Biggest Financial mistakes Doctors Make - My Personal Journey

Very important. Like one thing that I pick from what you said, improving your financial literacy is improving your mindset or changing your mindset. Money wise. Doctor, is good to have you here.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah. Okay, we'll just jump right into it and then we'll start with the first question that I'm sure our audience would like to know about you, and that would be, you talk about personal financing a lot and you're also a doctor. How did you start your journey into personal finance? Where did it all begin for you?

Excellent question. It's very funny because I was already in personal finance and investing and all that before I became a doctor. So I went into med school as a teenager, but while I was much younger, I realized that a lot of people around me, while they were fine, I mean, wearing, begging or anything per se, there was debt and all that. But you find out that those who are graduates, parents, uncles, aunties, different people, they. There wasn't a clear understanding of how money works, things like investing, taxes and all that stuff. It just dawned on me even when I was younger that working harder and harder was not just what it required because my parents were very hard working people. Both my parents were educated and they had reasonable jobs, but it always seemed like we're sort of like trying to catch up when it came to finance. So when I went into medical school, just before I got into medical school, I got interested in the stock market, investing, reading books like Rich Dad, Poor dad, as I'm 18 years, 19 years old, richest man in Babylon. You know, those OG books? Those are the books that sort of like opened my mind to this world that made me realize I knew there was something missing. You know, the younger you are, the more flexible you are in your thinking.

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Thank you. Yeah, I knew there was something missing. I started realizing the aspect of save 10% of your money, invest your money, you know, understand the difference between assets and. And for a teenage to get that sort of insight, it's like fire. If you get that sort of. And I mentioned fire, not on purpose, but not intended. But it's like it fires your mind. You're beginning to think, no, this is not the pathway. I'm still going to go to med school. But I realize now that just getting a job and working is not going to be the solution. I've got to think about other ways. So that was sort of like the beginning spark of my journey in personal finance. Obviously, further down the line, moving from one country to another, realizing that the system is different, but the people are just the same. Find out that a lot of your colleagues, doctors and healthcare professionals don't seem to understand these things. It took me back again to when I was about 20, 21, I think I was 22 when I was doing like regular seminars on investing. My stock broker started working with me to teach people how to invest back then on the campus, being on TV and radio. So I thought, you know what? Rather than spend so many hours trying to teach people, people call me on the phone Trying to clarify things and my wife getting a bit impatient with people taking several my time. I thought why don't you put it all in the blog and if somebody wanted to read, they can go and read it there. If someone asked me a question about Lisa or ISA or pension, I could send them there. So from one blog we've ended up with a podcast, a video, consulting, coaching. So that's, that's the journey in a nutshell.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. You mentioned something about while you were telling us how you started, you mentioned your family, how hard working, the appearance and all of that. Was there any particular money lesson you learned from them specifically or all your lessons came from those books you mentioned or your interaction or experience, but from the home, was there any. And knowing that I know we are both immigrants, right. We came from Nigeria and the money situation and sorry the way people expatriate, I'm an expert. Awesome. So yeah, so yeah, basically it's your home. Was there anything you learned there or. It was all external. I know for me, I know the answer to that. But I'm just curious to know.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question. Actually I did learn a lot. So my mom was a teacher, my dad was an industrial chemist who let her, you know, sort of like started his own small business. So I learned a lot. For instance, I never heard about the stock market if until my dad, I wouldn't have known anything about it until my dad mentioned that, oh, when we're going to secondary school, he had to sell some of his shares that he bought years ago. Well, it was like a bit of a one off activity when he was single he bought a bit of stocks in the stock market and then when we're now sort of like growing up, he sold them and obviously he was using a stockbroker who was also my first stock broker. And what he did was he would call him, he'll give him the share certificate and the stock book. I'll give him some amount of money. Sometimes it's not really the market price because it took so many weeks to get the stock process. Thought broker could buy your stocks at half price or whatever, give you some money. So I knew from him that okay, there's something called the stock market, but. But then it wasn't like something he was investing in regularly. Yeah, but then I started going into fundamental analysis, started reading books like Benjamin Graham's books, which was very, very difficult to understand at first. You know, the fundamental investor. Sorry, was that the intelligent investor investor?

Yeah.

I'll usually Buy like newspapers know with my little money I could get, I'll buy newspapers to try to read the back of the newspapers to see the stock prices for the day. And it was very hard to get any information. So I learned from my dad earlier on that yeah, there's something like that. The stuff I can. I also learned about the value of a good name because obviously a good name is better than bad money. These days people talk about personal branding and all those building and audience part of reason we have thousands of doctors and healthcare professionals on our mailing list and reading our blogs and each time we say we're going to do an event it gets over subscribed times 5. And part of it is just because no one is coming around to say oh yeah, he said he was going to do something and he hasn't done it. And they know that if you say you're going to do this stuff, if you're giving out information, it's not something you done. So I learned the value of a good name. I also learned the value of actually sort of like dreaming. My dad was also big on sort of like dreaming, reaching out. I don't know limitations. I don't think, oh yeah, I'm going to do this thing. I'm not sure I'm qualified. No, I don't really. Why would someone who has moved from a different country, moved to a new country, suddenly turn around in the country? Yeah, it's not only teaching people oh, this is how the financial system works here. I wasn't even born here. Yeah. So a lot that I can say I learned from my parents basically. But the biggest lesson of all which I learned, it wasn't about how to make money, it's about how to live within your means. I know I've taken it to a new level, I think of expanding my means. But even when you expand your means, you want to live within that.

Within that means. Exactly.

Yeah. So yeah, I did, I did learn quite a bit. But I know when I started reaching reading books like the Richest man in Babylon and read that Border, my dad wasn't really impressed. All those things.

He tell you the reason why?

Yeah, we did have a chat at some point I tried, you know, imagine a 17, 18 year old trying to convince his dad you're living under his roof and you're trying to tell him this book is really important. It can help us dig ourselves out of our financial hole that I've been in for many years. Like at the beginning of the year we drop a budget. This is how we're going to pay off our family debt and this is the next level. And the next day we're doing the same thing again. And my dad was. Is very hard working with all good intention, but it seems to be like we're running around in circles. Yeah. So when he saw the book, read that part, I said, this is not. He eventually read it and said, distance are not realistic. They cannot be applicable in Nigeria. And all those sort of things. Then things like the richest man in Babylon, like, you know, and there's all these Bible passages about those that want to be rich. You know, there's a Bible passage like in Timothy said, those that want to be rich. I, I can't remember the exact quotation, but it's another.

Is it the love of money?

The love of money, yeah. The love of money is the evil. But there's also another passage about those that want to be rich. Maybe I'll find it and read it to you. Yeah. Because my parents are also Christians. Those that want to be rich. Okay. Maybe we will look at it later. The good thing about them. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare diverse temptation and into many foolish and harmfulness. So there's all that discussion. I, you know, it's just the thing with money. If you think money is really evil and is sinful. I've never seen anybody that thinks that way that is wealthy. I've never seen anybody that thinks that it's financially free. Yeah. So a lot of what those books did for me was sort of like taking me at that early age to start thinking about creating money is providing value. Okay. Part of all the businesses I launched in school in my early days, my first company was at 22 years was just because I, I got that framework earlier on and I was hungry. I didn't have any money. I needed to buy stuff. I needed to pay my, you know, my expenses growing up and all that. So it's been quite a journey, actually.

Awesome. Awesome. I, I think it's, it's very important. Like one thing that I pick from what you said is, and which is one of the biggest things that improving your financial literacy does for you is improving your mindset or changing your mindset. Because we all come from one background or the other. We grew up in families that would instill a certain kind of mindset in us. But by the time you open up your mind, read books and things, you just realize that, okay, maybe there is something wrong with the way it wasn't 100. It's not 100 perfect. There is, it's not. There is more to life than the way my parents brought me up. But yeah, it's also good to also know what the positives are with where you grew up and, and I think you were one of the lucky ones because my own experience, not so many families were money conscious. And I don't mean money conscious in the sense of, I mean financial literates, but it looked like there was at least some sort of foundation in your family, which is more than any son can actually looking at where you're coming from.

Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. Yeah.

One of the most popular videos on your YouTube channel talks about the money rules that every financial health care should live by in that. So something in that nature. Can you expand on that and tell us what these rules are, why you think they are important, and is it just for health care or is this something that someone like me, that is not an healthcare professional, can also implement?

Since you asked, I'm going to let you in on the secrets that I haven't said on my YouTube channel and on my website, written blogs. Those 10 rules, while I've written them practically for doctors and healthcare professionals, because those are my main audience, the secret is this. Anyone could actually apply those rules and adapt it for themselves and it can help them to maximize their finances. Even if they run a doctor, they run a healthcare professional. And I can, I can touch a bit on those rules.

Yes, please. What I would want you to do is to tell me like your top three. When I say your top three, I mean the ones that have made the biggest impact for you personally out of those, those rules.

All right, so, so here's how I think about it. Moses had the Ten Commandments, right? So these are, these are because I thought, well, it's not quite high up there. So I just made the rules and basically those 10, if you apply them, I think they can make quite a remarkable difference. And then number one is still number one, which I think is number one is without number one, you can't really do very much, is to be your own chief financial officer. So you're your own money manager. You're your own chief financial officer. Once you get to realize that nobody's coming to save you, the government is. They might plan a pension or whatever, but you still need to take charge of your finances. Currently we're trying to, we're working on developing some sort of like, program for doctors and healthcare professionals just to help them to understand pensions and make choices better. But previously people were people would say, oh, yeah, I've got an NHS pension. But now we just mentioned it, within a few hours we had over 100 people who are indicating interest in this. So, number one is you are your own chief financial officer. And what that means is that you take charge of your finances. It means that you wear that hat. Even if you're a doctor, you're a healthcare professional, you are a lawyer, whatever job you do, you have a second job and that job is managing your finances. That's simply what reward means. And that radical responsibility means that even if you wanted to outsource your job to an accountant, you wanted them to help you with your books. You need some advice from a financial advisor to help you with planning your pension or your retirement or investment. Maybe you need a lawyer. At the end of the day, you are still in charge. So that does. That means I don't go and outsource your life to someone and say, oh, sort me out. Nobody's gonna sort you out. You are your own chief financial officer. So once you understand that, the other rules make sense. Without number one, there's no need to look at the other rules.

Yeah, that's. Yeah. And tell me. And honestly, when I watched that video and I heard the first truth, that's something that I've lived by and it's something that I preach to a lot of people, both consciously and unconsciously, since, of course, we talk about similar things. But I want to hear what is one way you've been able to apply that to your life? How are you able to be the chief CFO for Dr. Grimm's family? How are you able to do this practically?

Yeah. So from a practical point of view, so if you think about being the chief financial officer, what does your finance incorporate? You're looking at income, expenses, future income, future expenses. That's a simple way to look at it. Whether you call it investment, life insurance, lifetime isa, pension, just think about it as income. Now, expenses. Now that's present income, present expenses, future income, future expenses. That's how I look at it. So if I look at my income now, I'm looking at, okay, well, if I get income from my online businesses, I have online for my E Commerce, from my dividends, from my investment, from clinical practice, if I get income from rental property, those are income. Now I look at my expenses, okay, have I got mortgage. And for those who've got rent, rent, you look at it got like car payment, whatever expenses you have. Fortunately, we haven't got that. But those are expenses. Now you look at future Expenses. There are future expenses. What if I'm not able to work and I still need to spend money so I don't have income? So that's you looking into the future. The future. Why am I investing? What if in the future I don't want to work as much as I'm working now? That's future income you're considering. So taking charge means that I. I sit down, for instance, in my own life, I look at an area like investment. I've been investing in the stock market since I was 18, 19. So that's me taking charge of my future income by investing in the stock market. Now taking charge of my future expense, trying to reduce chances I might spend more, will be me buying insurance. Like things like, not life insurance, income, protection. If I don't have income, okay, that's still income. But if I buy insurance for my house means that in case things spoil in the future, my roof gets blown out, I'm covered. So instead of thinking about it from that point, you think about it from different aspects. You think about it from things like, apart from investment, you think about your savings. Are you saving in the best accounts that will give you the best returns? You think about it from point of pension, for instance. I'm not employed. I'm not like an employee, so. So I don't have like all these employee benefits, like pension, which is fantastic. I mean, if you're a doctor in the nhs, that's really good to have. But because I'm sort of like, I work for myself, so that puts me in a position where I have to also sit down, think about my pension. So taking charge of it from that radical point, I'm not thinking that someone is doing a pension for me anyway. No, I'm not deceived. And I'm not going to leave my family to sort of like, even if I die now and I don't want to suddenly find out, oh, there's no money to pay for this. So that's why I have a life insurance plan and that's why. And, you know, sort of just taking that sort of like responsibility and it's not as difficult as most people make it.

Most.

Most of your audience, just like my audience, are educated, so they understand basic stuff. And a lot of times just giving it some time, if you give it some time every year to think about all this stuff. Things. Yeah. So that's taking charge.

Awesome. I think, I think, I love that, to put it in words, that I think, even though people would understand what you're saying, the way I see it is something as simple as when you talk about income and expense today, that is. Or that also means budgeting, right. Understanding what your budget looks like today, something as simple as that. A lot of people don't know how much. They know how much they earn, how much hits their account, but they have no idea how much they spend in terms of how much they spend. And it doesn't have to be like you knowing the exact amount, but having that rough idea of, oh, we spend this amount on food, we spend any most important thing total. Like, do we spend more than we earn, do we have extra that we are investing or we are saving for a future goal and stuff like that. It could be something as simple as that. That's something that is very practical in terms of you being the cfo. So for anyone out there that is watching this and you have a budget, you're sticking by your budget and stuff like that, you are already doing the work of your own. Which is, which is.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what CFOs doing. Companies, isn't it? They make sure. Exactly. Financially healthy, they keep an eye on the bottom line. They make sure that when the CEO comes in with ambitious, fantastic dreams, they say, hang on, hang on, this is going to hurt our bottom line, or we can't afford that. And it's always the CFO that draws you back and said, hang on, is this a financially viable plan? And also the CFO helps to arrange finance sometimes. Cfo, just part of your role as CF might also be how to increase your income.

Exactly.

How to, you know, basically. But, but since you mentioned the dirty B word, I mean.

A lot, a lot of people call it dirty, but I just think it's one of those words that have negative rep to it. But yes, it's, it's important.

Yeah, but there are many ways to look at it. I mean, from someone like you, I know basically that you're very organized and you have a budget and all that. And there are people who can really be disciplined to save money. And they're just, they could be disciplined in other areas. They go to the gym and all that, but they can't save money. So we tend to suggest instead of budgeting to save your 15 to 20% first. I know that book Richest man in Babylon says save 10% or whatever, but we think like, because as a doctor, healthcare professional, most times people start a bit later in life and this is already one of the rules in terms of automatic saving. I think we call that like Route 3, have an emergency fund is one of those. So rule four is actually set aside 15 of your income for retirement. So rather than most doctors and healthcare professionals start later, in their later 20s to work. So a lot of their sort of like peers have started working, having some pensions set aside. So you need to catch up. And because you also have a descent income, I mean it's not the ma, it's not the highest income or you have a decent income, you should be able to save 50, 15 to 20% of your income. So if you don't want to go into budgeting in details, what you could do is to make sure, and we'll call that a mass. So that's automatic savings system. So you make sure that the money is going out automatically. So you set up a direct debit standing order, whatever I need to do, so that you don't have to be disciplined to save it. Once the money is hitting your account, that 20, that 15 is already going out to a separate account. That is not a consumer account. It's only for saving, investing into your future. And of course, when I mean say investment, I don't mean you should buy some random, mmm, crypto investment. Yeah. Without doing your due diligence. I mean like really, really careful, well studied investment. If you don't know what to invest in, save your money first of all, understand how to save first and then start thinking about investing. Obviously people say invest in the stock market index fund s P500, which are all good real estate and all that, but I think most people try to jump from income to investment, which is good if you know what you're doing. But sometimes it's better to go from income, have that saving and then investment. That means you can develop an automatic and regular way to do it in such a way that it starts to compounding rather than I just hit some extra money, I'm going to invest. But if you do it in a systematic, regular way, I think it yields better dividends. Again, no play on, on words here, but use better dividends if you do it in a systematic way.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I agree and you've. Some of the things you've mentioned are some of the mistakes that personally I have seen immigrants make or expatriate when they come into a country like the uk, actually coming from a country like Nigeria. But from your experience, what mistake do you think is the biggest of all? Like someone coming into the UK today, got a job with the nhs. What, what, what have you seen that is the biggest mistake that immigrants make in general? Like maybe in the first six months that they're in the uk or the first month or the first three months.

Oh, where do we start? How much time do you have?

Carry on.

I think we did an article that got quite popular on moneywise, doctor.com titled nine financial mistakes that IMG doctors. So IMG doctors international medical graduates make when they. Sorry, nine financial mistake IMG doctors make make. It's over a year ago now, so I can't remember the exact title, but one huge one is credit. Credit score, credit utilization, everything around credit is one huge issue because if you move from a country like Nigeria, Pakistan, India, different parts of the world that their credit system may not be as, as well developed is very different from than it is in the uk. For instance, if you're Nigerian, you want to buy, you want to build the house. Most time you bought the land and build the house so you didn't have to borrow any money and you wanted to buy a car, you saved up the money and bought a car. And there were, there weren't a lot of credit facilities. But in the uk, most people don't realize how the credit system. So we see two big errors. Some people are on one side, which was where I was before I bought my first house, on one side. One extreme. I'm not gonna touch any credit card for almost like, yeah, I just have my money in my account and I'm not going to touch any credit card. I don't use any credit card. I don't have anything on direct debit. I don't care. I mean, if it's your religious belief, then that's fine, but if it's not and you don't, you're doing, you're just doing out of ignorance, of fear. You're missing out on quite a bit because when you then try to borrow money to buy a house, you're going to find out that no credit sometimes is worse than bad credit. Because I can't really lend you any money if I don't know who you are. I haven't interacted with you. I don't know how you behave. I don't know if you pay back your money. So not having any sort of credit in place could actually impact that. So that's one side. Then there's the other side of people who think, oh wow, this part gonna give me money for free. Mercedes, I'll buy that. A new iPhone, I'll buy that. You mean I can just buy this furniture and I don't have to pay? You can just take buy the latest designer Clothes you don't have to Pay, you can just 0% down. Well in that point I'll then borrow. A is a verse from the Bible that says that the borrower is a slave because you become a perpetual slave whenever your money. I'll give you an example. I was fortunate enough, you know about this last two years to resign my job quit.

Yeah.

And I wasn't sort of like having to work because I knew that well I'm going to work on my own stuff and if I make income from it that's going to be fantastic. If I don't make income. And I wasn't worried that I need to make car payments because I did but then I paid off my cars and the next cars was like, like you're just going to buy them cash. I wasn't worried that oh I've got like this sort of like different designers I need to pay or chairs and all that. Yeah. So that's the other mistake is people buying so much on credit. And I've seen doctors, consultants, GPs, high income earners but they work six, seven days a week because they're sort of like held in the neck by debt because they've sort of like bought so many things. Yeah. So I think these are the two common mistakes around credit. If we go into the nitty gritty, that's a bit more detailed discussion things about making sure you have a good credit score and if you have a credit card, don't use more than you know, 5% things like make sure you registered in the electoral register. Most people don't even know that. It's very simple, it's for free. Register an electoral register online. You know, just basic simple things like that. No, sort of not open, opening too many random accounts just because you can. Knowing that if you have an account and if you apply for credit and you're rejected, don't apply again, give a few months and all that. You know these are little, little things making sure obviously that you pay if you use a credit card. I mean I'm not saying I don't use a credit card but all my credit cards are always repaid in full. You always set it up that at the end of the month they get a full amount and now we don't get any interest. So some people also sort of miss payments because they have not automated their finances so they're not saving automatically, they are not repaying in full. Like I had a tenant who wanted to be transferring money to my account. I'm like thinking that is not really how the Best way to do these things, maybe set up a direct debit or a standing order. That way it saves me having to remind you. And then you don't have to forget and I don't find out three months later that you have not been paying your rent. And I get like what's going on here? You know, so this is, this is some of the mistakes. Of course there are several other ones and that is part of what we do at Money wise, like for dealing with some of the mistakes that doctors and then IMG doctors deal with. But I think by far credit score, not understanding things around credit and all that is a very good starting point.

Okay, yeah, I think all you said makes sense. But before we move on to other things, what is your quick tip or the best ways for someone? There is an IMG that is going to listen to this, right? And you've just described the person's life, living from death to death. The person is practically a slave. How do this person get out of debt? Like I know it's not a walk in the park or what are the quick tips that the person can implement or start implementing to come out of debt?

Right.

I think that's a really good question because a lot of people think that if people. Because you're a doctor, if you're a doctor then you're fine. But they're actually doctors in debt, heavy debt. And because of the work we do@moneywisedoctor.com we don't only see people looking for where to invest their money. We also see people who have run into finance financial trouble. The one big tip I always suggest is to set a date. You need to set a date that, that is going to be your debt free date. You're not going to hope and wish that you're going to get out of debt. No, no, no, that's not going to happen. You're going to go deeper and deeper and deeper. This is even harder for people who have student debt. So most IMGs, especially from, if you're from a country where you don't even have, you don't have student debt because you couldn't borrow money in the first place. It's usually consumer debt. Like borrow money to buy a car. Yeah, stuff. So I mean I'm not referring to mortgage debt now because most people say mortgage debt is good debt. So but if it's just sort of.

Like credit, is it not good, good debt, mortgage debt? You say most people.

It depends on how you're looking at it. Like my rental property mortgage debt is, is good Only if the rent is above, you know, the mortgage. It's good if the debt is being serviced in profitable way. But if I go to buy a grade two listed house, a mansion to live in and I'm paying like a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand pounds just to service the mortgage and there's no money coming to my pocket, I might say the value of the house is rising, but I'm not going to sell the house anyway. So is it really good debt? I mean this is a big topic for another discussion but of course we've got to live somewhere. So I'm happy to live in my house and you've been to my house, I like it. So I'm happy to live there and pay whatever I need to pay. But now we're referring specifically to consumer debt. Like you've gone to buy the fantastic paws, you bought the Jimmy Choo shoes, they're all on credit. So one way you can start is to set a date and say sit down. It's not area you might need like some, some depth advice. Had a lot of free debt advice and citizens advice, you know, you know these things now. Yeah, you've done some work in that area. You could use a financial advisor, maybe a free one. Better a free one. Don't get into debt to get a financial advisor to help you to work out how to start your debt repayment plan and set a date. This is the date you're working towards. And now once you set that date, what it does is that it galvanizes your thinking. You're spending everything into action. You, you stop. That's the first thing you don't keep digging yourself into a hole. You stop borrowing more and then set a date. And once you set that date, that will help you to make a plan. Maybe your debt is like, let's just use a random figure, £5,000. You may not be able to come up with £5,000, but maybe you can find, can find £50. And if you can find £50, let's say every month, that's like £600 in a year. So that means it could take you 10 years to pay back your debt, but you don't want to pay back in 10 years, you want to pay it off quickly so that you can face other good things. For instance, if your debt is a credit card debt and it's costing you 25% even if you we are very good and you are investing and you are making 20% per annum, which is considered as not too bad, really good actually, then your Depth is already sort of like higher than your investment returns. So. So you could work on setting a date and then setting up a plan. And rather than paying back £50, what you could do is that start thinking of areas you can cut down. For instance, if you were used to buying, like you buy food, you go to restaurants, you can decide, I'm not going to go every day, I'll go once a week, or I'll go once a month. Or as the Brahms will say, you shouldn't go near a restaurant. So maybe you could do that. Exactly. That's beans and rice. And whatever money you save from there should be applied towards accelerating how quickly you can get out of that depth. So Instead of paying 600 in a year, you might find I might be able to pay 1,000 today, 200. So that cuts down your debt to five years and maybe you can find a bit more money. Let's say you can, you're able to find yourself able to raise as much as £200 in a year, in a month. Sorry, that could actually bring down that date quicker. So set a date and start working towards it. If you need to do side hustles, if you need to, cut down on areas of expenses, if you need to. I mean, what's important is that you set a date, walk towards it as stop digging yourself by boring more and more.

Awesome. Awesome. I think that is very solid advice. The next question would be more like, we are rewinding. We are, we are talking. Want to talk to that expatriate or that IMG that is not yet in the uk, Right? So the person is still in Nigeria, Ghana or Pakistan and the person has written the necessary exams or the person is planning to move, what would you tell that person? Like, as regards to finances, I know there are a lot of things that you can tell the person other areas, but as regards to finance, what would you tell that person that the person needs to prepare that would help the person really settle in? What steps can the person start making even from their home country? And the reason why I asked this is because this was how I got into personal finance in the first place, or this was how I was, not how I got into how. I was bold enough to start sharing what I knew about personal finance because I studied the UK financial system, which, as we all know, is completely different from the way it is back home. Even before I left, the moment I knew that I was moving in, I did a. So I was coming to the UK with loads of knowledge, even though I had no way of practicalizing it at that time. But I noticed that a lot of people don't even. And it falls nicely with the mistakes that you. You mentioned. Right. Because if you just take time to read a little bit, find out how things work, you would come in a lot more prepared, you would take the right steps in order to make sure that you have the right debts and all that. But what message you. You tell that person to prepare the person, or what steps? What would you tell that person? So that person is coming in fully prepared or at least with 80% of what the person needs in order to try financially.

Excellent. I think you've actually answered part of the question for me and you're a typical example. I've got like. So we have a new staff coming on board and, well, I don't know, is she an internal volunteer? But she's offered. She's a doctor, specialist registrar working in the uk, fully licensed. She's offered to work with us for the next six months while I'm maternity leave. But she, she shared something with me that inspired me. Said even before they landed in uk, they've been reading, you know, getting online. Then over the past year they've been following up our post and being our free materials or resources or mortgage and personal finance. And within two years in the uk, they've just gotten the mortgage for their first house, which is a fantastic fit. So if someone is outside the uk, trying to move to the uk, I think knowledge is the biggest thing you can do. You can save money and all that. You can. But even if you save money, if you don't know what to do, it is not going to go as fast it could go. But knowledge, sort of like trying to educate yourself yourself. There's lots and lots. Unlike when we first moved, there weren't that many videos and stuff. There are lots of videos, there's lots of good materials, there's wealthy post, obviously, which you're watching here. Yeah. So there's lots of really good material. Because, for instance, I give you an example, something like isa. I stumbled into it when I was a master student. I went to the bank. I wanted to open a separate account just in case I left the uk. I have two accounts again. And someone, that someone said, why, why don't you get an isa? They called it help to buy isa. Back then, there wasn't such a good deal as lifetime isa. And that's how I learned about isa. I started studying isa, like, oh, I realized, oh, there's a lifetime Isaac coming. So when I bought my first house, I use a helped buy ISA which are sort of like a special account where you save some money and the government sort of like give you a top up for saving.

Yeah.

So there's even lifetime Isaac which is better. More, more flexible. Yeah. So the more information you have, for instance when we're talking about electoral register credit system, open an isa. I've got people who came into this country, they were very, very aware because they've been following some of our writings, they've been following some of our podcasts. They came in as soon as possible, they opened their lifetime isa. I've got practical examples. I know like a surgical registrar now he even gave a test money out of our website within 18 months, less than two years. He bought his, his first house and he had a big family and all that. I had to, you know, bought a really nice house. Yeah. So basically just having that information meant that the difference between him and somebody who I know another person, they came in at about the same time, this other person almost two years later is asking about lifetime how to start a. And that the difference between that is like over £2,000. I mean it's a couple. It's £4,000 of free money that they would have gotten.

That it means.

Yeah. A lot of time people have already made costly financial mistakes and knowledge is, is priceless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And of course this knowledge is like you said, is very free and anyone that is watching this video, the person should know that. You can either go to theworldypost.com we have loads of blog posts. You can also go to moneywisedoctor.com they have load blog posts and also our individual YouTube book what the one you're watching and also Moneywise Doctor YouTube channel. Loads of free information for you to level up and make the right financial mistake. That's how I started like I said earlier and I know that it's been invaluable. Personally I don't struggle with this but I've seen a lot of immigrants struggle with this. Is the discussion as regarding black tax. A lot of people have been beaten as a result of black tax. A lot of people, I would say like they are naive or I don't know what the issue is but. But you can see every immigrant falls into two categories. Clear cut. There is no middle line. Someone that manages black tax very well and someone else that does not manage black tax very well. What do you think is the difference between these two people and for those people that are not managing it well, what does that look like and how can they move over to the winning side?

That is a very key question. I mean, I'm glad they brought that up. And I'll say sometimes whether, I'll say the difference between an expatriate and an immigrant and an immigrant pays black tax. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. For your viewers who are the other understand, black tax is basically sort of like money that, for instance, if you move to a new country, you're better well off, even if you're in your current country. Because even while I was back in working before I relocated, I still, you know, supported lots of people. So instead of like supporting your family and friends, you send them money monthly, maybe a paying school fees and all that. And black tax is sort of like, it's really good because traditionally we support our families. We are sort of like, yeah, all that. But for some people, it becomes such a burden that they're, they're really working really hard, doing extra shift and doing all sorts and not having any sort of quality of life so that they can send money back home and all that to, to meet some expectations and all that. So sometimes it becomes, it starts to impact their mental health, impacts their future. And guess what? When you're sending money back home, it's great, but you're also not investing. So my approach to it, as someone who I feel I've paid my fair share and I'm still, still carry on paying with joy. Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to do that. But is allocation and this, I, I learned it from investing. So when I was a young investor, at the beginning, you just saw a good opportunity, you went for it, but after a while you started thinking, I don't want to just make money or lose money. I want to be able to go for a long period of time. So I started learning asset allocation. I'm going to not invest more than 10% of my funds into this particular opportunity. So even if Facebook is one of the best investments I've ever made, or I've got investments in some stock market, I've returned 500%, 600% over the last few years. And even if I knew that this was going to happen, even if someone woke me up in the dream, let's say, and told me this is the best stuff, I wouldn't get go more than 10 to 15 to 20%. Yeah. So maximum will be 15 to 20. So allocation. Now take the same allocation to your finances the same way you are a chief financial officer in your life. Remember rule one, Chief financial officer. What does chief financial officer do? You can either Call it budgeting, like the worldly process, or you can call it asset allocation. So you're allocating assets. I think asset allocation sounds more fancy. See, it's still budgeting. It's budgeting.

Or planning.

Or planning. So what you're doing now is you're going to say, you look at your income and say a percentage of this. My income goes to supporting my family or for charity or whatever. The same way you take out 15 to 20 goes automatically into saving or investing funds. You can have a percentage of that automatically going out to fund, you know, whatever you need to do. What that does is that every month you have money set aside that you can use to support your family, friends, people who are in need, different sort of, you know, help. And every month you allocate that money carefully based on needs which you pre qualify. Example if somewhere where somebody was unwell, they were struggling, they were. They were about to become homeless versus someone who really wants to have a nice wedding. And I think wedding is great, but you have to cut your coats according to your, you know, whatever that idiom is, you have to sort of like plan your wedding. You want to go to the Bahamas or Seychelles, but you don't have any money. The other guy who is about to be homeless is probably going to be ahead of you in priority in being allocated my fund for that month. The same thing applies. That also means that if in a month you allocated 10% or 5% or whatever percentage of your income to this, if it runs out, that month is run out next month you have another location. Whoever you weren't able to help last month, you might be able to help them this month, but again, not just because they've been on the cure. You have to reassess everything. Again, maybe you would have helped them this month, but this month it just happens to be that there was somebody who needs dialysis and they can assess health care and probably it might still take priority over this other person who wants to buy a new designer watch. So if you. It gave me a lot of peace once I got to that point, because since I've been 22, I've been sort of like selling money and all that. But once I got to the point where I'm thinking of it in terms of actually allocation, people who are going to get money from me, they already know and they're not sort of like coming up and calling me and telling me, oh, there's this issue going, because, you know, there's an allocation coming the same way. I get like an income and I manage my income. Once you get that money as well, you manage your own accordingly. And if in the future there were a greater need, then we can talk about it and see whether we can make some adjustments in the allocation. So the key is making it automatic, making it sort of like planning for it and then understanding that when you've done your best, that is the most you can do.

Yeah, I know. There is one part that I want you to share, how someone can handle. So someone will be listening to this and say, but this is. I can do all of this, but my family is different. So we know that there are some people in our families that are very. They are entitled. Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. They have that entitlement, they feel like. Because I know someone that have spoken to me and she practically cried on the call because she's doing her best, but family thinks she's not doing enough. She has millions hidden in the UK because she's not sending while they don't know that she's doing all the shifts, she's struggling. Has our own struggles and stuff like that. So how do we manage that expectation? How do we have that discussion with our family and where do we draw the line? Like at one point do we just say, see, whatever is going to be is going to be. Like, how do we go through that whole process?

It's very difficult. I've been fortunate in my own case at the. I think I'm fortunate because I can't say that. I mean, the most people that will be calling me randomly and asking for money are not my direct family, my parents. I wouldn't say that they mount me under any pressure. It might have something to do with the fact that there's already an allocation. We all know there's an allocation and if you want to do it, do it properly, like, do it adequately. But if your family has very high expectations from you, a lot of it might involve explaining things calmly. If you can afford for them to visit in uk, it always helps is an eye opener because then they realize the sort of, you know, your lifestyle, how you're working harder. If you can arrange that, it usually helps. But the final thing to say about that is that ultimately you cannot really control what other people. People do. And I know we all love our families dearly, but at some point you have to realize I can only control what I do, how I feel, I can only control what I say. And at that point you have to make up your mind that while I'm still going to Continue doing whatever I can do to help but don't get under sort of so much pressure to meet expectation that you will never satisfy. We've had people ask for, well Doctors, nurses working seven days a week, 12 hour shift their bones and something happened a few years ago when I was in the uk a nurse collapsed, a nurse from one of the African countries collapsed while traveling a boss or something to go to work and they found like over £200,000 in her account. And she was trying to hustle to send money to build house to do a all of that. So you need to think about your mental health, you need to think about your future, why you're trying to help. Remember that you cannot control. Even if you sell yourself and give the money to some people, they will still want more. So you cannot control everything, do your best and leave the rest. Most times things will be fine, things will be sorted out.

Awesome. That makes sense. That makes sense. I think another thing that which was why I told this lady is to have frequent discussions just like you said and if you have the opportunity ask have these discussions early. And this is also something that people that are not yet in the UK it's always important for them to have these discussions before you come because if you don't set expectations right, that is where you can easily enter those kind of scenarios. You are coming to the UK and the expectation from your family is you are going there and you are solving all our problems. You've not been to the uk, you've never spoken to people in the UK to know okay, what kind of how much do you think I would end or I've gotten this offer, this is what I'm earning, this is the city I'm going to. What does it look like? What are my expectations expenses going to look like? You've not had that plan and then from that now tell your family, see for from what I'm seeing it's not going to be as there's no, I can't stack anything with this. Yes, I might be able to stack in the future but as at tomorrow when I go this is it has to do with having that awareness and having those discussions early before expectations start building. Because a lot of times our families in back home, they are not all down reasonable. They will give you three months, they'll give you four months to to settle right then you now start. They will start billing you and stuff. So you need to have that discussion with them like see these four months they are giving.

Okay, I'll tell you something Nandi When I first moved to the UK for my first one year, I wasn't working at all. I wasn't interested in working. I was, I had saved a bit of money before I moved. I had a little business in Nigeria. I had some investment, so I had a bit of money. I never thought I was going to work. But you know, when the value of Naira was crashing after one year, I picked up a job. Imagine that. During that one year I was under pressure from my family to save money. I probably would pick up a job. My delay, you know, writing my medical exams, I probably might not even have time for my masters and all that, which was already quite busy. Yeah, so I agree with you. Managing expectations is fine. But again, no matter what you say, you can say to some people, I don't really think it's going to be that rosy. They may ask you, so why don't you just stay back? Why are you going there?

You have a point. You have a point. Yeah, but yeah, I, I, I, I think, I think a lot of times, yeah, you can just do what all you want, you want. And these are like some of the things that can help people that would have a problem with it will always have a problem whichever way you want to say it and then whatever you want to say. But at least I know that the people that I've discussed with it has helped to just have that constant discussion where you manage expectations. Because people till tomorrow, they will still complain about the UK while some people are actually bowling, they are living life. Life is getting a lot better. But yeah, I think having that discussion is very, very important. Okay, let's move to the next question that I think is very important and that has to do with side hustles. I know you talk about side hustles a lot even though you focus that for IMGs, but why are they important? Like almost everyone, including myself talk about side hustle like now and is it like a wave that everyone is riding? Are we missing out something? Why is side also important? Like I know for every person it might be a little bit different, but from your experience and for you as a person, like you're a doctor, before you stopped, you're still practicing, but before you stopped your salary job, you had different side, not side hustles for say, but I'll say businesses that you were involved in and stuff like that, why is that important? Is it for someone that is not interested in having anything extra? Like I know people that they are not really interested in having something on the side. They love medicine they just want to keep doing medicine. Like why should they consider having a side hustle? Or is it something they shouldn't even bother?

All right, I think that's a very key question and I'm glad you brought it it up for someone like me, maybe right from med school. I've always had one or two side hustles, businesses and all that. So I just carried on in that direction. When I was in med school, I had like a clothing business, a clothing company. I had like a software company that did the sms. So more like software as a service. And then at some point I was also sort of like started doing seminars and started consulting for small organizations on how to go online. So these are little side hustles. And then obviously knew when I moved to the uk, started working, I launched my E commerce and then went from there to do a few other things. I've told you about some other side hustles I do that people don't even know about, like buying and selling websites.

And all of that.

Yeah, but what it does that while I still love clinical medicine and even though I was able to step away from it for a few years and come back, it just gives you that option, that flexibility so that you are able to do your work for the joy of it. Like you knew when I, I went five months working one day a week so I could focus on launching money wise and doing all that stuff. So that means I could do my clinical work and enjoy it. And while it's nice to do and it's also nice if you get some income from it, which is nice, but also if it does happen that you need to leave or you're asked to leave because as a doctor nurse, one dark side, people don't realize that people could lose their license out of the blues. You lose your license to practice. It's happened to many, many people. Like it could be because of something you did or did not do. It could be because of things you felt were outside your, your control. But if you suddenly found wanting, or you could be suspended in the meantime, the meantime, while they're investigating you now, if you have no alternative source of income, if you have no other skills, you have no other way to survive, you find yourself in a very, very difficult situation because you have nothing to fall back on. So having a side hustle apart from giving you additional money, it sort of like gives you options. Things you could either sort of fall back on. I was talking to a GP to today who sort of like is a moneywise doctor.com has followed us from the beginning. It's on our podcast Come resell our newsletters. Open all of them. And very, very, you know, and he has a side hustle. He's asking me to show him a side hustle that he can do. I'm like, dude, you already have a side hustle. He's got about six houses. So he is good in like finding houses and right move. Find these ones that are very good. He knows how to. To how much you can spend on it, clean it up and not paint it and then rent it out.

And, you know, I need to talk to this guy.

All right. He doesn't even feel like he's got, like, I keep telling him, I'm there for you. This is a side hustle. Now there are many people, including me, who are not interested in going out to right, move looking for a house and all that. We want somebody who is knowledgeable in diarrhea, who can say, I found this house. It's really good. Don't worry, you pay for the house, you buy the house, we put the tenant to manage it. But I'm going to charge you the same fee.

Yes, excellent.

Let's do it. Because it's this. That is a legit side hustle. I mean, not everybody can do it, but most time people are thinking of side hustles and you don't have to. It doesn't have to be anything complex. Like, I know a GP whose side hustle is selling palm oil. So this is a doctor, a very senior doctor, but I don't know what the connection is, but they get palm oil probably from Nigeria, and a lot of us here who want the original side. So some people sell granites, like, and I'll buy your granite. I'll buy one carton of ground, whatever you have. I'll pay you. I'll pay for the delivery because I love granite. So most time when people think about silos, they think they must have a particular skill. Obviously, if you have skills like you can copywriting, you can do web design, you can sell online video editing. Those make it. Those ones make it easier for you to work from every anywhere. Like a lot of the websites and stuff I launched, I can learn them from anywhere. But that shouldn't limit you. I've given examples of the driver that worked with me. So he resigned. He told me he was resigning. And I said, what's happening? Why are you resigning? Don't you like the job anymore? I said no, that his side hustle was now making him more than his job as a driver. He was I think last, the previous year he made about 50 something thousand 000 pounds from a side hustle.

Okay, you've been in the UK for over five years now, maybe around seven years if I'm not mistaken. Right. What is the biggest financial lesson that you've learned personally that is specific to the uk.

Right? Actually I think it's about eight years. We're heading for nine now, maybe September, but. Well, is that all the same the biggest financial lesson I've learned in the.

UK.

And it sounds very simple, but is this a Knowledge is money. Knowledge is not just power, Knowledge is money. You know, they say power is power, knowledge is money. If you know, for instance all the people that read our post and looked at our videos about lifetime ISRs and they got a lifetime ISA and they spend in UK two years, let's say a couple, a couple, a husband and wife who both had their life on it and maximized it, that's £4,000 free money. Free money from the government. So that's knowledge. Another example. So we've got like about a hundred doctors now who are sort of like Gary enough for us to create some content for them for pension. Knowing that especially for those who are business owners, they run limited companies. Knowing that you could actually pay up to £60,000 into your pension tax free. That is big knowledge. Knowing that, okay, you're able to, you know, sort of like knowing that in the UK information you don't have, information you don't even know about is the one that can hurt you.

Yeah, yeah.

What you don't know doesn't hurt you. That's not in the uk.

Exactly. That was what I was about to say. And that's one of the first, first thing I tell people. I say ignorance is not an excuse in the uk. Yeah, I think for me one of the maybe not lesson, but actions that have moved my finances, improved my finances have been to automatic automate my finance. Because the concept of automating your finance is not something you're used to back home in Nigeria, at least for me and I worked in the bank, I interacted with a lot of people. A lot of processes are very manual. We are used to doing things manual. Nobody wants to set a direct debit. Everybody has there is that joy in transferring the money yourself. You don't even trust the vendor to set a direct debit and the money will just leave your account into someone's account and stuff like that. So for me I think that was a mindset shift for me coming here knowing that Okay, I did the manual thing for a very long time, but then I now realized that, come on, you can free up time for yourself and do other things and know that the only aspect of your finance you are thinking about is just a small portion compared to thinking of, oh, this is the beginning of the month. I need to make this transfer. I need to do this transfer. Everything is just done automatically. So for me, that have been one big mindset since I moved to the UK and I think what you said is absolutely right. Money is knowledge. What I learned about finance specific to UK is something that as you know, we are using to make money from. And this knowledge is most of them are free. Like yes, you might have to make some investment. Most of the investment has to do with time. But a lot of people are not just prepared to make that investment. And I think that will just move us to the last question. And before I ask that question, I just want to thank you for coming on this podcast. Really appreciate you taking our time to have this discussion. And I'm sure a lot of people learn a lot from this, from this discussion. And this question is about money wise doctor. I enjoy the content you put out there, but what are you looking to achieve with my only wise doctor? And also you can tell others where, how they can find you. Even though once they type money wise Dr. On Google, I'm sure they'll see on your platform.

But yes, you're right in that. Right. Okay, that's very timely question Namdi, because we're approaching our one year anniversary now.

Awesome.

So it's amazing. It doesn't feel like it's just one. It feels like we've been doing this forever because we've been doing it on an informal business. We've been helping people and all that. But it's amazing how much has happened in one year. You know about our YouTube station yesterday three months we hit a thousand subscribers hours and then our newsletter. We started slowly and painfully until suddenly it blew up. So we want to be able to continue to support doctors and healthcare professionals. And of course this is not just doctors, it could dentist or any professional who sort of, who, who sort of like moves to the UK or even is already living in the UK and once a place where they could get clear or quality, reliable, digestible financial information, applicable information, not a company report, stuff that you can use straight away to start to improve your finances, to start to optimize your knowledge. So one to focus on that, to make sure that when it comes from every aspect of personal finance, money Wise like there could be a repository of, you know, sort of lot of like useful tips and information for doctors and healthcare professionals to help them make the useful, the best financial decisions and also more importantly, avoid costly financial mistakes. So that's where we're going. So we're carrying on with our podcast. We've got like a lot of useful materials on the website the moneywisedoctor.com and there are quite a few things that we're also launching this year. So watch this space.

Thank you so much Dr. Andy for this time. Really enjoyed this session and links to his website IG page. Everything about money wise doctor will be in the description and the show notes. So please feel free to check it out and subscribe for follow like all you need to do and you won't regret it. Thank you.

All right, thank you. In the uk, they've just gotten the mortgage for their first house, which is a fantastic fit. So if someone is outside the uk, trying to move to the uk, I think knowledge is the biggest thing you can do. You can save money and all that. You can, but even if you save money, if you don't know what to do, it is not going to go as fast it could go. But knowledge, sort of like trying to educate yourself. There's lots and lots. Unlike when we first moved, there weren't that many videos and stuff. There are lots of videos, there's lots of good materials, there's well deep close of your secret you're watching here. Yeah. So there's lots of really good material. Because for instance, I give you an example, something like isa. I stumbled into it when I was a master student. I went to the bank, I wanted to open a separate account just in case I, I left the uk. I have two accounts and someone, someone said, why, why don't you get an isa? They called it help to buy isa. Back then there wasn't such a good deal as lifetime isa. And that's how I learned about isa. Instead of studying isa, like, oh, I realized, oh, there's a lifetime Isaac coming. So when I bought my first house, I usually helped buy isa, which was sort of like a special account where you save some money at the government and sort of like give you a top up for saving.

Yeah.

So there's even lifetime Isaac, which is better, more flexible. Yeah. So the more information you have, for instance, when we're talking about electoral register, credit system, open an isa. I've got people who came into this country, they were very, very aware because they've been following some of our writings They've been following some of our podcasts. They came in as soon as possible. They opened their lifetime advisor. I've got practical examples. I know like a surgical registrar now. He even gave a testimonial on our website. Within 18 months, less than two years, he bought his. His first house and he had a big family and all that I had to, you know. But a really nice house. Yeah. So basically just having that information meant that the difference between him and somebody who I know another person, they came in at about the same time. This other person almost two years later is asking about lifetime, lifetime, how to start it and that the difference between that is like over £2,000. I know it's a couple is £4,000 of free money that they would have got a lot of time. People have already made costly financial mistakes and knowledge isn't. Is priceless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and of course this knowledge is like you said, it's very free. And anyone that is watching this video, the personal should know that. You can either go to theworldy post.com we have loads of blog posts. You can also go to moneywise doctor.com they have load of blog posts and Also our individual YouTube book what the one you're watching and also Moneywise Doctor YouTube channel. Loads of free information for you to level up and make the right financial mistake. That's how I started like I said earlier and I know that it's been invaluable. Personally I don't struggle with this, but I've seen a lot of immigrants struggle with this. Is the discussion as regarding black tax. A lot of people have been beaten as a result of black tax. A lot of people, I would say like they are naive or I don't know what the issue is but you can see every immigrant falls into two categories. Clear cut. There is no middle line. Someone that manages black tax very well and someone else that does not manage black tax very well. What do you think is the difference between these two people and for those people that are not managing it well, what does that look like and how can they move over to the winning side?