This is not financial advice. Do your own research. When investing your capital is at risk.

In this letter:

• The key differences between ESG funds, ethical investing and impact investing

• Why a “sustainability” label doesn’t give you the full picture

• Whether investing ethically actually makes a difference

• The risks of building an ethical portfolio

• A practical checklist for investing based on your values

I put off writing this for a while. Only because, when you talk about ethics online, it’s rarely a healthy debate. There’s no nuance.

Actually, true followers will know that I made a few videos about this back in the day.

I’ve found as a creator, a video about “how to invest £100 in the S&P 500” might get 50,000 views, a video about ethical investing would barely scrape 10,000 views and get three comments, two of them from bots.

It made me feel like people didn’t care about it, so I stopped talking about it.

Nevertheless, I think it’s an important consideration for many people when they start investing, whether that’s because of their religion, politics or personal values.

Now, you may be thinking that ethical investing is simple. Just invest in “good companies” and avoid “bad” ones.

But the reason it’s so contentious is because it’s actually much more complicated than that. There are also several different ways of investing “ethically”.

Is investing unethical

Investing, like money, is sometimes treated as inherently evil.

But investing really means owning part of a company and benefiting from its success.

When you buy a share on the stock market, you are usually buying it from another investor, rather than giving money directly to the company. The company typically received money when those shares were first issued, such as through an IPO or a later share offering.

So, in the secondary market, you are mainly:

• buying ownership from someone else

• gaining exposure to the company’s future profits and dividends

• benefiting if other investors value the company more highly later

In other words, it is not quite as simple as handing money directly to that company. You are trading ownership based on its perceived value.

Still, that connection may not sit right with many investors.

So, let’s look at what ethical investing actually means, the different ways to approach it and whether it makes any real difference.

What is ethical investing?

It’s the intention to invest based on your values and to avoid companies involved in harm, such as war, tobacco or alcohol, for example.

The reason it’s so complex is because ethics is obviously subjective. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

This is where my A* in A-level Religious Studies comes in handy. It’s the only A* I’ve ever got, so best believe I am passionate about this.

Key differences between ESG funds

Thinking about this from a philosophical lens, you could break the three main types into buckets of ethical camps:

Ethical investing, as we outlined, it removing categories you are unwilling to profit from. You might exclude tobacco, weapons, gambling, fossil fuels or companies involved in animal testing. If we linked it to a philosophy, it would probably be most akin to virtue philosophy; choosing outcomes based on your personal values regardless of the measurable wider impact.

ESG investing considers environmental, social and governance factors when assessing companies. However, this is not necessarily about morality. A fund manager might consider climate regulation, employee treatment or board quality because these issues could affect a company’s future profits and risks. It’s more about ‘stakeholder capitalism’, the idea that a company’s long-term success depends not only on its shareholders, but also on its employees, customers, communities, regulators and the environment.

Impact investing goes further. It aims to produce a measurable environmental or social outcome alongside a financial return, such as financing renewable-energy infrastructure, affordable housing or access to healthcare. This is akin to consequentialism - an action is judged by the outcome it creates. From this perspective, the important question is not whether your portfolio looks ethical, but whether your investment actually reduces harm or creates something positive.

why a ‘sustainability’ label doesn’t give you the full picture

An ESG fund might own a fossil-fuel producer because it is better governed than its competitors. An “improvers” fund might deliberately invest in a polluting company because the manager believes it can encourage that business to transition.

Meanwhile, an exclusion fund may refuse to own that company at all.

This disparity is evidenced by one major study that compared ESG ratings from six different providers and found that their scores were sometimes only 38 per cent correlated.

This means the same company could receive a strong sustainability rating from one provider and a much weaker rating from another. That does not make ESG scores reduntant, but it does mean they should not be treated as a universal verdict on whether a company is “good”. Source: Review of Finance

The risks of ethical investing

Alternatively, you could choose individual stocks. Maybe specifically investing in renewable energy companies, or meat alternatives. But, as we know, choosing those is far more risky than picking a fund. You need time to research and stay up to date with news, consider the timing and looking at balance sheets - as opposed to being invested in one fund that tracks an index passively.

The next best thing is an ethical or ESG fund, which can offer much broader diversification. However, the trade-off is that the fund may not perfectly match your personal ethics, and its exclusions may affect its performance.

For example, over the five years to June 2026, the MSCI World SRI Index returned 10.73 per cent a year, compared with 11.47 per cent for the standard MSCI World Index.

One reason ethical funds can fall behind is that they may exclude entire sectors that happen to perform well. For example, funds avoiding oil, gas or defence companies may underperform during periods when energy or defence stocks are booming.

But this is where the nuance comes in.

Over the ten years to June 2026, the same ethical index actually performed slightly better than the standard index. So ethical investing does not automatically mean accepting lower returns.

It simply means your portfolio will be different from the wider market. Sometimes those differences will help performance, and sometimes they will hurt it.

As you can see, like most things in life, there is a trade-off. You might get closer to your personal values, but you may accept less diversification, higher fees or periods of underperformance in return.

Whether investing ethically actually makes a difference

So, at this point, you may be wondering whether ethical investing actually makes a difference. Does it affect the economy, improve people’s wellbeing or help reduce harm?

When you are starting out and investing £100, it can feel like your money will not make much of an impact.

And honestly, on its own, it probably will not. The board members of a multimillion-pound company are unlikely to notice that one person has chosen not to invest in it.

However, when millions of individual investors and large pension funds make similar choices, companies are more likely to pay attention. Your £100 may feel small, but it becomes part of a much bigger movement, so choosing to invest based on your values is not pointless.

A 2025 Harvard Business School working paper found that impact investors were more likely than conventional private-equity investors to fund companies in disadvantaged areas and businesses with minority founders. After receiving funding, those companies were also more likely to hire women, minority workers, people with fewer qualifications and lower-income workers.

They also distributed pay increases more favourably towards minority employees and workers outside senior management. The study has not yet completed the full academic publication process, so we should not treat it as the final word, but it suggests that direct investment can influence real employment outcomes. Read the Harvard Business School research.

The evidence against it

A study published in the Review of Finance found that socially responsible funds did select companies with lower pollution, higher employee satisfaction, better workplace safety and greater board diversity.

However, the researchers found no significant evidence that money flowing into these funds caused the companies to change their behaviour. They also found little evidence that the funds tried to create change through shareholder proposals.

The researchers described this as impact washing. The funds were not necessarily lying about the companies they owned, but they appeared to take credit for positive outcomes they had not actually created. Source.

But we should be realistic. A fund sold as sustainable may still prioritise investment returns over creating the greatest possible social benefit.

So, what could you do today if you are starting small?

Practical steps:

• Look into Sharia funds. These aren’t just for muslims, anyone can invest in them. They screen for companies involved in gambling, alcohol, or mainstream banking. However, you should double check each fund to ensure it actually aligns with your personal morals. Some possible ticker symbols: HIWS, SPWI.

• When looking at ESG funds, look at the company’s holdings. That will give you a closer indication of whether it aligns with your values. For example, a fund might ESG compliant, but have Nestle in there - technically it might pass through the filters but you don’t deem it to be ethical.

• Accept there won’t be a perfect fund. Often investing in individual stocks is far too risky and would require constant research or paying costly fees to a manager too. Instead, find the closest funds to your values and accept that investing can never be 100% ethical because ethics is subjective.

Overall, I would argue that investing ‘ethically’ is a good thing. If it’s a non-negotiable for you, then go for it.

However, I personally stick to broad-market ETFs in my portfolio, and I stand by that as my own choice based on what I feel comfortable with, my risk tolerance, time horizon and investment goals.

I am not writing this to preach something I do not practise, but to make you more aware of an option you may want to consider if it aligns with your values.

Frugal Chic is all about spending according to what you value, and your investments are no different.

Let me know what you think in the comments. Let’s have a healthy discussion.

Mia xx

They oscillate between two extremes. Buying everything in sight, then the guilt kicks in or they genuinely run out of money, so they enter a period of extreme restriction.

£0 spend, saying no to all plans, feeling miserable until payday comes.

The cycle begins again and they return to their old habits.

This happens because we often equate saving money with not buying anything. We convince ourselves that being “good with money” means depriving ourselves of everything we enjoy.

The savvier approach is to become Frugal Chic®.

You know exactly what you are willing to splurge on, what you are happy to save on and, most importantly, why.

In this issue:

• Why extreme saving rarely creates lasting habits

• The difference between being frugal and feeling deprived

• How to create your own Splurge vs Save list

• What your bank statement reveals about your real priorities

• How to make your spending better reflect your values

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Create your Splurge vs Save list

Open the Notes app on your phone and create two headings:

Underneath each heading, write ten things.

Your splurges should be the things that light you up. They add value to your life, making it easier and more enjoyable.

It could be:

• Consistent Pilates classes

• Going to the pub with your friends on a Friday

• Travelling

• High-quality shoes

• An arguably unhealthy addiction to M&S cookies

I do not care what it is. There is no one-size-fits all. Yes, there’s obviously things that are negative to your health or probably a bad idea to consistently splurge on, but apart from that, think about what you consistently put your card down for without thought.

Your saves, on the other hand, are the things you either do not care about or actively resent spending money on.

It could be:

• Taxis when public transport would have been fine

• Trend-led clothes you only wear once

• Food delivery because you forgot to plan dinner

• Beauty treatments you no longer enjoy

• Subscriptions you barely use

Maybe you kept getting lash extensions even though they irritated your eyes. Maybe you got a few takeaways that made you feel sluggish afterwards.

Your save list is not about cutting everything. It is about identifying the spending that gives you very little in return.

Once you have written your list, pin the note to the top of your phone.

Then we’ll look at how to actually measure value when making purchases.

Read more

This is a quote I heard fellow creator Erin Confortini say in a video, and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. It perfectly encapsulates how I feel about wealth.

Growing up, I always aspired to be rich. Perhaps when I was younger, it was the glossy luxury I pictured: a high-rise flat, a handbag dog, and a walk-in wardrobe. Over time, it evolved. As I realised the value of money, or rather how much of my life had to be traded in exchange for it, I became less focused on the outward projection of wealth and more focused on how it made me feel inside.

It wasn’t necessarily the state of having a lot of money that I was hoping for. It was the increase in time, choice, and autonomy.

Now, at 25, I am much closer to my financial goals than I could have realised.

I have a solid emergency fund and, being self-employed, have set up accounts such as a private pension.

I’ve built a £100k+ investment portfolio.

A £400k+ company.

That was a far-distant reality for the 18-year-old starting out with £0 and no clue what she was doing.

Over time, I’ve noticed that each little milestone has unlocked a bit of financial freedom for me.

In this issue:

• Why financial freedom is not one single destination

• How to recognise the earlier stages of freedom before you reach full financial independence

• Why “enough” matters more than endlessly chasing bigger numbers

• The role of emergency funds, investing, Coast FI, and work-optional wealth

• Why every level of financial freedom gives you more choice, not just more money

For most of us, we often speak about financial freedom in terms of reaching a huge, lofty number, such as £1 million. Phrases like “I want to be rich” and “One day, when I win the lottery, I’ll do X” hint that it is often used as shorthand for a better life, yet the specifics are rarely made explicit.

For some, freedom means the ability to do meaningful work rather than simply well-paid work. For others, it means spending time with friends and family without mentally calculating the cost of every decision. It may mean living in a safe area, having time to rest, or moving through the day without the constant pressure to monetise every spare hour.

This is part of the problem. Financial freedom is often discussed as though it were a distant and abstract ideal, reserved for people who are already privileged. But in reality, it’s not a one-size-fits-all idea, and it doesn’t appear all at once. In fact, you cross many different stages of financial freedom in life, which I call the Freedom Ladder.

The Freedom Ladder

There are milestones along the way that unlock varying levels of financial freedom.

Defining enough

The first is conceptual. It is the shift from assuming that freedom requires endless accumulation to recognising that it begins with defining what is enough. If your desires are permanently increasing, no level of income will ever satisfy you. But if you are clear on what makes a good life for you, rather than what looks impressive to other people, you need far less money to feel settled, complete, and in control.

Having a buffer

The second level is protective. This is where a cash buffer, or what I call a cushion fund, begins to change your relationship with work and risk. A healthy emergency fund gives you the ability to leave situations that are harmful, unstable, or simply no longer right for you.

That may be a job, a relationship, a living arrangement, or a period of financial chaos. The ability to walk away is one of the earliest and most important forms of freedom money can buy.

It also gives you protection if you lose your job through redundancy or another circumstance and have to find a new one, as it reduces the urgency to take any new job you can get.

Building momentum

The third level is momentum. For many people, reaching six figures in invested assets marks a significant psychological and financial turning point. At this stage, investment growth begins to feel more visible.

The market’s movements, for better or worse, start to have a noticeable effect on your portfolio, and the mathematics of compounding become easier to believe because you can see them happening in real time.

Your money is no longer growing only because of what you add to it each month. Increasingly, it begins to generate growth on its own.

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “money makes money”, and while the phrase is simplistic, the principle is sound. Capital, once accumulated, has the capacity to reproduce itself.

Coast FI

The fourth level is what many now call Coast FI. This is the point at which, even if you never invested another pound, the money you have already built would still be enough, given time and compound growth, to support you later in life.

Coast FI matters because it changes the function of your labour. You no longer work primarily to secure your distant future. That future has, in large part, already been funded.

Work can then become about covering present-day living costs, exploring different priorities, or simply reducing the intensity of the race.

Work-optional status

The fifth level is full work-optional status, often associated with a financial independence number, which we’ll discuss shortly. This is the point at which your assets can sustain your lifestyle indefinitely, or at least for the foreseeable future, without requiring employment income.

It does not necessarily mean retiring in the traditional sense. It means choice. You can continue working if you want to, but not because you have no alternative.

Freedom arrives in stages

This is why it is so limiting to imagine that freedom begins only at a net worth of £1 million.

In reality, most people encounter meaningful forms of financial freedom much earlier than that. They experience it when they build savings that allow them to leave a situation, or when their investments begin to carry part of the load.

Freedom does not suddenly arrive one morning in its final form. You pass through varying degrees of it along the way.

Every level I have passed, I’ve gained slightly more confidence which actually changed the way I moved through the world.

In my humble opinion, in order to achieve great things in life, you have to be a bit unhinged. By that, I mean committed to your goals, with an unwavering curiosity and desire to learn. Researching, having nerdy conversations and experimenting.

That’s what the world of finance felt like for me as a fashion student. It was so separate from what I was learning about and the career I wanted to pursue that it felt exciting.

You could say I went further than most people need to.

Most people just need the basics: a tax-advantaged account, a pension, a good credit card used responsibly and a high-yield savings account.

Meanwhile, I was learning about REITs, money market funds and IPOs.

But why?

Well, for me, I grew up with zero financial literacy. Going to a state school, I didn’t learn about it there, nor did my parents know most of the more advanced stuff. It left a gap in my knowledge. It was clear that rich people knew something I didn’t, and I wanted to find out.

In this issue:

• Why being slightly obsessed with money can help you build financial security

• The simple systems I use to automate my finances

• My exact payday routine as a company director

• Why financial security makes money feel less important

• How to protect your time, energy and headspace by thinking about money less

So, I went on this path of wanting to get to my first £100k, which I did by 25 years old through a mix of living at home for two years after university, being incredibly frugal and working 60-plus-hour weeks across my 9-to-5 and side hustles.

For that period of time, money was the most important focus in my life.

But what if I told you the very goal is to stop thinking about money altogether? The beauty of having enough of it is that it works in the background. You set up systems and automations, and you put your values in place so that spending on what matters becomes easier and easier.

There’s a quote by economist Eugene Fama that perfectly encapsulates this: “Your money or portfolio is like a bar of soap. The more you handle it, the less you’ll have.”

This extends beyond investing. The set-it-and-forget-it mindset is helpful in all aspects of your financial life, not just your investments. I spoke recently about having different financial seasons in your life, and in the Curate season, the scarcest resource is your energy. Therefore, anything that saves me the mental headspace of manually having to transfer something, I will automate.

So here’s the routine I set up so my money runs in the background.

Read more

What skincare do they use?

What makeup are they wearing?

Where did they buy that outfit?

We start looking for the exact products they use, hoping that buying the same things will help us replicate the same result.

Sometimes this comes from genuine inspiration. You see an outfit you love, buy something similar and wear it for years.

But sometimes it comes from insecurity.

Those tend to be the purchases that end up collecting dust. They are the products we buy and barely use, or the clothes that look great on someone else but never quite feel like us.

Then comes the buyer’s remorse.

Did I actually need that?

Did I even want it?

I call this the insecurity tax.

In this issue:

• How you’re quietly paying more for your insecurities

• Beauty as a survival mechanism

• My relationship with insecurity and confidence

• How to reduce your insecurity tax bill

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I grew up Chinese in the UK in the early 2000s.

The beauty standard at the time was incredibly Eurocentric. Think blonde hair, blue eyes, a button nose and the Barbie type of beauty you saw in films, magazines and on Disney Channel.

I looked nothing like that.

I was also the only Chinese child in my school. Kids would pull the skin around their eyes, make racist jokes and ask whether I could see properly. At that age, you don’t always understand how much your environment is shaping the way you see yourself.

You just start to believe there is something wrong with you.

I remember pinching my nose and wishing it looked different. I watched makeup tutorials designed for features I didn’t have. I even ordered double-eyelid tape online because I thought changing my eyes would make me prettier.

It sounds disturbing when I write it now, but when you are young, you don’t realise how deeply the world around you can influence your self-image.

For years, caring too much about my appearance kept me trapped financially, mentally and emotionally.

I spent money trying to become a better version of myself, without realising that the version I was chasing didn’t actually exist.

I was paying the Insecurity Tax.

It is the money you spend trying to fix something about yourself that may never have needed fixing in the first place.

It can show up as clothes, makeup, skincare, cosmetic treatments, hair appointments, supplements or anything else sold to us with the quiet promise that we will finally feel good enough afterwards.

The problem is, insecurity is extremely profitable.

There will always be another product, another treatment, another trend or another version of yourself to pursue.

The Insecurity Tax does not just cost you money. It keeps you trapped in the belief that more is always better and that you are always one purchase away from being complete.

Beauty as a survival mechanism

Women already face a lot of additional costs.

Periods, the pink tax and the wider financial impact of the gender pay gap are the obvious examples.

On top of this, women are constantly taught that beauty equals success.

We know attractive people can benefit from the halo effect, where people assume someone has other positive qualities simply because they are physically attractive.

Women who wear makeup can also be perceived as more polished or professional in certain workplaces.

We can pretend appearance doesn’t matter, but that would be dishonest.

There are real social and professional incentives attached to looking a certain way, particularly for women.

This is why beauty can start to feel less like a personal choice and more like a survival mechanism.

I am not saying that spending money on beauty automatically means you are insecure. I still wear makeup. I like clothes. I enjoy looking presentable.

The difference is whether you are buying something because you genuinely value it, or because you believe you need it to become more worthy.

For a long time, I struggled to tell the difference.

Becoming attractive didn’t make me confident

You could argue that I have had a glow-up.

I became a model for several years. My appearance changed. I learned what suited me and became better at styling myself.

Strangely, though, my confidence did not improve when I became more conventionally attractive.

It improved when I stopped treating my appearance as the most important thing about me.

At 25, I can leave the house without makeup. If someone takes an awful photo of me, I genuinely do not care.

Ten years ago, an unflattering photo could ruin my entire day.

I was constantly monitoring myself through other people’s eyes. I would think about how I looked while I was talking, sitting, laughing or simply existing.

There is a strange irony in spending so much time worrying about your appearance that you are barely present in your own life.

My confidence changed when I stopped trying to build my identity around how I looked.

I found something else to care about

One of the biggest shifts happened when I discovered personal finance and investing.

I went down a complete rabbit hole.

I would come home and binge-watch videos about investing, dividend stocks, compound interest and the FIRE movement, which stands for financial independence, retire early.

The idea of becoming work-optional fascinated me.

I learned about the significance of building your first £100,000 and how compound growth becomes more powerful as your investments increase.

For around seven years, reaching that number became one of my biggest goals.

It gave me something else to focus on.

Instead of spending money trying to improve my appearance, I became interested in building an investment portfolio and creating more freedom for my future.

Personal finance was the interest that helped me redirect my attention, but yours could be completely different.

It could be writing, fitness, films, gaming, pottery, history, business or learning a language.

The point is to develop parts of your identity that have nothing to do with how attractive you are.

When your appearance is your main source of value, every bad photo, breakout or change in your body can feel like a crisis.

When you have skills, hobbies, ambitions and interests outside of it, appearance becomes one small part of a much bigger life.

Content creation forced me to stop being perfect

Another shift happened when I started creating content.

Short-form content requires consistency. When I was starting out, I would post up to three times a day while still working my nine-to-five.

I didn’t have time to make everything look perfect.

Sometimes the lighting was bad. Sometimes I had a pimple. Sometimes I looked exhausted.

I posted anyway.

Creating content forced me to show up on days when I didn’t feel attractive. It also got me used to how I actually looked when I spoke and moved, rather than the carefully selected version of myself I saw in selfies.

Ten years ago, I would have been too distracted by how my face looked when the camera flipped to focus on what I was actually saying.

Eventually, I had to make a decision.

I could either spend my time worrying about my appearance, or I could use that time to build something.

I chose the second option.

That does not mean I never think about how I look. It means I no longer allow it to take up the majority of my mental space.

The Frugal Chic approach to beauty

This shift also shaped my wider Frugal Chic philosophy.

Splurge on what you love and cut back on what you don’t.

I like spending money on experiences, education, comfort and anything that genuinely improves my quality of life.

I am happy to do the bare minimum with parts of my appearance that do not matter much to me.

I don’t get my nails done. Not because I think manicures are pointless or don’t look nice, but because I don’t enjoy the time commitment.

I get my hair cut around every six months. I use largely the same skincare and makeup products every day.

At one point, I was washing my hair with shampoo I had taken from a hotel.

To some people, this probably sounds completely normal.

But in an era where constant modification is becoming normalised, being content with looking like yourself can start to feel almost radical.

I am not trying to optimise every inch of myself.

I would rather build skills, financial security and a body of work that is not dependent on me remaining young or attractive forever.

Pretty privilege

I have spoken about wanting to decentre my appearance on YouTube and in short-form content. The most common backlash is: “Well, it’s easy for you to say. You’re young and incredibly beautiful.”

Even though I think beauty is subjective, I can hear this.

I have straight hair, clear skin and a naturally small frame, all things that many women spend a lot of time, money and even pain trying to achieve.

But we also cannot erase how I felt growing up, or the fact that I did not fit the beauty standard at the time. There is far more diversity and representation in the media now, largely thanks to social media, which has democratised fame and success for many women of colour.

Not only that, just because I am 25 does not mean I am not allowed to have a perspective on beauty, insecurity or the way women are taught to relate to their appearance. I hope that my future 40 or 60 year old self will feel confident too, but they’re right - life will throw new challenges at me.

I also understand that not fitting the standard at all, having severe acne or dealing with a visible condition can make it much harder to simply “forget about your appearance”.

Presented as a blanket statement, the idea of decentring appearance can sound ableist, dismissive or ignorant.

But, as with all of my content, I can only speak from my own lived experience.

My “bare minimum” will also look different from someone else’s.

For one person, it might include getting their eyebrows threaded, having a blow-dry or getting a manicure and pedicure. That’s what they need to feel they look presentable.

Everyone has a different definition of ‘enough’.

Getting braces, having surgery recommended by a doctor, treating a skin condition or making a change that genuinely improves your quality of life are all completely valid.

I am not against beauty, maintenance or changing something about yourself.

I am against beauty-maxxing culture designed to keep women on a treadmill, constantly chasing a new flaw, a new treatment and a new version of themselves that is always just out of reach.

How to reduce your insecurity tax bill

Curate your feed carefully

I used to follow a lot of influencers and models simply because I thought they were beautiful.

My Instagram Explore page became a never-ending stream of perfect faces.

I told myself it was inspiration. In reality, it mostly made me compare myself and feel worse.

If someone’s content consistently makes you feel inadequate, unfollowing them could genuinely help.

Your feed is an environment, and environments shape how you think.

This applies offline too.

I have had friendships where every meetup seemed to revolve around taking photos. There is nothing wrong with enjoying pictures, especially when you work in content, but there is a difference between documenting your life and living primarily for documentation.

Other people’s insecurity can rub off on you.

Choose people who make you forget about how you look.

Build interests outside your appearance

Find something you enjoy that has nothing to do with beauty.

For me, that became personal finance, investing and content creation.

I also love films. I rate everything on Letterboxd. I play games on my Nintendo Switch and have spent an unreasonable amount of time playing Two Point Hospital.

None of those interests make me prettier.

That is the point.

You need parts of your identity that still exist when you are not dressed up, wearing makeup or feeling your best.

Buy less

Buying less changed my relationship with my appearance.

I started experimenting with low-buy and no-buy periods because they forced me to become more selective.

This year, I have been doing a challenge where I only buy one fashion item per month.

It has made me think much more carefully about what my wardrobe genuinely needs.

When you consume unconsciously, you can start sending yourself the message that you are not enough without those things.

You need another outfit to feel stylish.

Another product to feel beautiful.

Another treatment to feel confident.

Buying less can become a way of proving to yourself that you are already complete.

It also saves money, which is a fairly convenient side effect.

Decentre male approval

I also became more conscious of how much of my appearance was shaped around attracting male approval.

When I was younger, I wore more bodycon and traditionally flattering clothes because I believed that was what made me attractive.

Now, I dress much more for myself.

Or, arguably, for the female gaze.

If my boyfriend hates an outfit, I usually assume I am doing something right.

But dressing for yourself rather than trying to predict what other people find attractive can be incredibly freeing.

My style may look boring or overly capsule-wardrobe to some people, but I know what I like.

That clarity is more valuable to me than being universally appealing.

The real glow-up

You cannot simply wake up one morning, decide to decentre your appearance and suddenly feel completely confident.

But you can begin reducing the amount of power it holds over you.

You can invest more time in your brain, your skills, your interests and the life you are building.

That is how you develop real taste.

That is how you build a life that actually feels like yours.

At 25, something I wish I could tell my 18-year-old self is:

“Your appearance is the least interesting thing about you”.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

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Listen to this as a podcast

It’s a phrase that always made me feel slightly bad for being multi-passionate.

Even though my life might look quite clear from the outside now, being my own boss, running my own company, and building a personal brand, the truth is, none of this was ever in the cards.

Social media did not exist in the way it does now when I was growing up in the 2000s. There was no obvious path to becoming a creator. No one was sitting me down at school and saying, “One day you might build a business from talking about money on the internet.”

And honestly, my interests were completely different.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist or a fashion designer. I would draw endless portraits, obsess over clothes, and spend hours dressing up.

At A-level, I became obsessed with philosophy. For a while, I thought I might go down a more academic route. I loved thinking deeply about ideas, morality, identity, and the way people make sense of the world.

Then I ended up doing a fashion degree, where I learned about the business side of the industry. I did internships, studied brands, learned about buyers and products, and started to develop a commercial eye.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered personal finance and became completely obsessed with it. But I never saw it as anything more than a hobby.

On the side, I modelled, resold clothes, and tried almost every side hustle I could think of.

So when I started posting finance content alongside my 9-to-5 in fashion, people assumed I worked in corporate finance.

But I didn’t.

I was just someone with a lot of varied interests.

And even though I now work for myself and genuinely like what I do, there is still a small part of me that wonders.

What if I had known earlier that I wanted to work in finance?

What if I had climbed the corporate ladder?

What if all the energy I put into failed side hustles was wasted?

For a long time, I did feel lost. I questioned whether I was going down the right path. I worried that loving lots of things meant I was not serious enough about any of them.

Every choice felt like a quiet rejection of another version of myself.

If I chose fashion, was I giving up academia?

If I chose finance, was I giving up creativity?

If I chose content, was I giving up having a “proper” career?

That feeling is captured so well in *The Bell Jar* by Sylvia Plath, where life is imagined like a fig tree, each branch holding a different possible future. Wanting every fig, but feeling unable to choose, until they all begin to fall.

That is what being multi-passionate can feel like.

You are standing in front of ten doors, terrified that walking through one means closing the other nine forever.

But I have started to see it differently.

Because the part people often leave out is:

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

And honestly, that changes everything.

Maybe the goal was never to pick one thing and ignore the rest.

Maybe it was to explore any curiosity and passion I had, develop skills in multiple areas, and synthesise them in what I do today.

Looking back, none of it was random.

Fashion taught me taste.

Philosophy taught me how to think.

Modelling taught me confidence.

Reselling taught me business.

Side hustles taught me experimentation.

Content taught me storytelling.

Personal finance gave me the thing I wanted to talk about.

At the time, my path didn’t feel clear. I had zero leverage, £0, and was just starting out.

I used to think I was behind because I had not chosen one clear lane early enough. My friends were earning high salaries in corporate from not going to uni or from knowing they wanted to go into consulting from day one. Now I realise that there is a different strength in having a non-linear path.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean every interest should become a career or every hobby should be monetised. It’s more acknowledging that every venture we try, even if we think it’s a failure or waste of time, is still bleeding into what we bring forward. It’s still a lesson.

If you’re at the start of your career or feeling lost like I did, the reassurance is that often this only makes sense in hindsight. You don’t always know why you are drawn to something, you just know it feels right.

So when I get asked why my content feels different, it’s because I bring my fashion lens, creativity from art, visual understanding from modelling, and commercial eye from my business degree.

Maybe being distracted isn’t a weakness, maybe it’s your biggest superpower.

Below, I’m sharing the exact prompts I’d use to turn your “random” interests into a clearer career, business, or content direction.

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At the start, it really was a way to romanticise being on a £30k annual salary in London, living at home and not quite being where I wanted to be in life. I rarely bought coffee, I brought my lunch in a Tupperware everyday and I rarely bought new things. Now, my life has changed immeasurably as I made that switch from working in fashion and juggling content on the side (often working 60+ hours a week) to running my own business and becoming a creator CEO.

I now have more of a buffer to spend more freely. I pay myself a £50k income from my business and I often get to supplement my lifestyle with fun events and dinners as part of my job in the creator space. That being said, I still stick to the principles I set out on my journey to financial freedom.

While I’m not sitting there analysing every purchase, I still don’t buy much, and when I do, it’s on something I really care about.

Regardless of where you are, these are universal principles that can apply to many people regardless of personal style and preferences.

This is an updated 10 rules of being Frugal Chic:

1. Define your enough

Never stepping back to define what a ‘good life’ looks like to you will mean that you’ll always be raising the bar. This isn’t some wishy-washy gratitude practice either. It’s about having a clear idea of an ideal salary, ideal house price you’d buy (if you even want to buy), what a typical month would cost - workout classes, subscriptions. It’s about getting clear on what you’re working towards, not your FIRE number, but the number that would affect your everyday lifestyle now.

2. “Financial intelligence”

This is about closing the financial literacy gap. Learning about tax advantaged accounts, investing, pensions, how taxes work etc. I get it, you can go most of your life thinking “this isn’t made for someone like me”. I grew up with 0 financial literacy, and my only touchpoint of discovering the topic was talking to men about it, by sheer chance. But through watching YouTube videos from Nischa, Damien Talks Money and by listening to podcasts like Friends That Invest, I became so much more confident.

3. “Be chic where it counts, frugal where it doesn’t”

Smart spending is all about getting clear on what you value. There’s a misconception that frugality looks a certain way, on one end of the spectrum you have people reusing paper towels and being gross, on the other end, gaudy excess. Frugal Chic is a middle ground. It doesn’t mean never getting your nails done or never buying that iced matcha, it depends on what makes sense for your life. A mantra I live by is “you can have anything but you can’t have everything”. It’s simply understanding opportunity cost; what you spend in one area, whether that’s with time, money or energy, you take away from another area. So create a splurge vs save list - things you value vs don’t.

4. Value over cheapness

There’s a difference between being cheap and frugal. The frugal person really thinks about cost per use of an item. If you buy a £200 winter coat but wear it 60 days of the year, it’s £3 per wear. If you buy a £60 dress and wear it twice, it’s £30 per wear, even if the item costs less. The Frugal Chic woman measures purchases based on genuine use and quality. Yes, it’s worth noting, if your income is very limited, being cheap is your only option - and that’s why it’s ironically expensive to be cheap.

5. “The daily uniform”

Being an outfit repeater isn’t embarrassing, it is actually one of the easiest ways to become memorable. I have a personal brand, and someone once made a video saying, “Mia McGrath wears the same T-shirt and blazer in every video, and that’s what makes her content so visually strong.” And honestly, they were right. Repeating an outfit creates consistency. It gives people something to recognise you by. It becomes part of your visual identity. But this doesn’t just apply to content. In my personal life, I used to think I needed a different outfit for every Instagram post, a new dress for every event, and something fresh every time I was seen. Now, I’m not afraid to wear the same thing repeatedly because most people do not care nearly as much as you think they do, it is far better for your wallet, and having a personal uniform makes getting dressed so much easier. Sometimes, the most chic thing you can do is know what works for you and wear it again.

6. “Old before new”

Shopping secondhand is my default. If I want something I will look on Ebay, Vinted, charity shops, vintage shops, or even ask friends if they are clearing out their wardrobe before buying something new with tags. This is for a multitude of reasons but mainly I find vintage clothing to, of course, be much better quality, and you end up saving a fortune.

7. “Curate, don’t accumulate”

This isn’t about being minimalistic for the sake of it, but I have a monthly declutter of my wardrobe to save space, earn a bit of money and ensure all my clothes are actually getting cost per wear. I never get rid of anything I may actually want to wear just in an effort to save space, I am not the most minimal person, but I’d like to think I want a wardrobe and home full of things I love - and nothing more. I’ve never been a ‘collector’, I don’t value trinkets, and I don’t like clutter.

8. Reject lifestyle inflation

My income had quadrupled in the last year. Yes I actually only pay myself £50k a year, but the fact my business generates sometimes over multiple 5-figures a month, it can be easy to slip into new habits. Although I do now pay for things like taxis to get more work done or a meal prep service in busy times, overall I keep my personal spending at around £2,000 a month, basically the same as my old take home pay. I do this because if I kept raising the bar, it would mean I would then have to make a certain amount. The whole point of financial freedom to me is to increase optionality and decrease pressure.

9. Create more than you consume

Saving is great, but I’d be lying if I told you what got me here was just cutting out brunch and subscriptions. Instead, being frugal to me isn’t just about what you cut out, it’s what you strategically add. I’ve always loved side hustles because they are a way to increase my skillset and earn money on the side. It’s also diversifying income streams so I can again increase optionality and i’m never dependent on one person or source. This essentially means instead of being just a passive consumer, you spend more time on output than input.

10. Optimise for freedom

This all is pointless unless you understand why saving and investing money is important. Yes we all have different reasons, like short term goals, but overall - most people would attribute their financial discipline and efforts to wanting to achieve financial freedom. This comes in many forms, it could be your first £1,000 that means you could cover an emergency cost, your first £10,000 that gives you a buffer in case you lose your job, or your first £100k that gives you confidence that you’re a step closer to work optionality. It could be taking a pay cut to have more time or moving to a cheaper city, it entirely depends on your values and goals - but freedom is often at the heart of what the Frugal Chic chooses in life.

So I want to keep this as core principles and refer back to them - keep me accountable aha!

That’s all for this week,

Mia xx

Cannes Lions, The Festival of Creativity, has been called “Corporate Coachella” because it’s where marketers, agencies, founders and brands all come together.

I am a Cannes newbie. A few months ago, I am ashamed to say I didn’t even know what it was.

But this trip was my first time on a yacht, my first time on a business class flight, and my first time in the South of France.

Which is really crazy to me, because two years ago I started posting from my childhood bedroom with my phone taped to a window. Now I am rubbing shoulders with CEOs, CMOs and executives in Cannes.

Here’s how I got there, and how I maintained my Frugal Chic philosophy in a place that is anything but frugal.

In this issue:

• The real reason so many creators are in Cannes right now

• Why being “seen” can be a business strategy

• How I did Cannes the Frugal Chic way, without a £700 dress, a fresh manicure or a rosé hangover

• What I’m taking away from it, and how I’m already planning 2027

So, how did I end up going to Cannes?

For a lot of people in this space, it’s the dream. I had an acquaintance message me and say it had been their goal for the last six years to go.

Not only that, but it is incredibly expensive, with some flats near the Croisette setting you back £6,000 for a few nights. Honestly, anyone who owns property in Cannes must be killing it.

I feel incredibly honoured and privileged to have gone because of this.

I’d say it all happened because of the months that led up to it.

• Having particularly high-earning months as a business, which made it feel justified to take on the expense.

• Having an insanely hard-working talent manager who put me in all the right places: Grace Beverley’s podcast recently and speaking at SXSW

• Having a clear plan for what I wanted to get out of it: a week’s worth of content, networking with the right people, and raising my profile.

Number three is key. My manager literally told me, “It’s about being seen there.”

I’ll admit, at first I was on the fence. I turned to her on the flight and explained that some huge creators in the finance space, who I look to as the blueprint, told me they don’t go to things like this. They said they would rather spend the time working on their business.

I heard this and thought, “Maybe they’re right.”

I am prone to spreading myself thin by trying to go to every event I am invited to, and perhaps I would have got more done for my business if I had just stayed in my living room and made content.

But then it dawned on me. I had spent months trying to boost my credibility and image as a founder and CEO, not just a content creator. It therefore made so much sense for me to be there.

Because Cannes is shifting, a decade ago, it was stuffy suits, mostly C-Suite level staff going out there. Now creators play a much bigger role because the advertising industry has changed. We have voices, we’ve democratised attention. Lots of people feel threatened by that, but I see it as positive.

I predict next year there will be even more creators there and brands will see the value in sponsoring them.

How I did Cannes the Frugal Chic way

Of course, I wanted to stay true to who I am and what my brand stands for.

My first instinct was to think, “I need a whole new wardrobe. I need to prep. I need to get my nails done.”

But then I realised this was an old voice. The shopaholic, insecure version of me that needed other people’s approval to feel complete.

So instead, I thought, let’s do this in a way that actually aligns with me.

I rented a dress from By Rotation. It was a Zimmermann dress. I have always aspired to own one, but they are over £700.

I’ve always hated spending money on occasion wear because it often has a high cost per use. For example, if I bought it for £700 and wore it twice in a year, it would cost me £350 each time I wore it.

Secondly, I utilised the fact that it was a business trip to expense genuine business costs: travel, food while travelling, and anything I needed to spend in order to work there.

A lot of the flashy lifestyle you see in places like Cannes and Monaco is actually businesses spending money.

For example, we went for dinner at a place where a bit of salad was €45, but practically everyone there was there on business - and restaurants know this.

So while it did seem like I was living the high life, a lot of it was “work”, and so this didn’t make a huge dent in my personal spending.

Finally, I didn’t go all out and get my nails, hair or anything else “done”.

There was definitely more pressure to. For example, at one dinner I was the only person without my nails done. I had a momentary feeling of inadequacy, like, “why didn’t I just get them done? This is a special occasion”.

But actually, I’ve come home, put some cuticle oil on, trimmed them down, and I feel fine with that. I am able to type easily on my laptop, and I get more done by not having that time taken up by nail appointments.

And let’s be clear, you can most definitely be Frugal Chic® and get your nails done, because it’s all about what you value. But for my fellow bare-nailed queens who sometimes have moments like this, bare nails are actually incredibly chic.

Sadly, mine weren’t so chic and my cuticles did look crazy, but I probably made more money that week through connections and image than I would spend on nail appointments in a whole year.

Another boundary I put in place was not drinking. I wouldn’t say that I have stopped forever, but for the time being I’ve realised I don’t miss it.

In Cannes, I definitely felt more pressure to drink, with people asking me presumptuous questions like, “What wine are you having?” or “What is your favourite drink?” Waiters started pouring rosé before I had even said no.

But I felt so much better for not drinking. I didn’t have any hangovers, headaches or Asian flush. I just felt regulated and more like myself.

Again, I’m not saying people shouldn’t drink, but for me lately, I haven’t been valuing it.

Frugal Chic is about realising that there are perhaps things we spend money on unconsciously. Things we might not be spending on because they truly bring joy and value to our lives, but because they have become the default.

Cannes was truly a fever dream. I need the whole weekend to lie down and do nothing.

Here’s what I am taking away from it, because you don’t need to be in the South of France in June to be in the ‘right places’.

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That’s why blanket advice like “start investing with £100,” “buy a home as soon as you can,” or “stay away from credit at all costs” often falls flat.

Your financial decisions are heavily shaped by the season you’re in.

In this issue:

• Why personal finance tips only work when they match the season you’re in

• How to know whether you’re in a season of securing, building, or curating

• Why stability has to come before bigger financial risks

• How to build wealth without burning out in the process

• How to spend more intentionally once you’ve earned the right to be selective

Our money has seasons

What I mean by this is that, online, you’ll often hear people say investing isn’t for them, or complain that it’s pushed too heavily. But sometimes the issue isn’t the advice itself. It’s that the advice doesn’t match the season you’re in.

Because if you’re still trying to build an emergency fund, being told to take bigger financial risks can feel completely out of touch. But if you’re already financially secure, being told to cut every small expense might keep you stuck in a season you’ve already outgrown.

These are the 3 seasons of your financial life you need to know about.

#1 Secure

This is the phase where money is the scarcest resource.

In this season, you might be starting from zero, building an emergency fund, or honestly just trying to make ends meet.

Consciously tracking your money will be beneficial here.

You might be just starting out in your career on a low to average income, perhaps in a notoriously underpaid industry. Sound familiar? It was for me.

One morning, I was hoovering the showroom at my fashion job. I’d been scrolling that morning and saw how much an Ocado driver made: £33k. I was on £30k after four years of university and three internships.

I remember feeling a bit disillusioned. Not because there’s anything wrong with delivery work, but because I had bought into the idea that if you went to university, did the internships, and worked hard in a “proper” career, the money would follow.

Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for my job and I did enjoy it, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I had taken on student debt, spent years building experience, and still didn’t feel my income matched up.

But that season taught me something important. When your income feels limited, you start becoming very intentional with what you do have.

I was incredibly frugal during this time. I brought my lunch in every day. I never bought coffee. Not because I was depriving myself, but because I wanted optionality. I wanted an emergency fund. I wanted to invest. I wanted to feel like I was moving forward, even if my income wasn’t moving as quickly as I wanted it to.

My attitude towards money may seem boring to some people, but it came from genuine experience. I wanted to improve my finances, and at that point, the only thing I could control was what I did with the money I had.

And I think I still hold a lot of the values I built in that season.

#2 Build

In this season, the scarcest resource is time.

You don’t quite feel like you can breathe yet. Perhaps you’re ambitious like me and you know you want to increase your income. Maybe you have a big financial goal, like getting to £10k or £100k in your savings or investments.

You know it’s a long game. But after reading those finance books and becoming more financially literate, you also understand the value of small habits built consistently over time.

I’d liken this phase to juggling both my 9-5 and content creation. I’d get home sweaty and overstimulated from commuting for an hour back to my childhood bedroom in Lewisham, then get out my tripod and film until the sun went down. I’d eat dinner, shower, and repeat the cycle again.

The goal in this phase was to increase my income and build up my investments.

Frugality had helped me build the habit of saving regularly and not giving in to lifestyle creep, but that alone wouldn’t help me achieve my bigger goals.

This season was going all in on the “girl boss” narrative, knowing it wouldn’t be forever, but also knowing I was creating more space for financial freedom.

You don’t have to be as extreme as me, but the point is, saving as a ceiling.

#3 Curate

In this season, the scarcest resource is energy.

This is about being frugal with your time and building taste. At the start, the bottleneck is money. You fix that in season two by renting out more of your time. In season three, you’re in a better position to be selective.

In this season, you might feel like you’ve done everything right. You’ve got the dream career, a good salary, and you’ve built up your investments, but there are still things you’d like to improve.

Now, it’s about designing a life that allows you to live in alignment with your values, because you have the privilege to do that. Whether it’s going all in on your splurges, moving to an area that better suits your lifestyle, or outsourcing tasks to buy back time, it’s a season of power.

It’s not a time for total rest and chilling. You are still working, but the work you take on is more meaningful, and you’re able to be more selective.

This is exactly how I feel now. On paper, I am successful. I built a £300k business, hired staff, and work when I want to. But I haven’t really stopped to think about whether parts of my life could be made easier.

Having an assistant, hiring an editor, or even in my personal life, splurging a bit more on conveniences like Ubers, would have felt frivolous at the start because I was trapped in my Secure season.

But now I’m in Curate, I have the space to change what I’m not happy with. It’s about granting myself permission to finally design the life I wanted.

So maybe you dabble in habits from each of these seasons and that’s totally normal. What is helpful is to distinguish between habits that help you survive vs thrive.

This newsletter was inspired by the talented who has been my #1 muse for content. She has a framework called Earn Keep Grow, and I wanted to put my take on it with a Frugal Chic® lens.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

Personal brands are usually spoken about online as if they’re bordering on influencer territory. Make a vision board, choose certain fonts, post in a consistent colour palette, and suddenly you’ve built a brand. But your personal brand is really just your reputation. It already exists. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. It’s how your best friend would describe you. That is your brand.

Now, you could argue this is giving late stage capitalism. Why should everyone have a brand? But when you really think about it, we’re doing this anyway. We are forced to market ourselves in the job market, dating market, and even in the friendship market. Some people are simply more intentional about it than others.

What’s undeniable is that your brand matters. Arguably, the people who go through life unintentionally are still building brands, but they’re not in control of them.

In this issue:

• Why your personal brand already exists, even if you’ve never posted online

• The reason your reputation is one of your most underrated assets

• Why changing your style every second makes you harder to remember

• How speaking with authority can create career leverage before you feel “ready”

• Why doubling down on what works usually has a higher ROI than doing everything

Your personal brand is not just about being known. It’s about being known for something. If you want to get ahead, whether that’s through opportunities, connections, recognition, career growth, or business, you have to start thinking about your personal brand both online and offline.

Stop changing your style every second

This is why people who repeat outfits often have such a strong personal brand.

At the start, you think you should be exciting and wear something new all the time. But actually, wearing the same thing regularly or having a signature uniform is how you build recognition. People start to associate certain colours, shapes, silhouettes, phrases, values, or habits with you.

It’s like when a friend says, “This is so you.” They’ve come to associate certain things with you, and that’s how you know you’ve got a brand.

It could be a signature blush. It could be a certain type of outfit. It could even be something you’re doing unconsciously. But the point is, try not to change all the time.

Branding yourself often means sticking with the same things long enough for them to become recognisable. Consistency compounds. The more people see the same cues, the easier it is for them to remember you.

Speak with authority

This is about showing up and being visible. That doesn’t just mean posting TikToks. It could mean writing LinkedIn posts about your industry, your interests, your expertise, or the skills you’re building.

You don’t have to wait until you’re a senior manager to start. You can start today, and it can get you more opportunities.

Only a tiny percentage of people actually post on LinkedIn, and this isn’t even an ad. I just feel strongly about this because successful personal brands do not have to involve conventional influencing. I know talent managers, agency owners, founders, consultants, and creatives who don’t make content in the traditional sense, but they go on podcasts, speak at events, run workshops, write online, and become known in their space.

You may not want to do all of those things, but it shows the options are there. Outside of influencing, you can still build authority, and that authority can boost your career.

But you won’t get those opportunities by waiting for them to happen. You get them by acting like someone who already belongs in those rooms.

Double down on what’s working

I’m a huge advocate for diversifying your income, and if you create content, diversifying your platforms so you’re not dependent on one algorithm.

However, there is a lot to be said for spreading yourself too thin.

This is something I’ve really felt recently. I’ve tried to post on every single platform, and I don’t think it served me that well. Short form is my bread and butter. That is where I understand the format, the audience, the storytelling, the hooks, and the rhythm. That is where I have the highest ROI.

So think about the things that actually give you the highest return. It might be one platform. It might be one skill. It might be one type of work. It might be one relationship that keeps paying dividends.

When you are really keen to build something incredible, everything else can start to look like an opportunity. Most of it is just a distraction.

Visuals do matter

This doesn’t have to cost that much.

For example, I did a self-shoot studio photoshoot where you go in with a clicker, take your own pictures, and leave with professional-looking images. I still use those photos to this day

Obviously, I’m a former model, and I have used photographers before. I’d always love to support their work. But if you’re just starting out and you feel shy, this can be a really good option.

You don’t need a huge production. You need pictures that look clear, intentional, and like you. Something with a bit of personality. Something that makes it easier for people to understand your world.

What matters most with any brand is the packaging. It allows people to make quick decisions about whether they like something, whether it represents them, and whether it aligns with what they want to achieve. This is why my YouTube views went from 2k to 230k when I started thinking more intentionally about copywriting and thumbnails. It is a classic example of how packaging changes the way a message is perceived.

Build the brand before you need it

Your personal brand is an asset because it creates optionality.

It can make people think of you when an opportunity comes up. It can make you more memorable in a crowded industry. It can help you attract clients, jobs, friendships, collaborations, podcast invites, speaking gigs, and rooms you didn’t even know existed.

This isn’t about becoming an influencer or being performative, it’s just becoming more intentional about the reputation you are already building.

So ask yourself: if someone described me in a room I wasn’t in, would I be happy with what they said?

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

While others seem to enjoy it. Shock.

From the outside, it makes no sense. Why not just enjoy life now? We don’t know how long we’ve got, and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

In this issue

• Why the Die with Zero argument is compelling, but incomplete

• The problem with reading “enjoy life now” through YOLO eyes

• How saving small amounts in your early 20s becomes an unofficial cheat code

• Why an FU fund matters, particularly for women

• How buying ETFs started feeling like buying freedom

The argument for spending your money

In Bill Perkins’ book Die with Zero, he argues that instead of hoarding wealth, money’s true value is creating meaningful experiences. You should aim to spend your wealth, and not be too concerned with passing on inheritance to your kids.

This is a very strong argument, which I agree with to an extent. For example, you should travel when you’re relatively young because having that same experience at 80 won’t feel the same. It’s not impossible, but it won’t be as enjoyable.

Equally, memories pay dividends. You’re able to reflect on your life and re-live the good times, as opposed to if you just scrimped and saved with nothing to look back on.

These are all compelling points, and I’d agree. However, if seen by the wrong eyes, the eyes of someone who’s never saved or considered things like investing, it could feed the common mindset of “YOLO” when it comes to money.

Balance in any area of life is key

Balance in any area of life is key, and I don’t believe absolutes are helpful to anyone. Just like a diet, a financial diet needs variety. If one were truly to spend endlessly, this, as we know, leads to many problems.

Having no savings or assets leaves you at the mercy of the whims of others, giving you very little optionality.

My case for saving in my early 20s, even if it started with small amounts on an entry-level wage, was that I had learnt about concepts like compound growth, investing for the long term and the benefits of delayed gratification.

I knew that starting early gave me an unofficial cheat code for getting ahead. While peers thought saving only £50 was virtually pointless, I knew it was building my emergency fund, then funding investments that could compound over time.

I still did all the things one would do at that age. I worked a normal job, saw friends multiple times a week, bought clothes and went out from time to time. I’d had a rebellious phase in my teens, so I’d got over the feeling that in order to live life to the fullest, I had to be out into the early hours of the morning. So I was quite grounded and saved as much as I could.

The uncomfortable groundwork

This period of putting my head down was amplified when I started posting content alongside my job, which really just started as a hobby. I never expected to make a penny from it, but that added a layer of graft to this time.

I was saving and investing aggressively and utilising most of my free time to make more money. Like anything, at the start it was small. I was getting £200 for a brand deal. But over time, it grew.

I was at a point of juggling a full-time job, content, the occasional modelling job, trying to maintain a social life, relationship, etc, and saving a lot. I just reflect on it as being a bit of an uncomfortable time. I knew I was working hard so I could enjoy life later.

By later, I don’t mean at 60. I just knew I was setting the groundwork to move out and have more financial freedom. When I was still living at home, I had no idea I would leave my 9-5, but it’s like I was unknowingly also setting myself up to do that.

That’s the part I wish I could tell my 18-year-old followers, or anyone who can’t be convinced to save or have a side hustle. It may feel like it’s not going anywhere at the start, but it’s the principle. The habits you build now set the framework for how you live in your 20s and 30s.

I still follow the same Frugal Chic philosophy I did when I was on £30k a year. I pay myself first, I diversify my income, I splurge on what I truly value and I cut down unnecessary spending, even if I don’t have to now. Because money doesn’t change people, it only amplifies who they already are. You’re still making a vote for who you are now.

Seeing saving as a promise to myself

So what switched? How did I go from seeing saving as boring to something enjoyable? It’s almost incomprehensible why someone would want to do that.

Firstly, I treated it as a promise to myself. Kind of like how people don’t actually need certain results from the gym, they just want to be consistent, to be healthy and to show up for themselves. Saving was a way to do that.

I found that because I was doing it unconsciously, for example, setting up a direct debit to my savings, it felt even easier to keep this promise.

When you keep promises to yourself, it builds confidence. You’re saying to yourself, I mean what I say. That’s a powerful feeling.

Saving as empowerment

Secondly, there is a serious gap in wealth between men and women. Of course, times are changing, and I’m actually now out-earning men my age, but it doesn’t change the overall system.

The UK gender wealth gap stands at around 21%, with men holding an average total wealth of £378,079 compared with £300,017 for women. That is a difference of around £78,000. The gap is even more severe when you look at pensions: the Women’s Budget Group reports a gender pension gap of 43%, with men holding nearly £67,000 more in pension wealth than women.

The UK also has one of the largest gender pension gaps in the OECD, with OECD data showing women receive monthly pensions more than 35% lower than men’s in the UK.

So saving and investing my money was a way of empowering myself. I always talk about an FU fund: a pot of money you have in case you want to walk away. That’s the most important thing, even if you don’t think you need it.

Because for women, money is not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s the ability to leave a bad job, a bad relationship, a bad living situation, or a version of your life that no longer fits.

Getting addicted to the number increasing

Thirdly, I got addicted to seeing the number increase. I almost gamified it.

I remember going to a friend at the time and saying, “Look, I’ve been keeping track of my dividends from investing.” I showed her my Notes app: “£0.56 from Coca-Cola.”

“Ohh, that’s nice,” she said, with a forced smile, nodding encouragingly as if I were a toddler showing a drawing.

The point is, I was into it. It was a hobby. No one’s judgement could convince me it was pointless, and I enjoyed it. Now I have over £100k invested, proving there are worse addictions to have and starting small is completely valid.

Replacing shopping with other interests

Fourthly, I managed to start saving more because I replaced shopping with other interests.

I like to say I sadly substituted my “swag” for this life now. I don’t dress nearly as experimentally or cool as I used to, but I actually am happier now.

Before, I was constantly wondering whether I was wearing the right thing, what the cool “in the know” brands were, and trying to stay up to date with trends.

Now my wardrobe is, on the surface, boring. But it works for me. The attention has moved elsewhere to films, the gym, creating content, travelling, that I just don’t care as much anymore.

Buying assets aka buying freedom

I wasn’t just saving, I was buying assets aka buying my freedom.

Once I started to view buying ETFs as buying my freedom, I felt so much more inclined to keep going. It meant I was bringing my retirement age down even further.

This was when I was at my 9-5 and desperate to escape. Obviously, I enjoy work, clearly, and therefore it’s not about escaping work entirely, but increasing optionality.

The takeaway

Those are a few mindset shifts I made in order to grasp the art of saving.

That being said, I wasn’t just saving. I was investing. I was building simultaneously. This isn’t me saying, coupon your way to happiness. It’s saying that saving gives you options, and options, particularly as a woman, are power.

And maybe this is where I return to Die with Zero. I don’t think the goal is to die with the biggest investment portfolio and no memories. That sounds bleak. But I also don’t think the goal is to spend everything in the name of “living life” while quietly removing your own choices.

To me, the point is to use money while you’re alive. But that includes using it to buy experiences, yes, and also using it to buy peace, leverage, confidence and the ability to walk away.

If you’ve always struggled to see what the point is, let this be proof that at the start it can feel small. But saving is a promise to yourself, and over time, that promise compounds into confidence and optionality.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

I’d scroll the ASOS new in page as a form of entertainment.

I’d have every fast fashion retailer on my phone in a folder and be subscribed to every email newsletter.

This resulted in the clothes I wore wearing me, instead of me wearing the clothes.

I feel this a lot now, with the ‘how to dress like an THAT girl’ tutorials. Somehow it feels like we are wearing a costume.

The worst part is, I don’t own any of those clothes now. They were either sold or donated.

Sure, I am grateful for that experimental phase, everyone needs one. But to me there are so many lessons which in hindsight seem obvious.

In this issue:

Why natural fibres used to be the standard, not the luxury

How care labels reveal whether you’re paying for quality or marketing

Why decluttering is one of the most underrated financial habits

The danger of saving your best things for an imaginary future

How to build a wardrobe based on your real life, not your fantasy self

Care label > brand label

A lot of people are going to roll their eyes at this.

So let me be clear: I am not demonising polyester, and I am not demonising anyone who buys synthetic clothing out of necessity.

I am also not telling you to go out and buy a £500 cashmere jumper.

But I do think we need to talk about how disconnected we have become from what our clothes are actually made of.

Because for most of human history, clothing was made from natural fibres.

Cotton.

Wool.

Linen.

Silk.

Leather.

That was the standard.

Then synthetic fibres came along.

Nylon was introduced in the late 1930s and became famous through stockings. Polyester followed in the 1940s and became mainstream in the decades after because it was cheaper, durable, wrinkle-resistant and easier to mass produce.

And to be fair, this was revolutionary.

Synthetic fibres made clothing more affordable. They made certain garments more practical. They democratised access to fashion.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing synthetics as the alternative and started treating them as the default.

Now you can walk into a shop, pick up a jumper, see that it costs £80, check the label and realise it is mostly polyester or acrylic.

And this is exactly why care labels matter.

The Frugal Chic rule: never let the brand tell you something is quality. Let the label prove it.

Decluttering is a financial audit

Decluttering is arguably an underrated financial hack.

You are forced to confront previous purchases and reflect on them, quite literally left at the end thinking, “This all used to be money.”

This doesn’t mean decluttering just to fill the space again, or getting rid of things you genuinely value.

There is a plethora of research to suggest that minimalism can have a positive impact on wellbeing in the home, and this likely affects other areas of life too.1

In a similar vein, clutter can often have negative effects.2

While there’s no evidence to suggest a direct correlation between decluttering and future purchases, in my own life, I’ve noticed it has made me want to shop less because I find pieces I’d forgotten about.

Quite often, we have that craving for something new because we aren’t showing enough gratitude for what we already have.

Wear your sunday best

We often have this idea that our best, smartest clothes are for Sundays, because traditionally, “Sunday best” was a phrase used to describe your church outfit.

Obviously, society has largely evolved, and I by no means mean to make this a religious comment. I mean it more symbolically.

We often leave our nice things for a rainy day. We don’t want to burn the Diptyque candle, use the nice mug, or wear that cashmere jumper.

My advice? Life is too short not to use the things you have.

This could be a scarcity mindset, and it could result in you often wearing outfits you don’t love because, in an ideal world, you’d wear the crisp white shirt you’ve been saving for “best.”

Use cost per wear, not just cost

A cheap item is not always good value, and an expensive item is not automatically an investment.

This is where cost per wear matters.

A £20 top worn once has cost you £20 per wear.

A £120 coat worn 100 times has cost you £1.20 per wear.

Obviously, this does not mean you need to justify every expensive purchase with girl maths.

But it does mean price alone tells you very little.

Value comes from use.

The clothes that pay dividends in your wardrobe are usually the ones you reach for repeatedly. The jeans that always work. The jumper that goes with everything. The coat you wear every winter. The boots that survive actual weather.

These are the assets in your wardrobe.

The liabilities are the pieces that take up space, require constant styling, only work for one hypothetical occasion, or make you feel slightly uncomfortable every time you put them on.

Build for your real life, not your fantasy self

A wardrobe you actually wear has to be built around your actual life.

Your commute. Your climate. Your job. Your laundry habits. Your budget. Your body. Your willingness to steam, dry clean, hand wash or maintain things properly.

I’ve said this a few times and people get up in air, ‘I wfh but I like to dress up and wear tailored trousers’. But that’s literally the point. It’s for your lifestyle and preferences. That doesn’t mean you are resigned to joggers and an oversized t-shirt. It might mean you wear business casual that takes you through to an evening event.

This could even involve having to plan for changes in your body during and after pregnancy, or fluctating weight. That’s why this capsule wardrobe idea falls flat for most people. Rather than trying to fit all your clothing into 10 items, instead, work out what is genuinely going to be useful to you.

The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to take more mirror selfies. You’re not trying to be an influencer and it’s not vanity. You’re collecting evidence of what you reached for.

That way your future purchases are based on data, not impulse.

In summation:

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

To my inner circle,

For those of you who are building a business in this new digital landscape, I wanted to share a few recent learnings from inside the creator economy.

After growing to over 800k across my platforms and making £86k profit this month, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what is actually moving the needle.

This paid tier is where we break the fourth wall and go deeper into the strategy behind it all.

Because yes, Frugal Chic is about budgeting and investing.

But equally, a huge part of what is helping me move towards financial freedom is not just the everyday personal finance habits. It is building a business, creating leverage, and understanding how attention works in this new economy.

In this issue:

• Why the creator economy is changing what credibility, access and influence look like

• The difference between having a niche and becoming a one-dimensional resource

• Why memory recall matters more than chasing random viral moments

• How storytelling, personal anecdotes and perspective turn content into a brand

• Why the creators who last are the ones who genuinely enjoy the process

Why the creator economy is changing

The truth is, the creator economy is reshaping the media landscape and overall culture faster than we are realising.

I’ve noticed this a lot recently.

Obsession is the best film I’ve seen all year so far. It was made by a YouTuber in 20 days.

I got to go to Downing St for a creator briefing and tour. This received some negativity, because on social media it’s impossible to please anyone. Setting aside your feelings on this, my point is: I got to go. When in my life would I have ever gone? We quite literally got a tour of the Cabinet.

I am getting invited on panels to speak with industry experts with over 20+ years of experience. I objectively don’t deserve to be there in a traditional sense, but I am.

So we’re stuck in this weird place where everyone is desperate to become a content creator, but for me, it’s so clear from the outside, as someone who’s made it, who has what it takes and who doesn’t.

I get asked A LOT what my advice would be for beginner content creators who want to build a content brand like Frugal Chic®. How I grew to 800k followers collectively and became a household name in the influencer space in less than two years.

Here are the recent developments in my approach and mindset.

Firstly, have a niche, but don’t just become a resource.

So there’s this tension that many small creators swing between. Perhaps they have no niche, and that’s why they aren’t memorable. Or they niched down too much, and now people see them as a resource, but they don’t really care about them.

Let’s address the first problem: having no niche. There are a lot of people saying, “You are the niche,” which is true, but you have to have the most charisma I’ve ever seen. There are very few people who, for example, in their early 20s, have had enough life experience and wisdom to be able to pull from lots of different areas and excel at talking about ‘anything’.

Being able to talk about many topics is something I believe comes later, after you have established a core audience that cares. I can make a video about food or a recipe, but I will tie it back to saving money. My strength was being known for finance. I want people to associate finance on TikTok with me. That kind of memory recall only happens when you’re known for something specific.

Read more

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language we use around money.

Not the technical stuff. Not ISAs, pensions, index funds or tax wrappers. I mean the casual sentences we say without thinking. The little throwaway comments that reveal how much autonomy we believe we have.

Because the way you speak about money does not just describe your reality. It often reinforces it.

The more financially literate I’ve become, the more I’ve realised there are certain things I just do not say to myself anymore.

In this issue:

• Why saying “I’m broke” can become an identity

• The difference between financial realism and learned helplessness

• Why “I can’t afford it” is not always the full sentence

• Why doing well young should not make you feel guilty

• Why “must be nice” is quietly keeping people stuck

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#1 “I’m broke”

Firstly, I’m not speaking to people who are genuinely financially struggling. There is a very real difference between being underpaid, unsupported, in debt, dealing with rising costs, or living paycheque to paycheque, and casually saying “I’m broke” because you spent your money impulsively.

This is surprisingly common among middle and upper-middle-class people.

The trust fund kid who spends their allowance in a week. The woman with a decent salary who gets into debt because fast fashion becomes a crutch. The person who earns well but never knows where their money went.

I am not here to judge, I caught myself saying this a few times when I was younger to fit in. It’s like being bad with money used to be cool, especially when you’re in your late teens and nonchalance is seen as social capital.

When you repeatedly tell yourself “I’m broke”, you are not just describing a financial state. You are creating an identity.

And when broke becomes your identity, your habits start to match it.

You stop looking for solutions. You stop tracking your expenses. You stop taking ownership. You start believing money is something that happens to you, rather than something you can learn to manage. As I spoke about recently, being low agency is thinking you don’t have the power to change your circumstances.

A more honest sentence might be:

“I am not where I want to be currently, but I am working towards my goals.”

It’s still realistic, but it puts the responsibility back in your court. You can acknowledge that things might be tight, you might not earn enough, or maybe you didn’t spend in line with your values. That doesn’t define you forever

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#2 “I can’t afford to”

Sometimes, this is a responsible sentence. If something is genuinely outside your means, saying “I can’t afford to” is financial literacy. I thought repeating this meant I was making financial boundaries and being mature.

But sometimes, it becomes a default setting.

“I can’t afford to invest.”

“I can’t afford to start a business.”

“I can’t afford to move.”

“I can’t afford to take time off.”

“I can’t afford to build the life I want.”

And you see this a lot at the moment in the discourse around friendships: the idea that we now can’t afford to “hang out.”

This is true, the cinema costs at least £20, coffee is sometimes £5, and there is a lack of third spaces. We have a cost of living.

But what I think a lot of people are missing is that we are glued to our phones. We often aren’t just short of cash, we are short of attention, energy, and creativity because it is constantly being siphoned off by whatever seven-second clip keeps us engaged.

We don’t stop to think that maybe friendship can be more casual. It can be going for a food shop with someone, having a cup of tea at home, doing a low-cost activity, or even just sending them a playlist rather than a meme.

This extends beyond friendship, to just how we see life in general and what we think we are capable of.

At some point, “I can’t afford it” can become a full stop when it should be a question.

The better reframe is:

“How could I afford this?”

That does not mean buying everything you want. It means moving from victim mode into thinking strategically.

Maybe the answer is saving for six months. Maybe it is earning more. Maybe it is cutting something else. Maybe it is realising you do not actually want the thing enough to make the trade-off.

To me, that’s financial maturity.

#3 “Doing X by 25 isn’t normal”

Whenever someone does something impressive young, people love to say it is “not normal”.

Buying a home by 25. Saving six figures. Starting a business. Investing early. Leaving a job. Building a platform. Becoming financially independent.

This is a healthy topic to bring up. So often social media can make us feel awful as it shows us a highlight reel of other people’s lives. Through ‘de-influencing’ we are making the internet a more relatable space.

However, where I draw the line is where “not normal” is used as a way to flatten ambition or shame perhaps young women for using their unfair advantage to get ahead, as they rightfully should.

You do not need to make your goals smaller just because they make other people uncomfortable. You also do not need to pretend privilege, timing, luck and support do not play a role.

Both can be true.

You can acknowledge your advantages and still take your own ambition seriously.

I won’t be participating in this trend or this way of speaking because I don’t want to be normal. I want above-average results and therefore my input has to be above average.

Focusing too much on ‘normal’ keeps you normal.

All of us aspire to change our lives, ‘get rich’, get PR, but when someone does, they immediately get demonised. Let’s be clear, anyone, if they could trade places, would probably act accordingly.

I saw a creator make a point recently that really stuck with me. She said, “Girls support girls until girls see a girl who’s living their dream life.”

And honestly, I think that sums up so much of the discourse around ambition, especially online.

We say we want women to win. We say we support women building wealth, marrying well, becoming successful, being visible, looking good, being chosen, being paid, being free. But the second a woman actually has the thing other people secretly want, suddenly the tone changes.

She’s “not that special.”

“She had it easy.”

“She’s only with him for the money.”

“She doesn’t deserve it.”

“I don’t get the hype.”

But underneath a lot of that criticism is projection.

I also saw this idea echoed here. Sometimes it is easier to dismiss someone else’s success than admit that you want something similar for yourself. It is easier to call someone privileged, lucky, undeserving or cringe than sit with the discomfort of your own ambition.

And I think this is especially true in the UK, where wanting more can feel socially risky. You are allowed to be quietly successful, but not too visibly ambitious. You are allowed to do well, but only if you constantly apologise for it. You are allowed to want a better life, but only if you frame it in the most self-deprecating way possible.

Wanting more money, more freedom, more beauty, more ease, more opportunity, more choice, more life is not embarrassing. What is embarrassing is pretending you don’t want those things and then hating women who were brave enough to admit that they did.

#4 “Must be nice”

This phrase feels harmless and light-hearted, but it often carries a hidden resentment.

And sometimes, yes, people are privileged. Some people do have help. Some people do get a head start.

But “must be nice” can become a way of dismissing other people’s effort so you do not have to examine your own options.

A more powerful response is:

“What can I learn from this?”

Because envy can either make you bitter or it can give you information about your desires.

Maybe they negotiated. Maybe they invested early. Maybe they took a risk. Maybe they had family support. Maybe they built a skill. Maybe they got lucky.

But one thing I would never do is wish for someone else’s situation, because you never actually know what goes on behind the scenes.

That influencer who hit 500k and bought a house? They got cheated on by their partner of six years.

That girl who bought a house? Her dad doesn’t spend time with her, he just pays her off.

That CEO you’re so envious of? They spent the last week eating takeaways and forgetting to text their friends.

Maybe they don’t even have any ‘skeletons in the closet’ or struggles but that isn’t the point. Pocket watching other people’s success and trying to cancel them online only delays your own success because it’s too much time and energy directed at someone else when it could be directed at you.

So, financial literacy is not just knowing what an ISA is.

It is learning how to speak to yourself like someone with agency.

Life doesn’t happen to you, you happen to it.

This isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It is not ignoring structural issues or acting like everyone has the same starting point.

But expanders, those who truly build something in life, know the levers they can pull.

And the language you use often determines whether you look for them.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

Why £1m?

Because it’s the number I’ve used to measure my “enough”.

Yes, after that, ambition will still exist. I don’t want to stop working. But what it will do is give me the financial freedom that so many of us dream of but rarely calculate.

In this issue:

• Why £1 million is my ‘Barista FIRE number’

• The uncomfortable truth about creator income and career longevity

• Why staying at my 9-5 eventually became the more expensive option

• How I’m scaling without selling my soul to every brand deal

• The lifestyle creep rule that will probably matter more than income

Why it doesn’t have to be a dream

It’s hard to talk about financial ambition in the UK without being labelled as privileged or out of touch.

And yes, I always acknowledge the privilege that has already helped me get to a £200k net worth by 25. Things like living at home for two years after uni, being able-bodied and conventionally attractive, and coming from a stable home.

That being said, I had a really “normal” childhood.

In the sense that I never owned branded clothing, a lot of the activities we did were free, treats and gifts really were for Christmas and it was only in my mid-teens that I felt a shift in financial security and abundance.

So I wasn’t poor, but growing up, money felt tight.

But now, saying I want to get to £1m feels complicated. I’m no longer in my entry-level fashion job on £30k a year. Now, as a business owner, I have uncapped earning potential, and that changes the conversation.

But I don’t think ambition only becomes acceptable when you’re the underdog. Sometimes the most honest thing you can do is admit you have a chance to ‘make it’ at something, and then actually go for it.

Why £1m is my end game

With that in mind, it all started with an obsession.

Ever since I went down this rabbit hole of personal finance and investing, I’ve had one number in my head: £1 million.

Because what does £1 million mean to most of us?

It means you’ve made it. You’re rich. You never have to worry about money again. You can finally relax.

And yes, before the personal finance police arrive, I know there will always be someone saying, “Well, actually, £1 million isn’t what it used to be,” or “What about inflation?” And fine, technically true. But let’s be honest, £1 million is still life-changing money.

Maybe it doesn’t buy you a yacht, a townhouse in Chelsea and a private chef, but it does buy you something far more valuable.

Options.

Why it matters to me

The reason £1 million matters to me is because I’ve done the maths.

Based on the 4% rule, which is the idea that you can withdraw around 4% of your investment portfolio each year without running out, £1 million could give you roughly £40,000 a year. You withdraw 4% and, in theory, your portfolio still grows due to average stock market historically returning around 10% per year before inflation, or roughly 6–7% per year after inflation, although this is an average and returns are never guaranteed.

It would mean covering most of my living expenses: rent, bills, groceries, just the essentials. Over time, it would also have less buying power due to inflation. Hence my actual FIRE number would be around £1.25m. But that’s actually okay with me seeing as it’s only supplementing a portion of my lifestyle.

This is approach is more aligned with Barista FIRE. Basically, having enough invested that you don’t need to rely on full-time work in the traditional sense, but you may still choose to work part-time, freelance, create, consult, or build things because you want to.

The FIRE withdrawals cover my needs, and any extras like travelling, a designer bag or

That is the dream for me.

Not never working again.

Not lounging on a sunbed doing nothing and slowly getting bored.

Just freedom.

The ability to work because I choose to, not because I have to.

Creator income is lucrative, but it is not guaranteed

Content creation is seen as this extremely lucrative field, and in many ways, it can be.

I’m very aware that I am lucky. I’m probably in the top percentage of creators when it comes to niche, income and commercial opportunity. Personal finance is a high-value niche, and I have built a brand that sits at the intersection of money, investing, fashion, ambition and lifestyle.

But I’m also not delusional.

The average creator career is not guaranteed to last forever. Trends change. Platforms change. Audiences change.

A 2025 Billion Dollar Boy study of 1,000 creators in the US and UK found that 52% of creators had experienced burnout because of their career, and 37% had actively considered leaving the profession. So it’s safe to say content creation is not always the dream job people imagine, especially when it comes to wellbeing.

And even though I want longevity, I also have to be honest with myself. I don’t know if I can see myself at 50 still filming day-in-the-life videos and telling strangers exactly what is in my investment portfolio (not that there is anything wrong with being an older creator - because I love to see that!!).

Maybe I will. Maybe Frugal Chic® evolves into books, products, media, education, events, or something I can’t even imagine yet.

But I want the option to change.

That is what this is really about.

Having a personal brand or being a creator is carefully caring the emotional labour of performing a commercially packaged version of oneself.

That’s just not something I want forever.

So i’m not retiring because I hate work. Retiring from the need to constantly perform for income.

Scale is the reason this is even possible

The first part of my £1m blueprint is scale.

And this is where I have to be honest: this goal would not have been possible if I had stayed in my 9-5.

There is a lot of content online saying you don’t need to quit your job to build something on the side, and I completely agree with that for most people. In fact, the whole reason I had a side hustle alongside my 9-5 was because I believed having multiple sources of income was smart.

You haven’t failed at life because you are a full-time employee. Especially if the job is not destroying your mental health. You have sick pay, annual leave and maternity leave. In many ways, you are winning.

But there is such a thing as opportunity cost.

For me, the only reason I left was because I started turning down financial opportunities because of my job. Sneaking off to the toilets to take a mandatory briefing call or saying no to an event I knew could lead to a four-figure deal. At a certain point, staying became the thing that was costing me money.

That doesn’t mean everyone should quit their job.

But in my situation, going all in meant I could finally scale the thing that had the highest earning potential.

In the last six months, my life has become unrecognisable. I have had months where I could make my old yearly salary in a month, which still feels insane to say out loud.

So now, my focus isn’t necessarily on how I can earn more. It’s trying to build something that does not depend entirely on me doing everything.

That means outsourcing. Recently, I hired support in the business, and that was a big mental shift. For a long time, I felt deeply uncomfortable with the idea of paying someone to do things I technically could do myself. Now my business has to generate over £6-7k a month just to pay for wages alone, whereas before, it was almost pure profit.

I realised, if someone else can do something 80% as well as me, and it frees me up to do the thing only I can do, which is as Naval would say ‘earn with my mind’.

Saying no to money is part of scaling

This sounds backwards, but another part of getting to £1 million is saying no to more money.

Recently, I made a video saying I had turned down over £89,000 in brand deals, and it was true.

On paper, if I’m trying to reach £1 million as quickly as possible, surely I should say yes to every opportunity?

But this is where short-term cash and long-term brand equity are not the same thing.

Some brand deals are not worth the cheque because they dilute the trust I’ve built. Some would confuse the audience. Some would position me in a way that makes sense for the the money, but not credibility.

Scalability does not mean saying yes to everything.

It means saying yes to the right things, repeatedly, with faith in myself to keep bringing in those opportunities.

The boring rule: keep lifestyle exactly the same

The next part of my plan is probably the least glamorous, but it matters the most.

I am keeping my lifestyle basically the same.

Lifestyle creep is when your spending quietly rises alongside your income. You get the promotion, then the nicer flat comes in. The upgraded wardrobe. The extra subscriptions. The Ubers. The dinners. The “I deserve this” purchases.

And honestly, sometimes you do deserve it.

But lifestyle creep is dangerous because it does not feel dramatic while it is happening. That is why it creeps.

I’m proud that, for the most part, my spending has stayed fairly similar to when I was earning around £30k a year. I’ll spend on trips, experiences and things I genuinely value, but my monthly lifestyle usually sits around £2,000 to £2,500.

That is extremely intentional.

And yes, part of it is because self-employment is uncertain. Creator income can fluctuate. You can have an incredible month, then a quiet one.

But the bigger reason is freedom.

If I keep my lifestyle relatively low, I don’t need to earn a ridiculous amount every month just to maintain it. I can say no to unaligned work. I can take creative risks. I can invest aggressively - which in turn brings that £1m closer.

Lower expenses give me more optionality.

And optionality is the whole point.

The next step: building beyond myself

The next obvious step for me is diversifying revenue streams.

A product. A brand. An asset that lives beyond me posting every day.

I’ve been thinking a lot about creator-led brands. People like Maddie Borge with Pastael, Miles with Signet, and creators who have managed to turn audience trust into something tangible.

For me, the next step has to make sense within Frugal Chic®.

It cannot just be merch. It cannot just be a random planner.

It has to be something my audience genuinely wants, something that fits into the way they live, spend, save, organise, dress, think or build wealth. Day-to-day I find myself working out the things I use the most and how I would do them differently.

The real reason I want £1 million

£1 million is not about looking rich.

It is not even really about the money itself.

It is about being able to wake up and know that my life is not entirely dependent on one platform, one brand, one algorithm, one industry, one income stream, or one version of myself.

That is what financial freedom means to me.

The ability to say no.

So this is the beginning of my Road to £1m.

I plan to get there by scaling what works, investing aggressively, being Frugal Chic®, and remembering that the whole point of wealth is not to look rich.

It is to actually be rich.

That’s all this week,

Mia xx

This weeks YouTube video:

Not because I didn’t care about it, but because I wasn’t totally clear on what should live here versus what should stay on the main newsletter. The more I’ve thought about it, the clearer it’s become. My main newsletter is for personal finance, investing, money mindset and Frugal Chic® as a lifestyle philosophy.

This space is different.

This is where I want to talk about business, content creation, marketing strategy, behind-the-scenes decisions, mistakes I’ve made, what I’m investing in, and the things I don’t always want to share publicly. Basically, the stuff that feels too specific, too revealing, or too “inside the business” for the main audience. As the name suggests, it’s Frugal Chic® HQ.

In this issue:

• Why I finally hired help after doing everything myself for too long

• The creator subscriptions I actually pay for

• How auto-DMs helped drive serious digital product sales

• Why I’m spending money on editing before the platforms fully pay me back

• The difference between being frugal personally and being underinvested professionally

Read more

Money can feel exactly the same. You download an investing app for the first time and suddenly it’s all ETFs, ISAs, SIPPs, asset allocation. No wonder so many people close the app and decide to “look into it properly later.” Whenever I’ve spoken with friends about investing, they say ‘I need to just allocate a whole day to set everything up’. It’s as if it’s as dry to them as helping their nan fix the tv channels or like it’s this whole operation. I tell them “it’s really not as complicated as you think, it could take 2 minutes”. They read that as ‘it’s easy for me, so it should be the same for you.’

A lot of us are operating like the person who buys the lululemon set and the weights, but doesn’t know where to start. We might have the cash to save and invest, but because we don’t understand the purpose, or how to actually go about it. It’s much easier to ignore it all together. Pensions are for when we’re older right?

In this issue

• Why financial confidence feels like gym confidence: awkward before it becomes habitual

• The money version of counting macros, and why tracking every penny is not the only way

• Why FIRE can be the marathon of personal finance, inspiring but not compulsory

• How to stop comparing your “day one” finances to someone else’s six-pack portfolio

• The simple financial workout plan most people actually need

Becoming financially fit does not mean becoming obsessive or optimising everything for ‘tax-efficiency’. It means building enough knowledge and confidence that money stops feeling evil, confusing, or something that quietly controls every decision.

The goal is not to become the financial equivalent of a bodybuilder: impressive from the outside, optimised for competition, disciplined to the point of obsession, but with the strength of a soggy noddle.

The goal is to become the person who has a healthy, sustainable relationship with exercise in whatever form actually suits them. A regular gym session, martial arts, swimming, long walks, Pilates, whatever. The point is not to perform fitness. The point is to feel capable in your own body.

Financial fitness is the same, it’s deeply personal. For one person, it is paying off debt. For another, it is building a 6 month emergency fund. For someone else, it is investing every month, changing careers, increasing their income, or finally understanding what their pension is doing.

What is the risk of avoidance

Without focusing too heavily on the negative, because like fitness, financial progress is not equally available to everyone. Some people are dealing with low income, illness, caring responsibilities, or simply trying to get through the month.

Not enaging at all doesn’t suddenly make the problems disappear.

There is a reason why Benjamin Franklin once said, “money makes money.” Once you have savings, investments, assets, or even just breathing room, your money can start working for you. Like a farm, you can ‘grow more money’. But when you avoid it completely, the inverse happens (ok, not literally). Bills go up. Cash sits in a current account losing spending power to inflation. Your pension may be invested in a default fund you’ve never checked.

It’s like sitting stationary for years and assuming your body will somehow stay strong. You build muscle, mobility, and bone density now so that later in life, your body has more resilience. You don’t do it because every workout is life changing. You do it because tiny repeated actions compound.

Money works the same way.

Saving, investing, paying attention, and learning the basics are not just “nice to have” habits. They are how you build financial muscle.

Everyone has gym anxiety at first

Financial literacy has its own version of gym anxiety. You don’t want to ask a “stupid” question, so you avoid the whole thing. Paying off debt, starting to save and invest can feel like awkwardly sidestepping towards the weights and watching the pros glare at you.

I say this as someone who literally labels themselves as ‘not a sporty person’. When asked what exercise I do, I say, ‘Does walking count?’

But that’s why I understand this frustration about personal finance, because I also felt the same way. Growing up with zero financial literacy had me asking what an ISA was, but clumsily pronouncing it ‘I-S-A’ instead of ‘ICE-Ah’.

But nobody starts by understanding everything. You start accepting a new identity.

Seeing yourself as a saver, investor, debt free, even if it hasn’t happened yet. It sounds like the kind of ‘woo-woo’ advice you’d hear on an inspirational quotes Instagram page, but I can vouch for this method.

I felt like an investor when I had £25 in my ISA. I felt like a saver when I put 50% of my income away, and I earned £12 an hour. The starting point never feels impressive, but it is.

According to HMRC, around 7.5% of UK adults paid into a Stocks & Shares ISA in 2023/24, and 31% of UK adults have either no cash savings or less than £1,000 in emergency savings (FCA). It’s safe to say that even if you did open an ISA and put in £25, you’d be in the minority of people just willing to give it a go.

Not everyone needs to count macros

Some people love tracking every gram of protein. Some people love line by line budgeting. If that works for you, great. But it is not the only route to being financially fit.

For most people, the better starting point is knowing your big numbers: income, fixed costs, debt, savings rate, and what you invest each month. That’s your financial body scan.

Two options here.

A budgeting spreadsheet can help visualise your overall spending. It may seem excessive to some.

A simpler version is a budgeting app that automatically pulls data from different accounts to give you as less manual approach.

The key is, you don’t need to be tracking every iced latte to build wealth. You do need to be somewhat aware of how much your lifestyle costs month to month.

FIRE is the marathon, not the minimum standard.

The FIRE community can be incredibly inspiring. It shows what happens when people treat saving and investing like a serious sport. But not everyone wants to run the financial equivalent of an ultramarathon.

I’ve always seen the value in knowing your FIRE number in the same way a fitness coach might encourage you to know your weight, your strength level, or what you’re training towards. It gives you direction. It makes the goal measurable. But it is not supposed to become a punishment, and it is definitely not supposed to make you hate the process.

That’s what I loved about the FIRE movement when I first discovered it. It made financial freedom feel tangible. Not some vague “one day I’ll be rich” fantasy, but a number, a plan, a set of habits. It taught me the power of keeping promises to myself. Every time I saved, invested, or chose not to spend impulsively, I wasn’t depriving myself. I was building self-trust.

But there’s no doubt about it: reaching FIRE on an average 9–5 salary, even with a side hustle, requires sacrifice. The danger is pretending everyone should want the most extreme version. For most people, the goal does not need to be retiring early, it needs to be gaining stability and eventually growing their money.

For some, that’s a 6 month emergency fund. For others, it’s maxing out an ISA.

You don’t have to run the ultramarathon of finance to feel fit.

The “ripped” people are not the benchmark

In fitness, the most visible people are often the most extreme. The same is true with money.

This is amplified with social media. The people posting huge portfolios (guilty), aggressive savings rates, and “I saved 80% of my income” are impressive, but they are not always realistic.

Your benchmark is not someone else’s net worth. It is your own trajectory. Your goals, your circumstances, your privilege or lack of.

Another thing is trade-offs. That person flexing online may have worked 3 jobs for a year, neglected friendships or not had the most fruitful social life. Equally the person with the high consulting salary will have faced rejection left right and centre and perhaps is only in that industry to fulfil what their parents want. You can’t want someone’s output without needing all the conditions that created it.

Financial muscle is less about the end product and more about the small habits you build everyday and the deeply personal goals you set for you and only you.

The everyday financial workout

If you want a simple routine, start here.

1. Automate a small amount into savings or investments.

2. Review your spending once a week.

3. Log into your workplace pension.

4. Build a small emergency fund.

Open an ISA. You don’t necessarily have to invest straight away, but even opening the account can remove a lot of the fear. Sometimes confidence comes from making the thing feel less mysterious.

For example, this is where an investing platform like XTB can be a useful starting point. You can open a Stocks and Shares ISA, explore the app, understand what funds and ETFs actually look like, and get familiar with the process before deciding whether investing is right for you.

Open an ISA with XTB

AD | Disclaimer: Your capital is at risk when investing. The value of investments and the income from them can fall as well as rise and you might lose the original amount invested. Fluctuations in such value and income can result from factors such as market movements and variations in exchange rates. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

And you may be thinking, that’s it? It sounds too boring or simple. That’s the point.

A lot of people get sucked into hacks or get-rich-quick-schemes thinking there is some magic overnight treatment they can apply. In reality, building wealth is far slower, like drinking bone broth everyday instead of taking a collagen pouch once.

Because just like fitness, money pays dividends when you stop waiting to feel ready and start making it part of your normal life.

That’s all this week,

Mia x

And this is coming from someone who on the surface seems successful. Making multiple-figure months, can technically do what I want when I want without asking a boss for a day of annual leave, and I’m able to talk about what I want for a living.

It’s the dream on paper, but what isn’t spoken about enough is that, being predominantly a short-form creator, it’s very easy to get into ruts. Trying to please the algorithm, falling into comfortable patterns of creating and not experimenting. This ‘flop era’ I experience monthly isn’t just limited to content creation. In all aspects of life, it’s easy for things to feel a bit stale, lifeless.

Here is how I get my spark back time and time again.

In this issue:

• Why creative ruts are predictable

• The trap of “performing productivity”

• The one shift that resets your thinking fast

• How to rebuild taste (not just output)

• A simple 5 part system to get your spark back

5 things I do every time I feel stuck

I got back from Thailand yesterday and thought I’d be motivated to work again.
Instead, I spent the day making content I didn’t even like.

Read more

Always on their phones, taking important calls, ducking into meetings, hastily running to the next event.

I had this idea of success. It meant busyness. A day planned back-to-back with social engagements and things I thought would move the needle.

Yes, everything I’ve done and the work I’ve put in has paid off, but it doesn’t mean that strategy is supposed to last forever.

I’m a big believer in ‘seasons’… but no one tells you when it’s time to leave one behind.

In this issue:

• Why I used to equate success with busyness

• What changed after my first proper break as a full-time creator

• The concept of time affluence (and why it matters more than income)

• The moment money stops being the bottleneck… and time takes over

• A different way to think about wealth in your 20s

I’m writing this on a sunbed in Bangkok. It’s 7pm, it’s gentle temperature, and the whole skyline is in front of me. I’ve spent the last two weeks on my first proper holiday since becoming self-employed. For once, I actually allowed myself to switch off.

Yes, I still vlogged most days and took pictures, but I wasn’t scrolling, actively posting, or replying to DMs.

It sounds cliché to say, but I’ve come back as a different person.

I now feel so much stronger in the idea that I want to do less, deliberately. My past self would have seen that as lazy, or that I had “fallen off”. Now I see it as developing sharper boundaries with how I choose to spend my time.

My message has always been about building wealth and independence, particularly as a woman in her 20s. But wealth isn’t just financial.

The new status symbol

I recently came across the concept of time affluence.

It’s the hidden reason we strive to make more money. Because money buys choice, convenience, and most importantly, time, which is our most finite resource.

This feels especially relevant now. According to the Office for National Statistics, around 1.30–1.33 million people in the UK held a second job in 2025, with early 2026 estimates at roughly 1.29 million. With the cost of living where it is, that’s not surprising. And while I’m a big advocate for increasing and diversifying income, I can’t ignore that for many people, this isn’t a choice, it’s what they have to do to get by.

What this results in is an increase in income, but work slowly creeping into time was really should be for rest. We think that just clocking off at 5 and watching Netflix all evening is enough, but studies consistently show there are many kinds of rest that we can’t ignore. With rest on the decline and distraction increasing, it’s safe to say that time is the new secret indicator of wealth.

Yes, money matters. When you’re starting your wealth journey, it feels like every penny matters. That’s where Frugal Chic is born.

But for me I never really understood phrases like ‘time is money’ until it started applying to me. A few things changed my circumstances:

• Going self-employed

• Diversifying my income streams

• Investing consistently

Now that I’ve reached a stage where I feel more financially abundant than I did on my £30K salary, this is what I realised.

When money no longer becomes a restraint, time becomes the bottleneck.

You start to notice things differently.

The high earners commuting into the city every day, getting home at 7pm, exhausted. They may not actually be better off than the graduate on a lower salary who clocks off at 5pm, goes for a walk, sees friends, and actually lives.

On a flight, the person in business class who buys the wifi and is busy typing away might make more money, but they may not feel as fulfilled as the person in economy flicking through an array of films they’ve been dying to watch.

Switching off and doing less is a privilege and a luxury that took me so long to finally realise I could afford.

This realisation essentially made me see that more money doesn’t automatically equal a better life.

Not if it costs you all your time.

So maybe the goal isn’t just to earn more.

Maybe it’s to earn enough…

…and then start protecting your time like it’s your most valuable asset.

5 action points

1. Define your “enough” number: how much you need to live comfortably. For me, this has always been £2–2.5k a month. I rarely spend more than that. Even in five-figure months, I know that once my basic needs are covered and I’ve treated myself, I don’t need anything more to be happy. It’s important you decide this. Yes, you can chase more money, and I’m all for that if you’re building an emergency fund or working towards FIRE. But if it comes at the cost of all your spare time, it’s not worth it. Defining your financial “enough” sets the tone for how much work you say yes to.

2. Audit where your time is leaking: time-block your week and see where your attention is being pulled into things that aren’t giving you a return. Shallow coffee chats, people-pleasing obligations, and “opportunities” that benefit the other person more than you. Pay attention to patterns. If something consistently drains you or distracts you from higher-value work, it needs to go or be reduced. Your time should be allocated with the same level of intention as your money.

3. Start buying back your time early: don’t wait until you feel “rich” to do this. If you can afford small conveniences that remove friction from your day, take them. This could be outsourcing work, using delivery services, or automating parts of your life. The goal isn’t to be lazy, it’s to free up your time for things that actually move your life forward or make you feel better. I started doing this with meal prep services during busy periods and it did relieve a lot of mental load.

4. Shift from income goals to lifestyle design: instead of only focusing on how much you earn, think about how you want your days to look. What time do you wake up, how much do you work, how often do you see people, how much space do you have to think? Then build your income streams around that vision. It’s very easy to build a high income that traps you into a schedule you don’t even enjoy. A well-designed life should feel calm.

5. Protect your time like you protect your money: you wouldn’t casually spend hundreds of pounds without thinking, so don’t casually give away hours of your day. Be more selective with what you agree to. Set boundaries around your availability, your work hours, and your energy. Not everything needs a yes, and not everything deserves immediate access to you. The more you respect your own time, the more other people will too.

So, the core ingredient for living a Frugal Chic® life is defining your “enough”. Once you do that, you stop trying to squeeze productivity out of every second of the day.

You start being more selective. More intentional. You realise not every opportunity is worth taking, not every pound needs to be chased, and not every hour needs to be optimised.

Because when “enough” is clear, you’re no longer operating from scarcity.

You stop building a life that looks impressive on paper, and start building one that actually feels good to live.

https://substack.com/@miamcgrath/p-192994538

That’s all this week.

Now at 25 I have a £300k net worth, I run my own business and i’m working towards financial freedom.

In that time lots of factors came into play:

• living at home for 2 years

• living below my means

• always having a side hustle

• posting online and striking gold with timing and my niche

• investing and returns from the stock market

But the factor I don’t talk about enough is exposure.

You can’t act on what you’ve never heard of.

Growing up, money wasn’t a taboo topic, but it wasn’t something discussed in detail either. Financial literacy isn’t really taught in schools, particularly as I went to a state school too. Investing, compound interest, mortgages, you’re sort of expected to know these things, yet there’s no obvious place to learn about them.

When I get asked on podcasts what got me into investing, I say it’s because I had male friends at university who spoke about it as if it were commonplace, the same way they spoke about sports or beer. In terms of saving, I had a friend in sixth form who told me she saved 50% of all her earnings. I took that as gospel and did the same, albeit lacking the experience to know that it doesn’t always work like that.

The point is, I have consumed hours upon hours of content about financial literacy, yet all these experiences came from people in real life, conversations, asking questions, not from a screen. They were the starting board which sparked my interest, it gave me the awareness.

Becoming financially literate doesn’t mean reading an economics textbook from front to back. It’s more about what feels normal to you, what gets spoken about openly, and what you learn to see as possible.

In this issue:

• Why financial literacy isn’t built from consumption alone

• The real advantage most people overlook: proximity to better conversations

• How your environment quietly sets your financial ceiling

• The difference in how wealthy people talk about money (and why it matters)

Why financial literacy isn’t built from consumption alone

We often think that financial literacy will just “come to us” once we’ve read enough money books or listened to enough podcasts. That somehow, by osmosis, we’ll absorb the information.

And to an extent, that’s true. I learnt most of what I know about ISAs, pensions, and investing from binge-watching YouTube videos and reading money books when I should have been entering data during my first remote internship during COVID.

But a lot of what I know didn’t come from consuming content.

It came from conversations.

A friend in sixth form once told me she saved 50% of every paycheck. In hindsight, that is not realistic for most adults in the real world, but for a teenager living at home and working in a gift shop, it was incredibly disciplined. More importantly, it made saving that much feel normal to me. So I carried that mindset into my first proper job.

At university, I had male friends who would casually show me their investment portfolios. One was buying individual stocks, the other was invested in ETFs. I remember feeling like I’d been let into some private club. Not excluded exactly, just aware that this was a conversation I had not grown up around. That exposure made me curious enough to start researching investing for myself.

Later, I found out a friend was earning £2,000 more than me despite having two years less experience. That conversation was uncomfortable, but useful. It made me realise I was underestimating my own value, and it directly pushed me to negotiate, which later led to a £10,000 pay rise.

I also remember an ex-boyfriend in sixth form telling me he was saving for a house deposit. I genuinely did not even know what that really meant at the time. But hearing someone my age speak about money in that way planted a seed. It made me think, maybe this is something I should care about too.

That is what I think people miss when they talk about financial literacy.

It’s those in-person moments that no video can really replace, it has a more personal meaning and I think forces us to take more action than just saving a video. I think how differently my life would feel if I never had the courage to ask those questions - even if they felt slightly uncomfortable at the time.

Now, as my life has changed quite dramatically over the past year, going from earning £30k in a junior role in fashion to becoming a full-time creator who can make 5-figure months, something I am surprised about is that the conversations I’m part of, and the rooms I’m in, have completely shifted again.

And it makes me wonder: if I had just been more curious, more proactive, could I have accessed these conversations sooner?

How your environment quietly sets your financial ceiling

Most of us are operating under an invisible ceiling. A quiet limit on what we think is possible for our lives. If no one around you is investing, you don’t think to ask about investing. If no one is earning beyond a certain level, that becomes your reference point. If no one is building anything of their own, full-time employment feels like the only option. If you don’t know where to look or you don’t have the exposure, it’s difficult to find these touchpoints.

Whether we want to admit or not, there is a difference in the way that rich people talk about money, even how men talk about money. They speak so openly about what they are doing with their investments. I love how Emma Grede articulated this here.

My personal feeling is we ought to proactively seek these conversations out, particularly if like me, financial literacy wasn’t discussed growing up. Recently we spoke about being low vs high agency and I feel that applies here, there is only so much we can blame school for not teaching us - at some point we need to be curious and seek these discussions ourselves.

How the rich talk about money

I remember a viral piece of content from a few years ago: “conversations my poor vs rich friends have”. It compared how the poor friends spoke about celebrity gossip and shopping and the rich friends spoke about business and money. I am personally not a fan of using that terminology so consider this to be a more grounded version of the same idea.

When I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I finally understood the distinction it was trying to make. It was not really about one person being good and the other bad, or one deserving respect and the other not. It was about the way different people are taught to think about money. One mindset sees money as something that comes in and goes out, mainly to cover bills and fund consumption. The other sees money as something to direct, grow, and use strategically. For all its flaws, that was the part that stayed with me. It made me realise that wealth is not just about earning more, but about learning to ask better questions. How do I make this money last? How do I make it grow? How do I buy back my time? How do I build assets, not just fund a lifestyle?

It’s not about ditching your friends, becoming some kind of social climber or not being authentic to your true interests. I still have the same core set of friends I’ve always had. However, I do think more of us need to be going outside of our comfort zone in regards to the discussions we have about money.

What has changed for me is proximity. I can now find myself at a dinner with the founder of a multi-million-pound business, sitting next to the Chief of AI at a major tech company. And yes, a lot of that access has come through building a personal brand. But when I think about it properly, this shift started much earlier, and in much smaller ways.

At university, when my male friends were discussing stocks, I didn’t tell myself it was too advanced for me or sit there pretending I understood. I asked questions. I paid attention. I tried to take in as much as I could. It was the same whenever I came across someone in an entirely different world to mine, like a middle-aged man working in property. Rather than switching off and assuming we had nothing in common, I started seeing those moments differently. I use that as a chance to get a 1:1 with an expert in a field I knew nothing about.

Since adopting this forward approach to speaking about money, i’m now part of conversations where the talking point might be:

Things like:

• “How are your investments doing right now?”

• “Have you thought about hiring?”

• “What do you outsource? I’m thinking of getting a cleaner.”

• “How have you structured your holding company”

There is such a huge shift. Yes, part of that reflects where I am financially now. But that is not really the point. The point is that these are still just conversations. Conversations I probably could have been having sooner if I had been a bit more curious, a bit less intimidated, and a bit more willing to ask. Maybe it was never just about how much I knew about money. Maybe it was also about the confidence that comes from hearing these discussions regularly enough for them to feel normal.

A small part of why people feel like wealth is “gatekept” isn’t because people are hiding information. It’s because these topics don’t naturally enter your awareness unless you’re exposed to them.

So here is what I would focus on today if I wanted more exposure to these kinds of conversations:

We often think luck and opportunities live in isolation, but they come through people.

Financial literacy is not just built by consuming more information. It is built in the day-to-day, in the moments where you hear how someone else is thinking, saving, investing, negotiating, building. That is often the thing that expands your world because seeing it in practice is far more tangible.

Because sometimes the fastest way to change your financial life is not to consume more, but to get closer to the kinds of conversations that make a different life feel normal.

That’s it this week,

Mia

xx

This newsletter is kindly sponsored by XTB who are offering 6% on a Cash ISA currently for the first 90 days after opening.

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AD | Disclaimer: Your capital is at risk when investing. The value of investments and the income from them can fall as well as rise and you might lose the original amount invested. Fluctuations in such value and income can result from factors such as market movements and variations in exchange rates. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. 2% ISA rate boost for 90 days. New clients only. T&Cs apply.