YouTuber Jaspreet Singh Says These 2 Habits Are Keeping You Broke

Gabrielle Olya
·2 min read

Jaspreet Singh is an entrepreneur, attorney and personal finance YouTuber. His YouTube channel has more than one million subscribers and aims to make learning about money fun and accessible. Singh covers topics like getting out of debt, investing and creating a plan for building wealth.

Recognized by GOBankingRates as one of Money’s Most Influential, here he shares why you shouldn’t hold too much money in savings and the worst money advice he’s seen perpetuated on YouTube.

What’s been your most popular video and why do you think it has resonated with so many viewers?

My first video to go viral was one I released in 2016, “You’re Guaranteed To Go Broke If You Do This.” I talked about how you are becoming poorer if you’re saving all your money. Back then, inflation was 2% a year and no one paid attention to the costs of inflation. But I think my video resonated with a lot of viewers because it exposed the lack of financial education in our society. Most of us, myself included, were never taught a thing about money. Now, with inflation significantly higher than 2%, financial education is exponentially more important. I do my best to explain money in a way that I wish someone would’ve taught me when I was younger.

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What money topics do you wish people were more informed about?

First, knowing what money is. The thing we call money, our paper dollars, is not real “money.” It’s a currency. This is important to understand because currency can be manipulated — money cannot. That’s why $10,000 today can’t buy what $10,000 could 20 years ago. This is why you need to invest your money.

The second is knowing how to invest your money. The goal should be to have your investments pay for your expenses. Once you achieve that, you’re financially free. Many times we assume it takes a ton of money to do this, but you can start with $100. It’s not rocket science, but it takes the right financial education and discipline.

There’s a lot of great financial advice on YouTube, but also a lot of not-so-great advice. How can viewers determine what advice they should and shouldn’t follow?

YouTube is great because it has decentralized education. However, growing up, we’re never taught how to learn. We’ve only been told what to learn. That’s why the best thing you can do is listen to differing points of view. Intellect comes from listening to people who don’t agree with you. Somewhere in between, you’ll find what’s right for you.

What’s the worst financial advice you’ve seen on YouTube?

There’s a lot of consumerism on YouTube and the internet in general. People glorify spending lavishly on their credit cards because you only live once (“YOLO”). Breaking out of this consumerism culture means doing something the majority of people find weird. But if you don’t, you’ll be the one paying the price — literally. Credit card debt is growing to record highs. When you spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need, you’re keeping yourself broke.

Jaime Catmull contributed to the reporting for this article.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: YouTuber Jaspreet Singh Says These 2 Habits Are Keeping You Broke