"At 22, I’ve Saved £100k on a £35k Salary—Here’s the Smart Decision I Made at 18 That Changed Everything!"

SAVING money can be tricky no matter your age, but a 22-year-old has managed to store away a whopping £106,000, despite only earning £35,000 a year from her main job.

Instead of going to university, Gabriella Goddard started a degree apprenticeship in management consulting aged 18 – immediately putting 60% of her £1,400 monthly earning into cash ISA.

Gabriella says she made a key decision which helped boost her savings Credit: SWNS She also set up a content creation business, which brings in around £5,000 a month Credit: SWNS

In her second year her salary increased to £1,600 per month – and Gabriella began £1,000 a month – £500 into a cash ISA and £500 into a Trading 212 stocks and shares ISA.

Alongside her apprenticeship, she also set up a content creation managing social media accounts for small businesses and doing brand deals on her own social media pages, which now brings in around £5,000 a month.

She says she sacrificed lots of evenings and weekends in her teens and early 20s to work on her alongside her apprenticeship and now has £70,000 in investments with Trading 212, £13,000 in an emergency fund, and £23,000 in her workplace pension.

The management consultant now earns £35,000, lives with her parents in Bath, , paying £200 rent a month, and puts £1,000 on average into savings accounts and stocks each month.

She plans to keep growing her investments, and doesn’t have any plans to buy a house with the at present.

She said: “I learned about investing through social media – I was bored during Covid, so I started doing some research.

“I asked for books on investing for my birthday and Christmas.

“At first, I was putting £500 into my savings and £500 into my investment account, then I got a little bit excited by it, and started investing way more.

“I wouldn’t recommend that, but because I was living at home, and had an emergency fund. I had a bit of a safety net.

“In December 2024 I started a side hustle alongside my apprenticeship, I spent lots of evenings and weekends working on it. I worked myself to the max.

“I’m not a financial advisor, but if you’re in the position to start investing, firstly, do your own research, then don’t overthink it, and just put in a little bit learn as you go.

“This money definitely wasn’t handed to me.

“A lot of people assume I’m just a posh girl from Bath whose had everything given to her, but there’s been a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

“I’m not just a money hungry girl – I just happened to have worked hard and accumulate this money, and it’s going well so far. Touch wood.”

Gabriella has been working since she was 15, and her first job was in a garden centre, earning £4 an hour.

She said this taught her about the importance of budgeting from a young age, and despite getting AAA at A-level, influenced her decision to do an apprenticeship rather than university – working four days a week, and studying one day a week.

“I was so bored of education and the money and lack of student debt was enticing”, she said.

In her first year, Gabriella was paid £18,500 a year, which she said felt like a huge amount of money for an 18-year-old.

“It seemed like a lot to me, especially coming from £4 an hour, it took a few months for me to learn how to budget”, she said.

A few months into her apprenticeship, Gabriella gave herself a strict budget, aiming to save 60% of her earnings.

Out of her £1,600 monthly salary, she paid £200 in rent to her parents, and £350 for other expenses such as her car and her phone bill.

She then put around £800 a month into a cash ISA.

In the second year of her apprenticeship, Gabriella’s salary rose to £23,000, and she began investing her money, after learning about it on social media.

She put £500 a month into her cash ISA, and £500 a month into her Trading 212 stocks and shares ISA, and watched her money grow.

Once Gabriella had £10,000 in a fixed cash ISA, which was enough for an emergency fund to cover her expenses for three months, she started investing more and more money, eventually investing £1,000 a month using Trading 212 , whilst putting very little into her cash ISA.

In her final year, her salary rose to £35,000 a year or £2100 a month, and in December 2024, Gabriella decided to set up a content creation business as a side hustle to do alongside her apprenticeship.

She managed accounts for two small businesses, earning around £1,000 a month until she took a step back due to stress.

“It was basically another full time job”, she said.

“I was working all the time, it wasn’t healthy”, she said.

She now focuses her time on her own channel, making around £5,000 a month from brand deals on , where she has 33,followers.

Gabriella currently has £70,000 in investments, £47,000 of which she put in herself, and £23,000 of which is returns.

“It changes all the time, the market is all over the place at the minute”, she said.

She also has around £13,000 in her savings account, and £23,000 in her workplace pension, making her net worth £106,0000.

She said that she is constantly asked whether she will use her money to buy a house, but isn’t planning on doing so at the moment, as “the isn’t as profitable as it used to be”.

“I don’t want to completely wipe out my investments and savings for a house I probably couldn’t even afford furniture for”, she said.

She is urging other young people not to be scared of investing, and to put in a little bit of disposable income every month and “learn as you go”.