S1 Ep4: Nischa Exposes the TRUTH About Saving vs Investing, How To Manage Your MONEY & Should You BUY a Car?

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I either continue doing what I've done for the last 9 years and knowing that I could continue doing this for the next 20, or I take the 84% pay cut to follow a passion and do something that I love.

Do you think that people think entrepreneurship is too risky and unachievable to begin?

People who start their business whilst working full-time are actually more likely to be successful than people who just quit and go all in. It really took stripping away everything that I knew about money, the value that I put on it, and the way my identity was attached to it. It was 2 months before a 6-figure bonus landed in my bank account.

As in before you got the money?

Yeah.

That is conviction. Do you remember the day that you were suddenly like, I'm actually going to do this?

It was the biggest wake-up call in my entire 9 years. That person had been in the organization for 15 years, gave everything to their company, and was just like a line item on the spreadsheet. It made me realize that ultimately your company owes you nothing but a paycheck.

What are the biggest mistakes that you see people make that prohibit them from building wealth? Tanisha, welcome to Wake Up. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Great to be here. Very excited.

So today I want to talk about how people can get a better understanding of their own money, get a better understanding of how they can put their salary to use better, what escaping the 9 to 5 looks like. But before we do that, I'd love to hear a little bit about you because your journey is amazing and obviously you've built this incredible channel these days. But I would love to hear the story of how you effectively left what in many people's sort of, you know, ideal world is like their dream job, you know, a job making $300,000 a year. I mean, presumably you're working incredibly hard, but I'd love to hear the journey from leaving that job to where you are now because it's been amazing to watch.

Yeah. So I was in banking for 9 years, and in that 9-year career, I also had did my ACA qualifications. So I'm also a chartered accountant by training. And throughout those 9 years, I never really took a step back to see if this is the path that I really wanted. At the start, loved it, loved what I did, found it intellectually stimulating, was really all in. And then it was about the 6 or 7-year mark in where I really looked at my life differently. And I, it was at that point where I thought you could either use money to design a life that you love, or you can use money to be trapped in a life that you don't.

Mm-hmm.

And I was doing the latter, right? I was in that 6-figure job, that $300K job, trapped pretty much. It took me to really take a step back and look at my life and ask myself those difficult questions. Is this really what I want or have I just got here by default because this is the conventional path? Is this financial life mine or is it a story that's just been written by someone else? Mm-hmm. And the question that I asked myself at that time that changed everything for me is would I still be happy if I was living life the same way in 5 years' time as I am today? And the way you think of money pretty much defines your answer to all of those questions.

Mm-hmm.

And for me, it really took stripping away everything that I knew about money, the value that I put on it, and the way my identity was attached to it. And when you do that, it's so much easier to walk away from a 6-figure job. It was 2 months before a 6-figure bonus landed on my bank account.

As in before you got the money?

Yeah, it was a 6-figure bonus. I was due to be paid in 2 months.

Wow.

It was guaranteed.

That is conviction.

And at that point where I thought I either continue, yeah, doing what I've done for the last 9 years and knowing that I could continue doing this for the next 20, or I take what at the time was the 84% pay cut to follow a passion and do something that I love. And I have not looked back.

Incredible. And so do you remember the day that you were suddenly like, I'm actually going to do this? Because I know so many people who dream about it and talk about it and think about it. And you know, on my channels I get a lot of people asking entrepreneur questions and business questions. But do you remember the actual day that you were like, okay, we're definitely leaving?

Yeah, there was one moment that pops up straight away as you say that.

Yeah.

And it was the start of a, of the journey. And I remember the day very clearly. It was a random Tuesday and it was around 7, 8 PM and I was working in the office and next to me was my mentor who was also on my team.

Mm-hmm.

And they pretty much took me under the wing when I started the bank. I started at the bank 7 to 8 months ago, told me everything I need to know about the product, asked, answered all my questions, told me about the office politics, who I need to be on the good side of, who I should not even spend time with, introduce me to everyone. And it was that evening where we both got pulled into a meeting room at the same time. At the same time that she got told that she's lost her job, I was told that I'm getting promoted and I'm taking on her role. And that should have been a celebratory moment, but it was the biggest wake-up call in my entire 9 years. I really took a step back and I, I was so disappointed and like hurt at that situation. And for me, it made me realize that ultimately your company owes you nothing but a paycheck.

Mm-hmm.

That person had been at the organization for 15 years, gave everything to their company, and was just like a line item on the spreadsheet. And it's okay to do that as long as you are aware that trading your time for money is a fragile arrangement, especially when someone else is in control of your time. Mm-hmm. And it was that moment where I thought, I'm gonna take back control and I wanna do something where I'm in full control of my financial life. But the next question is, what do I do? Because I knew I, I've spent 9 years working for corporates, financial institutions, sovereigns, making them build wealth and get richer. But it wasn't aligned to what I wanted to do. I really for ages wanted to be like, I wanna add value in a way that I can that helps individuals. And there was that point where I'm like, well, what do I do? And then I went on a journey to actually figure out what this thing is that I needed to Hello.

And I've seen you say this before and I know it's true. Like there is a massive percentage of people, I mean, depending what you believe, 90% of people in their corporate job would say that they don't like it or they don't enjoy it, or you know, it's an uncomfortable situation for them. And a lot of them would say they hate it. But why do most people stay in a job?

The majority of people stay in a job that they hate because of loss aversion.

Mm-hmm.

And it's a fascinating concept, which is that the pain of losing is twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. So say if you found 20 pounds on the floor, mm-hmm, you'd be really, really happy. You'll be excited. You, you found 20 pounds, but if you lost 20 pounds, that pain, yeah, is so much greater. You'd be kicking yourself. You'd be thinking about it for so much longer. And so these people who I speak to and who you speak to who say, yeah, I, I hate my job, I don't enjoy it. On the other side, they're like, yeah, I go in on a Monday morning because I know what kind of miserable to expect. Yeah. I, if I leave to do something else, I don't know if that's, gonna be the right thing to do or not.

Yeah.

And so for people in that place, I, I always say don't wait till it gets so bad that you have to make a big leap. Mm-hmm. Start small, build that emergency fund, take those online courses in the evenings, start networking with people in industries that you are interested in. It's not about jumping ship tomorrow, it's just about building that bridge to your next opportunity. Should that day ever come, then you can take it. You could take that path.

There's this incredibly famous, well-known quote which I looked up because I watched one of your videos and I thought, I feel like I've heard a quote like that before. The quote is, a salary is the drug they give you to forget your dreams. And like, there are so many of my good friends, you know, outside of my entrepreneur life, who no matter what, they now wouldn't leave because they almost said life has matched their salary and there is very little wiggle room to do anything. And so I suppose my question to you is like, do you think that people think entrepreneurship is too risky and unachievable to begin? Because I quite like the way you talk about it. You sort of talk about it as you don't just jump ship and do it. It's almost like a staged path that you can take.

Yeah. Going to that quote, it, it really is. The money can either create the life that you want or trap you in one that you don't. And entrepreneurship is risky, but when you have a full-time job, Mm-hmm. You have that salary coming in. That's kind of your safety net. That's the money that you can use to explore. That's the money that you can— that seed money for your business. That's if you're willing to switch jobs, that's the money that's gonna fund that course. Yes, entrepreneurship is risky, but there's data and there's facts that says that people who start their business whilst working full-time are actually more likely to be successful than people who just quit and go all in because you're making those rookie, rookie errors. Mm-hmm. You're making those mistakes. Whilst you've got the comfort of a paycheck. You're not worrying about how you're going to pay for next month's rent. You're worrying about where you're going to take this business next.

Yeah, my friend Daniel Priestley says that his main advice to day one entrepreneurs is go and work for another entrepreneur. And it's so funny now, I've been doing this for 16 years.

Yeah.

So I know all the people who worked for me and now do their own thing, and I love— it's like a, you know, like a whole in 16 years you have a lot of people work for you, obviously. There are so many businesses out there of people who once worked in my companies. And I, I would think it's a great thing because you get to make so many mistakes on someone else's dime.

Mm-hmm.

You get to like see someone else who's more experienced do something. And so I think it's good advice to, you know, stage an exit from a job if that's what you want to do.

Yeah, absolutely. And coming back to that, it's being so aligned right from the start of the kind of work that you wanna do. I think when you're a small pea in a big pod, in a big organization. Mm-hmm. It's really hard to get that exposure across the different touchpoints that you'll face as an entrepreneur. When you are in a small team and you see everything, it's so much easier to absorb that knowledge, really be a sponge, and then take that with you in whatever you wanna do.

This is true of you. So a lot of big jobs trap you with stock options and they trap you with bonuses and sometimes with equity and so forth. And to an extent, smaller jobs, when you have less income, you are trapped by maybe healthcare or something like that. So what are the practical steps that you can take to, to start leaving a company and to start setting yourself up with a bit more, I suppose, flexibility?

Sure. The first thing that I'd recommend anyone does is start building that emergency fund, that financial buffer. I typically recommend 3 to 6 months worth of your living expenses. I personally went for 9 months, had a really big financial buffer. Even if my entrepreneurial journey didn't go well, my boat capsized, I still have that life vest ready. That's, that's the thing that will give you that comfort. What most people say is courage or bravery is actually just having financial security.

Totally.

So that's what I'd say. And the second thing, I would try and wait it out to see if you could get your side business or whatever you're starting to meet a certain level of income before you jump fully into it. Just know that there is a possibility of earning money through it.

Yeah.

So for me, I waited until my, um, income through my side hustle actually covered my living expenses. Living expenses were pretty low at the time anyway, but it just meant that I at least have something that could provide a roof over my head, food on the table. I didn't need fancy clothes, fancy holidays, but you can then build out from there. Yeah, you've got that basics covered. And so that's what I say, if you're looking to quit your job or you want to do something else full-time, focusing on building an emergency fund to give you that protection, that safety net, and then thinking about, okay, how much do I actually need to cover my basic living expenses? It just gives you that added security on top of the emergency fund anyway. Some people might say that's too safe having both, but for me, I'm—

No, no.

I'm like a spreadsheet, like take the calculated risk.

Also, you are, you are gonna be much more creative and much more strategic if you are less stressed. And so if you put yourself in the position that you did, I mean, obviously for you, I mean, for a lot of people matching their salary, you know, they probably, probably could get there with a side hustle. But for you, obviously you probably took a quite a big pay cut to become an entrepreneur. And then since then you've been working, I suppose, to get yourself from there back to where you were before and beyond.

Yeah.

But that must have been quite an interesting first few months because entrepreneurship retrospectively seems so obvious, but you must make so many mistakes, you know, like trying things. And then people forget that actually starting new things or products or lines of cost money. And so you're actually losing money.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

That's why I say just keep that paycheck coming in. Yeah. That stable income coming in. And for me it was a pay cut at the time, as I mentioned, but then very quickly it overtook my salary in banking. But had I not given it that time and that focus that I needed at the point that I needed, it would've been a very slow journey.

And so your channel now is actually about helping people understand money and helping people build wealth, which I think is incredible. Was that apparently aware to you clearly before you left?

No.

No.

Before I left, yes.

Yeah.

Um, not when I started off. I think people sit there and they expect that their passion and their purpose to just suddenly be discovered through doing nothing. And really it comes through experimenting. And I call it AB testing. AB test as much as you can. And it was through AB testing as many things that I could possibly do that I find that the thing I do today, I'm absolutely obsessed with.

Yeah.

Is my passion. But I didn't start off that way. Like now I could tell you I'm obsessed with it. This is fully me living in alignment with what I wanna do. But I didn't, I didn't know before I started.

That is, it is remarkable. I mean, for to do something that you love to do, for it to provide the freedom it does. And you're right. I mean, the question I get the most from people, I suppose like younger people or newer entrepreneurs is like, what should I do? Or, you know, people say like, follow your purpose or passion. Like, what is my passion and purpose? And actually you just don't need, you don't need to know that day one. Like that stuff does just reveal itself. Through action.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why a lot of people actually feel trapped in their job, because they think that there's no clear plan B. So because they don't know what the solution is, what their passion is, it feels like they're just— it's a dead end. But actually, you want to reframe it to think that what your current situation is, it's a stepping stone, it's a means to an end. It's a thing that you can also use your job and other things to build that bridge and through life experimentation figure out what you wanna do.

Totally.

It just comes through trialling and testing as many things as you can.

But also say as well, like, I don't know, and this is just being like personally very honest, I don't know how passionate you need to be in entrepreneurship at the start. I, like, I would say for example, my first business was a, well, my first like proper business was a marketing company.

Okay.

I wouldn't say I'm like particularly passionate about marketing. But through the act of doing it continuously, I sort of found that I am really passionate about entrepreneurship. And so my life became defined by being passionate about entrepreneurship after the fact. But I did the marketing company for 10 years.

Do you think if you were really passionate about marketing in itself, yeah, that your trajectory would have been different?

I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, Verb obviously got to great exit and all the rest of it, but I mean, maybe I— but I did definitely find myself— my business partner would always say keeping you on message for 6 months was very hard. As in, like, I would often go and start other businesses, get involved in other things, kind of disappear from the agency for a while, and then come back and, you know, push it forward and so forth. And so even during my exit, which was meant to be 2 years, I only had 6 months because I just couldn't— I just couldn't handle— because I was so dispassionate by the end about it. Okay. But I think by doing it, I then, I worked out that actually I love the starting of businesses.

Yeah, that's the, that's the passion bit of it.

That's the passion bit.

Yeah.

And so now a lot of what I do is actually create content for people starting businesses. Mm-hmm. And so there is an alignment now, you know, but it's, it, it did come through like a lot of action to reveal it.

Yeah. Um, 'cause entrepreneurship is, it is hard. There are so many days and nights and mornings where you're gonna be sitting there thinking, what am I doing? What's the next step? How do I get past this? So if you don't have some sort of passion or interest towards it, you're gonna be, you're gonna find it hard to get through those moments. And I think it's those challenging moments where you, where you require some serious level of determination.

Mm-hmm.

That comes as a byproduct of passion to break through.

Totally. The next level, especially at the levels thing. I think that if you are ever gonna build something of true note, you are gonna have to work so hard on it. And I don't, there's so much stuff on online these days about how why people become so successful so quickly. And I struggle with it because I know firsthand from all the entrepreneurs that I know that it probably takes, to become successful probably takes 5 years, to become really successful probably 10. And then really successful people, they're either complete freak of nature accident, you know, like often there's a lot of luck involved in those stories, which is probably easier to analyse retrospectively. But then also the people who are really successful have just been doing it for 20 years.

Yeah. There you go.

Just, it's just time at the end of the day. And so like a lot of people will be like, why are you so confident about business nowadays? And it's like, well, I've been building businesses for 16 years.

But do you think that business is for everyone, anyone and everyone can learn the skills of a business?

No. I mean, I think everyone can learn the skills. I actually think that entrepreneurs over-exaggerate how skillful they are. I think a lot of the time they are Uh, they have all the skills that people who have ordinary jobs have. They just have often— I don't know if I would call it mindset or just like the confidence to execute for themselves.

Yeah.

Um, because the mindset thing, I've, you know, I've seen you talk about mindset. Like, you almost do have to free yourself from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking to begin that journey.

You really have to like shred everything you knew about a specific belief. And I think the hardest switch is, I think if you start off as an entrepreneur, it's a little bit easier because you haven't been conditioned into thinking a certain way. You don't have someone telling you what to do. You don't have the comfort of knowing, okay, I could take this many days of annual leave. Mm-hmm. But then making that transition, I think is, is a huge mindset shift. But it really truly is actually all up here.

My, my favorite, uh, piece of content I think you've ever put out is the one about, um, looking poor while you're building your wealth. Like, I absolutely love it. And I feel like I wish more people really understood what it meant, as in like, don't spend beyond your means. And so it brings me to, I suppose, the most important question, which is like, what are the biggest mistakes that you see people make that prohibit them from building wealth?

I'd say the biggest mistake people make that stop them from building wealth is keeping up with other people's expectations. And that means your spending is constantly upgrading towards what your income is. And as long as you do that, you are always gonna be working for the next paycheck or chasing the next material possession. To break free from that cycle, you do need to live below your means. Mm-hmm. You do need to find a way to save and invest a portion of what you are making to create a new life for yourself. And that's for as long as your income and your spending match each other, it's gonna be very hard to break free from that paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

So if someone is making a salary of a lot less, if someone's making 30 to 40,000 a year, should they be thinking about their income? Should they be investing? Should they just be saving? Like, how does someone who is living paycheck to paycheck, how do they think about their money? What's the most important things?

I'd say think about your money or your active income as a river. So your active income being the money you make from your job, the money you get from freelancing, from your side hustles. And then alongside the river are different buckets. And these represent your financial milestones, your saving goals, your house deposit, your retirement, your investment. And the goal at that level is to try and get that river flowing as fast as possible.

Hmm.

The quicker you could do that, the quicker those buckets fill up. And a lot of other people might say, turn around and say, yeah, start investing straight away. My advice is different here. You can do that, but that bucket's gonna take so long to fill up. I actually say focus on your active income, focus on ways to get that active income up.

Mm-hmm.

If you invest £100 a month for 30 years at 10%, that leaves you with £226,000. If you find a way to increase that £100 a month to £400 a month, you could get to that same £226,000 12 years faster.

Yeah.

That's the active income. Focus on getting those high-demand skills, switching jobs to get that pay rise, asking for a pay rise at your existing company. Think of investing in the stock market as a way to park your money. And in the meantime, find ways to increase the money that you're making in your day-to-day. Eventually over time you will find that once you keep investing, your investing income will actually make up more than your active income. But if you're at that level and you're starting out, that's, that's the river that you want to focus on.

I definitely like the idea of like parking your money in a, uh, like easy-to-use savings or investment account. But also at the same time, I was like, I remember seeing all this content about how to save and how to cut my expenses, which I felt like I was already doing. So the only thing on my mind was like, I have to up the amount I make. So I was sort of doing side hustles and consultancy while running my business. And so I was almost side hustling while running my own business to, to pay myself. But I think that for a lot of people, the easiest way is either promotion or move job. And I think most places moving job will deliver you the better outcome.

Yeah. I've, I've definitely found this. Um, I've switched jobs a couple of times in my 9 years and every time I've switched jobs I've got about 20, 25%, one time even a 30% pay rise.

Wow.

Staying at the same company, harder to do, but if you're getting promoted then it's worth staying out. But if you're not getting promoted or you're not getting a pay rise, then it's time to—

I will say that a lot of my channels and a lot of entrepreneurs will be like, oh, it's like so unfair to paint the business like that. But if the business can't afford to be giving people pay rises, then you can't blame the people for wanting to leave. Like, because unless they own equity, they don't owe you anything.

No, that's it. It goes two ways, right?

100% goes two ways. And so, you know, there's that classic thing that entrepreneurs say where they're always like, I wish my team worked as hard as me. It's like, well, give them the equity. Yeah, maybe they will.

Yeah, yeah. Find a way to reward them in a way that they do.

So what's the one thing that people get wrong about budgeting? Is it that they think that they have more than they do? Is it that they assign money to the wrong areas?

I think the biggest mistake that people make with budgeting is that they focus on the wrong part of the 80/20 rule.

Mm-hmm.

So the 80/20 rule is Pareto's principle where 20% of your actions drive 80% of your results. But with budgeting, most people focus on the 80% of the work that drives 20% of the results. And what I mean by this is the, they focus on the cutting down the costs, cutting back the, Cutting the coupon codes, cutting the lattes, stopping the Netflix subscription. And sure, there's a time and place for that, but it's not really going to move the needle. Mm. If you are thinking at the end of the month, where's my money going? You are likely missing the 80%. And ONS data backs this. The 3 biggest expenses in people's lives are the, their housing, transportation, and then food. So those are the 3 that you really wanna try and find ways to cut them. Finding a way to not cut them, but bring them down, finding a way to reduce your cost in these 3 areas will save you hundreds, if not thousands of pounds that you would spend months, if not years, trying to cut back on if you just cut back on lattes and Netflix subscription. So just asking yourself the right question is, do I need to focus on the 20% or is this the time where I focus on the 80% that will bring the biggest results and really seeing the wood from the trees.

And what do you think about now? Everything we buy nowadays, like, if we wanted to, we could buy it on debt at the checkout. I feel like there's something so— I feel like that's such a bad thing to bring people up on. I don't— I'm not going to name, like, company names, but I feel like if you're at the checkout and you can finance something immediately, I'm not sure what I feel about that.

If you can't pay for that thing outright in cash, you shouldn't be using debt to buy it. And exception is education and property. But if you have that money available, then sure, use the credit cards to get the points, to get the rewards. But if you don't have that money to transfer immediately, then you shouldn't be buying it. That's how I see it.

So for someone out there who's thinking about credit card, good to have because you can benefit loads from the points, but Don't be buying things that you couldn't otherwise afford.

Yeah. Or making sure you're paying off that credit card every month in full on time. That is it. You, the moment you don't pay it off, that interest that is going to hit you, 18, 20, oh, it completely outweighs all the rewards and the benefits and the bonuses that that credit card's going to get you. Don't bother.

I mean, the smart consumer, I always think one of the real benefits of a credit card, I was terrified of them until my wife was like, No, it makes total sense. You can just set up all these like auto sends and stuff, you know. So we just use the BA Amex and pretty much everything in the business will go through it now. And then the business auto pays it back and the benefit is huge. But I do remember once being like, looking at it being like, it's like 18, 20% on anything.

Yeah.

And you think to yourself, well, it's just not worth any free flight points ever for that amount.

No, it's completely outweighs it. You've gotta be paying that off. And yeah, like you said, the automation, doing that routine makes it worthwhile.

When we're thinking about some of the bigger purchases that we make in, in life, I know one of the things that I find a sort of personal bugbear is cars. I feel like for me, I actually didn't have a car until I was 29. I'm 34 now. Uh, and then I bought, bought a car off my girlfriend's grandma for £600, which was a Honda Jazz. And I had that until 6 months ago and I got a Tesla. 'Cause you can buy a Tesla on a government scheme where it comes off your corp tax, et cetera. So I've never paid any money on cars because one of the things I saw when I was younger was that people are buying cars in the most inefficient way possible and it's just brutal. So like for you, when you are advising people, like what is the best way to think about buying a car?

The best way to buy a car is to just buy it outright. And I actually recommend a secondhand car. Mm-hmm. 3 to 5 years is the sweet spot. At that 3-year point, it's already massively depreciated, and then you could swoop in and you could get a really good value, and it depreciates less so in the time that you have it. That's how I think about it. But then you also have, okay, what if I want to change my car frequently every couple of years? If you are that person who wants to change your car frequently, you want a nice car, or you are a business owner, um, because there's a lot of just like the Tesla, there's also a lot of other benefits for business owners. Or if you are someone who's really wealthy and you do not mind taking a huge hit on the depreciation and you know you are paying for it in the first couple of years, then lease. That's how I see it.

Yeah. And if you are advising someone on buying their own home, 'cause nowadays we've almost had like a buying your own home was like a sign of like wealth and control over your own life. Whereas now you get all of the books now are saying that your own house is a liability.

Yeah.

What do you as a, as an accountant, like money expert, what do you advise your audience?

When it comes to home, uh, it's— there's so many different pieces of the puzzle, but generally I recommend if you are staying in that home for more than 7 years, if you are comfortable with the mortgage payments— not just the mortgage payments, but the maintenance, all the other costs that come with running a home— and if you value that psychological comfort and that emotional security that comes with home ownership, then buy. But on the other hand, if you are someone who wants flexibility, you're going to be going to Malta, to Portugal, to wherever in the world, or if you think you can make more on your money by investing it somewhere else where there'll be a higher rate of return than you can get from the appreciation of your house in that same period, then rent. So there's so many different factors to consider, but if you're purely making a financial decision with your home, you don't care about anything else, and you're just looking at the numbers, you really want to see, is it going to be worthwhile to me, for me to actually put the money down on deposit and pay for a home? And that's all that money that could have been invested somewhere else is not available anymore because I'm putting it all into the equity of the home. Or saying, I'm going to rent, but I have all the savings I would have otherwise put on a home deposit, and I'm actually going to invest that. And that rate of return that I'm expected to get there is going to be higher than what this home would've appreciated at the same time.

And so I remember seeing, did you buy a flat before you even moved into the flat?

Yeah.

So you bought a, you bought a flat and you immediately rented it, didn't live in it. So that's super smart.

I, yeah, it was just additional income and then I eventually lived in it. It was 2 in 1.

And that, I, I suppose that fortunate enough to live with parents, same as I was with my girlfriend. To be able to do something like that? Because I presume that the opportunity cost of living in your own home therefore would've been worse.

Not only are you not getting the rent that you're making, but you're also paying the mortgage and all the electricity bills and all the other costs that come with that. So it was an unfair advantage and a bit of a booster.

I mean, I always find like it's one of those things where you should take any unfair advantage you can that's anywhere around you. Like the second you can. I always think people, you know, with asking other people to introduce you to someone that they know— I'll always sit down with like young entrepreneurs who will come to like any of the events and they're like, how do I network or whatever? And I'm like, let's go on LinkedIn. And then there'll be like one connection away from someone and I'm like, ask that person if they'll introduce you to that person. And most of the time that person will try and help because people do. But it's like one of these things where you should try and take advantage of any unfair advantage you have or any even inkling of an advantage.

I actually, I love that actually, cuz I haven't thought about that myself. I always, for me, I feel like I would wanna make that connection directly myself.

Mm-hmm.

And so I actually hesitate to get or ask for introductions, but I love, I love that piece of advice.

That's like my like old school sales self, you know, like when you run a business like I ran when I was younger, you are basically an out and out salesperson. Like I, I didn't love it, but I realized that you're just most likely to succeed if more people know that you do what you do, which seemed like such a simple concept, of course. But I like had this thing where someone sat me down, they said, you know, you need to start networking. And I was like, oh, I don't want to network. I hate networking. And I realized that I was incredibly introverted in like group settings, but one-on-one I was always fine. And so I started trying to hit a number every month of people to meet every month. And so at the beginning it was like meet 20 new people a month, and then it was 50 people a month. And so if you're doing that, if you're meeting 50 people a month, you have to become very good at like, how do you expand your circle? And I would say to like any young entrepreneur running a sales or B2B business, that's the way to do it. I mean, obviously if you can build a personal brand, that's amazing. But most of our business in those first 7 or 8 years just came from one-on-one networking meets.

Yeah. That reminds me of a quote that I came across and it's, it's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's kind of just showing your work to as many people as you can. Yeah.

I mean, it's like the, it's like the old school way of doing it.

Yeah. And do you really felt like it made, as soon as you started with this kind of game with yourself, it really changed the way you your career went and—

Totally. I mean, you know, I always say this, I actually wrote, I wrote this in my book recently, but like I was an incredibly ordinary or subpar entrepreneur for quite a long time. Just ran a very small business doing really ordinary work, um, never making much money or profit. And then started to be like, okay, based on the concept of if more people knew what I did, I would have more customers. That concept stuck with me for so long. And from You know, 21 to 25, I built a tiny business. From 25 to now, I've built 4 big businesses. And I think it's just, you know, if you can get people to know what you do and deliver really well for them as a foundational for a business, that's pretty much it. If you lay on top of all the stuff that you and I do nowadays, which is like big personal brands effectively out there in the world, then the compound of that becomes, you know, crazy. So how do the 1% manage their money differently and what can we learn from them? I saw you talk about the 15-65-20 rule.

Yeah.

So how does that work?

So essentially the way you wanna think about it is for every pound or dollar you make, it could go in one of three places. Mm-hmm. And you wanna think of for every pound or dollar you make, 65 pence or cents of that should be going towards your fundamentals. That's your housing, your groceries, your rent, your utilities, everything that keeps your life running. Then for every pound or dollar that you make, you want to put 20p or cents of that towards your fun. These are the things that you enjoy. These are the things that make things worthwhile. And the remaining, you want to make sure you save and invest. But the idea is having a balance between all three. Some people sometimes get so stuck in just saving and investing that they don't enjoy the current day spending. Some people, sometimes you get so stuck in just spending today that you don't invest for the future. And it really comes down to that level of fundamental basics. Mm-hmm. To prioritize future with your spending today.

So how did you save your first £100,000?

Saving the first £100,000 is probably the hardest thing to do and it's the hardest path to get to. But after that, everything else gets a lot easier. And I was, and I, I put my hands up and say I was in an unfair adv— I had an unfair advantage of a pretty high salary. I started in banking straight away at the age of 21. So I had that, but I also had the discipline of living well below my means. And by that I meant living with my parents until I was 25. Not everyone has that, but also always being disciplined and making sure I wasn't upgrading my lifestyle at every income bracket. Mm-hmm. So every time there was an increase or a pay rise, I'd make sure that I was always saving a bit away or putting it into something that would generate returns for me. Hardest to get to that 100,000, but well worth it.

What's the worst money habit to stop people reaching their wealth goals?

Not understanding what money means to them. I think so many people are so tied up with what society thinks money should mean.

Mm-hmm.

That they don't actually take a step back to say, what do I want? What does wealth mean for me? What does my life goals look like? And then how do I align money to get there? And because they don't actually take a step back to figure that out, they're saving based on other people's milestones. They're spending based on what other people want. They're investing what everyone else is investing in. But I always, is ask people to take a step back and say, what do you want? Where do you want to be in 5 years, 10 years' time? And is the way you're spending aligned to that?

My, my two favorite things that I've ever watched of yours, actually, just thinking about that, is you did a video on looking poor while building wealth.

Yeah.

And I was like, speaks so much to me. And then the other one was about the fact that every time that you get your pay, you should like predetermine an amount that you pay out beforehand. And I was thinking about that when I was in my 20s. I did those things, like I lived super within my means.

Yeah.

And it's like you said, if you can live with your parents, it's a bit annoying.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

I love you, Mum.

Is it worth it?

If she watches, you know. Um, but if you can, like, you definitely should.

Yeah, utilize the advantages that you have. I think different people have different advantages, and it's about creatively thinking how can you, even if it is moving out or renting out or getting a mortgage at an early age, thinking about how you could still reduce that. Maybe it's renting out a spare room or sharing the cost with someone else. There's always creative ways to actually live below the cost that you're currently paying.

And so for someone starting from, you know, close to zero, what is the one like habit they can take on that will help them build wealth?

I say that the number one thing you should do is pay yourself first. So most people, as soon as the paycheck comes in, they pay for all the fundamental costs in their life, their housing, the rent, the groceries. Then they go and spend it on everything that they could spend it on. The, the socials, the restaurants, going out, going on holiday, and then they save whatever's left. Mm-hmm. But I always ask people to reverse that and pay yourself first. And the reason why this works so well is because of Parkinson's Law. And the idea of it is that it applies to work. So work expands to consume all available time that you allocate to it. So if you wanna finish a project in 2 days, or if you wanna finish it in 2 months, it's gonna pretty much take that amount of time. You're gonna find a way to consume all available time. The same goes with spending. Your spending will expand to consume all available bank balance. The moment that you pay yourself first, you take out a portion of that paycheck as soon as it's come in after you've paid your must-haves, you won't even know that that money's there and you find a way to live on the rest.

And so what should people focus on? Should they focus on saving or investing first?

When it comes to where you should allocate your money as soon as it comes in, there's a priority checklist that I recommend. And typically you want to stay on each level before you move on to the next one. You start off with, you want to think about saving and you want to save 1 month's worth of your living expenses. Start off there. Is that actually mathematically optimal? No, but it's the psychological comfort.

Mm-hmm.

You're probably gonna make more from that money putting it somewhere else. But the idea of just having that 1 month's living expenses saved away for a rainy day or for anything that happens, that's priceless. You cannot put a price on psychological comfort. Once you've done that, then move on to your high interest rate debt. Mm-hmm. So I say high interest, anything above 8%. Because you could earn more than that in the stock market. So anything above high interest rate debt, then, or that's about, that's the amount that you'd earn on the stock market. So anything above that, pay off. You're gonna save more money if you pay that off than if you do anything else with that. Stay on that until you've paid off all your high interest rate debt. Then think about retirement, putting that money into your retirement plan. In the UK, you're automatically enrolled into it, into your workplace pension. Max that out. Until you fully get all the free money that's available to you from your employer. Once you've done that, so you've already started investing, you've got your savings, your months, now you've started the investing part. Then I'll say now you focus on your building your 3 to 6 month emergency fund.

Mm-hmm.

And that's 3 to 6 months worth of your living expenses. This typically takes a long while for people to get to. That's not easy to save up 3 to 6 months of living expenses. So I try to say, as you build that up, also start putting money in towards investing on the side as well. Start small. And then after that, the way you design your life is completely up to you, what you want to do with your money.

I saw or listened to a clip you said the other day, and it was like you had used Invisalign and so as a result you invested in Invisalign. And I remember, I only remember because I'm doing Invisalign now.

Yeah.

And so, and only because I saw in the first few weeks or months or whatever, you see your teeth like radically change.

Yeah.

And you're like, holy shit, it's the best product ever.

Yeah.

And most people don't notice. And so I quite like that as a tip for investing because if you know that the product is so good, like you don't have to be that smart. You can either put your money into like tracker funds or if you think a product is so great and you, for example, I don't know when you did it, but I've done it recently. So the company's like massive.

Yeah.

But there are so many examples of me using products and being like, I wonder if I could invest in that because I think that's how you can outplay people who are just spreadsheet focused.

There's a book called The Dunder Investor, which is great for the basis. It's one of the first books I read and it made me think of when I'm a consumer to actually think of that product as a business owner. And I read that around the same time that I bought into the stocks of Invisalign. I was a customer and I thought, this is amazing. I don't see, I did a little bit of research obviously. I analysed competitors. I didn't see any Anyone coming through at any time, and I went in at a really good time. Amazing. That was great. But typically I do recommend a very small portion of your overall investment portfolio towards individual stocks. I think for most people, they don't have the time to spend doing the quantitative research and the analysis. So it's more of a forget it, leave it.

Yeah.

And do it for the long run strategy if you are looking at the stock market.

How does someone new to investing think about investing? Is it hard to get into investing?

It depends which way you go about it. Investing in itself is, scarier in your mind than it is in reality.

Yeah.

And the fear of investing stops so many more people than the reality of what you actually do when you open up an investment account and then put some money into it. You just wanna invest in either low-cost index funds or target date retirement funds. Invest it, forget it, park your money there, focus on your active income, bring that up, invest it back in and park it there. That's for almost 99% of the population.

Yeah. That is exactly what I do.

Yeah, there you go.

I've always done that as well. Like, I, as soon as someone told me the idea of effectively like an investment account, I literally just take all the money I make and put it there. And then it wasn't until I sold my business and got a lot of money that I then had to like get a financial advisor and have someone else manage my money. But I honestly think the process is as simple as like signing up. I think when I did it, there wasn't even fees. I think there might be fees on a lot of investment accounts now.

Depends on what platform you're using.

Yeah.

Signing up, using, making sure you're using a tax-free investment account when you're investing and investing through that if you are new to investing.

So what does that mean?

So there are a few ways where you can earn money legally, uh, without legally, without paying tax. Right. And that comes down to the way you are investing. And one, one, when I talk about this and specifically it means opening up a tax-free, um, investment account so that the money you earn from your day job, from your active income, you pay tax when you make it. When you put it into a tax-free investment account, that money can grow, it'll compound over the years, and when you withdraw it, completely tax-free. You're not paying any tax on the gains, the interest, or any of the growth.

Because normally on a shares account, you'll pay capital gains tax on anything you increase.

Exactly, yeah. So make sure you're maxing these out, £20,000 a year, every single year to the extent possible. But focusing on that before you go to tax, taxable accounts.

And so if you were to recommend someone 3 books to read that you think would have a really positive impact on their financial knowledge, where would you be pointing them?

My, the first book that I read that is my favourite and I'd recommend to anyone starting off on the journey is Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Yeah.

And I, I probably will get backlash from that 'cause I know there's, there's hit and miss with Robert Kiyosaki.

Yeah.

But I personally love the book and the theory that that book teaches.

Yeah.

So aside from everything else, it's a great way to understand the, just the switch from employee to entrepreneur mindset and realizing that you don't need to trade your time for money. There's other ways to do it. So that's the first one that I'll start with.

Amazing book.

For everyone. Yeah. The second one that I would go for is the Think and Grow Rich. And that's a different—

Napoleon Hill.

Yes. Because most people think about money as just personal finance and investing in stocks and saving, but Actually a large part of it is your mindset towards money.

Mm-hmm.

And it's almost just as important. So that's what that is about. And the third one, for anyone who doesn't really like the idea of learning about money and reading books that kind of teach you how to make finances or improve your finances, is The Richest Man in Babylon. It's a very entertaining novel that ties the—

I've not read that.

Yeah. It's such, you can read it in like an hour. Oh wow. It's such a short book and it's like one of the OGs, but it, teaches you about the fundamentals of money through a story. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I— because there's different, different books for different people, different strokes for different folks.

I would have definitely— I mean, it's funny, for, for a money book, I would definitely say Rich Dad Poor Dad. I mean, for entrepreneur book, I might say like The 4-Hour Workweek, because I'd say it's like appreciation of your time versus your work. And yeah, like the goal shouldn't be to work more to work more to work more. It should be like to work to have time off. But Rich Dad Poor Dad, I read that very young. I reread it years and years later. And even with all the like the controversy and all that, like still the most phenomenal book.

Yeah.

'Cause it's like principled thinking, which never gets old effectively.

Yeah. Another good entrepreneurship book, I don't know if you read it, is The E-Myth Revisited.

Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah. That's like—

Plug and plays templates. Yeah.

I mean, those books we're talking about now and a few others, They're like, I would say, foundational for the change from my life of like running big companies to now running a much smaller but much more successful company. Like all those books are the foundation basically, like E-Myth Revisited, et cetera, 4-Hour Workweek. Because they just, they teach you to think better. And I think it takes so long to also like, you can read the book once, you can then implement for years, read it again and it makes more sense to you the second time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which is especially true of those books. So you've said before that your net worth skyrockets after $100,000. Why is that?

There's two main reasons for it. The first is the 8th wonder of the world, as people call it, which is compounding. Essentially, when you put money or invest money into stock market, into places where you can get return on it, that money then makes a return.

Mm-hmm.

So over time, you're not just making money on the original principal, you're making money on the interest that you've earned through your original principal. And then you make money on that money and on that money. And it massively eventually over time compounds to this beautiful, enormous, sizable thing, which gets you from that 100K to 7 figures a lot quicker than what it would've taken you to get from 0 to 100 using the same.

Which is why making the first amount of money, they, you know, making the first 100 is very hard. They always say in entrepreneurship, making your first million is the hardest. But it is incredibly true that one, once you've worked out how to make it 100K or a million pounds the first time, you are better at making it the second time. But also just the idea that you can get rich slowly over a long period of time. And I think people aren't very okay with that as an idea. But to your point, if you put, you know, £100,000 in the bank, you add a little bit to it every month, you're pretty much gonna be quite well off in, you know, 20 or 30 years.

Exactly. That compounding will do the work for you.

Yeah. Was there anything more you would say on legally reducing your tax?

The other way to legally reduce your tax, and again, in the UK we're automatically enrolled into it, is the workplace pension. And essentially what this is, it's different to the ISA or the tax-free investment account. For the tax-free investment account, you are saving money on the back end. You're not paying tax when you withdraw that money. With a retirement account, you are saving tax in the front end. You're not paying money, you're not paying tax on the income that you earn. Mm-hmm. Because that company that you work for is putting a portion of your paycheck before you even pay tax on it, before it gets taken by anyone else.

Yeah.

Towards your retirement plan. So that means that your money is gonna compound and grow at a faster rate at the front side of it. Yeah. So those are the two, um, ways you wanna all great ways that you wanna be utilising to, for your wealth without paying tax.

And that's especially true of entrepreneurs. If you have your own limited company, you can just pay straight into your pension and just avoid all the tax. And obviously like you're paying yourself less in the meantime. But I remember in the last couple of years of my company Verb in my 20s when we started making money, I was maxing out the amount I was able to put in. And you can do it like retrospectively for years. Which meant that I wasn't seeing as much personally month to month.

Yeah.

But I, before I left that company, was like, wow, I actually have a decent, a decent pension. And obviously paid no tax on any of that. So there are legal ways to, yeah, to do it. So Nisha, you have completely redesigned your life, you know, over this period of time, which is incredible. So what does life and business look like now?

The life and business is very, very different to 2 and a half years ago. Sometimes I've I've got to pinch myself to really understand on this day, a couple of years ago, I was in my office in Liverpool Street crunching numbers. And now I get to do what I absolutely love day in and day out, which is ultimately the fundamental is helping people take control of their personal finance and as a result, take control of their lives. Because they don't, we don't realize that money touches every single point in our life. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to change, money plays a fundamental, fundamental part in getting there. And that's what the business is essentially designed around. It started off just as a YouTube channel and creating all the content for people to get to grips with their basics and their personal finance. And then as more and more people have asked for more, I've got different things that I branched off from there. I'm on different social content. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn. Not so much on LinkedIn, but YouTube, TikTok, and then have courses. So budgeting course, investing course, and recently just launched a community.

Amazing.

Which is, that's where my blood, sweat, and tears is going at the moment.

Yeah.

Absolutely love it. And it's everything that you need to know about the different areas of your financial life, whether it's how to start a side business, how to invest, how to budget. It's getting experts in to give their knowledge on that specific topic. And then we also have like an on-demand personal finance expert who answers questions. Wow. I do money makeovers.

Wow.

I love it. It's so much fun.

I love how there's like, so, so rarely do you see someone who's got their like ultimate passion, then aligned with their content and then aligned with their business. It's quite amazing because you're, is it 2 and a half years ago?

2 years ago today I was still in the office.

That is unbelievable. Yeah. And so when did the content explode?

Well, this is a story in itself. I started creating content about 2 years, 8 months ago. That's when I started creating, but I didn't quit. I continued working.

Yeah.

And it exploded just as I started a new job at a new bank.

Wow. And so people were seeing it.

Yeah, I guess. Well, I haven't said this story anywhere, but yeah, I just started a new job at a new bank. And so that guaranteed bonus was a sign-on bonus, that 6-figure bonus.

Yeah.

And it was to, to land in my bank account in 2 months.

But does YouTube pay a good income quickly?

This is my experience. Yeah. Um, you have to get 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers to start making money on YouTube. Yeah. For me, on my first month, I made, I think it was dollars, $3,300. I think.

In your first month?

My first month.

Wow.

Yeah. It was like overnight.

Do you remember the video that went?

My day in a life of as an investment banker.

Oh wow.

Imagine your colleagues seeing that.

Oh my gosh, God, that's so rare as well. Because I mean, it's, it's difficult when I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs who are making content and not making money. And so a lot of— I think that for some people, I think the, the best people, you clearly are, to be that successful so quickly, clearly incredible what you do. But a lot of people have to monetize different ways, as in like whether it's like, you know, courses or consultancy or sponsorship or whatever it may be. That is incredible that it took off. So what does 2025 have in store for you? So main focus, community, growing the channel.

Yeah, community, growing the channel. I think just ultimately finding more and more ways that I can do whatever the business's mission is, and that is to help people take control of their personal finances and ultimately their lives and really go and make this something that as many people as possible can understand and learn from.

Amazing. Well, thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation, Chris. Cheers.