Advice I’d give to 18 year old me - not qualified financial advice (do your own research)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]I'm 24 years old and I have around 5K in savings. And I know, hold on, I know you're saying how's this guy running an online business? How's he only got 5K in savings? Hold on, I'm going to explain myself. Yes, I only have 5K in savings, but that's not all my liquid assets, don't worry. I've got more in the bank.

[00:00:14]But, here's the thing, right? When I say that people are like, "Oh, you're only saving 5K?" I'm 24, like, when you're 24 years old, all you need is a little bit of buffer, which for me is 5K, that's enough. The rest of that money, you might as well invest it. If you run an online business, or even if you don't run an online business, if you're in the UK and you have some kind of disposable income each month, set up a stocks and shares ISA immediately. Set one up today. Turn off this TikTok and set up a stocks and shares ISA. You can invest 20K tax-free every single year. And that 20K, the profit you make on that, you can take out tax-free. You don't pay a single penny on tax on the profit you make. For example, with my stocks and shares ISA, it's made me 8,000 pounds in profit already so far, and I'm only 24 years old. That's 8,000 pounds in free money just by having my money sitting in an ISA rather than a savings account.

[00:01:02]This is the stuff school does not teach and I had to literally teach myself financial literacy. When you're young, when you're under the ages of like 30 nowadays, you really do not need savings, bro. Have a little bit of savings like an emergency fund, the rest of it just let it sit in investments accounts, stocks and shares ISA. It's liquid anyway. If you need to take the money out, you just have to withdraw it, it will take three, four days to hit your bank account. It's basically the same as savings, but you're putting your money to work rather than sitting it in an account where banks can use it to spend that money on your behalf and laugh giving you literally one or two percent interest rate, if that. So, if you're young and you flex how much you've got in your savings, just know I don't rate you. You should be investing it instead.