Investment banker, who quit six-figure job to become YouTuber, shares 'mental hacks' to save money

Former investment banker and now a personal finance YouTuber Nischa Shah quit her six-figure job to become a full-time content creator in 2022. The London-based banker was not satisfied so, she turned to content creation which she said was a liberating feeling. Initially, she took a major pay cut but over two years, her gamble paid off. Now, Shah brings in over $1 million from her YouTube channel, sales of courses and products, corporate talks, and collaborations with brands.

“I’m making a lot more than I was in banking,” she told CNBC Make It.  Shah often shares her wisdom on her channel and has spoken about several mental hacks and tricks that people can use to save money and invest better.

In one of her YouTube videos, Nischa explained that time is incredibly valuable, thus, it should be used to trigger conscious spending. She suggests that instead of thinking how much something costs, people should calculate how many hours they worked for it. If an item costs $60 and someone earns $15, they would need to work 4 hours for that item. This can help people decide better if something is worth their valuable time (which is essentially money).

In an interview with Business Insider, Shah shared a powerful question to ask yourself before buying anything. The golden question is,” Would I still buy this if no one could see I have it?” Shah said.

She explains that people buy a lot of things they don’t necessarily need or like, just to impress others. She says it’s easy to get caught up in social status and even she wasn’t immune to it when she was young.

Thus, she recommends finding an answer to the question to evaluate if something would truly make people happy or improve their lives if the social status factor was removed.

In another video, Shah explains that people often attach strong emotions to the items they want to buy. Thus, to spend more efficiently, Shah recommends flipping this habit and getting emotionally attached to the reasons they want to save more. Shah said she uses the same mental hack herself and it has helped her make a major difference to her finances over the years.

In her content, Shah has explained Parkinson’s Law, which states that a task or work expands to fill the time given to complete it. For instance, if someone is given to complete a task in three days, they will take three days to finish it. However, if they are given three weeks to complete the same project, they will probably take all three weeks.

Shah says the same applies to money as well. When people get raises, they typically increase their spending as well. Thus, they end up spending all the extra money instead of using it to their advantage.

So to outsmart Parkinson’s Law, Shah recommends ignoring any pay hike or increase in income. She recommends utilizing the same amount as before and putting the extra money away, automatically in a savings account.