>> Read more of Saira’s columns for FMWF here.
I take it for granted that when it comes to making and saving money, I know more or less what I am doing and talking about.
I was brought up in a household where it was made very clear, that if you wanted to enjoy a comfortable life you had to have money, and in order to make money you had to work hard for it. My parents were living testament to that theory. They were both immigrants to England and their sole purpose for settling here was to work hard and make a comfortable life for them and their children.
As a young child, I watched my mum every Friday bring a brown envelope home from the factory where she worked. She opened it with the same careful ritual, everyday Friday, at the same time, sitting on the same chair in our house. For my mum, having her own money gave her so much independence. She told me later that it made her feel valued and respected, and importantly she felt equal to my father who was also working. As soon as my mum had analysed the hours and counted the few notes and coins, she would then immediately bring out some envelopes and tuck a note inside each one; gas, electric, mortgage, food, children’s clothes. There was never an envelope that had her name on it. My mum should have been a bank manager, she would have kept people’s savings safe and she would have fought tooth and nail to get it back if anything ever happened to it.
My mum was a great saver and budgeted for everything but I always felt that she never really knew how to enjoy it. Her greatest line was and still is, ‘never spent more than you could afford and always put some away for a rainy day’. I never saw my mother spend her money foolishly or on things that were not practical or worthwhile. Even now her present to everyone is money. She can’t bring herself to buy things that she feels are a ‘waste of money’. To this day, I have never really told my mum how much I spend on clothes, bags, makeup, etc. I think it would give her sleepless nights.
Whilst my mum the master of savings and budgeting, my father was the King of investing and taking risks. For many Asians ‘property’ has always been a ‘safe bet’. He would say to me; ‘everyone needs a roof over their heads’. By the time I was 23 I had my first property in Brighton and by the time I was 27 I owned another one in Chiswick, London.
Anyway, the reason that I have been talking about my parents and how their ways with money instilled in me the benefits of saving and investing, is that I have always thought that everyone’s parents had that basic business sense/acumen which they passed onto their children, or that many young adults nowadays would be quite “savvy” about money or if they weren’t they would try and get help /advise to help them understand their money situation. A phone call last week blew what I had taken for granted away in seconds.
I won’t mention her name because I don’t want her to feel embarrassed in any way, but suffice to say that she was on the X factor and did very well indeed. I actually met her a few months ago at an event and got talking to her. I liked her, she had a great singing voice and was a very pleasant young lady. Last week she called me to get advice, what she really did was tell me in not so many words, “I feel like I have been used, I’ve been given no direction about what I can do now, I don’t have anyone around me to give me sensible business advice and I am learning by making mistakes and these mistakes are costing me money and I don’t have much left now, please can you help.”
I remember meeting a celebrity from Big Brother and she told me that through her public appearances she had made over a million pounds and was absolutely petrified about having it and losing it all. She said that she lay awake thinking about what she should do with it and didn’t really know who to turn to for business advice.
The girl from the X factor told me that she had made a lot of money from doing the Xfactor tour and it was the most money she had ever made in her life. She said she liked looking at her bank statement for the first time in her life and at the age of 21 she felt good. But, what she had not accounted for was the fact that on top of that she would pay income tax of 40%. However, I wish I had been around to point her in the direction of a good accountant who would have advised her on more tax efficient ways of saving and investing her money. She was now in a situation with very little money, no agent or professional giving her advice or support and no singing work, despite the fact that she has a great voice and is talented. Her naivety upset me, but it also woke me up to the fact that having knowledge about personal finance is fundamental for all young people. They should have the knowledge and confidence to be able to handle money and know exactly who to turn to for advice and help.
I feel that any reality show that promises to change a person’s life should also have the moral obligation to help the contestants to cope with becoming responsible for large amounts of money and giving them a support structure of people that they can turn to for financial advice. Surely, by doing this it will give the production respect and longevity because it not only invests in the winners but gives those that don’t make it to the top 2 a chance to change their lives with the money that they make. If I were Simon Cowell, I would not focus on what the winner’s think of me, but what those who did not win are saying to their friends and families and to the wider community they belong to about their X factor experience. I like Simon Cowell a lot, but I do feel that sometimes he forgets to see the financial /social vulnerability of some of the youngsters who display extraordinary talents. It is not responsible to just say, “that’s life, just get on with it!”
Moral obligations and values have been divorced from business for a long time and for me it is this that will have negative implications on our future generations. I like making money and yes I enjoy the lifestyle that having money brings, but I don’t like to make money at any cost, for example by exploiting others for my own personal gain or by using them and leaving them when I have got what I want from them. I would not be here today if I had not had some great people who believed in me and have been there to give advice, listen and generally offer some of their time to help me plan and generate opportunities, it a great feeling when someone does that and its even a better feeling when you can then offer the same to someone else. I find that in business what goes around comes around.
Tags: Asian Businesses, Business mistakes, Saira Khan, The Apprentice
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