How to Build Wealth in Your 20s & 30s Without Giving Up the Life You Want

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Oletko jääntää, ja olemme kärkisit ja tarjotaan, ja olemme kärkisit ja tarjotaan, ja otetaan kärkisit ja tarjotaan. ja hanvait edes reveniramme, mikä �i sue asiassa on yle Downtownin tee munneet siitä ironicuntus. Mennään seurist seinen juuritetaan per 2äivien erittäin, Naballえ müsste tosi jätty monta, niin suuritetaan kasvaan eri kaikkiimonadina million ja per 2ìjelviin, ja se on tullut kärminen kärminen. Miamma graffa on in China, johon on edes 18-anomallit, ja se on joo luosin. Nyt jatko järjestelmä, että se on tullut ennä per 2 järjestelmää. Ja se on tullut kärmää. Kärsääkin, että se on tullut järjestelmää, että se on tullut kärmää, että se on tullut kärmää. Ja menee 2 järjestelmää, että se on tullut kärmää, että se on tullut kärmää, että se on tullut kärmää, että se on tullut kärmää, että se on tullut kärmää, -to be frugolmallisuutta siihen, - - in tämä ja nyt, - - in a way that is shown to be glamorous and exciting - - where actually it's maybe the opposite - - of what is seen to be glamorous and exciting - - throughout the rest of social media - - which is maybe having as much as possible. So in this episode, - we get into the money moves that she has made in her 20s. Her best actual hacks for building financial freedom - - and what she wants to do influences on when it comes to spending. Before we get into it, please make sure you are following the podcast - - on whatever app you are listening to it on. This means that new episodes land on your feed every single morning - - and means we can keep it completely free for you and only you. - Memograph, but you currently more working hard or hardly working. - Definitely working hard. - Yeah. - I'm in my grind era right now. - But have you always worked that level? - Or is it something that you've picked up recently? - I think I've always had a strong work ethic. My parents always wanted me to try hard at school, - - but I think when I started out in my career, - - I definitely wanted to do 110%, - - but I think that now translates into me being self employed in my own content. I very much go the actual mile. It's bad to say, but I am constantly working. And I think most self employed people will be able to relate to that. Like, you switched the 95 for a 24/7. - No, it's so true. And I think also part of it is the mental load of it too, - - because even if you're not working, there's like the trying to work out - - what even is the best next piece of work to be doing to be able to get the type of work. You want all of that. It's very like, even if you're not working your brain, - - still kind of has to be doing that. I think very few people are completely being able to switch that off. - I think I am sometimes. My partner's very good at just grounding me and saying, - "Put the phone down, let's film or something." But even when I go to the cinema or I look at art, - I'll think, "Oh, how would I apply that to my content?" "How have they managed to retain my attention?" - Like, I'm always just taking inspiration from myself. - Yeah. - So I guess that would be considered working too. - Yeah, no, I know. And I totally get that. I do think also that can be a benefit, - - because it's like you're clearly so passionate about what you do - - that you're able to see this insight from many different things - - in terms of how it applies to you. It's definitely like a blessing in a curse. But for anyone who hasn't yet come across your work - - or what you're kind of pulling out online, - - how would you describe what you do? - So I would say that I am a content creator - - where I make sort of personal finance lifestyle content. My key message or mission is to spread financial literacy - - and to positively influence people's spending behaviour. For me, I had a shop at Holik-Based, - - and after that, I came out of it - - and I got really interested in saving and investing. And I sort of went down this path of self-education - - like coming home every day and watching YouTube videos - - and like really trying to understand topic. And so after that, I set up my investment portfolio. And it was kind of like a hobby for me. What I share online is almost coming from that beginner lens. Yeah, and also you've kind of become an expert - - in terms of your own finances and your own journey. And I think that's what I find so interesting about your content - - and what you've shared is like this radical transparency around - - what you are doing, what you aren't doing - - and not necessarily being from the background of kind of like, - "Oh, I've always done this through this side hustle. I've always done this. It was kind of a conscious decision to be like, "Right, this is my role now." "If I want to get to this type of money, I need to do XYZ." I actually came across you because you shared your investment portfolio. What made you decide to be so transparent around what you were actually doing? When I started posting content during 2024, I was speaking about finance very generally. I was just explaining what dividends are. I was just explaining investing or things that I was doing, but I was being very vague. I wasn't talking about numbers. But as soon as I mentioned how much I had in savings, my content definitely got more attention. But I became known because so few people were doing that. There's obviously a lot of finance influences that talk about this stuff, - but they tend to be like from America or Canada. There's not many people in the UK being transparent. So I think my content kind of stood out. And in a kind of very shallow way, I thought, "Well, this is working. Let me continue." And I started when I was like 23, so perhaps I was a little bit immature. And I just thought, "Well, this is what works, and I feel comfortable sharing this." So hopefully it can be beneficial to others. And also, I decided to share it because that's kind of what got me into investing. I was watching other people's portfolio breakdowns. And so I thought, "Well, if I can give back in a way and share what I'm doing, hopefully it can reach people that have never heard of investing." Yeah, and I really love that about your background. I think that so much of finance feels gate-kept for people who have come through a finance track in some way. So whether they're studying it, whether their parents did it, whether. Like all of these different things. It feels very siloed towards people who naturally have a predisposition to understand it for some reason. And what I really love about your background is the fact that, like. And we'll go into this in sec, but you were working in a fashion career. And this has been more of a lifestyle decision rather than a kind of career and expertise decision, which is enabled you to actually be able to build up a huge amount of savings and change your life entirely in a way that you have been completely transparent about. I think it's a really unique story, which is why we don't often see it. And actually, it's what everyone's trying to do. Not everyone's trying to work in finance, but yes, everyone's trying to. What most people are trying to get to a point of financial compatibility, where they can actually live the life they want to live, or work towards that. And since then, because it's been two years since you started posting about your investment portfolio and kind of the savings over time, can you give us a little bit of a picture of how your savings have grown since. When was it July, 2024, to now? Yeah, so June 2024, I had 50K in savings at age 23. And I'd done that through a mix of my internships. And I saved throughout that whole year, and then I did another year of internships after I graduated. And then it was a mix of like reselling side hustles and obviously living at home. It's a massive privilege and benefit. And that meant that I could put away like more than half my income. But something that I guess I got back last week at the time is like, how could I talk about this when I live at home because not everyone has a privilege to do that? But something that I was always like transparent with is not everyone is transparent about that. I wanted to tell people that there are loads of people living at home that don't do this too. So, you know, perhaps it's more for an niche audience. But I think it's nice to share anyway. Yeah, no, and I think that's it. It's still incredibly impressive. I know a lot of people who have lived at home for a number of years and not got close to that same example who might have been at the same earning somewhere. And of course, like, privilege is a massive spectrum there. And many, many different reasons for this and the other. Even with that, it is, I would say, percentile-wise, it massively outperforms the average of kind of what people have been able to do and put their mind to and all of that. And I think that the internet doesn't love nuance and the internet doesn't love this kind of approach of like, okay, well, this is still impressive for this setting or whatever it might be. But you're such a clear example of actually like, okay, you might not be in this setting. If you're not in this setting, here's what you can still do. If you are in this setting, like, look how much you can achieve. Yeah, and to answer your question over time, especially with posting content, it allowed me to get brand deals and that was a huge source of income alongside my 95 job. So when I finally moved out February last year, I had a little bit of an extra safety net in terms of extra income I was earning. So last year, I hit an 100k investment portfolio. Wow. - Wow. - And then this year, because of the nature of what we do, obviously with brand deals, you have much larger scope to have your own business as opposed to what you were able to earn from a 95. So it's steadily grown to over 200k. - Wow. - That's incredibly impressive. I think it's easy to sit and be like, okay, you have this, you don't have this, like all of these different things. What you're laying on the table is this is what I do, I do have this, what I don't have. This is what I've done with it. And I think so that we need so much more of that online. And I think it's easy to scare people away from doing that. 'Cause you're never gonna get it quite right. But actually to have gone from an entry level fashion job to even have been able to build up 50k and savings at that point, that is unbelievable. Like that is really, really impressive. To go from that in under two years to over 200 grand in an investment portfolio is just like, it's so, so, so impressive. And it's so exciting that you're being so radically transparent about it. Does it make you feel really proud to think about? I know that I'm classically British. I never like to like, acknowledge it. Even though I talk about it in my content, it feels weird to give myself a part on the back of how it's it. - No, and I get that. - But you should. - Thank you. - I'd say, I wanna go back kind of even further to, I guess, your whole origin story. We've touched on the fact that you were working in a fashion entry level job. Going back even further, you've spoken about your adoption story and your kind of background. Could you talk to me a little bit about, well, about that and about how that's kind of informed your view of money? Like, where does this perspective come from? - Yeah, so I, when people ask me where I'm from, I'm from, say, London, and then they ask, oh, where are you really from? - So, that is a micro-grish, but, far. (laughing) - But yeah, I've got to tell them. So, I am from China. More specifically, I'm from Wuhan. So, it's not the place with the great reputation, but, yeah, that's where I'm from. And so, I was born there, but I was abandoned and left outside of the school, basically in a basket. And then, I was taken, like, found and taken into an orphanage. I was fostered and, like, lived there for, I don't know, a year, and I was adopted when I was about 18 months. So, my British parents put English took me in, and I grew up in Lewisham for the first 20, three years of my life. And, yeah, so, I think that really shaped my perception of money, because even though I had, like, a middle-class background, I think that upbringing or that origin, perhaps, created, like, a bit of instability in me. I mean, I have no idea 'cause it happened so early on, and of course, with trauma and stuff, you can never really work out how it's connected, but, I think, because of that, I really knew that I couldn't take anything for granted. I think that's given me a lot of drive, because, even I've had privilege, I don't think it's to the extent where I've felt like I've had everything. I think, when I got into my teenage years, my parents experienced a lot more financial abundance, but up until then, things weren't as abundant. They were a bit tight, not to say that I was poor, but, you know, I couldn't have anything I wanted. So, that really, most of it, made me in the future to want financial freedom and to be able to afford the lifestyle I wanted. - Mm-hmm. - I don't know if it's directly correlated to being adopted, but I do think having that rough start definitely sparked something within me. - Yeah, and I can imagine as well, and obviously, like, I haven't been through that, so it's hard to kind of have a direct relation to it, but I think that what I can imagine is also the element of control and taking your life into your own hands. Like, that's really what you've done over the past few years, is looked at what you have, thus is where you want to get to, and being able to kind of draw a line between those two things and just be like, "Great, well, this is what I want. How am I going to get there?" And what does that mean for me? And I think realistically, that quite naturally comes from wanting to remove the chance of instability. And I think that that can come from many different things, but we often see that for a reason of driving, like many different people I talk to on this podcast, and I can really see that kind of coming through in terms of, like, you made a huge decision when working in entry-level fashion to actually make a big pivot, and that is a huge risk. It's also seen as the opposite of a risk for some people who want to have control, it's seen as more like, "Well, this is the one thing I have to do to get to a place where I'm not going to feel this instability." So what was the reasoning behind your decision to kind of leave where you, I guess, had just entered into in the fashion world? Yeah, so I always had this idea that I would pursue this whole career in fashion, and I would climb the ladder. But I think for me, when I started posting content, I didn't see it as a side hustle, even. It was, honestly, a hobby, because I didn't know I could monetize it. I didn't really understand how the influence of world worked. So I think for a while, I was just posting and solely over time, like, I've documented my journey. Brand deals went from 200 pounds, 500 pounds to my first four-figure brand deal. But I think when it started to creep into them, five-figure brand deals, that's when I had a huge mindset shift because I was like, "This is serious. Like, this isn't just pocket money anymore." Like, I think the main thing for me is when I started to out-earn my nine to five salary, but not just superseding it, but, like, you know, doubling or tripling it, I thought, "Well, if I'm constantly having to say no to events, I'm constantly having to go to the work bathroom and, like, take, you know, sneaky calls." Like, I'm kind of actually inadvertently saying no to money. So me, it was an opportunity cost where I thought the riskier thing would be to stay because if I've got a lot more earning potential here, and I thought, "What would happen if I put the 40 hours a week that I'm putting into this job with my work ethic, with my drive, like, what if I put that into my own thing, that's already driving this much money in my spare time in my evenings, what would happen if I gave eight hours a day to it?" And so I think that was a bet I took on myself. I very much had no idea what would happen. - And what even drove you to start creating the content before you even left the job? Like, while you were still in that role, what was your mindset, what were you trying to achieve? - I got interested in stocks and investing at university. I had these male friends that showed me their investment portfolio, and as I mentioned, went down this rabbit hole of learning about it. But to me, it was like a hobby that I couldn't express. I couldn't talk to anyone about it. When I tried to show my friends my investment portfolio, that felt really odd. Like, it felt like I was trying to shelter them, but I really just wanted to share something with them. And I mean, of course they were my friends, so they were really positive about it, but I felt like I was making them uncomfortable. So in a way, it was easier for me to share that with the whole world than it was to share it with people closest to me. But it wasn't just that. I think because I couldn't talk about it with anyone, I'd so desperately wanted to share what I'd learned and what I'd changed my life. To be cliche, it really was just one of those videos that was like, just post the content, and I was just scrolling. I thought, well, why don't I just try this, if it fails, and no one's gonna see it. And I started on TikTok, which is very much like, you're posting into the ether. So I thought, it doesn't matter. - Yeah, and I think it's such a good example as well of like, not waiting till you're ready. And I don't mean that in any way, other than the fact that like, it's not like you were coming into it from an expert perspective at that point. You're coming into it as someone who works a separate job who wants to achieve financial literacy, who wants to achieve financial security and therefore these are the things I'm doing. And I think so many people have a mental block around, well, I'm not good enough at this yet, or I'm not an expert on this yet. Not everything needs to be from that expert perspective. And actually, it's only in the past few years where really like that has been a lot of what is, people choose their niches. Before that point, it was kind of, well, I'm interested in this, therefore I post about this, like I started posting about fitness. I was absolutely by no means. So I couldn't even go to the gym, that's why I was posting about it. Like it was from an accountability point of view. And then it's like you're able to build something that is an interest into, I guess, an upskill into a career in the sense that you've done it. And I think that that's such a good lesson for a lot of people who maybe hold themselves back thinking that actually, well, I need to be an expert, which for most people is going to be 10 years in something. So realistically, okay, well, what can you do now? One thing that I found really interesting about your journey is I read about your kind of decision to, from that point where you're in that entry level job, to kind of basically double down and have a focus on finances to get to the best place possible. Like you switch to quite a frugal lifestyle, as you already said, and as you spoke about in your financial privilege sub-stack, which I thought was such a good read, kind of laying out what you do have, what you don't have, the position you're coming from. You also lived at home, you made big decisions on spending, all of that. What was the initial, I guess, like a light bulb moment around that and what did it look like in terms of like, I'm going to stop being a shopaholic, I'm going to do these things, I'm going to put these things in place. I think it was at university when I had, like, my first actual experience of managing money myself. I wanted to make my student loan last, but I was in this environment where people I shared with, they were like, on the first day, ASOS parcels, delivery, vapes, and all of this kind of stuff. And I thought, oh, I don't know if I should behave like that because I don't know if it's going to last. So I almost swung the opposite direction. And I was a bit too extreme. And in hindsight, some of the stuff I did is ridiculous. I would, I had social anxiety as well. So I didn't want to use the washing machines and pay three pounds each time. So I'd wash all of my clothes and hand, by hand, which was very time consuming, but to save me a lot of money. And then I would cook every meal from scratch, which I know is very normal, but in the halls I was in a boson. So I was the only one cooking these elaborate meals. People would look at me like, what the hell are you doing? It's just, it's just reminds me, because when you were saying, I took that too far as on the phone to my sister the other day and she was cycling home from work And she'd just done a food shopping it was in her basket and she dropped to keep come up and it rolled under a taxi She was like I'm just gonna get off because I'm gonna wait for the taxi to drive away And I was like what with you? Yeah, cuz it's gonna drive off it hasn't gone like under the wheel And then she just waited for a few seconds picked up her and I was like I'm big on big fruit. I'm big on saving money I think perhaps picking up your cucumber from underneath the taxi is maybe a step too far like uh-huh I will buy you a cucumber Let's let's not like as in let's keep our stuff off the road But those are good steps and I think that you're so right There's been this adjustment and culture of like what is normal and acceptable like a takeaway used to be a treat Yeah, a taxi used to be a treat a Shopping spray used to be a treat like how all of these things have been democratized is amazing and so many ways because of course it increases accessibility to more people Which is absolutely what's needed but like do we need to be spending a few hundred pounds on the first day our paycheck comes in? No, and maybe the fact that you wait for the paycheck shows that it's You know as in like that's a bigger chunk so it needs to be something that you wait for And maybe therefore it's something that needs to be considered longer and it's not like a monthly thing like you wouldn't say yes to a hundred pound monthly subscription From a source probably and yet sometimes you know that's what's really happening Yeah, I definitely had that mindset shift and when I was doing my internships I definitely kept the same habit so I refused to buy lunch at the office and things like that and not buy coffee out every single day I'd make the coffee at my work and You know to a lot of people that would just seem a bit miserable, but for me I was a bit crazy like I was very obsessed with like financial freedom and reaching these goals And so doing those things to me felt like progress. I felt like I was in control and perhaps it was a little bit too restrictive But I think you have different phases of life and I think your early 20s a lot of people just start out on entry-level salaries Like that isn't really the time to be splashing the cash if you don't have it So in a way I was living within my means and I was doing the most sensible thing I could over at the time because if you have the chance to live at home even for a year or year and a half like I did Nothing is necessary guaranteed you do have a safety net but if you inflate your lifestyle to Not have accounted for rent or anything you move out. You're going to have to adjust or you're going to have to have this short period where You have to completely rethink your lifestyle So I kind of acted like that money wasn't there. Yeah, because I think you're right in that a lot of the decision to live at home I think for a lot of people like of course it's a huge privilege and of course it can be hugely beneficial At the same time lifestyle creep is a massive thing So if you have that extra money there like how many people who are living at home are actually saving the rent like genuinely saving the full amount the rent would be and of course like If the you know the only way you can do a job is by living at home because it's not on a London living wage or whatever it might be then like I completely completely get that you're right that in some scenarios. It's like okay, so you're living there to save this But are you actually saving this like are you actually living within the means that you set out to even be ingly the Estabotics program 美元 companies and - >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> paying that lifestyle? - Yeah. - I would much rather prefer to keep my expenses the same every month, because that's my definitional winner. - And I think so many people who will have seen your income growth and your wealth growth. Will assume that the first thing that changes there is a lifestyle. And I think, I mean, obviously one of the reasons why you're well, to being able to grow so quickly is not just earning more, but actually keeping things to say. Like not suddenly driving a fancy car, or like doing this that and the other that doesn't actually improve your life. I think that it's such a good and refreshing way of looking at things, particularly in a world of so much consumerism, when actually it's fucking hard, not to fall into that all the time. Like it is really, really hard. And doing that is actually incredibly impressive. I want to come on to talking about investing, because I actually first learned about investing properly through this podcast, through having friends that invest, Simran, on. And literally that episode I've listened to so many different times, and I was so embarrassed that before that point, I was like earning money and I've been in a very fortunate position to have my earnings increase at a rapid rate and like being in a comfortable position from early and I didn't understand investing. Like I really terrified me, because it felt so intimidating. It felt like something, if other people need to be qualified to do it as a job, surely I need to be qualified to do it for myself. And actually I went on a real journey to educate myself both through, as you said, things like reading, mainly those things like podcasts and things like Reddit even, like just being in the right threads, reading other people's things. Like I love lots of the kind of like financial transparency threads around like fire UKs, so the financial independence retire early, like all of these different ones where people show how their things grow over time, how much they're actually spending a year, all of that. But I do think that most people look at investing and they still find it very intimidating. So where would you recommend someone's starts if they're listening to this and they're like, yep, I still don't invest my money. And therefore I'm essentially losing money every year. Where would you recommend that they start? So the first thing I do is make sure I've got that emergency fund, as I mentioned before, it's three to six months worth of your living expenses. I would make sure that I paid off any consumer debt, so credit cards and planner, because your stock market returns are not going to outpace the level of interest on those. And then once you've done that, you're kind of in a good position to start. If you're in the UK, I would make sure that you're using a stock such as ISA, which is a tax advantage account that we have where you can deposit up to 20,000 pounds every tax year. And you don't pay any capital gains or dividend tax. And in plain, in good terms, that just means the profits on your investments, you don't have to declare any tax on that. I would then look into ETFs, which are baskets of hundreds or thousands of stocks, and these passively trap a list. They're also often interchangeably called index funds, slight difference, but for the average person, they're basically the same. So you've got the S&P 500, which is the top 500 largest companies in the US. You've got indexes like the FTSE All-World, which is over 3,000 companies in the whole world, but it's made up 61% of the US, but you just have an extra bit of global diversification. So overall experts like Warren Buffett, for example, who's like a renowned investor, have said, "Pick a low-cost board market index fund." And what he really means by that is pick one of those and make sure to look at the costs of the ETF and basically just invest consistently. So I think what a lot of people don't realise, especially when they're 18 or in their early 20s, is the magic of compound interest. It's often called the 8th, 12th world for a reason. If you start with smaller amounts like 50 pounds, or even go to large amounts like 100 pounds, it can really snowball over time. And when you show people things like that with the compound interest calculators, they're always shocked by the results that 50 pounds a month can turn into half a million, obviously, by retirement age. But those are obviously theoretical, but obviously over time, you might increase your income, or you might have a bonus and put that in. So it's often not as linear as people think. But yeah, obviously there is risk, but you can reduce that by taking a long-term time horizon and also by diversifying with the ETF. It doesn't mean that it's risk-free, but it's definitely, to me, a lot safer than leaving it in cash because you're in year that's devaluing to inflation. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think what you said about compound interest is so important and creates this kind of urgency of like, if you keep telling yourself over and over, like, I'm going to get into investing next month, next month, next year, like all of that. Really, if you have any leftover, after all of your essential expenses, it should absolutely form a part of what you are doing every month with your money. And that compounding over time is what it's so important, because if you started this when you were 18, even if it was 10 pounds a month, you would be sick and to know how much you could have made in that time. And it's really, I think, another thing is that I always assumed that it was too much work. Like, I always thought, but I don't know which stocks are doing well. I don't know what's happening in this. I don't want to think about where I need to withdraw my money, all of that. The largest amounts I've made from investing have all been through index funds, literally just sticking the same amount of money or increasing it when, as you say, you get a bonus or whatever it might be, every single month into, like, I've chosen two index funds. And that is just what I do again and again and again. And it's like, that is so passive. You can literally set up the automations that make it happen. And I think it's so easy to feel like something's overwhelming when actually the tech means that it is categorically not overwhelming now. Investing is not overwhelming anymore. You need to pick an index fund or two and go into every month, even if it was like five quinoa months. And I think that it feels like such a barrier. And I totally understand why, because it did for me for years, too. But I wish more people would just do it. And I like your point about starting small, because I've always told people that, as a way to make a lot of people feel encouraged, that it's not just for people who already have money or already rich, but a lot of people get up and arms like, oh, well, 20 pounds won't make a difference. But it's about the intention. And over time, you will increase it eventually. And also, you can be doing things simultaneously, like increasing your income and having a sidehouse or starting a business on the side. There's so many things you can be doing. So I always like to add that caveat. But sometimes you could say start with small amounts and people could find that not inclusive, but I think it is. Yeah, yeah. 100%. And what are the biggest investing mistakes you see particularly women in their 20s making? I think prioritizing appearances over building up security and building up assets. Because I think we have this idea-- there's a lot of pressure for your 20s to be your prime years. I think a lot of people, like we talked about earlier, want to buy into the lifestyle before they've actually got the foundations in place. So it may seem sad, but I wanted to sacrifice, like living my best life or living a luxurious lifestyle in my early 20s so that I could set that investing foundation up and that was going on in the background. I could build up a sidehouse also. I was working extra hours and evenings. But that tradeoff meant that I'm in a position now where I have so much more financial freedom with my time and money. I just think, yeah, I may not have looked the most stylish or beautiful at that age. But I know it also means that maybe I didn't go clubbing as much or all of that. But now I'm in a position where I have a lot more freedom. And that's only within a few years I've put my head down. And the exponential growth within that time as well has mean that the freedom that you've achieved now has been massive in comparison to the freedom you would have achieved then by allowing yourself 150 quid more on my own choppy. Yeah. And you talk a lot about passive income on your page. What do you think of the best forms of passive income that I can understand someone might be listening to this and going, yeah, well, I'm staying in my 9 to 5. And therefore, I'm not going to get 200 grand in the next two years. Maybe I need to find some extra ways to earn money. What would be your recommendations on the best forms of passive income that you would start today? So with passive income a lot of people like, well, does it even exist? There are many forms like you can have cash back and you're spending which I think is pretty passive. You can have dividends from stocks which is technically passive, but it does have risk. You could have things like affiliate marketing, even if you're not an influencer that are ways of utilizing it, digital products. There's a lot of different sources of passive income. But the easiest one for beginners to get into is honestly cash back or rewards on their spending. I never spend for zero. I would like to get some kind of reward where whether it's cash back or aviars points, I think it's so important to get that reward for your spending. I've seen people get really discounted flights just because they use their AMEX to spend all year. For me, I think investing is one of the ways that you can make passive income. Even though the income isn't always directly paid to you because it's accruing and also it's unrealised gains so you haven't technically got that money yet to spend, it doesn't mean you've got that profit yet. But I do think that over time, as it compounds, like we said over decades, to me, in the last year, I've made 20,000 pounds on my investments. It's just about as someone's full-time salary. And that's for me not doing anything. I don't check it hardly ever. So I think investing is one of the ways you can make passive income, but obviously you need the money to get started. And I think one of the things as well is that there's a succession with passive income and saying, oh, well, this isn't fully passive. There's a spectrum, right? There's a full-time job, which is absolutely not passive. Most of the time you're having to work at least a 40-hour week. And these are all the different things you're doing and this is what you're earning for it. There's completely passive investments. There's also a lot in the in-between. If you work from home a few days a week, can you do dog sitting at your house for those days? Rover, I pay so much to Rover for when I need dog sitting. If you're going to be sat at home, could you not go and pick up someone's dog and they sit at home with you all day and you have a nice lunchtime walk? Same with doing surveys online, same with house sitting, same with all of these different things. Yeah, they're not fully passive, but you're probably going to be doing half the things anyway. And fully passive, it doesn't need to be fully passive or not passive at all. There is a middle ground and I think that we sometimes get so caught up particularly online and the lack of nuance between these things. If you can just earn a little bit extra, every single person who's been a doxeter for me, for example, has another job that they just happen to work from home. And I look at what I pay them a day for that type of thing and I'm like, "God, you're earning a solid amount extra." And I think that there are so many people who could be doing that. It doesn't just need to be the obsession of like, "Oh, well, I want to print money." It's like, "Yeah, okay, well, we all do." Realistically, that's not going to happen unless you strike a cross and an absolute gold mine. So what are the things that you are doing that you could monetize in some way? Where maybe it's not fully passive, but it still doesn't take away from your life massively, but it's definitely able to have in terms of income. Yeah, for sure. I think there's definitely like, for the listeners, like the difference between side hustles and then passive income, but my thing is like, I'd love to do, I always was an advocate for doing a side hustle and then funneling that into things that could give you passive income. Right, because like you said, Rover, all these different things, they are extra work. And for someone maybe who's a nurse, something like that. They probably, you know, like everyone has different circumstances. So like if you do work really long shifts, maybe it's not an option, but I think if you can do a bit of extra work to increase your income and then you put that into something that can grow your money, even if it's not investments, it could be just choosing a higher yield savings account, you know, not going with your traditional high street bank offering you 0.0% and going with something that's keeping up with inflation. I think that's a nice way to earn passive income. Yeah, no, that's a really, really good point. And I think that like the main thing that ties all of this together is like finding what works for you and not falling victim to lifestyle creep. Because I think that all of those things, so if the aim is to increase your income somehow by increasing your work and funneling that into passive income, so you're not necessarily taking hours or nails wear, unless you can, which I think lots of people could. Yeah. And I'm not saying, you know, hustles 24 hours a day, all of this, like, I'm not saying that, realistically could you go pick up a dog and sit at home like as in you know, like it's not going to ruin your life. But like that difference into the passive income, one thing you also need to do is not see that extra income, unless you truly, which a lot, you know, lots of people would need that extra income. But if you, if that is the on top stuff, make sure it is the on top stuff, like make sure that is going into your investments, make sure that isn't becoming, okay, well, I say it can take an extra holiday a year or I can buy this much more from this online shopping site or whatever it might be. It's like as much as that feels like a lifestyle improvement, the compound lifestyle improvement you can get from truly utilizing passive income and investments and stuff, is what is really going to see the difference kind of from now to actual financial freedom. It's just about building leverage, isn't it? Trying to work smarter, not harder. But at the start, I mean, with zero capital, zero experience, you're going to be starting out. But that's why I said this season. So like at the start, you might be saving a lot, being very frugal, taking on extra side hustles. But I think I'm a classic example of how that might be the case for one part of your life. But in another part of your life, it can change. And there's light at the end of the tunnel. You don't have to be doing that forever. But I think very few people are wanting to go through that phase of extreme focus with their money. No, I think that's totally fair enough. And I think that thinking of it not necessarily as like indefinite because if it's to improve your standard of living and you hate being that frugal, then maybe it doesn't improve your standard of living. Again, it's like what works for you and what actually fits into your lifestyle and what trade-offs you're happy to make in order to get to a certain future. It might be not many in which case great. But also you can't sit there saying, oh, it should be this, but it's not this when you are actively choosing that. If you are actively choosing that outcome. I want to do a quick, save-all-splurge quickfire. I'm going to give you a category and you tell me whether it's worth splurging on or saving on. And why? And I want to do this because I think that there are many different things that like of course, frugality is again a spectrum. There are going to be different levels that different people aspire to and adhere to. But I think really there are also some areas that maybe you don't, maybe you don't skimp on and end up like shooting yourself in the first. So I'll go through them. Moisturiser. Save. You should splurge on acts of ingredients, ones with like scientific evidence. But the stuff that's just going on your face, I like to use simple, serivary, the ordinary, those types of brands, more budget-friendly, and then my splurge on acts of ingredients instead. Eating out. Splurge, surprisingly. Because even though I love to cook at home, I think eating out is usually where I might see my family, my parents or friends. So I'm not going to scrimple on that. Yeah, and I guess if you had the balance of it, like, you're not. I think what's important is not falling into the like, oh shit, I didn't go to the shop again. And like, I can't be bothered, so I'm going to get take out when I didn't even plan it and didn't even necessarily want it. I think that's the real difference. Yeah, for sure. Holidays. Kind of half and half. I'm not wanting to go and stay in a hostel and backpack and be super frugal in that sense. I could rather go on a bit more of a luxury side. But like, I, for example, went to Thailand for £780 for like seven nights. Wow. Right. Hotel breakfast. So like, I would like to find a good deal. But I don't necessarily want to be tight in that area. Don't find it like a holiday. Yeah. If I'm going to work this hard, I want my holiday to feel like holiday. Yeah. wardrobe basics. Splurge. Because I'd much rather have fewer pieces that are higher quality, because I barely shop. Like, I'm doing this challenge where I only buy one item a month. So much rather only own fewer pieces, but better quality. Yeah. And I can imagine when you're doing that, it's like, really makes you think about the individual purchase. And like, is this, if it's a white top, for example, is this something I'm going to be wearing for a long time? Is it going to actually stand the test of time, even if I love it now? Which also just makes everything more thoughtful. And like, even in person shopping buses, online shopping, all of those things that allow you to really think about things. Coffee. Dave, I don't really enjoy the process of getting one every single day. It's not like a habit for me. I sometimes just don't really appreciate it. So when I make it at home, it's just, I don't, it makes more sense to me. I don't believe in the idea that like millennials can't buy a home, because they buy five-pound coffees. I don't believe in that idea. But it's just a personal choice that I'd rather not spend money on that. Yeah. Because it adds up. It could be like, I don't know if you get one every day. It could be a thousand pounds a year, worked out once. So I'd rather put that in my investments. Yeah. Totally fair enough. Tech. Save. I'd rather buy something from a second-hand website, like Backmarket. And I keep my tech for a very long time until it literally can't function. Like, I was using airports that would make a hissing sound, once for me. Finally, finally repaired them, because I thought, no, I'm a business woman. Now I need actual functioning tech. But for a while, I would save on that area. Yeah, like, not needing to upgrade your eyesight every time there's an even. Exactly. Rent. Surprisingly, splurge. Because I think with the nature of what I do, being comfortable in my environment and showing where I work and where I live, I think that's important. And so I went in zone two, I pay 1.4K, which is a lot more than I-- No, I started paying that when I was on 30K a year, which is a big chunk of my income. But I knew I had that side hustle income to supplement that. Sure. But that was, you know, in theory, quite a risky financial decision. But I'd much rather pay to have the space and to be central so that I can get to events quicker. So in a way, I think it does have a high return on investment. Trend-led pieces. Save. Even though some people think my style might be a bit boring, because I tend to go for more time to stuff, I just, in the past, have regretted all of the different trends or micro trends I've bought into. So I just see it as a waste of money. Yeah. I think there's fun ways of engaging it in a micro trend, for example, like you could go and vintage and get it secondhand or a charity shop. I like to shop my fun pieces secondhand too. So I feel like it's just more sustainable and low-cost. And it gives you a great feeling. And you find it, I love vintage and deep-off. Like, even the process of building up my explore page to be in line with the things I want and then finding little gems, like it's so much more rewarding than being on a site where you search that exact thing. And they've got thousands of products and there's, you know, want the match. And it's like, yeah, perfect. That's so easy. You don't get the same joy out of it as like, actually, it's like the fulfilment. Yeah, how would the like challenge of finding like these perfect zebra boots, and whatever it might be? No, I totally agree with that. Before we end, I think this is a really important question to ask, because I think that lots of people will listen to this and either have a moment where they go and absolutely sort things out, or they think, I need to sort things out. But it's like, there's an embarrassment around it. There's a barrier in terms of like the work of like working out how much you're actually spending and cutting down some subscriptions and like all of these different things. What would you say to someone who is embarrassed about not having their finance sorted and that's holding them back from actually sorting out? Well, I'll just say to them that is completely normal. I think that's most people because the UK in general just doesn't have much financial literacy. We don't learn about these things in school. I mean, private schools do, but I didn't go to one, so I had no idea. And then if your parents don't tell you, why are you supposed to go? There's no obvious place to learn about it. And sure, there's lots of books and podcasts, but it feels very fragmented. It's like, there's no one place to actually understand it. The individual has the responsibility. It's like going find out, but that's quite a lot. So I would say to them, don't feel overwhelmed or don't go embarrassed because it's completely normal. Just start small. I like to call these microhabits, but just start by checking your bank balance more regularly. Start by just making that save versus blurge list. So you're aware of your values and what you actually want to spend on. Because I think the biggest challenge is mindless spending. Not really knowing why you're spending. But once you have those priorities, it's easier to see where you're directing things. Yeah, no, I think that's really, really good advice. And I think also, you don't need to tell the world you're doing something before you actually do something. If you're embarrassed about something great, let's go home and sort it out. And you can feel about what you felt amazing after you fully sorted out what are my mindless spending on? And what are these shopping sprees? All of that. Also, most people I've come across who have got really into investing. They've actually got into it a lot later than you have. There's been, it's kind of been finding out about it well into their 20s, 30s, 40s. And then finding it and finding it such a hack and all of this. And I think that it's never too late, but you do want to start when you can. So it's kind of like, what can you do now to, like, there's no point putting your head in the sand to avoid that. And to end, I'm going to ask you what I ask everyone, which is what is the best piece of advice you have ever received? So it wasn't by anyone particular. I think it's just a common phrase that goes around, but it's create more than you consume. I think I never realised this growing up. I always thought, you know, you're kind of conditioned to be a passive consumer in society. And I did have like an entrepreneurial streak, but I didn't really like express it. So I think I started realising this when I started making content. Obviously at the start I had no idea I could make money from it, so it did feel like a creative outlet. That's what I want to tell people. It doesn't matter if it's content or blog, even posting on LinkedIn, something could feel cringe at first, but creating something is truly how anyone in this world has ever done something or fulfilled their dreams. You don't get anything by waiting passively for something to happen to you. I really love this idea of being high agency. So, you know, believing that instead of the world happening to you, you happen to the world, you're in control of your choices. And I think creating is one of the ways you can do that. I love that. That's such good advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. You've been incredible and I love following your journey. Thanks so much Grace. (upbeat music)