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6 Lessons Learned After 6 Years As An Entrepreneur

6 Lessons Learned After 6 Years As An Entrepreneur

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6 Lessons Learned After 6 Years As An Entrepreneur

Last month made it 6 years since we started The Humble Penny and we've been reflecting on what we've learned this year 😀.

If you want to start a side hustle or business, taking that first step is key.

Most people can become entrepreneurs and even do it alongside their day job if they want.

However, from a mindset perspective, it's important to go into it with the right intentions, put the work in and stay flexible to learn daily as things change.

Recommended: Start a side hustle that pays you recurring income monthly

entrepreneur
This picture is a good example of us stepping outside our comfort zones and learning how to host and interview people. As employees turned entrepreneurs, we've learned that being a little braver to do things that stretch you pays off.

 

6 Lessons Learned After 6 Years As An Entrepreneur

Here is what we learned about running a business in our 6th year:

1. From Blogger to Author 

Although a lot of people know us from our YouTube videos, what some people don't know is that we first honed our skills by starting a blog.

I would write and my wife, Mary, would design the creative assets.

This year made me realise what all those years of blogging were preparing us for.

Not only did our blog grow in authority, but we also published our debut book📕.

This year taught me that writing for fun opens up more possibilities than you can imagine.

Did I think that one day I'd become an author? Heck no! 

I just wanted to do something creative that helped others outside of my boring job.

The identity of an ‘entrepreneur' is something I've gradually embraced over time.

2. Tracking Sleep 

We tracked our sleep scores this year and this has helped to improve our results and change our behaviours.

Aiming for an excellent sleep score means that we force ourselves to sleep 7 to 8 hours a day now 😴.

This helps us have 4 sleep cycles which helps with physical and mental recovery.

If you'd like to track your sleep score, I use this watch.

What gets measured gets improved as you know. So start today.

3. 80% Writing, 20% Working 

In the last 12 months, I spent around 80% of my working time writing📝 and 20% on other business activities.

Yet, our business and platforms still ran smoothly though not perfectly.

This reminded me of the importance of having systems that do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Plus, freelancers who work a few hours a month to help us keep things moving.

This way you stay lean and still get great results 💪🏽

My point here is, that when you start a side hustle or a business, you have to treat it like one.

Get some help and don't do everything yourself.

Otherwise, you're simply creating another job for yourself.

Recommended: 12 Lessons From 5 Years of Entrepreneurship

4. Planning The Year 

To stay ahead, we planned the full year 📅.

On an Excel sheet, we create both a multi-platform plan for content and a plan for income over 12 months.

This way, we never go into the new year blind.

We then focus on 12-week cycles of activity.

Note that we've not always been this organised. It has taken 6 years to get here.

However, if you adopt this mindset for your side hustle or business, you'll flourish.

5. Continuity As a Platform 

We learned the importance of sustainable business models e.g. Starting memberships.

This not only creates continuity but creates community and a space to truly learn the problems you can help your community solve.

In the age of AI, having a sustainable business model🔋is what will help you protect your income.

I think it has never been easier to start.

You can join our free 5-day challenge to learn how.

6. Reinvest In Other Assets 

Applying my Personal Finance skills, I've learned to reinvest at least 20% of any profits in other assets🪴outside our business.

This helps to sow new seeds and create a balance in the seasons when things don't go well.

It ensures the sustainability of our work, meaning that we'll be around for longer.

I think this is where a lot of small business owners fail.

They put all their eggs into one basket and don't diversify.

Bonus tip – Give 

We've enjoyed giving this year beyond the 95% – 99% of everything we already create for free.

Giving the gift of mentoring or fully paid scholarships or financially supporting others starting out in small ways, has been very rewarding 😊

Giving isn't just about money. Give your time, talent, network, etc

What matters is the heart with which you give 🫶🏾

More to read about becoming an entrepreneur:

More to watch about becoming an entrepreneur:

👉🏽 Are you thinking about starting your own business or side hustle? What is the biggest pain point or struggle you have? 🤔. Comment below 

40 Years Old & NOTHING SAVED For Retirement? Do This!

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Saving for retirement: 40 years old and nothing saved for retirement? Do this!

Something weird happens when you turn 40.

You suddenly realise that you're only around 15 years away from accessing your private pension 😅.

This could then lead to panic if you have little or nothing saved for retirement.

If you're in this position, it's not too late! 

However, you'd need to make some radical decisions and that's what today's post is all about.

If you're in your 20s, 30s, or 50s, you'll learn from this post too.

👉🏽Need 121 coaching with Investing and Retirement planning? Book coaching here

Saving for Retirement at 40

Here is what we would do now in 7 steps to plan for a comfortable retirement:

Step 1 – Set The Mental Foundation ✨

A radical mindset change is required for building any kind of wealth.

If you don't believe you can achieve Financial Freedom or reach a comfortable retirement one day, you won't.

It's a hard truth 😳.

You need evidence of a shifting mindset  e.g.

  • Get away from toxic people and those who think too small.
  • Stop sacrificing your retirement by paying for private education if you're barely affording it 🤷🏽‍♂️.
  • Get on the same page with your partner (if you have one).

Plus, you need to be clear on why this goal is meaningful for your life for you to take any meaningful action.

Step 2 – Use the 3.5% Rule 😎

Use this rule to figure out roughly how much you need to retire in the UK.

Example: You need £2,000 a month to cover expenses at retirement.

Do this calculation: (£2,000 x 12)/0.035 = £685,714.

Repeat for yourself.

If you're in the US or North America, you can repeat the same calculation but using 4%.

e.g. ($2,000 x 12)/0.04 = $600,000.

The percentage above is what's known as your Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) and will differ depending on where you're in the world.

i.e. the percentage of your retirement portfolio that you can safely withdraw annually without running out of money.

👉🏾 We cover retirement extensively with all the latest research in our new book titled Financial Joy, a 10-week plan to help you Banish Debt, Grow Your Money and Unlock Financial Freedom.

Note that the above calculations are before you factor in the impact of any future State Pension, which will come at age 66.

Step 3 – Create The Money Foundation 😍

You need to first target expensive debts, then choose a fixed % to start Saving and Investing.

To do that, you need to make radical decisions e.g.

  • Downsize your car
  • Downsize your house
  • Downsize your life

👉🏾These are hard decisions but if you do them, you mean business.

Step 4 – Tell Your Money Where To Go 🎯

You need a consistent way of allocating every £ or $ or whatever that you make.

As a starting point, we say that you should aim to allocate your money like this:

10% of gross income should go to your pension e.g. via salary sacrifice.

Then, when your net income hits your bank account, aim for 100% of it to be allocated like this:

  • 50% – Needs.
  • 15% – Stocks and shares investment e.g. by opening a stocks and shares ISA
  • 10% – Pay off expensive debts.
  • 10% – Giving.
  • 5% – Emergency fund.
  • 5% – Fun and wants. You can increase this over time.
  • 5% – Risk-taking or exploring ideas to make more money.

That totals 100%. Of course, you can change this as you see fit as it's a guide.

e.g. If you already have an emergency fund, that extra 5% can go towards debt payoff or investing, for example.

Ultimately, aim for your net income to be allocated like this as a goal:

  • 50% – Needs (this will be hard due to the cost of living, but it's possible)
  • 40% – Investing (start at 10% at worst and gradually work your way up to 40% or more)
  • 10% – Other (to cover your fun, giving, etc)

👉🏾For a no-stress life, I'd invest it in the Stock market via a low-cost Index Fund or ETF in the S&P 500 or a global fund.

Recommended: Gain investing confidence in only 12 days

Step 5 – Create a Limited Company and Max Out Pension 💷

With a day job, you already have an established way of saving into your pension.

However, did you know that you can have a side hustle or business and pay up to £60k a year into your Private Pension (SIPP)?

This is treated as a tax-deductible expense with no corporation tax to pay on that money if you set up a limited company.

e.g. you can make up to £60k revenue and pay 100% of it as a business expense straight into your pension and pay no corporation tax.

Pause for a moment and think of the implications of that.

If you have a partner and you're both run the business, that could be £120,000 a year.

You'd have to hustle of course to make money in the side hustle but just think of the potential.

For each person, £60k a year for 5 years = £300k, even before you factor in compound interest.

Of course, £60k is a lot for anyone to save and invest yearly.

You can invest anything up to that amount depending on what you make in your side hustle or business.

Generally speaking, the key is to start investing today.

Imagine that you had a household income of £4,000 a month net and you saved and invested 50% of that i.e. £2,000 a month consistently.

Even if you started at zero savings for retirement today at age 40, you can still reach over £1m portfolio in the next 20 years (by age 60) assuming an 8% average return.

Here is how your retirement portfolio could turn out:

saving for retirement

saving for retirement

Limited companies have lots of important advantages for building wealth. Click here to read more.

Recommended: 50 Best Side Hustle Ideas To £1k a Month Extra Income

Step 6 – Keep Your Lifestyle Simple ⭐️

We talked earlier about paying for private school, for example, if you're barely able to do this.

Of course, if you can afford it and prepare for retirement too, no issues.

However, we're aware of lots of people (e.g. Africans) who are currently struggling to pay for school fees and barely have any retirement savings.

We've also seen this in the Asian community and non-ethnic minority Brits as well. 

With the rise in the cost of living and debates about school fees potentially attracting VAT in the future, this will be a crippling cost for some people.

Aside from this specific point, it goes without saying that if you're in your 40s, retirement is an urgent matter to prioritise.

  • If you get a bonus, invest it 📈
  • If you get a pay rise, invest it 📈

Avoid lifestyle creep at all costs.

Step 7: Plan For The Worst and Protect Your Wealth 💸

As lovely as it sounds to plan and look forward to retirement, no one can guarantee tomorrow.

Of course, we all wish and pray for a long and healthy life but there are no promises.

Anything could happen, so who would take over all that money you've been saving?

This is why you'll need a will, life insurance, and trusts to protect your wealth and pass things on to your loved ones properly.

Conclusion

It's easy to put off this topic of saving for retirement for tomorrow and I get it.

However, if you think about it, if you've been looking after your health, tomorrow will almost certainly arrive just as today did.

When I look at our 10-year-old son, I often wonder, how has time flown by so quickly. 

I also think the same when I consider that Mary and I are now 40 years old and I can still remember 20 like it was yesterday.

Today, not tomorrow, is the day to make those decisions about the version of retirement you want and start creating it. It is not too late for you 😊.

What to read next about saving for retirement at 40:

What to watch next about saving for retirement at 40:

👉🏾Are you behind or on track for your retirement? What age do you plan to retire (whatever that means to you)? Comment below with any questions about saving for retirement 😀.

100 Things That Made Our Year 2023

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The year 2023 has been both amazing and crushing for me on a personal level.

Although it’s tempting for me to look to 2024 and hope for the next best thing, I’m using this post to maintain my culture of reflecting on how this year went.

Every year I write a post on 100 things that made my year. 

Here are the previous ones for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

This is a gratitude post as it reminds me that with all that’s going on in the world, I still managed to stop to appreciate certain things and achieve some 😊.

It’s also a way for me to record my personal growth over the years as I look back whilst also inspiring anyone seeking progress in their lives.

Before I share what made my year of 2023, I wanted to share that this year was crushing because of personal loss.

My dearly loved brother-in-law of the same age as me died this year and I’m still struggling with the loss. 

I’ve not only had to step in as a father figure for him and my sister’s sons but organising a funeral we didn’t expect was heartbreaking.

His loss has made me see even more so the important role that fathers play in a family setting. 

When you lose someone who occupies so much space and significance, that loss affects more people and more of your personal comforts than you can ever imagine.

In addition to personal loss, members of my family struggled with health conditions that weighed heavy on me.

Parallel to all this heartache, and emotional and mental turmoil, I threw myself into my work as a way to cope, working harder than ever whilst also trying to have fun.

It’s worth mentioning that 90% of the good things that happened this year were not things we planned to do.

They only happened because we have been consistently visible and creating value for years.

Table of Contents

100 Things That Made Our Year 2023

Here are the 100 things that made our year of 2023 in no particular order:

1. We became published authors of Financial Joy

The funny thing is, around this time last year, we were planning our year and we said to ourselves, “Maybe 2023 is the year that we try to write a book”.

2 weeks later, a dream publisher from Quercus (part of Hachette) contacted us and said they loved our work.

It’s mad to think that in 12 months, we went from book idea to now awaiting our book launch on 28th March 2024.

We’ve worked hard! 😅

Shoutout to everyone who has pre-ordered already. We're super grateful.

If you haven't yet, click here to order a copy.

I still have to pinch myself when I think that starting this blog has led to us becoming published authors.

Thank God for this open door!  

100 things that made our year 2023

2. We both became 40 years old and celebrated with a joint party.

I felt pretty anxious turning 40, to be honest, but my mum changed my mindset when she made me realise that this is an achievement to be celebrated.

Our lives at 40 feels massively different to how it was at 30. 

We’re wiser and have fewer worries and see this as a season of enjoying the fruits of our labour.

We marked our 40th with a joint home dinner party in an intimate setting of 30 people:

our 40th birthday

3. Mary launched The Humble Penny Shop

Creating our shop was Mary’s personal project as she’s a skilled creative.

I was super proud to see her take charge of this project and lead it from start to launch.

The shop is home to all our digital products (paid and free). 

Everything from budgeting, making money online, affiliate marketing, learning to invest, etc. 

It’s all there in the form of eBooks, spreadsheets, courses, etc, and growing.

4. Joshua passed his 11plus exams for Kent and Bexley

Parenting is the hardest thing that we have the honour of doing.

The last 7 years have been tough educating our sons actively in partnership with their school.

We’ve invested heavily in their education in both time and money and it was the perfect outcome to see Josh not only pass the 11plus but smash them 😍.

We still cannot believe that in 9 months, our baby will be in secondary school.

If you have a family member who didn't pass, please encourage them that they still have every opportunity to succeed in their way for the future.

These exams ultimately don't guarantee the future at all especially speaking from how our lives have turned out so far.

Love and encouragement from family and taking calculated risks are key.

5. I Scored a 99 Sleep Score

Although we’ve worked exceptionally hard this year, we’ve also looked after our wellbeing as best we can.

One thing we started doing was tracking our sleep scores using this watch.

It tracks sleep time, sleep cycles, wakefulness, and physical and mental recovery.

This 99 score out of 100 is my highest ever and it made me feel good to know that I’m looking after myself again after such a difficult year mentally.

 

6. Elias learned to solve a Rubix cube and is now obsessed with it

Our second son has just about cracked the Rubix 2×2 cube and is now also learning how to solve the 3×3 cube.

He is obsessed with it and is even watching videos on how to do it online. Bless.

7. We all went ice skating in December

Although our boys are still learning, it was lovely to see them learn so quickly. 

I expect that we’ll be doing more skating in 2024.

8. Watching World War II From The Front Lines 

This is one of the most phenomenal documentaries I’ve ever watched.

WWII in colour using actual footage made the war seem very real for someone like me who wasn’t there. 

It was both sad and gripping to see the reality of war. Knowing that the narrator was John Boyega, was wow! 10/10.

9. We won BBBA Entrepreneur Senior Leader of The Year 2023

After a very rigorous multi-stage nomination and interview process, we won the prestigious award by the Black British Business Awards (BBBA).

Here is the official announcement.

It was also announced in the Telegraph and Evening Standard.

For us, this was one of those pinch myself moments. 

To think that in 2017 we began The Humble Penny as a passion project and now award-winning, wow!

10. We were invited to Number 10 Downing Street 

For the first time ever, the UK Prime Minister’s office chose to release a confidential policy briefing to half a dozen YouTube creators before traditional media learned about it.

We were one of the five creators chosen and invited to meet the UK Prime Minister.

This moment validated a lot for me because it shows that the consistency we’ve had with our work is being noticed by people and it’s opening doors.

We were told that one reason we were chosen is because of the integrity that comes across in our work and the fact that we have a genuine community of people we serve.

11. We celebrated Christmas and hosted around 25 family members 

For the first time in around a decade, we hosted and had people from both sides of the family over at our house.

It was lovely and not stressful at all as everyone brought a dish, drink and desserts.

One of my biggest highlights was the sleepovers and chatting with family till around 3 am.

12. Top Boy finale

We’re huge fans of the show and it’s amazing to see the international acclaim and how this show has opened doors for the actors involved and for those upcoming.

The thing is though, I was sad to see how it ended especially as a black man. 

It made me realise the hold that money can have over people when they allow greed and the pursuit of power to become their primary purpose for living.

I’m a huge fan of Kano, Ashley Walters and Little Simz, and their performances were outstanding. 

13. We went back to Zanzibar for a Baecation after 13 years

Back in 2010, Mary and I planned our lives in what we called our 10-year plan back then. 

It all began on the beach in Zanzibar, Tanzania. In 2023, we went back to again and it was a beautiful experience.

We danced on the beach, swam with Turtles, danced with Massai, saw dolphins, stayed in Matemwe and Nungwi .etc. 

Whilst doing all these things, we bumped into a guy with a drone who made this spectacular video for us and this one of our Massai dance.

 

14. Mum dyed her hair red in her late 60s

I love my mum. I was so shocked and filled with joy when I saw her unveil her new look.

It reminded me of the need to keep evolving and having fun as I get older.

15. Letter from the Mayor of London for BBBA award win. 

In November, the Mayor of London wrote us a personal letter to congratulate us on winning the BBBA award.

It was very touching because he didn’t have to. Thank you, Mayor.

16. Buying and enjoying a drench shower.

This might sound so insignificant to you, but it is one of my favourite things to own.

I see it as part of my self-care. 

When I’m in that shower, I have some of my best ideas. Similar to when I go for a walk.

No one in our house uses the drench shower as they prefer the side one but I’m secretly happy about it, haha 😆.

17. Our email list of subscribers crossed 20,000

It means a lot to us to know that there are people in our communities that we can speak to and hear from directly without worrying about algorithms.

Thank you for subscribing if you’re one of those who receive our newsletters.

Feel free to join by subscribing to any of our free resources. 

18. Desert Adventure Quad biking and Dune bashing

A friend of mine told me that the time you spend with your kids up to the age of 10 represents around 70% of the time you’ll ever spend with them.

This made me think!

We’re doing everything possible to max out doing as many unique experiences with our children as possible.

Here we were celebrating Josh passing his 11plus exams:

 

19. Vitality GP video appointments

This is an odd one but one of the best investments we’ve made is getting health insurance.

It’s a nightmare getting appointments with a GP or referrals to a specialist on the NHS.

However, with this health insurance, we’re able to get a GP appointment and speak to a GP on video from home in 45 minutes from the time we booked. Wow!

We’ve had to give up certain expenses to afford health insurance but it is totally worth it.

20. We converted our shed into a home gym

This is one of the most life-changing things we’ve ever done.

Working from home since covid, we’ve not only become less fit but we’ve accumulated more rubbish in our shed.

Converting the shed into a gym space on a budget has been the best decision ever and gives us a space to keep fit and take a break in.

Watch the conversion here

21. The Joshua vs Joshua chess game.

Josh has become obsessed with chess lately. He asked his mummy to play with him but she was tied up cooking.

So he went to his room and played against himself! 

It was hilarious watching him play and strategise against himself. Priceless moment.

22. Watching Maxine's Baby – The Tyler Perry story.

This is one of the most inspiring documentaries that I’ve ever watched.

Tyler Perry is a multi-talented billionaire who started life poor and abused.

Today, he owns the largest movie studio in the world, larger than any in Hollywood. It’s 330 acres.

One very touching moment in the doc was when he honoured other people by naming them after each of the dozen sound studios he’d built.

He named each sound stage after the likes of Oprah, Denzel, Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, Will Smith, Halle Berry, etc.

This to me spoke of an abundance mindset and the beauty that there is in honouring your peers and those who have helped you to come up. 

23. Featured in the Guardian

We were featured in the Guardian sharing frugal Christmas money-saving tips to help you avoid overspending in the festive season.

24. Commissioned to write a blog post for Christianity magazine.

Being asked to write for such an authoritative magazine was yet more validation for me to keep going

The piece I wrote was about the Christian response to a culture of debt. 

Watch out for it in January 2024.

25. FJA Christmas and Summer Lunch Meetups 

Dream Makers at Financial Joy Academy (FJA) meet 3 times in person each year to eat, drink, have fun and network.

We even had people come from as far as Scotland to stay over. 

Shout to ‘So So’ and ‘Joy’ from Aberdeen among others who also travelled very far.

 

 

26. Getting pranked by our boys using Google AI 

Our boys and Mary used Mary’s phone to call me from a Private number to say that I ordered 100 cheese burgers from McDonald's. I freaked out!

They even pressed the ring door bell alarm downstairs to say the order has arrived and I fell for it

27. Powerful quote

I heard this at church and it realy stuck with me:

“Prayer is a journey that starts in need but ends in relationship”

28. BBC Radio London appearance

Mary and I were invited on BBC Radio London on 16 November as their second ever couple on the show.

Although Mary was nervous on the way, she absolutely smashed it and flourished as a natural.

29. Boey Bear YouTube channel

My very good friend, Rosalind, owns and runs the Boey Bear Toddler Learning videos YouTube channel.

We go way back from the days when we started as undergrads at uni to us starting our careers as Chartered Accountants.

I’m proud of her and her growing brand doing what she loves.

The thing that made my year was that on top of her outstanding work, she’d fought a battle for years to get monetised for her word on YouTube and finally achieved it.

She also achieved 100,000 Subscribers and growing! To our success, Ros! 

30. Financial Wellbeing Workshop at Netflix

In October, we delivered our best-ever corporate workshop at Netflix.

They had staff join from different offices including the Netherlands. 

It was a huge highlight of our year and we look forward to more corporate workshops like this.

Who knows, this may even open bigger doors with Netflix in the future.

31. Outdoor cinema with our boys in Dubai. 

We watched Night at the Museum 2 and it was warm and beautiful. 

They even served warm popcorn. 

 

32. Amazon Number 1 Best Seller within 24 hours 

It was absolutely amazing to see our book hit number one as soon as we announced it in October.

It hit number 1 in these categories:

  • #1 in Financial Retirement Planning
  • #1 in Management Science
  • #1 in Budget & Finance Management

Financial Joy book

33. My dad surprised us with a monetary gift

It wasn’t a lot of money but it was the thought that counted the most.

What I love about my dad when it comes to things like these is that he puts the money into an envelope and writes our name on it.

It’s almost as though the act of giving in itself for him is a celebration. I was really touched and inspired by the effort to give.

34. A lifeline of a voicemail

I was getting massively overwhelmed in August whilst writing our book and also preparing for the 11plus with Josh.

Usually, August is a month we take off travel but this year, we worked on two major projects (the book and the 11plus exams) because we had to.

I told my brother, Kingsley, that I was struggling. 

He left me a voice note to remind me that everything we're doing is sowing seed in the sowing season. 

Things will only ever get better and there will be a season to reap those rewards too.

35. Watching “NoWhere” Movie on Netflix. 

It felt like a glimpse into what happens to so many people but we never hear about e.g. Migrants. 

This movie was extremely emotional but also challenged a lot of norms. E.g. the lead character giving birth in a container in the middle of the sea and eating her placenta. 

Plus breastfeeding on camera, something you don’t see that often but something that is perfectly normal for a mother.

There were also moments of creativity and survival against all odds and these inspired me to always keep going even in hardship.

 

36. Featured on Bloomberg

This piece on Bloomberg was about the challenges faced by black entrepreneurs particularly with the challenges of the cost of living crisis.

37. Got home to see Josh reading Dotcome Secrets. 

I was so proud as I'd been thinking of reading Dotcom Secrets as a book at home to our children but he beat me to it and chose to read the book all by himself. 

This is a book I read years ago and it taught me important principles about marketing.

The future is bright four children if they’re already reading such books even before their teenage years.

38. Bought a hot water tap for automatic boiling water

Again, a bit like the shower, I want more conveniences that bring joy but if it also saves money, even better.

I dislike boiling kettles again and again. So, upgrading to a tap that has boiling water ready all the time felt like a treat.

39. ‘Live to 100’ show on Netflix

There is no point working hard to make money or build wealth if you won’t be around to enjoy it.

Outside of God’s grace, if you want evidence of what it takes to live a longer life, this is the show to watch:

 

40. Our Book was announced on The Bookseller

This is the official publication for people in the publishing industry.

I was proud to see our book not only announced but also featured in their magazine. It has had a phenomenal reception so far.

Announcing our book on 5th October 2023. Phenomenal reception. Plus announcement on Book Seller:

Order Our Book here

41. Elias started wearing glasses 

Weirdly, seeing how handsome he was in glasses was a highlight of my year.

Our dear son had for a long time struggled to see items that are far away but he didn’t think it was an issue.

It was reassuring to find out that he needed glasses and he now feels like he has perfect eyesight.

On the same day, he was awarded for “outstanding work this week” on Atom. 

We felt like proud parents just knowing that in he is progressing in his own way small by small.

42. Mary came first twice on sports day

Every sports day for the last 5 years, Mary has come first in the mums' races.

She's the one to beat according to all the mums. This year, I proudly came third

43. Your identity is your destiny

I learned that “Your identity is your destiny”. 

God called Abraham (the father of nations) instead of Abram even before he was the father of one child. 

He was fatherless but had to assume his new identity to become who God wanted him to become.

There is much power in you when you know who you are. Watch this:

 

44. Got more confident swimming backwards 

I can even turn around and swim on my side, but I still can’t swim fully on my front.

Having access to a swimming pool daily in Rhodes helped a lot. 

45. Our first work experience student

We had Daniel over at our home for 1 week of work experience and taught him how to start an online business, learn to invest, plan for the future, etc.

We invited his parents over the Christmas period and I hear they’re now taking guidance from him because the one week of learning impacted him so positively.

I look forward to the day when we can do the same for more parents maybe through a Summer camp or something.

46. ‘Period. End of Sentence’ documentary on Netflix.

I was so inspired by these women in India who learned a way of helping other women through everyday materials to solve the problems of a lack of pads during their periods.

Shocking that some boys in the documentary thought that a period was an “illness” that only affects women.

The documentary was deeply insightful and showed how much need there is for education on the topic and how much stigma there is still attached to it. 

It also reminded me of the things we take for granted in this part of the world.

Watch the full documentary for free here on YouTube:

 

47. Watching Alcaraz beat Djokovic at the 2023 Wimbledon final

I like Djokovic but something about seeing the underdog win was refreshing.

48. We crossed 70,000 subscribers on YouTube. 

It feels like it has taken forever to get here. Another creator friend, Simi, told me that it’s good to grow slowly.

This has been comforting in a world where other non-black creators in the same niche, who started years after us, have grown a lot more subscribers than we have.

Being a black creator online means that it takes longer to be trusted, which means that you don’t grow as quickly.

This is the first time I’ve ever openly said it and I’ve seen the same trend with other creators of a similar background.

One thing I have learned though is that your people are your people, and our audience is drawn to us for different reasons including our story, background, faith, journey, quality content, etc.

So we continue to focus on being radically authentic, honest and transparent with our work and that will continue to set us apart.

Slow growth is good and we embrace the challenges.

Subscribe here on YouTube

49. Our reel of the year

We met Emily, our editor and Oscar, our Literary Agent to talk about the progress of our book and filmed some clips on our way.

It has turned out to be our most viewed reel on Instagram from over 30,000 people and growing:

Watch the reel here

Financial Joy book

 

50. We worked with some awesome brands and organisations

We were blessed to work with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Sainsbury’s, WeBull, Financial Conduct Authority, 10 Downing Street, etc, this year.

51. We create a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Amazon at their HQ

We not only got to interview a partner manager at Amazon in London but we also interviewed a top seller on the Amazon platform.

That content is dropping soon.

52. I crossed 12,000 Followers on LinkedIn in 1 Year

I really enjoy creating on the platform.

It reminds me of my early days as a creator as I create there as raw as I can.

The beauty of the platform is the workings of the algorithm and the fact that the audience are professional decision makers.

My approach has been a focus on quality over quantity and the focus on consistency.

Follow me here

53. I nurtured my few friendships

For our 40th birthday celebrations, for example, we invited only 30 people to our home and that included family for both Mary and I.

People we’d mostly known for 10 years or more. 

I find that focusing on a handful of friends and nurturing those is a lot more fulfilling.

Yes, I meet lots of people but it takes a long time before I can truly say someone is my friend and not just someone I know or who knows me.

I feel that the culture of building lasting friendships is changing. A lot of people aren’t bothered to put in the work.

For me, nurturing friendships that you care about is about giving and not expecting to get anything back. 

54. Watched the movie, “The Sailor, My Love” 

Once in a while, I like to watch a romantic movie.

What I really liked about this one is that it featured a much older couple.

The simplicity of it and seeing two much older people fall in love was nice.

I remember one line from the film:

What we have here is not going to happen again.

This happened when Howard was inviting his housekeeper, whom he'd fallen in love with, to become his wife. 

Something about this was not only sweet to see but it had finality to it. 

He took a chance on love and so did she. She moved in. It was lovely to see .

 

55. Bumped into a fan at 35,000 feet

I was queuing up for the bathroom on a flight back from holiday and a fan of The Humble Penny recognised me and asked me a question.

I really enjoyed chatting to him about retirement planning whilst both our wives were fast asleep.

56. Buying a double bin with slow close

For years, our home bin had been plastic bags we’d hang on the cupboard.

This year, we finally bought an actual bin and I have to say, it has improved our lives for the better.

57. Finalists at the British Bank Awards for Online Financial Influencer of The Year.

I hate the word “influencer”, however, it was nice to be recognised and reach the finalist.

58. Getting upgraded to a room with its own swimming pool in Rhodes.

I believe in asking for stuff and if the answer is No, then so be it.

We asked for this upgrade and unbelievably, we got it. It was a stunning room with a ground floor swimming pool.

However, not long after we started our holiday, the wildfires in Rhodes began, which was a nightmare for a lot of people.

So although the experience was amazing, there was an element of constant worry thrown in as we read the news of the wildfires. 

59. My friend, Sope, interviewed us

My friend, Sope Agbelusi, a well-renowned leadership coach did something that demonstrated practical love, for which we’re super grateful.

He hired a studio and invited us and The Humble Penny community to meet in person and talk about our story, why we wrote the book, how it all came about, etc.

We chatted for 90 minutes in front of our audience and it was beautiful. We shared things we’d never shared before in this interview. Watch it here:

60. Featured on some amazing podcasts.

  • ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) – This episode featured super interesting questions about my professional journey and journey as an entrepreneur.
  • Dope Black Dads – This is our most fun podcast episode of 2023. It covered so much! Everything from how we met, dating, investing, financial wellbeing, etc.
  • Stories That Shape Us – This is the first podcast episode that really took me back to my childhood. Loved it!
  • The Money Gains – This was a lovely allrounder because it focused on our journey but also covered fun things like our blogging, YouTube journey, etc.
  • The Wallet – This brilliant episode filled with super interesting questions with Emilie Bellet, founder of Vestpod, was about how to achieve Financial Freedom.
  • Earn and Invest – This was from late 2022 and we absolutely loved delving deep into what Financial Joy means to us.

61. Our book featured 12 unique interviews

One of the unique aspects of our book was that we interviewed 12 people of different ethnicities, age groups, stages of the money journey, and genders.

Some were even public figures and these interviews were spread across different parts of the book as part of the learning for readers.

Everything from how people took control of their finances, got out of debt, launched successful online businesses, became financially free, etc.

62. iPad Creativity Day at Apple store

A friend invited us to a creativity day during the half term. 

This fairly ordinary day turned out to be very significant for two reasons, which ended up featuring in our book.

One is that I came up with the “Debt-O-Nator Method” for becoming debt-free, which we trademarked and featured in our book.

The second is something usually that happened, which we feature in our book that reminded us of why Financial Joy is so important.

We won’t spoil it for you by sharing it in this post. It’s worth the wait for when you read it or listen to the audio book.

63. Watched the ‘97% Owned’ documentary

This is a jaw-dropping documentary about how money works, and how we got to where we are with the state of the UK and the global economy.

Watch it in full here:

 

64. Joshua and Elias Roast battle in Rhodes.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. They wouldn’t stop going on about each other’s hairlines and laughing out loud.

65. We prayed live on air 

We were guests on Premier Christian Radio – Esther Highams show, which we loved.

The episode was about stewarding your money biblically. 

One unusual thing we did on this episode was that we prayed live on air! We didn’t expect her to ask us to pray but we were honoured.

66. We met Chad and Kari Carson

I met Chad Carson aka Coach Carson (real estate expert) as part of a US mastermind that I’m in and on his Europe travels with his wife, Mary and I got to meet and hang out with them in London.

It was beautiful to go from forming an online friendship to meeting in person. We had a proper catch-up and it felt like we’d known each other for much longer.

67. We danced to Afrobeats in Poland

We visited Poland for a wedding. Mary’s brother married a Polish lady.

It was our first time in Poland and we were worried about an aeroplane full of black people arriving in Eastern Europe.

However, we were welcomed well and ended up in the Polish countryside for the wedding reception.

They had a 14-course menu that went on till 4 am! So much food and alcohol.

The music was fire!

We were dressed up in traditional attire and danced to current day Afrobeats and original bangers like this one from Shina Peters:

68. Lunch with Sara Trezzi

Sara is our very good friend and fellow creator who started the blogging journey with us in 2017 too. 

She’s since gone on to become an incredible success with her work on Gathering Dreams. 

She is one of the 12 interviews in our book and we had the pleasure of meeting her for an Italian meal in January and she was full of ideas as ever.

If life feels a bit meh, I usually drop Sara a WhatsApp to see what part of the world she’s sitting at the beach on. 

69. FJA Scholarships

I’m proud that we were able to give away fully paid scholarships to Financial Joy Academy (FJA) to people we felt really struggled financially and needed help after listening to their stories.

On a deeply personal level, it means a lot to me that we’ve been able to do this through our work and the impact is immeasurable.

70. The Humble Penny Became 6 Years Old

It’s crazy to think that we’ve been going for 6 years now. 

When we started this journey, we gave ourselves 3 years to either succeed or fail spectacularly.

Now, we’ve been around for twice the time we have ourselves and we’re still going and having fun doing it.

One thing we didn’t expect is the level of positive impact The Humble Penny has had so far.

There is no day that we leave our house that someone does not stop us on the street to thank us for our work. This is unexpected, beautiful and encouraging for us.

Click here to see a post I shared on LinkedIn about what we’ve learned in our 6th year.

71. My Sister’s Resilience

My sister, Pam, who sadly lost her husband, Sam, only aged 39 has had the most challenging year of her life.

Although life remains painful in many ways, I’m proud of her resilience and attempts to pick herself up and show up for her children, her business and for herself.

I’m also proud that Mary and I have been there daily to support her and my nephews in every way possible in this devastating year of loss.

72. Unique Experiences in Greece

As a family, we did some unique things for the first time. We all played basketball and tennis together in Rhodes.

We all went to the gym together for the first time too as our boys are showing an interest in working out. We all ran on the treadmill together.

Finally, one other thing I really enjoyed was picking multi-coloured pebbles on the beach together and making memories.

73. Make Your Child a Millionaire Viral Post on Linked

A post I shared on LinkedIn for how to make your child a millionaire went viral and I’m still stunned it did.

I often take certain knowledge for granted and I’m surprised when people react so well to it.

Here are the stats on that one post alone as of the last time I looked: 238,224 impressions, 1,520 Reactions, 165 comments and 55 Reposts.

74. Swipe Left Invest Right FCA panel

We collaborated with the UK Regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on a panel about the parallels between dating and investing.

It was well attended and fun and we formed a new friendship with Anna Williamson, Presenter of Celebs Go Dating, who is also one of the interviewees in our book.

75. 14 Peaks Documentary

This is a documentary about the ridiculously insane journey by Nims Purja who went on the impossible quest to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in seven months.

The fastest anyone had ever done it before him was 7 years and he achieved it in 7 months!!

This documentary is visually stunning, inspiring and gripping! 

Here are some of my favourable soundbites:

Doesn’t matter where you come from, you can show the world nothing is impossible.

“Today we drink, tomorrow we plan!”

“When you’re in the mountains, if you give up, you die”

“Giving up is not in the blood son, it is not in the blood”

 

76. Important things I learned from planning a funeral

This made the list because I learned some very important things from planning a funeral, dealing with layers of cultural complexity and the fallout from different opinions about what should be done.

These experiences have made me wiser and more prepared for the next time I will need to plan a funeral. Here is what I learned:

  • Having a will – Don’t just put it off. Write one today.
  • Prepare by putting aside the money – No more “go fund me’s”. Death is inevitable and funerals are big business. Plan for it and assume you need around £15,000.
  • The fallout (family) due to emotional strain – This was one of the hardest things to experience.
  • Mental health and wellbeing impact – It’s important to have a way of protecting your well-being before such events happen so that when it does happen, you can gradually dig your way out.
  • The funeral is closure – People you think will be around disappear after a funeral. For them, that’s closure and they all go back to their lives and leave you to yours, which is a sad reality.
  • Life is short – Stop letting petty things upset you and stop worrying as it’s doing more damage. Instead, appreciate how short life is and enjoy it now.

77. Featured in the SME 

We were interviewed about what it took to get to where we are with The Humble Penny and our vision for the next decade.

78. Words of wisdom from our 10 year old son

This happened at the beginning of our book-writing process.

Josh asked me if I worked on the book today and I said, No. 

He said, “Daddy, success is in the day by day. If you work on it daily, you’ll finish it quicker and do part 2”. 

79. Financial Times article about black entrepreneurs

I enjoyed being featured in this important article about levelling the playing field for black entrepreneurs, thanks to the FT.

80. The Architect Programme

We ran two cohorts of the Architect Programme where I helped about a dozen people to turn their expertise and specialised skills into membership businesses that pay them monthly.

This is one of the hardest things I do yearly because go from having just an idea to launching an online membership business and even onboarding new customers.

81. Our children learned to iron their clothes

Chores are important for children. We ask ours, for example, to wash their dishes by hand and more recently, they’ve learned to iron.

82. Seeing teenagers watch our videos in class

We were sent a classroom picture of our how to start a business step-by-step video being watched by 16 and 17-year-olds in business class.

83. Delivering Personal Finance workshops for teachers

We delivered two back-to-back workshops to 250 Teachers and support staff across 8 primary schools in January. 

Thanks to Remi, a Head Teacher and big fan of The Humble Penny.

84. Our Instagram Exceeded 20,000 Followers

I really enjoyed curating relatable and real content for our instagram, telling a full story and not just one side of it.

This image about our garden transformation is a good example. Here is the caption:

✅️ Time at our home with a terrible garden: 10 years.

✅️ Time at our home with a garden we've always dreamed of having: 1 year.

This is the reality of how long it sometimes takes for things we dream about to actually happen IRL.

Nothing good happens overnight and other things often take priority.

If you're working towards something good in your finances that's taking a while to see results, keep at it 💪🏾

85. Mary’s love for Sourdough bread

Mary has fallen in love with the sourdough bread from Lidl. 

I never forget one time when she was so excited about going to Lidl and I asked why and she said she has a coupon for a free sourdough bread and she can’t wait to pick it up.

86. Consistency on Premier Gospel

Every Tuesday between 8 am and 8.30 am, we share a 5-minute segment to help people improve their finances.

I’ve loved the opportunity to do this and thank God for this open door to do this work for free and help people move forward with their finances.

87. Okiem played the piano at 5 am Club

In March, award-winning pianist and composer, Okiem, shared his story and played a beautiful piece at 5 am club after he joined FJA as a member.

This was one of those moments when you think, wow, what a special treat. Only those who joined the session experienced this rare moment.

He also shared life advice on how he’s got to where he is by always going above and beyond with every opportunity he gets.

88. “Working” documentary with Barack Obama.

What makes a good job good? Is money a motivator? What does it take to get fulfilled? 

For some, it's a paycheck. For others, it's a calling. This docuseries explores the meaning of work for modern Americans in a time of rapid change.

 

89. Mary’s reaction to her birthday card

I decided that her 40th was one to make a big deal about and wrote her 40 reasons I love her in a giant card I bought her.

She cried tears of joy reading it and also reading the beautiful words that our boys wrote her in her card.

90. Rocket Your Income Challenge

This is the most insanely valuable free 5-day challenge that we run every year.

For this year, we ran it twice and really enjoyed helping people to find ways of growing their incomes through a side hustle or their careers. 

The next one is coming up on 4th January, so feel free to learn more and join here

91. Received our first-ever book deal from Quercus 

I remember working all night and didn’t sleep at all to write a compelling book proposal.

Getting through this especially as something we’d never done before is yet a reminder that we can do a lot if we put our minds to it.

Getting this book deal opened doors to other publishers wanting to work with us as well.

We look forward to a future of writing more books and specifically, we’d like to write one for children or young adults.

92. Getting back into fitness

With the shed-to-home gym conversion, my fitness level has risen and I’m working out at least 3 days a week. 

My goal for 2024 is to reach 5 days a week.

93. Virgin Experience Days 

For our 40th, we noticed a shift in what our friends got us as presents.

Most of them got us vouchers for experiences such as a climbing experience at the O2, a 5-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant and a self-care day, etc.

Got to say, we received these well-considered gifts very well 😀

94. New love for gardening

I discovered this year that I actually love gardening. My thing is literally to do 5 minutes of gardening per day.

Everything from picking off weeds to watering the crops in Mary’s herb garden to simply trimming our evergreen trees.

There is a peace that I get away from screens to focus on something nature based.

95. Watched the ‘Earthing’ documentary 

I learned life life-changing importance of walking barefoot and connecting to the earth and how it has healing qualities.

Watch the full documentary here:

96. Being Braver

It takes bravery to choose the alternative life path and not do things because there are expectations for you to do them that way.

Here I’m talking about everything from the choice of career paths, working hours, lifestyle, work opportunities, what car we drive, etc.

I’m happy that our choice to be braver in our own way driven by what we really want out of our lives is paying off in our own way.

It’s not about comparing ourselves to anyone. It’s about doing our own thing and being happy with that.

97. Giving Back

This year, we made more of an attempt to give even more of our time, money, experience, networks, etc and backed people’s passion projects in different ways.

We still have some way to go and we’d like to do more voluntary work, however, in all we’ve done this year, what mattered most is that we did them quietly from the heart.

98. ‘The Last Tourist’ documentary.

I learned that if we're intentional about travel and think of the locals, travelling could become a way of giving back.

All-inclusive packages, for example, work against the locals. It's a hard pill to swallow.

This documentary highlighted important issues tied to orphanages, and animal cruelty (zoos and animal shows), which work adversely against locals.

Watch the full documentary here:

99. We celebrated 12 years of happy marriage

The last 12 years have been a beautiful adventure filled with love, fun, challenges and progress.

I am blessed and couldn’t have married a more beautiful and loving wife.

I thank God for our marriage and I know that we won’t be where we are today in our marriage and family life without making our faith the core foundation.

For me, this Michael J Fox quote says it all – “family is not an important thing, it is everything”. 

100. We stayed alive and well

You never know how well you’ve got it with your life until something changes e.g. you suffer poor health or lose a loved one.

I’ve learned this year that every normal and boring day is a great day.

I’m thankful for every day we’re alive and well having experienced a challenging year this year.

I look to 2024 with excitement and gladness with a focus on looking after my health, enjoying life some more, doing work I care about and making memories with our family.

I hope this post has inspired you to pause for a moment and take stock of the small things that you’re grateful for.

The future is bright if you believe it will be. Have a healthy, happy and abundant 2024 ahead.

Comment below and tell us a couple of things that made your year in 2023 🙂

Unlocked: I Want To Start a Business But Have No Ideas

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Unlocked: I want to start a business but have no ideas for 2024

We come across two groups of people when it comes to starting a business or a side hustle.

Firstly, some want to start a business or side hustle and have no ideas at all.

Secondly, some have too many ideas and don't know how to choose just one idea to focus on.

Which camp do you fit into? 🤔

For this post, we're going to give you practical answers for what to do if you fall into either scenario.

Let's start with the first one.

Recommended: 5 Tried and Tested Passive Income Ideas

I Want To Start a Business But Have No Ideas

Here are the tips we'd recommend if you want to start a business but have no ideas.

Tip 1: Decide your areas of interest

The first thing you need to do is to begin with your area of passion.

A passion is something that you are interested in. Simple.

What interests do you have? I normally say aim to write down about five passions or different things you're interested in.

e.g. Your interests (or passion) could be vegan food, baking bread, running, watching movies, personal finances, etc.

Tip 2: Figure out what you're good at

Next is talent. Here are the key questions:

  • What are you good at?
  • In your day job, what skills do you use? 
  • What skills do you use outside your day job?

Make a list 📝 of them by answering the questions above. Aim for at least five talents or skills that you have.

e.g. Your skills could be teaching, writing, coding, painting, social media.

Tip 3: Combine areas of passion and talent

It's time to combine your areas of interests with things that you're good at.

For example, I'm passionate about baking, but I'm good at using social media.

In my mind, a good starting point would be to bake and share the final baked goods on the social media.

This will create interest as people have an obsession with baking in this country. 

If you can take people along the journey of baking, you can build an audience.

This could then lead to monetisation through brand sponsorships or even creating niche baking courses.

Another example is if you have a passion for vegan food and you have a talent for writing. 

This could lead you to starting a blog in the food niche. 

In fact, this is similar to how we start The Humble Penny, except I had no talent for writing lol. 

I just wanted to do it to discover my creativity. Feel free to join our free blogging course here to learn.

Tip 4: Assess your ideas for demand

There is no point in coming up with a business or side hustle idea that no one is willing to pay you for because there is no demand for it.

So it's great to assess what you want to do for demand using easily accessible tools online.

For example, Google Trends is great for seeing how often people search for specific keywords related to a business idea you want to explore.

But the key thing I want to share with you is the sweet spot of choosing an idea at the intersection of passion, talent and demand.

If you've done this exercise and are stuck and can't find an idea, choose one from our list of 50 best side hustle ideas that can make you £1,000 or $1,000 per month.

Tip 5: Validate your business idea

To show your idea has potential for success, you next need to validate it.

One way of doing it is to create a mini version of whatever you're going to offer and see if people will pay you for it.

For example, if you were going to start a business baking cakes and teaching people how to do it, you can validate your idea by seeing if anyone will pay you for your cakes.

It could be that you baked for birthdays or special events to see if anyone would book you.

Another example is that if you're going to start a side hustle offering coaching services, you could create a waitlist for your services to see if anyone would sign up when you promote it.

To demonstration validation of your idea, you want a strong expression of interest or payment from a number of people.

Ideally, these people should not be your friends or family members. 

Recommended: Free tool to create a waitlist

I want to start a business but have no ideas

I Have Too Many Ideas And Can't Choose One

If you're that person who has too many ideas 😅 and can't choose one, here are five questions to walk through.

The answers to these questions will help you to narrow in on your business or side hustle idea and choose one.

Let's say that you have three ideas that you're struggling to choose one from:

  • Idea 1: Baking 
  • Idea 2: Blogging
  • Idea 3: Coaching

You're asking yourself, “how do I choose which idea to go with?”.

Here is how to do it. Our goal is to determine which idea will give you the most number of yes's. 

Recommended: 5 Signs You'll Become Wealthy 10 Years From Now

Question 1: How much money do you want?

So the first question is, how much money do you want to make from doing this thing?

Let's just say you want to make £3,000 or $3,000 per month.

For Idea one, can baking cakes make you £3000 / $3000 a month?

If the answer is no, be realistic and move on to the next idea.

Can starting a blog do it for you? It can definitely but it will take time to get there.

So we can maybe call that a, yes.

Can coach and do this? Absolutely. Great!

So you're now down to two potential ideas – Blogging and Coaching.

Question 2: How much effort do you want to put in?

Next question, how much effort do you want to put into the side hustles?

This is based on what you want to do, not what's required. Big distinction.

The effort you want to put it could be low, medium, or high effort.

Let's say you think to yourself:

“hmm, I just want to make the money with medium effort at most.”

Pose this question towards the side hustle ideas. 

Can medium effort help you make the side hustle successful?

Yes, probably for baking. But it failed on the potential to make you the money you want.

Can medium effort help you make your blogging successful?

Yes, it can take only a couple of hours a week, maybe up to two to five hours.

Can medium effort help you make your coaching business successful as a side hustle? Yes.

We are aiming for what will give you the most amount of “Yes's” to try and hone in on an idea.

Question 3: How much time do you have available?

Your answer here could be I've only got two or three hours a day a week. 

The question then is, will two to three hours per week help you make baking a success?

The answer is no, it's not going to do it.

Will two hours a week that you've got available, make blogging successful?

No, because you probably need one to two hours per day to have one good-written blog post.

So that should make you start to question yourself further.

You might say “If I'm going to make this happen, I'm going to need more hours”.

Will, two hours a week help you with your coaching? Potentially.

See where we're going with this?

Recommended: How Andy makes £4,596 per month from a membership business

Question 4: Do you want it to become a full-time business?

This is a very important question. Do you want your cake idea to become a full business? Maybe not.

You probably like baking, but do you want to sit in the kitchen, baking the cake and taking customer customers orders? Maybe not.

Do you fancy the idea of making passive income? Your blogging will take a lot of effort. 

But one day, it could become a business if you take it seriously, get help and learn it properly.

Yes, it might be what you want. Or perhaps not. You decide. 

Next is, do you want to one day run a coaching practice?

Do you want to one day maybe earn income from group coaching which can be very lucrative?

The answer here may be, yes, given the low effort to income potential.

Question 5: Will you enjoy doing it?

This final question is by far the most important and most people ignore it in their quest to make more money.

Coaching could make you a lot of money but will you enjoy it? Yes or no?

Blogging can make you a lot of money but will you enjoy it? Yes or no?

Same for baking.

You can see what we've done there.

Although these scenarios are hypothetical, the answers you give will be based on the ideas you're considering for yourself.

Repeat the same five questions for your shortlist of ideas and tally up which idea gave you the most, yes, responses.

The goal is to get to choose one idea and then start the work of making it a reality 😀.

Conclusion

Hopefully, my approach has helped to get you to narrow in on the idea that's best suited to you.

There's so much more I could share with you about starting and making something of your business or side hustle.

Often think the best way in addition to doing all these things is to talk to somebody or have conversations with other people who are also on a similar journey.

Find a suitable community or even find someone you trust, like a good friend who you might be able to run some of your ideas through and help you answer the questions.

If you want to run your ideas by me for example, feel free to drop me a comment at the end of the post.

Alternatively, feel free to chat with me face-to-face by joining our membership community. 

It's a space for people who aren't just thinking of side hustles or business ideas but taking steps to make them a reality.

We have these conversations every day at our 5 am Club, fortnightly at coaching calls, we'll have them daily in our private community and monthly in our masterminds.

What To Read Next On I want to start a business but have no ideas:

What To Watch Next On How To Decide On I want to start a business but have no ideas:

I'd love to hear from you in the comments, what are you currently struggling with when it comes to your side hustle? Choosing an idea? Monetising an idea? Comment below 🙂

Checkmyfile: 15 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score To 999 In 2026

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Checkmyfile: 15 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score To 999 In 2025

If you're trying to get a mortgage for a house, remortgage or simply borrow money, lenders use your credit score to assess your creditworthiness.

If you have a good credit score, you're likely to borrow at more favourable interest rates, saving you money over the life of the loan.

Whether you're dreaming of a new car or simply want to improve the state of your finances, here are 15 ways to improve your credit score.

These tips have helped me to improve my bad credit score from the 400s to 999 😀.

15 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score To 999 In 2025

Going from bad credit to good or excellent credit takes doing a combination of small things together. Here they are:

1. Check Your Credit Report Regularly

There are 3 main credit referencing agencies that you should check your credit reports with – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

Checkmyfile helps you to get your free credit report across all 3 agencies all in one place.

This will help you to look for differences in what’s being reported by all three agencies.

That way, you can identify any problems and start taking action immediately.

In addition, you can view up to 6 years’ history of your repayment performance.

Try it for free for 30 days and you can cancel at any time. After 30 days, it costs £14.99 a month.

👉🏽 We used it ourselves when we were trying to rebuild our credit scores ahead of buying a house.

checkmyfile: 15 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score To 999 In 2024

2. Fix Any Errors Promptly

It might be hard to believe but credit referencing agencies sometimes hold incorrect information about you.

I know this because I once checked my credit report and saw a County Court Judgment (CCJ) applied to my name incorrectly.

It was a very stressful experience finding out about this and going through the process to get it removed, which it did eventually.

However, without having a detailed credit report across all 3 agencies, I would have ended up with one agency still holding the incorrect information.

So get your credit report ASAP and read it line by line checking for errors or even instances of fraud.

If you’ve been a victim of identity fraud in the past, you can get a password added to your credit file so that your permission will be required before any credit checks are performed on your name.

3. Register To Vote On The Electoral Roll

Registering to vote on the electoral roll gives you an immediate boost to your credit score because it acts as a proof of address.

Please make sure that no aspect of your name or address is incorrect. 

Have your name in full. For example, although I’m known as “Ken” by many, my full first name is “Kenneth”. If I had “Ken” on the electoral roll, it would create issues on my credit report.

Also, make sure that you include any middle names.

4. Pay Your Bills On Time

Paying your bills in full and consistently on time is one of the biggest contributors to a high credit score.

It demonstrates that you’re able to manage the inflow and outflow of money throughout your life.

The top tip here is to automate payments via direct debits or standing orders to ensure you don’t have missed payments.

We also log into our online banking every morning before 9 am to check that there are no bounced payments or overdrawn balances.

5. Reduce Your Credit Balance and Utilisation

The goal here is to understand what’s called your credit utilisation rate i.e. the proportion of your credit limit that you are currently using.

E.g. If you have two credit cards with £5,000 credit limit each or a total of £10,000 across both.

If on both cards, you have a balance of £3,000 each, this means that you have a credit utilisation rate of 60% i.e. £3k divided by £5k.

The credit utilisation applies to individual cards and across all your cards.

To increase your credit score, you need to get your credit utilisation rate to 30% or below ideally for your individual cards and across all your credit cards combined. 

This demonstrates responsible use of credit and boosts your score.

6. Use a Mix of Different Credit Types

Ironically, you have to take on different types of debt to show you’re good at managing debt.

For example, having a mortgage, credit card, and other loans, and managing them all well can positively influence your credit score.

However, only take on what you can responsibly manage.

7. Avoid Opening Multiple Accounts Rapidly

Each time you open an account, it leaves a mark on your credit report.

If you open many accounts in a short space of time, it could be viewed as risky behaviour and harm your credit score.

8. Monitor Any Financial Associations

Your credit report will show you whom you have financial associations with.

Everyone from your partner, parents, children, ex-partners, etc.

Each of these people will have a positive or negative impact on your credit score depending on how they manage their finances.

If you’re currently associated with someone poor at managing their finances and you want to disassociate from them, you can do so by completing a ‘Notice of Disassociation’.

You need to do this with all 3 credit referencing agencies to make sure that you’re still not associated with that person.

This process can take some weeks or months, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on your credit report regularly to make sure your requests have been actioned.

checkmyfile: 15 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score To 999 In 2024

9. Keep Old Accounts Open

You may have many accounts and wondering if closing them would help your credit score.

The length of your credit history matters.

We’d suggest keeping your oldest accounts open even if they have zero balances as they demonstrate a stronger credit history.

10. Use a Credit Card Responsibly 

To have a credit score, you need to have access to credit. Using a credit card responsibly improves your credit score over time.

Now, we fully understand any hesitation you might have about getting a credit card, however, it’s important to note that responsible use of a credit card has advantages.

For example, you have section 75 Consumer Credit Act, which offers you protection for purchases with a credit card if there is a problem with a product or service.

Using a credit card also helps you to collect Avios points for travel as well as get cashback.

However, you need to ensure you only use it for planned purchases according to your budget.

In addition, make sure the credit card is paid off monthly. We have a direct debit set up for ours to be paid off in full monthly.

Note that if you can’t get a regular credit card, you can get credit builder cards specifically designed for those with lower credit scores.

11. Limit Credit Applications

Every time you make a credit application, it results in a hard inquiry on your credit report. 

To improve your credit score, you should limit any unnecessary applications to avoid any negative impact.

It is especially important to do this in the 6 months up to when you may want to apply for a mortgage or remortgage, for example.

12. Become An Authorised User 

If you have a trusted family member or friend with a good credit score and history, you can ask them to be added as an authorised user on their account.

Doing this can help to boost your credit score.

However, note that this can work both ways too. If the person who authorised you as a user misses payments, this may affect you adversely.

13. Negotiate With Creditors

If you’re struggling with payments, it’s easy to bury your head in the sand as you might think the damage is already done.

We’ve seen this in situations where people feel like they messed up with one or two credit cards in the past and carry the same behaviour into their current situation.

If you’re currently struggling with payments, the best thing to do is to contact the creditor that you owe to discuss a manageable repayment plan.

They may even be willing to work with you rather than report missed payments on your credit report.

14. Use Eligibility Checkers For a Soft Search

If you’re considering borrowing money from a credit card company or loan company, we’d suggest using a comparison website for the range of options.

These have an eligibility checker that does a soft search rather than a hard search. 

Although this might not tell you that you’re immediately guaranteed to get the loan, it may give you a pre-approval.

Doing these soft checks via an eligibility check helps you avoid the issue of too many applications that result in a hard search.

15. Be Patient and Persistent

Living with a bad credit score can be frustrating especially if you’re making an effort to improve things but not yet seeing any results.

The first thing to note is that this is a gradual process and things do take time. 

For some people, they can see increases in their credit scores within 30 days, however, for others, it takes longer.

Remember that working towards a 999 credit score won’t happen overnight but as you take these gradual steps to improve your finances, they’ll contribute to your overall financial health 

Your free credit report with Checkmyfile will give you a full picture to begin with and every step you take from here as you action these 15 tips will help your credit score gradually start to climb.

So be patient and persistent, stay encouraged and try your best not to stress 😊.

What to read next about debt and credit scores:

What is the current issue that you're facing with your credit score or report? Comment below. We're here to help 🙂

The Real Cost of 35-Year Mortgages

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The Real Cost of 35-Year Mortgages

According to the BBC, “A quarter of mortgage holders aged under 30 who started their loan early this year chose a 35-year term”

In addition, the Financial Times said, “mortgage terms in excess of 35 years have become much more popular among first-time buyers in the past year. At the start of 2022, about 8 per cent of first-time buyers had a mortgage term longer than 35 years. By December — after the average mortgage rate for a five-year fix jumped from 1.6 per cent to 5.1 per cent — that proportion had more than doubled, to 17 per cent.”

For today, we want to explore the implications of these ultra marathon mortgages and what they mean for our lives not just today, but, but also for the future. 

What we are effectively seeing is a trend that will have huge implications for the future.

Young people, Gen Zs, Millennials, and some of the Gen X are effectively buying houses at insane prices. 

Some are even having to be forced to buy much smaller homes naturally as a result, but doing it by taking these debts for much longer periods and effectively indebted for the future. 

Today, we want to unpack what this means using a real-life example, to help us really understand the numbers so we can better make more informed decisions for ourselves and our own families and households.  

Generation Debt: The 35-Year Mortgage Trend 

Here is a real-life example:

Kate and Adam are both 29 years old and have been saving for a house for years. 

They recently bought a 3-bed house together on the outskirts of London for £400,000 with a 20% deposit. This means that they borrowed £320,000.

They did this with a mortgage rate of 5.5% and the mortgage is on a repayment basis. 

Although they were aware of the traditional 25-year term for a mortgage, they chose a 35-year term because it makes their monthly payments more affordable. So they went with this option.

Why is this a problem?

Firstly, getting a mortgage today is not like the old days when the Baby Boomers borrowed much smaller amounts relative to their incomes and high inflation eroded the value of their remaining debts.

Record low interest rates over many years have driven up property prices whilst real wages have stagnated making it extremely difficult for first-time buyers of our generation to get on the property ladder.

Let’s first let’s look at the real cost of taking on ultra-long mortgages followed by solutions.

35-year mortgages

 

The Real Cost of 35-Year Mortgages

Here are the real costs of 35-year mortgages:

1. The Cost of Money

Using the example above, since Kate and Adam went with a mortgage term of 35 years instead of 25 years, those additional 10 years will lead to a total mortgage interest payable of £389,827. 

Most people see this number in their mortgage documents and just ignore it. That 35-year term would have led to a monthly payment of £1,718 per month.

If they chose a mortgage term of 25 years, interest over the term of the mortgage (assuming all things remain equal) would have been £269,524.

A 35-year mortgage leads to a whopping £120,303 more in interest simply for making that decision to borrow over 35 years instead of 25 years for affordability. 

This benefits the banks more than anyone else 💰.

The monthly payment for a 25-year term would have been £1965 per month.

So effectively, for paying £247 per month less on their mortgage, they’ll have added £120,303 in interest over the term of the mortgage all things being equal.

This happens because Compound Interest works against them more because they have a longer term and so the bank benefits even more and they’ll have to work for longer to repay that mortgage.

But it doesn’t end there.

Although the longer term of 35 years will help first-time buyers get on the ladder, it limits their ability to climb that ladder.

That’s because the longer term slows down their ability to build equity because the majority of their monthly payments will be going towards paying interest rather than capital.

Using the example mentioned earlier for Kate and Adam: 

Since they chose a 35-year mortgage, 85% of their monthly payments would be going towards interest (rather than capital repayment) in the early years of their mortgage rather than 74% if they chose a 25-year mortgage.

2. The Cost To Your Well-being

It goes without saying that when you take out a long-term mortgage for 35 years and beyond, there's a natural cost because you're gonna be working for longer to pay that debt back. 

But there’s also the well-being perspective i.e. what happens when your job has a threat to it or you're going to be made redundant. 

People have deep fear about losing their jobs when they have mortgages, particularly when it's a huge mortgage, and the term of that mortgage is huge as well.

It piles on a massive amount of stress. 

3. The Cost of Opportunity

Naturally, if more of your money is going towards paying for a mortgage, you have reduced contribution to other areas like your pensions and other areas of spending that you might have ordinarily. 

If your wage is not rising as much to keep up, then you might find yourself in a trouble because you still have to pay that mortgage. 

At the same time, you have the negativity around the fact that you're not saving and investing enough for retirement, which piles on the pressure as you get older.

4. The Psychological Cost

I've learned from having a mortgage myself that there is a huge psychological burden that you have when it comes to mortgage and that burden becomes bigger with a 35 year mortgage.

It just feels like you've got a massive weight on your shoulders that you cannot shift. 

That psychological weight becomes so big that it actually might demotivate you from even trying to pay off that mortgage any sooner. 

You see that amount of debt as just being so insanely high that it becomes almost impossible for you to act and do something else. 

It also feeds into other areas of your life because you might become somebody who doesn't want to take any risks and that inability to take risk might then start to affect other areas of your life more generally. 

All of this points to future problems for people who have ultra-marathon mortgages.

We wanted to share this real cost perspective so that you can be better informed when making decisions such as increasing the term of your mortgage. 

We fully understand that affordability remains a huge problem, so what should people do?

Recommended Book: Financial Joy

Financial Joy is a 10-week plan to help you banish debt, grow your money and unlock Financial Freedom.

It’s written from our perspective as a millennial couple with children who overcame many challenges as immigrants to achieve Financial Independence aged 34 including mortgage-free in 7 years.

Financial Joy is a balance of wealth + well-being and it’s accessible to everyone now, not later.

Solutions To Getting a 35-Year Mortgage

Let’s now consider potential solutions if you are somebody who's trying to get on the property ladder or if you're currently a homeowner and have a long-term mortgage.

1. Wait and Don’t Buy Until You Can Afford to Buy

We recommend buying a property ideally when you can do so without paying away more than 25% of your net income before overpayments to a mortgage.

According to the BBC:

Nationwide said that someone earning an average income and purchasing the typical first-time buyer home with a 20% deposit would spend 38% of their take-home pay on their monthly mortgage payment. This is higher than the long-run average of 29%.

Save or hustle to save more to avoid spending 38% of your take-home pay on only a mortgage.

2. Buy Smaller and Cheaper Around Where You Live

Many people have no choice but to do this anyway. 

I’d personally avoid flats. I just hate uncontrollable service charges among other issues with flats.

3. Relocate Abroad or Move Further Out To Buy Cheaper

This is what we did instead. 

We moved out of London and bought a forever home in a commuter town in Kent and focused on paying that mortgage off fast whilst also investing in stocks.

4. Rent Instead

Renting is a legitimate option but not for everyone. 

Although many will argue that having a property with 35-year mortgage is better than renting because at least you feel like you have the costs somewhat under your control.

Read: Why You Shouldn't Buy a House (part 1)

There is also a part 2 on why you should buy a house.

5. Buy With a 35-year Mortgage and Overpay Aggressively

In the example we gave earlier, it would take making an overpayment of £247 per month to wipe off 10 years from the mortgage term from a 35-year mortgage to a 25-year mortgage.

If you were in that situation, you could raise £247 a month through a part-time job or a side hustle or simply adjusting other aspects of your lifestyle.

The key thing is to know your numbers and be close to them!

Note that we've had people explore the idea of getting a 35-year mortgage and then look to use extra they would have paid with a 25-year mortgage to invest in stocks instead.

Our experience of this is that not everyone is disciplined enough to stick to this. Soon enough, lifestyle creep catches up.

If you can get a guaranteed return by overpayment your mortgage especially as interest rates are high, do so.

6. Buy With Interest-Only and Wait For An Inheritance to Arrive. 

This is a terrible option to be in and one that I would never want to find myself or my loved ones in.

The chances are, most people will not inherit anything as their parents too are struggling, so I personally wouldn’t go anywhere near this option for a residential property.

However, for a number of people, this is their only option and we fully understand and respect that.

7. Build More Homes

This is more for the government. 

More housing stock is required to shift the excess demand to supply imbalance. This remains an ongoing debate.

Conclusion

Now more than ever is the time to make intentional decisions about housing as it has long-term implications.

Remember that the term you take out for your mortgage is not set in stone and you have the power to become debt-free faster by being intentional about mortgage overpayments. 

Compound interest can work for you or against you, but knowing your numbers when it comes to your mortgage gives you one big step ahead.

What to read next on 35-year mortgages:

Articles referenced:

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What are your thoughts on 35-year mortgages or ultra-marathon mortgages more generally? Comment below.