A woman who plans to retire by the age of 40 has revealed the strict rules she lives by.
Mia McGrath has managed to save an eye-watering ‘almost £100,000 in savings and investments’ at just 24 years old. The Londoner shares candid and savagely honest financial advice online, to help fellow young adults save their money.
And while she acknowledges it’s probably not the tips her generation is ‘gonna like’, she says it’s the ‘big sister advice that you need to hear’. But it’s a tough pill they seem happy to swallow, as TikTok users comment to admit they ‘needed’ to hear the mistakes they’re making.
Mia herself wishes someone had told her that ‘trying to be cool or aesthetic is making you broke’. Unless of course, you’re ‘literally trying to be an influencer’.
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‘Cool’ is making you broke
“Trying to take aesthetically pleasing pictures for Instagram – buying a whole new outfit for that or buying the Rhode phone case, all of these things just to appear like you’re aesthetically pleasing is what’s keeping you broke,” she explains.
Mia reminds people that they don’t need the ‘latest trending item’ like a Labubu because it’s simply ‘not essential’.
“If you really like something, save up for it,” she adds. “I guarantee if you waited 30 days to buy it, you wouldn’t want it anymore.”
Every little helps
The next bit of advice she gives is being sure to save at least a little bit of income. The fashion worker ‘guarantees’ that even if it’s as small as £10 or even £50, it will help.
“You [might] think, ‘What’s the point? £10? Where’s that going to get me?”
Mia says she first started saving ‘tiny amounts’ even though she was just on her student maintenance loan because she ‘wanted to save’.
“Fast forward to now, I’m almost at £100,000 in savings and investments, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had that mindset that saving £50 is pointless.
‘Too busy’ for bank
Mia says people need to stop using the excuse that ‘you don’t have enough time’.
“If you want to do it, you can, it just requires discipline,” she says.
The money-saver says that she’s been able to make that extra money from creating content and building a personal brand while also working her ‘nine to five job’ in the office.
Get that bag off your own back
Mia warns people shouldn’t be expecting someone else to come in and fund their lives.
“If you want a soft life, you have to build it for yourself,” she says. “No man is going to sweep in and do it for you.
“Even if they are, where does that leave you? What achievements do you have on your own?”
And while it could be a decent bonus to meet someone who earns more than you, you should probably ‘make sure you have your own finances sorted first’.
Jess Battison