I talked about this person in my newsletter on the 8th of June. Coming out of that interview I could not be amazed at how much the subject achieved in partnership (or maybe the word is strong alignment) with their significant other.
Profile Gender: Male
Country of Residence: United Kingdom
Profession: Business Analyst
I always like to start the question with why did you decide to leave your own country?”
I had the opportunity to take a second degree, my masters degree. something that was almost like, “yep that’s the next thing to do”.
How was it funded? Did the Bank of mommy and daddy fund it, or was your own savings?
It was the bank of the village: Mummy and Daddy, Uncle…..
O wow, how old were you around this time and do you think it is because you were young that they had to pull funds together for you?
I was around 23/24 if I am not mistaken. I was 25. No it wasn’t because I was young. It was mainly because an uncle could and was willing to pay for it. I asked and he said yes so…..Masters Degree it was.
Ha I see. Why the UK though?
America was where I wanted to go for a while. I wanted to get into an Ivy League university because my dad went to Cornell University and his brother went to Harvard University and Oxford University. So it was my goal to continue on that path. But I didn’t get admission into any plus I applied for visa to the US once or twice for just holidays but I got rejected.
The UK was the next best thing.
So how was your settling down in the UK? If you remember, was it hard…….
It was harddddd!
Wait wait, was it hard from a finance perspective, or ………
Ok so the main hardship came from the transition of post studying and entering the job market.
School was just school for me. My routine was classes, library, church, thats it. I did understand the importance of using that period to gain significant UK work experience as much as possible and so I was working in the school library as an IT trainer.
But then after school I found myself working in a factory for a couple of months.
Ha, wait how did you go from IT training in the library to factory work?
So the rule is, you can only do that kind of job, I mean the library job only if you are a student and once school is done you need to resign.
That makes sense. But were you under financial pressure that you have to go and do factory work? O yes, I had bills to pay!
This was the period in between finishing school (aka dissertation submitted) and the actual graduation ceremony that wasn’t until a few months later. So it was either going back home and be asking my parents for money (which was not on my own agenda) or rely on my uncle who lived in London at that time and on paper was my guardian. But throughout school,
we did speak once or twice and exchanged messages occasionally. I remember visiting his home in London once and also after securing the role in Woking, I stayed over at his house (while looking for a flat to share, which was closer to work) a tier one visa .
Funny side story I remember this uncle was very upset with me for not inviting him to my graduation ceremony when it eventually happened. Honestly, all I was thinking at that time was “Why should I be disturbing all these people, I need to get on with this graduation and get a job asap! Came with some small family drama.
Anyway back to the question; I was in school accommodation during my degree so I had to move out after my dissertation to a shared apartment. I needed to pay for the bills attached to that. And it definitely didn’t cross my mind to ask any family for the money.
Growing up, uncles and aunties bought me stuff all the time and that to me meant they had tried enough. I didn’t want to be that family member. who was always collecting. My learning from that period was “don’tthe wait until you need something to reach out to family to check in on them”. It is something my mom says all the time.
You did the warehouse job for two months. Was that two months because you got a job within that period?
Yes! In fact I remember it like yesterday. I was so grateful for the good news of getting the job while I was out that I knelt down at the bus stop just saying “Thank you God”.
Haha, I can imagine! Ok let’s call that your first job post masters degree. When you compare it to your last role back at home before you traveled, was that like for like, or was it a demotion?
Definitely like for like. In fact I got introduced to different types of work experience at that job; I immediately became responsible for a project acting as the go-between a consulting company and the government agency I was working for. It required me to be very independent. The most important thing the job offered me was the pay that allowed me to switch to Tier 1 without a sponsor. This was years ago when you had to earn at least £26,000 and at the time (2009) Expat immigrants could apply for Tier 1 visas in an individual capacity without sponsorship from a corporate organization.
Okay, okay, you have come to school, you settled down. You’ve done two months of warehouse. You got your first job. I mean, looking back now, your story seems to be a bit……..
Rosy?
I don’t want to use the word rosy. It almost seemed like you had a good landing, is what I would say.
Maybe. But mentally and emotionally it was quite difficult for me. But yes compared with other stories I hear these days I would say privilege has its hierarchy. For one I didn’t need to work and study, and I knew worst case scenario I had a place to go for a roof over my head and eat at zero cost. I even remember coming into the UK my mom & dad gave me £3,000 cash and my uncle also gave me £500, plus the money I earned from working, this sustained me for the entire year. For context, this was from 2007 to 2008 but I know I did a good job of managing that money well so much that it lasted me for the entire year of school plus paying for the visa fees after school. Actually I don’t remember accurately but think mum recently told me I called to get money for post study visa application fees.
Right! Looking back now, from where you were as a new settler in the UK and where you are now, what has been your top five money mistakes and your top five money successes?
Good question!
The first money mistake was, not saving. I always thought saving was a lost opportunity because you need to either invest or spend money. I didn’t believe in having cash in reserve. But that should have been a priority.
So you didn’t have an emergency fund somewhere?
No, I didn’t. And to be fair I was in a emergency situation for about six months in between that first job and the next one. This was something my now wife, could not understand while we were dating. She made me set up something almost immediately she heard.
Second is, not understanding the financial markets or will I say financial landscape early enough which meant a lot of lost opportunities. Especially during those periods when I had a lot of excess cash with a lot less expenses. At some point, I started contracting and was earning up to £250 per day and living in a shared house, so was paying about 500 a month on rent which meant I had a lot of disposable cash at the time. I guess that’s a function of the people I had around me. Those who knew shared. While some just didn’t know much as well.
The third thing is not getting on the property ladder early enough.
Getting on the property ladder is not cheap. You need money!
Yes, but I know how much we spent on our wedding and how much the deposit was back then. At the very least we should have spent money on purchasing one property as early as possible.
Actually, that’s not true, because I did get on the property ladder before I got married. But that house was for just me. I cant explain it, but it was a big thing for me to buy a house before I got married.
Oh, so you bought a house by yourself before you got married, or it was a “we’re going to get married” so you both contributed towards the house?
No no. I bought it by myself. It took me 10 months to save up for the deposit and the other expenses.
Oh, you were contracting already by this time, right?
Yes, So I could build the deposit faster. Plus my expenses were very low. My rent was about £500 or there about. And as a guy living alone, I could live with the bare minimum.
Another mistake was not staying on top of credit card payments. After I had gotten married, my wife and I were trying to get as many points on our Amex card so we moved all expenses to the card. At some point, we changed how we made payments to clear it all up but somehow I messed things up so much that we had unpaid payments of up to £4,000. You can imagine the amount of interest that had gone in. Because the interest is calculated daily, interest plus capital added up to 4k.
The key lesson is to understand the credit card payment cycle and make sure you pay off any outstanding just after the statement is generated. I didn’t automate this payment and did not notice it wasn’t being settled monthly.
Just hearing that 4k has my heart pumping. So those were the five wrongs, what were the great money moves you made?
Without a doubt, paying more than the minimum into my pensions. At the time I had a plan to have more than a £1m pounds by the time I am 60 years old. So I had to sit with my accountant / financial adviser, working backward from 60 years he showed me the value of compounding interests and gave me a roadmap of what I needed to add to my pensions every month.
But that has slowed down though because childcare fees are not cheap!
Ok. No 2?
Deciding to invest in property. After marriage, my wife and I made it a goal to focus on building a portfolio of properties we put out for rent.
Ok. Cool stuff. Next is focusing on earning more. Going down the route of contracting is one of my biggest advantages. Because it gave me more cash aka Liquidity.
No 4?
Having a spouse that is on the same page as me. Getting into a relationship and having conversations about money is one of the best things that happened. Actually having conversations about money, values, and children are absolutely key matters.
And the last thing?
Doing our finances together as a family. We have a spreadsheet we both control that shows our income, direct debits etc and then we both agree on what gets spent after paying bills for the remaining sum left. We both have current accounts, a joint savings account (which we both have access to), pension accounts, and savings accounts.
We both have independent money pots but that spreadsheet is the kicker because it has a view of everything we are earning: income from your salary shows up on there, bonus from your salary shows up on there. Any extra income except business or side hustle.
So it’s a Profit and Loss of thing?
More like a balance sheet. At the end of the month, there is a view of how much we have earned, how much we have spent, how much we should be saving etc
Impressive. I don’t think many couples have this kind of money conversation so it is impressive.
We didn’t start off like that. It became important as we started to earn more and more. We would start working together on finances month on month and then stop. Then start again. Until we became consistent.
But wait when you do investments, do you do investments as Mr and Mrs. or as individuals?
You have to look at the financial advantage. Because we need to be careful of the tax implications. We don’t have joint investments but we make joint decisions. Whenever I am about to buy a property we discuss it first; is it a good time, is it the best option to invest in etc
But we do have protections in place in case of my demise and vice versa we are the sole executors of the estate of assets owned. And then we also have life insurance.
You guys are very smart. You’re making a lot of sound decisions. What’s your next big financial goal?
In the immediate, we have a domestic priority for us to focus on. It is something that we know historically requires significant financial investments. After that, we want to invest in more properties for sure.
One last question, what is your greatest lesson to share with any immigrant?
Surrounding yourself with the right people is key. We get most of our tips from conversations with people around us. In particular, people who are doing well because they are happy and willing to discuss money. Not sure but think some research shows that people who are in poverty rarely ever discuss the subject of money.
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xxxx Anu
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