what 5 years of financial literacy actually builds

£124k later, a normal salary, and 10 habits i'd do again | fhg #86

Happy Sunday financial hotties 🫶

At 24, I had a negative net worth. Consumer debt and absolutely zero interest in looking at my finances properly, because every time I did, it just made me feel worse.

I’m 30 now. My net worth is £124k. My salary never went over £50k. I didn’t go viral, I didn’t build a business overnight, I never lived with my parents and I didn’t have anyone hand me a leg up financially.

What I did have was about five years of financial literacy, applied consistently, in roughly the right order. That’s the whole story.

I know that sounds anticlimactic, but I think that’s the point — because the version of wealth-building that gets talked about online is usually loud, dramatic, fast and involves someone shouting about a random stock. The version that actually works is so boring and slow you doubt it even works. And it starts with habits so basic they feel almost too simple to bother with.

So in this issue, I’m sharing the 10 habits that moved the needle for me since buying my first ever personal finance book.

1. Pick a personal finance book. One book. And read it.

Not buy one. Not add five to your wishlist. Pick just one personal finance book and commit to finishing it before the end of April.

One book, read properly, will do more for you than a year of scrolling financial content. I started with a very random booked I plucked off the shelf in a bookshop in India while visiting my Nani. Now, start with The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel if you haven't already—it's the one I recommend to literally everyone.

Reading a book for me, was the first domino that started my personal finance journey. I didn’t do anything but read a book to start. It’s (largely) free, and all you need is time.

2. The Financial Hot Girl’s Money Minutes

Ten minutes, once a week, same day, same time. You open your banking app, you look at your transactions, you check your balances. That’s it. No big decisions and no guilt.

The moment I started acknowledging what I was doing with my money every week, something in me just changed. I was more aware of my financial habits, which naturally made me more inclined to stop the avoidance-related ‘bad’ ones. The simple act of looking gave me a lot of financial awareness which then gave me a lot of control.

Financial avoidance makes everything feel bigger and scarier than it actually is. Money Minutes is how you break that cycle. Awareness first, everything else after.

3. The Leverage List

Before leaving corporate, I worked part-time for a few months to ‘trial’ creator life. In these months, I did a lot of work for free because I didn’t ‘feel’ qualified enough to charge appropriately. I carried these bad habits into the first year of working as a content creator full-time, and only recently raised my rates to match my skillset. I was knowingly under-leveraged for over a year, and it cost me a lot of money.

So, I want you to open a note on your phone right now and write down every single thing you could be monetising, negotiating, or leveraging that you currently aren’t.

Things like:

• Skills you’re undercharging for

• A salary you haven’t pushed in two years

• A service you’re doing for free out of habit

• A rate you quoted in 2024 and never updated

Review it every Monday, and action one thing per week. The Leverage List is how you stop leaving money on the table accidentally (but purposefully, out of fear).

4. Calculate your actual net worth

Every time I do this, I’m reminded of how hard I’ve worked to go from 0 to £124k and I feel so, so empowered to keep going. Calculating your net worth — outside of the financial benefits — is a life hack to simply feeling good enough to start and continue your financial literacy journey.

Remember that your net worth is assets minus liabilities. Every savings account, every investment, every debt, and the equity in your property if you own one. I’d been leaving my flat out of my calculation for years, which meant I was significantly underestimating where I actually was.

Do it once, write it down, update it at the end of every quarter. It takes about 20 minutes and it’s one of the most clarifying and motivating things you can do for your financial confidence.

5. Set one sinking fund this quarter

Sinking funds were a big part of my personal money management system, and still are. Travelling Latin America right now was the reason I knew exactly where my savings where going, and when I’d say no to things that didn’t fit the budget.

Pick one future expense — a holiday, a course, a big birthday, a new laptop — and work out exactly how much you need to set aside each month to cover it by the time it arrives. Then automate that transfer for payday and leave it alone.

This is how you stop big expenses feeling like financial emergencies. You just pre-decide your financial commitment, and therefore every decision around it. One sinking fund, starting this month.

6. The Payday Ritual

As soon as you get paid, every single month, you do the same five things in the same order. Move your savings and investments (however, these should ideally be automated). Top up your sinking funds. Check your investments are running. Review last month’s spending. Set your financial intention for this month.

A bonus tip I did for years: I’d make a drink and put on a nice playlist to set the mood. The drink was always something I’d been craving that I wouldn’t let myself have during the month, as it was only for the payday ritual. (Usually, an over-the-top matcha recipe from TikTok.)

These are five steps that I’ve prescribed here once, and then you just repeat them. Forever. This is what it means to manage money with systems instead of willpower — you’re not making new decisions every month, you’re just executing a routine you already built.

7. Look at your pension

At 24, I nearly opted out of mine. At the time, pension contributions felt like money disappearing into something I wouldn’t see for decades, and when you’re trying to get out of your overdraft… that’s a hard sell. It was one of the worst financial decisions I almost made.

If you’re employed [in the UK], your employer is legally required to contribute to your pension on top of your salary. Opting out means you’re handing back part of your compensation package. You’re essentially taking a pay cut and not noticing.

This quarter, log in to your pension provider, find out how much is in there, check what you and your employer are contributing, and check whether you can increase your contribution even slightly. You can also change where your pension is invested, because your pension provider will decide this on your behalf.

The gender pension gap in the UK is nearly 35%. A huge part of that is women disengaging from their pensions early. This step is non-negotiable!

8. Open (or actually use) your ISA

The new tax year is starting next week, which means your £20,000 ISA allowance¹ will reset. Every pound you invest inside an ISA grows completely tax-free. Even £25 a month counts, and is exactly the amount I started with at 24. If you don’t have one open yet, this week is the week.

9. The 90 Day Number

Pick one financial goal and give it a specific number and a specific deadline. Maybe something like: I will have £1,500 in my holiday fund by June 30th. Or: I will have made three pitches for higher-paid work by May 31st.

The very first goal I set was clearing my credit card debt by Summer 2021. I actually got there early!

Vague goals will always produce vague results. The 90 Day Number gives you something concrete to work backwards from — and something concrete to actually celebrate when you hit it, because it’s easier to know you actually have.

10. Tell someone your goal

A friend, a partner, a group chat, even a reply to this email! The goals I’ve told people about continuously are the goals I’ve achieved. Take 75 hard for example. I’m not taking that data lightly, because accountability compounds just like interest does.

There is a line between some goals and others for evil eye though, and that’s a science I haven’t quite worked out yet. For now, share your top-line financial goal for the next quarter in a safe space and reap the accountability that follows.

---

That’s your Q2 sorted. The hard part, as always, is actually doing it.

Pick the one step on this list that you’ve been putting off the longest and start there. The one that made you slightly uncomfortable when you read it, or the one you know in your gut you’re most likely to put off.

And if you found this useful, forward it to someone who needs it. This is exactly the kind of thing I wish someone had handed me at 24.

Until next week,

— Dev xo

1. A Stocks and Shares ISA is for long term investing. Cash ISA if you’re saving short term and want a better interest rate than your current account. Not financial advice — but as a Chartered Accountant, this is the one I’d tell every single person in their 20s and 30s to prioritise