Millennial Money: the Finance Series Everyone Should Watch
Relatable personal finance from real people
If we want to be financially succesfull, I think the first step to take would be to teach ourselves financial literacy. With that, money management and all things financial would come a little bit easier, right? And that’s what I want to share, how we can all become financially literate, one step at a time
At first, I watched the Millennial Money series only because it appeared on my YouTube recommendation page. That was maybe about a year ago. But you know what? I have since watched almost every video available in the series.
At that time, I wasn’t really interested in personal finance. But somehow, the series got my attention. I started to really enjoy them and came to realize that I can learn lots of things from these stories. .
By the way, the Millennial Money series is produced by “CNBC Make It”. As of now, on YouTube the channel has almost 600K subscribers and almost 2,000 videos across many of their series. If you’re not a fan of YouTube, you can watch it on their website directly here.
And if you think learning about finance from YouTube videos might sound like a bunch of crap, you might want to read this:
Why?
Maybe the first question to answer is the “why”. Why should you invest several seconds, minutes, or hours of your days to watch this? Let’s dive in!
1. Real people
I think this is my first why. The series features real people, sharing their real financial situations. Some are with loads of student loans, some are debt-free. Some spend lots and lots of money on car payments, others choose to drive used cars.
What I find compelling is how those featured in the series are so willingly open about their finances. They share the breakdown of their monthly budget, income-wise and spending-wise. Since usually people are so guarded when talking about money, I find this a great opportunity to learn.
After seeing these budget break-down, you get to kind of reflect on your own budget breakdown. If you see someone splurge too much on eating out, for example, you’d make a mental calculation on how much you spent at McDonald’s drive-through yesterday.
And maybe the introspection works both ways. For the casts themselves, I think laying out their finances like that also help them figure out some things or some areas they can improve.
2. Diverse background
I’ve seen people from a very diverse background featured in the series. Different salary ranges, jobs, family life, and so on.
They even featured people from/living in other countries. Some example would be a couple from Canada or a girl who is currently an expat working in London. Or how a working mom in Finland manages her finances, as you can watch here:
3. Right or wrong?
One of the key features in Millennial Money is that the producers don’t label any of the casts’ financial decision as right or wrong. They simply state the facts and let the audience decide for themselves.
Yeah, this approach might not work for everyone. But me personally? Love it! Each and every one of us have different situations, therefore it requires different approaches. That’s why it’s called personal finance, right?
Although this approach might not have a direct “educational” impact, I think the audience will have better financial literacy by watching these videos. How fast the impact will show? I think that ultimately depends on us, the audience.
And lately, “CNBC Make It” also post reaction videos to their Millennial Money series. The reactors are prominent figures in the business and finance field like Tan France, Barbara Corcoran, Kevin O’Leary, and many others. While reacting to the videos, they will give advice on how to improve the casts’ finances.
What We Can Learn
Aside from “just” the pure budgeting things, you get to learn different things from the series. Some lessons that I find useful are:
Jobs
Since the people featured here come from different walks of life, hence with a variety of jobs, you can get the behind-the-scene info of their daily jobs.
For the young people out there looking for the best job for them, this could be very beneficial. Whether it’s a nurse, real estate agent, teacher, doctor, marketer, or others, you don’t only read a job description. You’re getting a sneak peek into someone’s daily task and responsibilities, and also the benefits you can expect from each job.
The job seekers, at the very least, can begin to “measure” if their dream job is really all that they’re dreaming about.
Investments
This is another feature that I think would be beneficial to us. Through the series, we see different investment types and methods that the casts made. Some choose to invest in properties, some tell a story of a Bitcoin investment, others in business or stocks. You just have to choose which is most suitable for you.
And of course, one common lesson from their investment strategies is that it’s always better to start as early as possible.
Side Hustle & Entrepreneurship
Side hustles are almost like the trendiest thing of the last few years. Driven further by the pandemic, everyone is reminded of the importance of having more than one source of income.
This is also featured in many videos of the series. You might find some interesting ideas for your own side hustle. And since it’s already been tested by the casts, it’s trustworthy. Some examples are teaching English to children in other countries through an online platform, doing a Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program, start a business, produce content on TikTok, or even start their own YouTube channels.
The casts showed that side hustles are indeed tiring. The girl teaching English to children in China have classes that start at 4 AM, so she wakes up at least half an hour before that for preparation. And after that, she still needs to go to her day job.
Others have to make YouTube contents once they got home from work. But if you keep working on it, your side hustles could even replace the income from you 9–5 job.
Check out this story on a girl who started her cupcake business on the side:
Closing Thoughts
Having watched almost all of the videos in this series, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in improving their personal finance situation. Or those who just basically want to learn something new. With financial literacy education almost non-existent in our schools, I think it’s very important that we equip ourselves with more information on the matter.
And yes, personal finance should be planned and executed according to our personal situation. But seeing how others are doing it could inspire us too.
There are approximately 64 videos on the Millennial Monet series now, so if you’re interested, there’s a whole platter for you to choose from and start your financial literacy journey!
