting the First Coordinates of the Asset Income Curve
05 The First Investment
06 Thirty Years in the Same Basket
07 A Stumbling Start
08 Money Takes Action Only When You Do

Part Four: The AI Era – The Landscape of Money and Work Has Changed
09 In Times of Change, Everyone Is a Beginner
10 How to Create Wealth That Can't Be Replicated in the Digital Age
11 Money Has Different Missions at Different Life Stages

Part Five: After the Paycheck Stops – Protecting Your Family
12 After the Paycheck Ends, Money Needs to Arrive on Time Every Month
13 Protecting Your Family Through Turbulent Times
14 The Endgame at 3:14 AM

[Epilogue] The Order You Build Today Is the Freedom of More Choices Tomorrow

Appendix 1: Ahn Yoo-hwa's "Life Asset Theory" Visual Map
Appendix 2: Ahn Yoo-hwa's "Life Asset Theory" Core Glossary
Appendix 3: Notes and Source References
Appendix 4: Bibliography and Sources