5 Money Mistakes I Made In My Teens

So I made some horrendous money mistakes in my team, some okay, some bad and some just plain embarrassing and I'm here to share that with you today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the channel. My name is Iman Gadzhi.

I run an online advertising agency called IAG media. If you're in eCommerce or your infoproduct clan link in the description, we'd love to work with you as well as that. I run a company called GrowYourAgency.

com The largest education company on earth for agency owners specifically as well as that. I also run a clothing line called GADZHI. Once again, you can find the links in the description for that.

Anyways, between those three businesses, I've been in a very unique position where we're in my teenage years, I made millions and millions of dollars and I'm obviously, I get that that's very different from most people in their teen years, so I didn't want to give a disclaimer that potentially some things in this video might be a little unrelatable. I've worked extremely hard from the age of 14 basically. And I've been very, very blessed to build these businesses, generate the sort of income that I've generated.

And one thing I will say is if this video was shot in 2017 at the end of 2017, you know, which was really my first year scaling up my agency. I had a creative agency back then. You know, this money mistakes video probably would have been a little different, but I want you to take the core lessons from it.

And at the end, I'm actually just going to give you my three core views on money as a whole. And that's whether you're making a hundred dollars a month, a thousand dollars a month, $10,000 a month, or $500,000 a month. It doesn't matter.

Now I look back at my teenage years, uh, with a lot of pride to be honest, I actually, because I think there's a lot of money mistakes that I didn't make. Uh, I've never bought a car because I always saw that as just a bit of a liability, I guess. Especially living in London.

You never really saw me in a big Valencia alga hoodies and Gucci shirts and this and that, and we'll talk about that just a little bit. But there's a lot of stuff where I feel as though I could have wasted a lot more money. But to be honest, I've always been pretty good at saving, uh, being very frugal in comparison to my income.

That's one thing I do want to say is some of these numbers in this video might seem just huge and obnoxious, but you need to understand in relation to my income, they're pretty small, but nonetheless, I still made a lot mistakes and I want to get into that right now. Mistake number one is not getting a credit card is sooner, whether that be personal or corporate slash. Business.

Now, it was literally only nine months ago that I got my business Amex and then I think another three, four months later I followed up with my personal Amex. So literally for years and years in my business, everything was just run through my debit card. I had a personal debit card and a business debit card and I missed out on three years of spending history on my credit card, which both from a corporate perspective in terms of spending and lending power as well as from a personal standpoint in terms of like personal credit scores, stuff like that.

I missed out on three years of improving my credit score, my history, this, that. Not to say that I have a bad credit score and even now the limits on my cards are extremely high. If I want to get a mortgage, super easy, all that, all that stuff, but it could be that much better.

Apart from that, I can have probably an extra one point $5 million worth whatever that equates to in points and benefits prior to the point of me getting especially a business credit card. And it's funny because clients, my advertising agency would always lecture me and they would find it absurd that, you know, I suppose still using a just a basic debit card when pretty much all of my clients have a corporate, a business Amex that they run all spending through and they get points and they also get rewards. And most of my clients never have to pay for flights ever.

And that is especially important when I come to point or money. Mistake number three, I believe it is. You don't really, for me it's an absolute no brainer.

Get a credit card, whether that be for yourself or your business, it doesn't matter or grab my laundry, which one I have. So for the business I have this Amex platinum card. I think the fee is like $600 a year or something like that.

For me, the amount of spending that I'm doing, for me it's worth it. Plus my assistant also has a version of this card, so that way they don't need to physically take my card if they're buying anything. I mean, you know, if it's online it's not an issue, but sometimes they have to physically go to stores and buy stuff and now they have their own company card as well.

For a personal credit card, I have this plastic Eve, Lindsey gold Amex. And the reason that I don't have a platinum card or a Centurion black card for myself personally is because personally my own spending, I don't spend anywhere near as much as the business does. So for me, the extra, I think it's like four or 500 bucks that it costs to go from gold to platinum isn't worth it personally.

And in fact, with the gold card, I believe they waived the first year fee. So yeah, I don't really have a big ego around which card I use. And even now it's a point where I've made millions, like I still think about these small little fees, which brings me onto my next point, which is get a credit card.

There's so many a zero fee credit cards out there. I don't know too much about credit cards, but you can definitely just get like the Amex basic one. I'm pretty sure that the Apple card is also free and pretty much all in pretty much all banks offer some sort of standard no fee credit card as well.

As I said, even if you're just paying your phone bill within just having that history of spend and just improving your credit score is so worth it. The only thing that is important is paid back immediately and second, never overextend yourself with your credit card. You always want to be living well, well below your means.

So that is point number one. Point number two is not investing sooner. Now this is definitely a money mistake.

I made that set. I also kind of did it on purpose. You know, I'd say I started making like proper sizable money in 2018 and basically for all of 2018 2019 you know, moving into 2020 I've been stacking cash, waiting for some sort of market correction or crash in order to deploy that cash that I've just been sitting on.

That said, I also know that it's not good to time the markets and you just want to get invested as soon as you can. So I think especially in 2018 and 2019 I could have made it more of an effort just to at least get in the habit of a little bit every single month, just invest and then hold onto that big majority of cash for something like a market correction or crash. I guess the other thing in all fairness is if I had invested sooner, I think I would have spent less money and other things.

You know, I'm young, I'm 20 I have really good cash flows in my businesses and I watch my business's money like a Hawk. So to be honest with the sort of businesses that I have, I don't need a really big cash reserve to be safe and make sure that nothing goes wrong. So I can be pretty aggressive in terms of investing.

So it feels like if I had invested earlier than maybe some of these extra, whether that be business or personal, maybe the extra sort of expenses that are that you know, extras. They're not the necessities I wouldn't have spent on because I would have been full focused on investing that money instead. But once again, same thing like a credit card.

The sooner you get started with this stuff, the better. So even if you just take a hundred dollars a month, everyone has a hundred dollars a month and just invest that money and just get in the habit of every single month investing that, then you are going to be golden. And the you at 2030 40 50 will be thanking you.

Trust me. The next morning mistake I made was flying business and first class. Now this is a big, big money mistake because as I mentioned, I got to a certain level of income pretty much in 2018 where I was like, it's dumb that I'm not flying business or first like someone who is making those sort of money that I'm making should be flying only business and first class.

Now there are certain habits that you form or certain things that you do that are very hard to come back from. And flying business slash first class is one of those things, you know, because once you fly business and you're used to having the flat bed and you're used to, you know, having the lounge and by the way you can get the lounge entirely for free or maybe not the lounge with the airline that you're flying with, but a whole host of really good lounges with the gold and the platinum card. With Amex, they have different tiers of which lounges are available to you.

But just a little side note. But yeah, you know, as I said, you get used to the lounge and the flatbeds and you know, kind of ordering whatever you want. And not having to pay for it.

And then things get even better once you go into first class. I mean, depending on what airline you're flying with, you literally have like your own little like room, your own little suite and amenity bags you get are these plush, luxurious things and you can literally order whatever you want, anytime, no limit. And you can have a shower and you know, it's just a, it's pure luxury and maybe while you're in the airport or you're, you know, you're chilling on your flatbed, like you, you're like, Oh, this is the money we'll spend.

But at least for me personally, I would always look back and I'm like, was that really worth the extra, you know, from economy to flying business or first class. And I'm speaking more in terms of long haul, you know, the extra 1500 the extra 2,500 sometimes even the extra five K is, it depends on what airline you're flying, whether you're flying business or first whatever it may be. You know, I know for some people they have vowed that they will never fly economy again.

Just personally. It's something that I don't value too much because at the end of the day, whenever I'm flying, first of all, I usually match to read an entire book on my Kindle or I just catch up on some documentaries I've been meaning to watch on Netflix, on my iPad, you know? So for me it doesn't really make a difference.

And what I found, because recently I've transitioned and I only fly economy now the main priority I think for everyone if they're flying economy is try to find day flights. Because for me personally, I can't sleep in economy like I, unless I have a bed, I just, I cannot fall asleep. So night flights when you're flying economy are a little more rough.

But as I said, if you're flying in the day, like look, I get it, it's a six hour, it's an eight hour, it's a 12 hour, maybe even a 15 hour flight. But at the end of the day, flying economy, you save yourself thousands and thousands. And the other thing that I realized is like you could just spend like whatever your destination you're going to, whether it be for business or holiday, like just spend that money there.

Or the other thing that I realized is like, okay for literally like let's say I'm flying Emirates from economy to business, 1500 2000 pounds. You can buy a new iPad, you can buy a new Kindle and link another, a new pair of headphones for that. So for me it really is a no brainer to just spend that money elsewhere.

And rather than that, you know, one fleeting experience, you've got this like actual tangible thing that you can learn, you can make money, blah, blah. Now the other thing that I will say is if you've taken my advice on money, mistake number one about getting credit cards that also does help you in terms of free travel or another really good way to spend your points is on upgrades. The only thing that I would say is never ever just buy a business or first class flight outright.

So I already just mentioned it briefly. I only fly economy from 2020 I've decided I'm only flying economy from now on, whether it's for personal use, whether it's for business, whether it's for personal reasons I'm going on holiday or business reasons. And I see 90% of my flights are for business purposes.

So yeah, that's why in my head I was like, Oh three or 4,000 pounds for this flight. Like Oh no big hits. It's for business.

But as I said, I am not flying business or first class again unless I can use my points and get a really sweet upgrade deal with points. Because as many of you guys know, I donate a large portion of my own personal profits from my company grade unsee. And as many of you guys know, I built a few schools in Nepal and now at this point there's over a thousand kids who get to wake up and get a proper education because of the work that we're doing out there.

So in 2019 I think I spent 25 30,000 pounds on flights. And as I said, you get to a certain level of income where like it's obviously you will be spending that amount of money because it's just like what you do and as I said, I've always lived well below my means in terms of my income bracket, but I look at 2030 grand and I'm like I could install solar panels at three of my schools for lab price and once again give back to the community. So that's just a personal, I guess moral slash ethical decision I've made.

But for you, I think logically, I don't know. As I said, I spent a lot of money in a lot of different ways and in different things to improve your quality of life, business and first class flights for me I guess has just been something where I like to be on a second. I can live without it.

The next money mistake is not tracking my spending sooner. As I said these days, both when it comes to personal and business, I watch my company's cash flow like a Hawk. I know everything that's going on in my business monthly.

Me and my team go through the company expenses. I have a open book policy except for wages obviously. And that's one thing that should be kept private is people's salaries.

But apart from that, I have an open book policy at my company. So yeah, once a month, me and my team, we go through all of our expenses and we just look, where can we trim the fat? But for pretty much all 2017 I didn't really do that for 2018 I did do that.

It wasn't as specific as it is these days. So I know that tracking your spending is a very difficult thing for most people because most people don't want to know how much they're spending. They don't want to look at their finances.

I get, it's a very difficult topic for a lot of people, but look, if you don't track your spending, you will not realize just how much you're spending. And I bet every single person watching this as spending an extra $50 a month, a hundred dollars a month just on extra softwares or a subscriptions that they don't even use anymore. So there are a plethora of just a basic budget calculators, things that will help you see how much you're spending and help you budget better.

But if you want to make this as easy humanly possible, the easiest way to track your budget slash spending is just every day, log into your online banking and just see your balance at the end of day. As long as your bank balance every single month is rising, which means you are making more money than you are spending, then you know at least you're on the right track. Plus seeing your outgoing transactions everyday should just give you a good idea of where the money is going.

Give you a good idea of, okay, am I overspending on this? Am I under spending on that, et cetera, et cetera. Money.

Mistake number five is eating out an ordering in. And I'd say this is very similar to a point number three about a flying business and first class because once again, you get to a certain point in life where because you're making a certain amount of money, you just start living a lifestyle because it's just a normal thing to do. And I guess for some people they look at a certain amount of money that someone is spending on something and they're like, that is ridiculous.

But they don't realize like let's say when you're in college or even me when I was 16 like I pretty much only ate a chicken and rice that I will bulk buy bulk meal prep a ramen like cheap ramen and pretty much anything I could find at the end of the day on discount in the bakery section. Like you know like towards the end of day they'll discount stuff like semi 80% cause it's about to go bad. Anything that I could find in that section.

So my point is going from that to even getting to the point where I was making, you know, even just three, four, or $5,000 a month, like going from living like that. So, you know, every once in a while going out to a restaurant where, where my side of the building maybe like 20, 25 pounds, like, you know, that's not you. You don't look at that and you're like, that is preposterous.

But I think people think it's preposterous when you know someone's normal meal out goes from being, you know, 20, 30 pounds to like three, four, 500 pounds. They're like, Oh, that's ridiculous. Yet that person is making 30, 40, 50 a hundred times as much as that other person.

So I think the skin people don't understand the scales. So as I said, you know, for me, 2019, I'm just Nobu, mr chow, Sophie steakhouse, like these are some of my favorite places in London. The Rocky, uh, Novikov, like, like all these places were just like, just a normal place I'd go to.

Like, that was the standard. And it wasn't because I was trying to be bougie or whatever. It was just like if I'm taking my mom to dinner or if I'm meeting one of my old clients or this like, it would just, that would just be go to place.

So in 2019 on average, I was spending $5,000 a month on, uh, lunches out, dinners out of food. Granted, pretty much all of that was, um, dinners with my team, dinners with old clients or, and business associates and network. But I get that some of you guys are listening to send you look, Oh my God.

So you're telling me that you spent like $60,000 in 2019 on food and like eating out? The answer is yes, and I agree that is one thing. And between that and the flights, I look back and I'm like, that's just ridiculous.

And evidently I've always been a fan of efficiency. I run my entire business remotely. Uh, all of my client calls on zoom, any sort of sales calls I have on zoom.

So like, I'm no stranger to like doing everything remotely. I think, um, all of these, uh, dinners and stuff I had, there were more options. I was just like, Oh, it would be nice to have a dinner with some of my team members or a specific person in my, or Oh, it would be nice to meet with one of my old clients and chat about how business is going this that potentially even resign him as a client.

Oh, it would be nice. And once again, I'm not the biggest fan of networking. I most of the time I just stick to myself and I do what I need to do.

But you know, every once in a while I'll meet up with um, business associates, people that I look up to and I take and I take advice from, et cetera, et cetera. But when I look at that number of like 2019 spending like $60,000 on food, it is, it is preposterous, is ridiculous. Especially cause I'm the type of person I could take one of my old clients to dinner and the bill could be $800.

And by the way, when it comes to business, I'm also wanting to pay, I don't care who it is, but I'll probably enjoy that $800 meal as much as like an $8 salad. Like I'm a food is not something that I particularly, uh, obsessed over and I care about. Maybe it's because of, you know, the first three, four years I grew up in Russia, that's where I'm originally from.

Like, you know, we just, we make abortion, we make like whatever's in the fridge, just throw in some water and make a soup out of it. Like if there's bone sticking out, who cares? You know, I kind of come from that background and you know, my mom grew up in Soviet union, a youngest of seven.

Absolute poverty. Like that's where my mind is at when it comes to food. So yeah, that's why I can say, you know, when I first started my business, for me the easiest thing to do was just meal prep.

So just buy stuff in bulk meal, prep it easy, cheap. That's what I used to do. And then apart from that, if you have a little bit more money, just get a meal prep delivery services, trying to find something where they deliver daily.

I think that's awesome. And yeah, all I can say is I know that there's people out there who spend literally like a thousand $1,500 a month on eating out and they only make like $6,000 a month or like $10,000 a month or 15,000 which I know is, I know, I know it's a lot of money, but, or to make it a little more down to earth, like let's say someone makes $4,000 a month with their job and they're spending like $600 on eating out. Like to me that I don't understand because for me it's all about skills.

Like what percentage of your income are you deploying? Where? So as I said, I know that I'm a very unique case where you're not many people are going to be in my position and not many people are going to spend on the sort of things I spend on and or spend the sort of amounts that I'm spending.

But hopefully you're able to take some lessons from what I've learned. And I think to wrap it up with my three sort of, um, money tips slash the way that I look at money really boils down to three things. Number one, your bank account should always, always be growing.

A combination of cash, slasher investments is what truly makes you wealthy. It's now your blends, yoga hoodie. Number two, if you can buy something 20 times over, you can't afford it.

So that car that you want, if you can't buy it 20 times, you can't afford that watch that you want. If you can buy it 20 times over, you can't afford it. That hoodie that you want, if you can't buy 20 of them, you can't afford it.

And my last money tip is if it's something that genuinely makes you happy, spend as much as you want, obviously within budget and within reason. I think the thing that people need to do more is just assess what actually makes them happy. Like for me, as I said, between eating out a nice restaurants where I can't, you know, like I'm too unsophisticated, you know, especially with my, with my upbringing, like to care about a $500 meal compared to like a $5 and you're like, I don't care.

As long as the only thing that matters to me is, is it healthy? As long as I'm putting healthy food into my body, I don't care what it costs. So yeah, I think everyone in life just needs to assess what are they spending on that doesn't actually bring them much joy or fulfillment and cut down on that.

And what are they spending on the does bring them drift fulfillment. Like for me, my things in life that bring me joy, fulfillment. Obviously you guys know that I have my own fashion line.

So for me, I like to spend money on clothes. Not branded like, you know, this outfit that I'm wearing right now, every shirt is simple and nice and it only cost 20 pounds. And I like it.

I'll buy it if I'm spending 250 pounds on tailored jeans and no one will ever know. But as I said for me, I'm into fashion just not very like loud fashion and I'm spending $400 on shoes and no one will ever know because they're not like Gucci or Valencia is, I don't care. You know, I said for me fashion is one of my biggest hobbies.

One of my, one of the things I like to spend money on, I like to go for quality over um, HyperCloud. Other things that I spend money on are, is a photography or you know, old school film photography, medium format, 35 mil. Other things is anything to do with health, biohacking.

Like for me, those are areas where like I kind of have infinite budget and there's other areas of said where I look at it and I'm like now these days in 2020 I am super stingy when it comes to flights. I am super stingy when it comes to food. As long as it's healthy food, my goal is to spend as little as possible within my business.

If I look at some of the expenses I have, I'm very streamlined and efficient. So my point is I think what you need to do is you define what makes you happy and what has fulfillment and spend more there and then any areas that you've observed. Okay.

This doesn't actually bring that much value to my life personally, aggressively cut those costs. And those are pretty much my philosophies when it comes to money. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope you guys enjoyed my five money mistakes that I made in my twenties I want you to go ahead and comment down below what is the number one money mistake that you made.

I'm very curious to hear for some of you guys, I'm sure maybe spending a little too much on a video games and little add on for your video games. I'm sure for some of you guys that may be spending too much on a Gucci hoodies, and maybe for some of you guys it was buying a car, something that I've never done. I was looked at as it's just a total liability, whatever it is.

I am going to be reading every single comment and responding. If you haven't already, go ahead and smash that like button. It really helps the algorithm.

We're trying to get to 300,000 subscribers this year and you guys are doing a pretty good job at it, so lots of love guys. I'll see in the next video. You mean for working with someone else on a couple of B's, what do you really think of that and they get that.

I've done things for them.