This week’s post is about how to make money. It’s aimed at beginners and students starting with £0, but the lessons can be applied to any monetary stage.

I will only speak about money. Money is important. It might not buy you happiness but it relieves stress, allows access to experiences and opportunities, gives you freedom and improves your quality of life. It’s one of the most essential functions of life that school once again, did not teach you about.

Below is a simple guide on how to build your way from minimum wage jobs towards financial freedom. Please be reminded this is not financial advice. Take responsibility for your own decisions.

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Now back to the post.

Level 1 (Basic)

This is where you might start. Level 1 is your traditional job where you trade time for money. Retail is a classic example, you serve customers for 8 hours and get paid by the hour. The more hours you give, the more you earn.

This is how I started at 17 working at Pizza Hut as a waiter in the UK where I earned £3.72 per hour (+ tips). Yes, you read that right. £3.72, back in 2015. My second job was also similar at McDonalds but I earned £6.50 an hour there 1 year later.

These jobs are ideal for young students because it gets them going. Even if you have skills and ideas, getting a part-time job is incredibly useful in the early days. If you have 6 weeks off in summer and 3 weeks off over winter and you work one of these jobs you can earn a decent amount.

There are a lot of lessons to learn at this stage:

• How businesses work → What is the purpose of each worker in McDonalds? How do they provide such a fast service? Why do people keep coming back?
• Why businesses are successful → Why is McDonalds so successful? What is the problem customers have that this business is solving? Could it be done better? What about the competitors
• How to speak to people → As a retail worker you speak to a lot of different people, learn how to create conversation with anyone. Old. Young. Rich. Not so rich. Learn about human behaviour, body language and SALES.
• How to deal with difficult people → I have had my fair share of difficult co-workers and managers in the past. Learning how to live in harmony with these people is an important skill. I might hate my manager, but I will befriend him for personal gain and peace in the workplace. Conflict is not helpful.

You may be working for minimum wage in a temporary job, but there is so much you can learn while you’re there. I used to study body language by reading books, then I would observe customers, and practice psychological techniques with sales pitches and methods of communication.

I never felt embarrassed for working these jobs. I was 17 and broke, but we all start off like that. Even if your parents give you money, everyone starts off with $0 self-made money. You might have generational wealth, but nothing compares to the feeling of making your own money.

If you’re reading this and you’re at $0 you can get a level 1 job. All you need to do is create a CV and apply.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a long-term solution. Level 1 should be short-term while you work on Level 2 or 3.

Level 2 (Intermediate)

Money is exchanged in return for a service. You pay people to solve problems for you. For example, I want a new T-shirt. The problem is I don’t have one. I need one that is well fitted, a good material, design and reasonable price. H&M solves my problem. In exchange for $8, they give me a new T-shirt that fulfils my criteria.

That’s basically how money works.

This is useful because without knowing it, you probably have the ability to solve a specific problem for someone. Level 2 is identifying what you already know. What you’re already good at. Then you sell your skill to people to solve their problems.

When I was studying my A levels (2014-2016) and Biomedical science (2016-2019), I was a master at GCSE maths and science. Now that I’m a medical student, I’m a master at the medicine application, UCAT and interview process. At all of these stages, I was a self-employed tutor.

I had the skill of teaching and there are thousands of young students with parents that are willing to pay for tuition. To get my first customer I signed up to many websites like Tutorful and Tutora. I made a professional-looking profile advertising my teaching. I spent time reaching out to students on the websites until I found someone local to teach.

The websites used to take a percentage of my price, so I added $5 to cover that cost. When I met my students I would offer their parents a discounted price to pay me directly and arrange lessons by text. I had 2 students at the time and I charged £25 an hour. Sometimes we did 2-hour lessons so I was making around £50-£100 per week by working less than 5 hours.

That’s just one example, but the general rule is the more specialised your skill and the better you are, the more you should charge. For medicine interview preparation I have charged upwards of £50/hour (I’m very good at interviews). I hope that shows you what is possible.

You would be surprised at the opportunity out there to make money. Often people are scared to charge for services (I certainly was in the beginning) but as long as your customers are getting value for money then it’s fine.

If I was to start all over again, I would get a level 1 job and in my spare time work on level 2 sooner.

Take a moment to sit and brainstorm. What are you good at? What is something that you do for fun that others are amazed by? Maybe it’s a subject in school, maybe you’re in amazing shape, maybe you’re very organised. Each of those skills can be packaged as a service.

Level 3 (Advanced)

This is a follow on from level 2. Instead of picking something that you’re already good at, you pick up a new skill with the intention of providing it as a service.

Back in 2020, I bought my first camera. A mirrorless FujiFilm XT-100. I spent around 10 months getting good at taking pictures, making videos, and editing with Lightroom and Photoshop.

When I started medical school I realised I could charge people to do their photography. More than I thought! Photography is a specialised skill. You need an expensive camera, photo editing software, knowledge of lighting, angles and framing (and a whole lot more). So for 1 shoot, I would charge anywhere from £50-£150 as a beginner.

It sounds expensive but I’m using a £350 camera, a £300 lens, I spent over a year learning how to take photos and edit them well. If the minimum wage is £10/hour then I think £50 an hour for photography is pretty well priced. The better you are, the more you can charge.

I love work like this because anyone can learn these skills from YouTube and the internet for FREE. I never paid for photography classes, I just learnt from others online.

My emails are full of freelancers offering their services for level 3 jobs. I have video editors, writers, coders, SEO specialists, thumbnail designers and social media managers reaching out to me for jobs most weeks.

Level 3 requires skill and self-marketing. You need to learn how to reach out to clients, how to market yourself, how to negotiate and you need confidence in your craft to do those things.

Here are some simple examples of skills and services:

• Photography → Portrait, Real estate, Events, Weddings, Societies and Balls at university,
• Videography → Short form, Long form, advertisements, vlogs, promotion.
• Writing → Blogs for websites, Writing for medical question banks (I used to do this), Copywriting, Scripting
• Freelancing → Sell services on Fiverr​

Acquire a skill. Get good at it. Build a portfolio (super important!). Advertise and work on outreach (cold emails). Sell.

Level 4 (Advanced)

This is a step up from level 3 but instead of offering one service, you provide a full service as a package such as ‘Small events planner’. When someone wants to host an event, they pay you a fee and you organise the following:

• Booking (Location, date and time)
• Catering
• Invitations
• Decorations

You should be charging a fee that covers all of your costs (especially if you outsource any work) and the leftover money will be profit.

That’s one example, but this can be done in so many ways.

My social media is a type of service. I can reach out to brands and offer to create a video showing their product or service. That involves a gifted service (free products), video editing, advertisement, reach (access to my audience) and a whole load of other add-ons.

When you’re offering larger services like this you’re offering a package that very few people can provide which is why the prices are so high (££££).

Don’t be fooled into thinking providing a service is easy. When you charge a lot of money customers expect a return on their investment.
Quality must be high.
Deadlines must be met.

This is the level where you will encounter negotiations, invoices, contracts, copyright and a lot more. It’s highly recommended to have a team at this point too. Although it’s possible to provide a service alone, chances are you can outsource parts of your work to people much better than yourself.

That’s what CEOs do in large companies. Elon Musk is a smart man, but he employs the best engineers in the world to help design Tesla’s cars, rather than doing so himself.

Level 5 (Expert)

I won’t write much here since I’m not experienced enough to say much, but beyond level 4 the next step would be to scale your business. Hire people. Outsource work that can be done better by someone else. Automate. Advertise. Expand.

A great example is Ali Abdaal. He started off at levels 2 and 3 making websites for people through freelance work on Fiverr many years ago and over time he’s climbed the ladder to a point where he’s running a large business with a team behind him. Once again, a skilled person who found others that can do the job better than him.

Another example is Matt D’Avella who started off as a freelance videographer. Now he’s directed Netflix documentaries and sells (amazing) courses on filmmaking.

Investing (Not financial advice)

This is worth mentioning because the key to generational wealth is investing.

As I am not a financial advisor, I won’t say much here. But the general consensus is the earlier you invest, the better because of compounding.

The idea is that money that is sitting in the bank or safe collecting dust is depreciating in value due to inflation. £100 a year ago is worth less today, even though it’s the same amount because of inflation. It has less buying power. If you have ever met a wealthy person, they all have a habit of investing spare cash.

If you have £10,000 sitting in your bank account, you should really invest some of it so it’s increasing in value rather than depreciating via inflation.

Take Home Message

The bottom line is, the more you learn about money the more you realise how easy it is to make. Anyone can become wealthy if they make the right decisions.

Most people make terrible financial decisions. The second they get a big paycheck they upgrade their lifestyle, spend more and continue living paycheck to paycheck (Read this if you have bad spending habits) rather than investing, saving and building a wealthy future.

PS. You can invest, save AND still enjoy life without breaking the bank. Those who claim ‘I’d rather be 30 and broke with memories than rich with nothing to look back on’ completely miss the point.

Resources

I gave you a small insight into the world of personal finance from my own learning and experience, but there are far better people to learn from. Below I have listed some resources for extra reading. I highly recommend the books over the YouTube videos. 5 books will teach you so much valuable knowledge and if you take action on what you learn, you will start to build wealth.

1. YouTube
   • ​Nischa (Ex-Investment Banker who makes videos about personal finance)
     • ​Watch this to learn about investing
   • ​Mark Tilbury (Millionaire, Investing, fun videos)
   • ​Ali Abdaal (Ex-doctor, millionaire creator)
   • ​Ramit Sethi (An actual financial advisor)
2. Books
   • ​The Intelligent Investor (“By far the best book on investing ever written.” — Warren Buffet)
   • ​I Will Teach You To Be Rich (One of my favourite books about money)
   • ​The Millionaire Fast Lane (Ali Abdaal recommends this)
   • ​The Psychology Of Money (Great if you have bad spending habits)
   • ​The 4-Hour Work Week (Escape the 9-5)
   • ​Rich Dad Poor Dad (People joke about this book but it has some use)
   • ​Think And Grow Rich​
   • ​The Total Money Makeover​
3. Podcasts
   • ​Ramit Sethi on Diary of a CEO (Amazing podcast for beginners)

You can either complain that school didn’t teach you this, or you learn yourself from books and videos. Literally, all the answers are there. You will find that when you understand money and make the right decisions it’s not as hard as it looks.

Everyone has different goals, some want to live luxurious lives, others are happy with what they have and that’s fine. Do what you want with this information and don’t question other people’s pursuits.

Know that it gets harder before it gets easy. The initial few years of this money journey are tough. I have had terrible experiences through work in the past, but looking back I have made so much progress. These days when I walk past Pizza Hut or McDonalds I feel nostalgic about the memories there. Days when £10 an hour seemed like a dream.

Everyone starts somewhere, don’t be ashamed of your starting point. It’s a beautiful thing to see someone work hard for what they want in life. Be proud of all your efforts.

There is a wealth of information on the internet. Use it.

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