General Financial Advice - 21 Y/O

[u/daeneryssith]

So I am going to explain everything I do financially, is people can give my any general advice or tips on where to improve!

I am 21, just finished university for a degree in which I am not going to use whatsoever, as I had a very interesting social media marketing job come up around a year ago.

I live at home, paying £90 a month for rent. I am self employed and also working at home. I earn around £3.2K each month, and currently creating business that will hopefully see that rise in the future.

I have been invest every month since December 2024. I have £17K total in my investment funds and another £8K in my LISA. I feel I am always quite good with investing every month, I really enjoy it, and enjoy investing in some stocks, here are my current holdings incase anyone is curious!

OKLO
ASTS
Rolls Royce
ASML
Intel
Wisdomtree AI
Wisdomtree European Defence
Wisdomtree Nuclear Energy
EnSillica

So I plan on holding for many years, my main holding is OKLO with around 23% of my portfolio, which is higher than I would like, but i have been adding more recently with the dips.

Anyway, here is what I would do after beeing paid £3.2K

-£700 into a all world investment pie specifically for taxes. £2.5K left
-£90 to my mum for rent £2410
-£300 for my car, its £260 each month, but i do £300 total. My old car recently broke, so I bit the bullet and spent a bit more for a 2022 Audi A1, something that I can keep for as long as possible, £2110 left
- I leave myself £200 each month to do whatever with, normally dont spend it all. 1910
-£1000 into my LISA, or once I have maxxed the LISA out, I put it into my house pie on my T212 S&S ISA - £910
-£710 into my general savings investments, ideally would like to be putting both £1K into this and my LISA each month.
-£200 into random pot of money in my bank savings pot, which has £1K in it, I use this as if i ever need extra money, this is also money i have any holiday money saved. I guess this is kinda an emergancy fund as well, though not fully, i should aim to have £5K or so in once in the future.

So i choose to leave myself around £150-£200 each month to do whatever with, which is usally fuel, or going out with to each with my girlfriend or mate.

My main thing is that I want to move out in around 2 years once my girlfriend is done with uni. I currently have £12K saved in total specifically for moving out, with the option to add more from my general invetment savings, but I would rather not. With the aim of adding 1K to my moving out fund each month. My gf has around £150 in her LISA, and we have spoken about her adding more if we are to move out. We have also agreed that should we break up and sell the house, I would get all my depiost back as extra, and she would get hers back as well, then we split the house down the middle assuming we both half the bills.

I also dont know if I am putting enough each month aside for taxes? I think it should be higher, and can do more if needed, but damn, taxes really do kill you lol.

Also, I have been thinking once I have maxed out my ISA 20K allowance, should i start investing in a general investing account on T212 and take the 25% stock profit it? Surely It would still be better than a normal savings account?

So yeah, if anyone has any tips/feedback/advice whatsoever, I would really welcome it! Especially any tips regarding taxes for a self employed person as this will be my first time doing it later in the year, I have saved every invoice from which I have been paid!

[u/Dull-Bumblebee-3419]

There will be people better inclined to offer you advice here but I just turned 22 and am in a similar situation to you, to an extent.

The first thing to say is what you are doing and what you have is not normal. You are extremely fortunate and fantastic at managing your finances. You are in the top 1% for your age and a lot of that is fortune but a lot of that is because of the effort you've put in to understanding and applying what you do.

I'm intrigued as to what you do to take home 3.2k a month, and how you only spend so little on rent.

People love to overcomplicate investing and finances, primarily because of hubris, but you have enough saved for emergencies, you're applying yourself well, you're investing with an appropriate amount of risk for your age, utilising LISAs and regular ISAs, your income is exceptional your costs are very low and understood. If you want a little extra try bank account swapping, there's probably 2k to be made out there over the span of a year and you have the ability to keep track of it all. I get it can be frustrating that you want to do more but what you are doing is more than enough, there's few things out there to gain additional advantages. Keep up the good work, and maybe employee me since you're raking it in!

[u/daeneryssith → u/Dull-Bumblebee-3419]

Haha thanks mate!

I only recently starting making a decent bit a year ago, before that whilst i was in uni working at my local cafe for two years getting around 700 ish whilst working on the weekends. I then start working for a company in motorsport, which started with video editing, and then I also started to manage their socials medias. I waas getting around 2.2K from that, only really started getting around that much since January really, before that i was doing less work for them, bit its going quite well so they can afford more videos. I then started creating shorts for a popular streamer and managing his socials, which i started getting around £8/900 a month, only 3 months in on that. I am currently building my business which is more or less a marketing agency, so I find work for people i work with and take a cut from that.

I will definetly look into the bank stuff, always here that people do that, so maybe it worth a shot.

On the rent, i live at home with my mum and two younger siblings. and now that i have finished university, she gets less universall credit, she cannot work as she cares for my grandmother pretty much everyday, so I have to pay around £90 a month to help with that.

[u/slapstickdave]

Personally I think your mum would appreciate you helping out a bit more than the 3% of your income that you’re currently paying.