53. Ken Okoroafor Lives Life on Purpose

Listen to this Real Money Stories episode on your preferred podcast platform below.

This week on the Real Money Stories podcast, I speak to Ken Okoroafor, founder of The Humble Penny.

Ken grew up in Lagos, Nigeria until his family moved to the UK when he was aged 14. As well as the culture shock of adapting to life in the UK, Ken was acutely aware of financial differences between his secondary school classmates.

‘Ashamed’, ‘lonely’ and ‘unseen’ are all words he uses to describe how he felt due to his family’s lack of money and different ethnicity to others around him.

Finishing university with a first-class degree, Ken decided accountancy would be a good path to pursue. Undeterred by the lack of black representation in the industry, he was successful in getting a position in one of the UK’s top 10 firms.

Having temporarily succumbed to the effects of ‘lifestyle creep’ early on in his career, Ken got himself back on track, reminding himself what really matters in life.

Having achieved financial independence aged 34, he and his wife, Mary, decided to share their money story in order to empower others via The Humble Penny.

You can check Ken out at: https://thehumblepenny.com/ and https://youtube.com/thehumblepenny

Episode Transcript

Jason Butler 0:05
Hello, and welcome to the Real Money Stories podcast. I'm Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out and your money journey, or well down the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from these stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less, and enjoy life more. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard, bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit vanguardinvestor.co.uk for more details. And remember, the value of investments can go down, as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.

Hello there, Jason here. Before we get into the show, I just wanted to let you know about my new initiative called Ask Jason. You can ask me a question on the topic of the week, and I'll do my best to answer them in an Ask Jason video. The topic of the week is released at the end of each video and on my Instagram page. So make sure you're following me on there. If you'd like to ask me a question. Now let's get on with the show.

Hello there. Thanks for joining me on another edition of real money stories. I'm your host, Jason Butler. And today I'm joined by Ken Okoroafor. Is that correct? Ken? Did I say that right?

Ken Okoroafor 1:25
Yes, yes.

Jason Butler 1:30
Yeah I'll call you Ken! Look, thank you very much for taking time out to be on the show. I've watched some of your videos, I think you've got a very interesting backstory, which is why I wanted to get you on you know, this show is all about breaking the taboo or talking about money. We don't all know the answers, but it's about sharing our journey, and sharing our insights pros and cons ups and downs, good and bad. And that's why I wanted to get you on. So before we get into your backstory, can you just tell everyone what you currently do? Or you know how people can hear about you and what work you do?

Ken Okoroafor 2:02
Okay, sure. So I run with my wife, The Humble Penny, and something else called Financial Joy Academies. That's what we do full time right now. But up until April this year I worked in, in finance as a as a chief financial officer, in the venture capital business in London, has always been my dream to really take a leap one day and focus on doing something totally different. And for me, wanting to humble me as a as a company as a business has always been a dream in a way since I kind of started until most of this thing could actually generate some income down the line. And then kind of work towards making that a reality. So that's what we do right now, in terms of how people can can reach me. It's at the humble benny.com. That's the kind of main place or the humble penny on YouTube. You can also check out @thehumblepenny on Instagram.

Jason Butler 2:59
You know, Ken's got some great videos. So check him out. And he's, you know, he's got a great face for video. Much better than most of us in personal finance. Thanks, Ken. Let's go back to the beginning. Because I'm really fascinated to find out about what your early money experiences and the things that you learn about money as you were growing up.

Ken Okoroafor 3:20
Interesting. Wow, how far back do you want to go?

Jason Butler 3:24
What's your earliest memory of money?

Ken Okoroafor 3:26
Earliest memory was the money raised didn't exist. So I was born in Lagos, in Nigeria. And I moved to the UK when I was 14 years old. So first generation, immigrants to this country and earlie st memories were that essentially my parents spent most of their time traveling to try to make a living. And it was usually that we lived with mum haven of their mom was working as well. And then dad was out somewhere trying to find that daily bread or whatever. So, but it wasn't really, I didn't think of the word money was not the thing that came into the picture. It was more the reality of what the lack of money and that was what we were experiencing. Because, you know, it pretty much dictated where we lived, which was in rural parts of southeastern Nigeria. And then gradually as we then started to, my parents started to push themselves out to be more daring and seek out better jobs. You know, only then did we start to, you know, potentially then start to rent a property that had that I could share a room with my brother and my sisters we share a room together. Before that it was a it was a it was very rural and we live quite nomadically now with travelled a lot, and then, you know, settled on one place where I then lived in overtime, then, you know, ideally, at age 14, my parents then sought out to come to the UK to seek kind of better.

Jason Butler 5:17
Before we come to the UK, listen, I just interested in how you said you didn't have much money. Was that the case for all of your peers? Your chances at school? You people around you? Or and What impact did that have on you did it did it make you feel, I don't know that money was scarce or something that was to be revealed or you were not bothered?

Ken Okoroafor 5:34
It was different. So when I went to second, when I started sec secondary school, it became very clear that there were differences in household income and wealth and what have you. Because some of the kids will come to school with kind of like, the type of food that I could only ever imagine was in a restaurant, you know, things like you take really you take for granted now. You see, like a scotch egg? Yeah. Go to Sainsburys within you, you like disregard? It's just like, Oh, yeah, that's just a scotch egg on the shelf. But when I was growing up, that was stuff that only the really wealthy people could even, like, get access to let alone like even for me to even envision taking a bite into a scotch it is just the right point. And I'd see people drinking like a Pepsi. Because in like that part of the world, like very, very hot part of the world. hot drinks and like Coca Cola stuff was like, if you could afford back, then you know, you're less at a very different level than for them. A lot of my classmates, that parents who they had enough money to buy a Pepsi and a scotch egg during lunchtime, happy thinking, like, why can't I get that Pepsi? Why can I have that scotch egg. And so for me when I moved to the UK, and we're going to get to that in a minute, but the one thing I really wanted to get my hands on was a sculpture. Because it was one of those things I grew up thinking like, why is it that somebody can buy these things, and I couldn't everything even compared to like the type of shoes kids were wearing, and how white their shirts were, you know, blue and white shirts. And, you know, mine will be on auto repeat. Or as the other some of the other kids had, like, they'd have maybe three pairs for the week. And so they could swap out the English shirts remain White was, you know, mine was either on repeat, or it was one that I nicked from the line for somebody else another another kids maybe hung their clothes up and I'm like, wash my hands go out. And maybe that was the culture of the school that you could actually like, do stuff like that it was okay to the Boys Boys at school. So it was very clear at that stage that I was definitely born into a kind of a celebrity, our family were just getting by, you know, and there was no concept of toys, you know, in this country, kids get toys, right, I didn't have any choice, there's no such thing as, Oh, I want a toy, he just didn't exist, because like, everyone you knew didn't have a toy. And so there was no reason for you to want a toy. We're at it. See, all the other kids who are slightly better have had these Game Boys, you know, like these Nintendo games, and you just knew straight away that these big four completely different planet or these because if that parents can buy them a Gameboy, and kind of means like, you're far better off financially than I could ever be, you know, as it were. So that's kind of the backdrop kind of where my perceptions for money world. And I always wondered like, what's it take for those people to be where they are today? Like, how is it that their parents have played the game so differently, that their children are starting to they almost have these generational wealth, they're truly starting to reap the benefits of, you know, their parents doing money differently somehow, or making more money some other way? You know, how is it that they've been able to do that? By didn't have those answers? And those answers will begin to start to start to begin revealed to me many, many, many years later, you know, as, as we that reach a total different world, this country, and begin to start to figure out what's the game? kind of work? How do you how do you survive? And then how do you then thrive eventually?

Jason Butler 9:24
Yeah. So as a young teenager, you were aware of the differences between those who hadn't didn't have you were questioning kind of why do different people have different things? And you were starting to develop a kind of yearning for things you didn't have. Right? So interesting. So you're having these questions in your head. So tell us about when you I mean, moving from Lagos or all the small villager in in Nigeria to the UK must have been? I mean, amazing. I mean, big, quite big trauma as well. Really, I mean, What impact did that have on? What was the difference in when you saw wealth and money and lifestyle and stuff like that?

Ken Okoroafor 10:00
Wow, wow, it was a is a huge shock culturally, because well, the first time I'd seen a white man or a white woman, like, you know, like, proximity wise, it's otherwise it was like you either saw things on TV or you saw, or, or you heard about things if you live in posh parts of Lagos for example, I have the ex back to had human lives there. And you might see that children in the desert, there's a white person pointing at them in a distance. But this time, you know, I'm in a place where I'm like, oh, like everyone's most people are white now and I'm now it's switched around over there. I'm like, most people have black hair. Now, basically, why to say you know, is that first culture shock, then is a shock of, of the spoken language. Because here, they, you know, you might not think of it, most people speak very, very quickly. Like, everything happens very, very quickly. But in that part of world, things are a bit slower in terms of spoken word. So I had to start to think, how do I adjust to all of that, then is, you know, see everything else that comes with it, whether and, and that the key thing that is is, you know, housing, like, you know, people people rent or, you know, have social housing or their own but we had a big problem we came to you came that we had an issue with visas and things and that meant that we could not go and say, I want to apply for a Ken's or flat or and obviously, we could not afford to own the home. The question with them was what if you can't? If you can't get a job like everybody else does, you can get a council flat? How do you like the hustle? How do you then hustle to find the money to to be able to read like the smallest possible place?

Jason Butler 11:57
And at this stage can just I'm just concerned, this is all going on? I mean, I've ever seen having somewhere to live and shelter now. That's quite basic, what impact did that have on you that kind of? How can I put it the Friesian of problems of trying to find housing? Well,

Ken Okoroafor 12:14
I tell you what it what it brought was a form of full of shame in a way, you know, because, you know, you feel like you are, you're almost unseen. To explain like you're, you're beneath your beneath, like the bottom of the country. Like you're, you know, you know, you've got a you've got a middle class family, they've got been courageous, maybe trying to get by, but they have rights, you know, they've got rights to go to a Job Center, or rights to get to the NHS and stuff. But we didn't have, we didn't have those specific rights, you know, because we're waiting to hear back from the powers that be legalities. And so you don't feel like you're not being below on top of every every other stigma, being black being an immigrant being, you know, all these other things, and not being not having money. Does that shame. And that shame, I discovered that later on in life, when I reflected on how I we felt, because I didn't have friends, like in a career needs to a country don't have people who can just go through this, hey, like, be my friend, because I have nothing in common with them. Like he can't speak how they speak. You don't like live like next to each other. You don't have money to buy sweets and things that kids buy. He just it's just a commonality. So you don't have friends. There was loneliness. And there was also shame, because my you're just you're just you're in a foreign strange place. But you still have this perception that that place you're in is better than where you've come from. And you can't leave because the minute if you leave and go back, there's no comic there's no kind of coming back. So it was a stillness always like, in I hate to use the word but that's how it fell in a way. Almost like being in prison. Like you're kind of in a place. You can't leave because you're waiting for a decision. You can't go back because you know, you can't come back. You've got to stay there and make the thing work.

Jason Butler 14:16
Yeah, the Brexit transition period. Yeah. So okay, so so that must have been a tremendously traumatic time for you as an as a family but you also as a young teenager, because it's difficult not being a teenager right?

Ken Okoroafor 14:29
huge change from my parents, you know, taking jobs that they didn't really want to take because like it's the only thinking data, cleaning jobs anything that men that you getting some form of cash in hand or anything that getting some money. You wanted to do it because like, the way you

Jason Butler 14:49
cook food, did you do little jobs to help out did you go down to money as a teenager?

Ken Okoroafor 14:54
Yeah, cleaning jobs. Basically, the factory is awesome. So I went You know, as a sandwich maker, I did all kinds of any, any, anything that menda at the end of the week, I got weighed at, like 80 pounds or 50 pounds or whatever it was that I got. I was I was willing to do it on top of doing schooling and, you know, during the bits in between,

Jason Butler 15:21
so did your McKenna's a family kind of took money for the pot? Or was that your money for you?

Ken Okoroafor 15:26
know, that was that was money that came to define as money. When I was 16, I eventually got kind of a summer job. That gave me a bit more or less independence as it were, because I was able to keep some of that money for myself. And then, you know, by my parents, you know, forget why my parents contributing towards buying a sofa in the house. And I've never forgotten that. Because for me, for me, I felt like this is I've done something that's like really worthwhile. We're gonna sofa that no one had sat on before. You know, what

Jason Butler 16:04
did that what did you learn from that experience of sharing the you putting the money in and getting that sofa? What did that mean? What did that

Ken Okoroafor 16:13
it in putting up and this is been a big theme in our family, this idea of coming together as a family and solving our problems together. Even today, like if we wanted to, if somebody had a problem in the family, everybody would come together again. If one person was struggling and having an issue, and we'll come together again. So what that's the thing I've learned from that is the importance of family and especially when things are not going so well. You know, the need for people to rally together and, and for everybody to kind of come up together. Yes,

Jason Butler 16:50
there's an important point there can that when someone's struggling with money are they feeling on the backfoot or feeling as you say, shame, guilt, embarrassment, really important to find a way of not feeling alone and you aren't alone? Because there's lots of people who struggle with a wide range are we but that you had that although you didn't have a lot you did have a lot in a way and since you in that shared endeavor, you're all in it together as a family so then what happened after that how how did you things progress with school? I mean, did you get a levels or

Ken Okoroafor 17:17
started I went through I did my my gi Kevin at year 11 get my GCSEs that was just the worst possible time to join a school zero 11 no one did those did really well in master sciences? Why don't you do my A Levels maths, chemistry and biology did really well on maths and chemistry on a my a level maths My teacher said hey, why don't you go and maybe learn

Jason Butler 17:45
to respect man in a in a level maths group.

Ken Okoroafor 17:49
So why don't you go learn accounting or maybe finance or one of these subjects, that means that I need to make some good money in life. So the teacher said, economics is a good one to look into. I had been thinking about go through med medicine, that's what their subjects were meant for maths, chemistry and biology. We want to finance sounded excited, I went through a clearing process just for applying to university and got into City University of London. Through clearing to do to study economics initially got to university complete and utter shocks, I knew nothing about economics. Teachers said to me, you're almost going to fail, you're gonna fail. I took a year off and came back to do a joint degree in economics and accountancy. That was really the beginning because I had a game plan for me, that degree meant so much I tell you why meant so much because I had nothing. I had nothing to my name. Outside of my driver's license that just passed the year before

Jason Butler 18:54
you had nothing to lose, right? You had nothing to lose everything to gain.

Ken Okoroafor 18:57
That was it. It was everything. And so for me, it was three years of just pure graft. And I said to myself, if I can achieve a first class degree, that would really mean that somebody might take me seriously. And I might even get a job.

Jason Butler 19:13
So what extent can do you think that being a first generation immigrant we've really nothing to show for yourself, you are in a strange place to To what extent do you think that you grafted harder to prove yourself? The perhaps people and I don't wanna get into whole race thing, but this whole indigenous population of people may even be third generation immigrants, but but where they get a bit more of a victim mentality, and oh, well, it's it's just not I'm just unlucky. To what extent do you think that that it was there was no real going back? Because there was nothing to go back to was there? To what extent did that really galvanized you?

Ken Okoroafor 19:45
So I think I realized there are times of the risk, I built up a lot of resilience being born in a different country, right? And that resilience was necessary for me to always, always find my way. Through the challenges and many challenges that existed, for me, the only way was up, like, like, there's no, there's no like, it can't get worse than this. So the only ways for me to keep pushing, try and work twice, three times as hard as anyone that come across, I used to wake up at 430 in the morning, every single morning, turn on classic FM and study three, solid, because I wanted to demonstrate even to myself that I was capable in this new world. In the UK, I was capable of attaining something really desirable, and really good degree, in my opinion. That's it for me. And those, those definitely the reality of the life we're living, which is like life is hard. But then there's also the desire that life could be a lot better

Jason Butler 20:53
and the hope, right?

Ken Okoroafor 20:54
Yeah, no, absolutely. that life could be a lot better question, then Moses, what do I need to do for this life to be better? Like, what do I need to do? What Amazon's routine? Where do I need to learn to study what type of work grinding to get? This was the beginning Ray in that made that point of studying a degree was almost pointless points on points of change in my life, because I felt for once given an opportunity for me to say, you know, go with this opportunity and see where it leads me. Again,

Jason Butler 21:25
so I'm interested to know, how did you come out of uni? financially? Were you a complete train wreck? Had you used every possible route of Finance? You could get your hands on? Or did you come out kind of intact? Because you were doing cleaning jobs throughout the night? And asleep? I don't know.

Ken Okoroafor 21:40
I did not take a single student loan. First of all, because, right. I just didn't know where to go. Yeah, can you can take it? No, it wasn't wasn't for someone that wasn't an option.

It meant that I then had part time jobs. Because back then the tuition fee was 1100 pounds per year, which was a lot of money for me a lot of money. And even he was saying was so much that we're together with my parents. We kept pushing the uni to pay quarterly, because we just couldn't afford the 1100 pounds. But yeah, like upfront, just like how do we get them to agree to pay this thing quarterly, you know, so it meant getting part time jobs every single year of my three years.

Jason Butler 22:26
So you came out without any real baggage financially, then, or did overdraft or loans. Or now

Ken Okoroafor 22:32
I can live, I couldn't afford to live in the halls of residence, I couldn't rent an apartment in London. So I commuted from Same for London everyday into Angel station. And walk in and you know, phase over and back or head to where I got used

Jason Butler 22:49
to living on a very frugal lifestyle, you didn't have any access to finance. So you came out with no real student debt finance, whatever you wanna call it, and you got used to living on rice and beans, right?

Ken Okoroafor 23:01
Just got used to that for three years, just carried on because right training was nothing. Like there's nothing, you know,

Jason Butler 23:09
did you realize at the time that this was setting you up for being not just the qualification, but the way of living that you can get by on a very little amount of money?

Ken Okoroafor 23:16
Do I didn't realize that, because I hadn't read the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, which separate discussion and that book opened my mind to a different mindset that like there could be almost a pathway, a framework for me to potentially follow one day to almost create a different life. All I knew was that my present reality is, you know what, I have to just get by with anything I've got, and go to uni and pretend to my friends that everything's fine, you know, because that's what you do. You know, when you say hi, you say hi to people bump into them at the library or the Student Union place, you have to act like they do this, like you have to try and fit in. For me, it was more about trying to not be found out almost not be found out. But I'm like, I'm like struggling and from here. I'm going to go off and go do some work. And then I'm going to go focus and do my reading. He really

Jason Butler 24:10
knew that you were building the foundations for the new year. Right? Okay, this was your human capital you're investing in? Absolutely. So when you left the unit and what happened? Did you go straight into the job market? Did you go and go back to Lagos or

Ken Okoroafor 24:24
finish shooting? Got that first class degree super, super proud, then starts to research jobs and accountancy seemed like a really good path. But then I didn't know anyone who looked like me. He was an accountant. That thought, Well, actually, I'm just gonna keep applying and through the application process of getting what they call a training contract. I got into a firm, which then got acquired by a top 10 firm in the UK. Hmm. So I then suddenly became this person who was training to become an accountant for a top 10 firm in the UK. Again, the same approach as I had at university focus for three years, passed all those chartered accountancy exams for first time, and even finished early. So I then gotten this become this person who all of a sudden gone from having barely nothing to my name to becoming a newly qualified accountant with a top 10 firm in the UK. Huge shakes, I know how to like

Jason Butler 25:24
what's not to like about?

Ken Okoroafor 25:26
salary? Oh, yeah. You know, I'm like, Wow, I've got because before it was like, you get the cash in the hand? And

Jason Butler 25:38
how did you? How did you feel can at this stage, you've gone literally from nothing. You've grafted for nearly six, seven years plus the schooling? How did you then feel when you were on that kind of late 20? salary? Top 10 firm, you were starting?

Ken Okoroafor 25:49
Jason , for me life at bigger, like, I felt like I was now on some almost equality with like, everybody else I couldn't, I didn't need to be shamed for a boy anymore. Because I felt I had some identity, I could say, hey, look, I'm, I'm an accountant, or like, you know, look, look, I've been able to achieve certain things on my journey so far.

Jason Butler 26:15
And by the time you become that chartered accountant, and you were sort of you do go for those three years, what was your financial situation? Are you still living on rice and beans and keeping it simple.

Ken Okoroafor 26:24
So it's interesting that actually, because I qualified and managed to save some money to buy to buy my first property 2008 in the summer, in June, for placing zoom for London, with down things about six grand deposit property was about 154,000 pounds, right, bought my first place and moved out not too far from my parents were kind of like, you know, not too far. So I could, I could still have access to some food. But because that started living by myself, I started to develop certain habits, you know, like, I found that I needed to suddenly like do my flattop, you know, I needed to buy a gun, go to IKEA and buy like a TV. And so all of a sudden, with money coming in, I started to notice that my, the, almost the foundation built on a level of frugality, I've started to almost veer off that a little bit because I found myself in a place where I have money coming in, I could afford that.

Jason Butler 27:37
So you know, so coming to what we call lifestyle creep. As the ages go up, we start telling ourselves because we're worth it. And the temptations become attainable, right?

Ken Okoroafor 27:46
First, I could have thought that, you know, my friendship started to change. I had friends who were wearing expensive jewelry. He's got this Rolex watch, and I can kind of get one second hand, you know, and I started to become that person.

Jason Butler 28:01
Can Can I just ask one thing? Because I have I said to you before we started, I've got some Nigerian friends. And there is a certainly in Nigeria, there is a there is part of the culture where How can you use it ostentatious consumption is revered and seen as a sign as well. wealth. And we know that what that means is you've just taken money and spent it or you've borrowed money that you haven't gotten spent it. So to what extent was that was that was that cultural thing? Or where you lived? thing? Or, you know, I'm just interested in that, you know, to what extent that influenced it

Ken Okoroafor 28:33
was because in my culture, my culture in Nigeria, you are, you are classed as successful, depending on, for example, what title you've got, what car you drive, and what kind of house you live in, like how big your house is, and stuff like that.

Jason Butler 28:54
So the obvious status symbols as opposed to being financially free?

Ken Okoroafor 28:57
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So time, like being able to have been controlling at times not really there the thing that it was kind of, like, outwardly, like you showed up to an event

Jason Butler 29:06
where they can't measure that can i people externally? Yeah, in a piece here.

Ken Okoroafor 29:10
So and so for me, it was it was definitely that level, because that stage of my life, I was also trying to seek out a life partner, you know, I didn't have a, you know, a wife or anything. So, you know, the social pressure or,

you know, free to seek out the right partner, you have to be seen to be successful, and being seen to be successful was, you know, at that time, I bought myself a realized car, you know, and because I want it to be seen to be you know, kind of like things are starting to improve for

Jason Butler 29:41
you making that point, Ken isn't you know, that's the key point. I think this is a fantastic example of everyone in their 20s and to some extent as you get older anyway, but particularly into it is when you're looking for social connection, when you're looking to be accepted by people when you're looking for a partner. You're getting the messages that society is saying is the idea of successful persons. As opposed to learning your own, the inner the inner peace and inner success, right?

Ken Okoroafor 30:04
Absolutely. And the thing is, is a big reason why that was happening was because I wasn't really confident in who I was. I didn't understand who I was really like more power I possessed. And I didn't, I didn't understand the power of my own voice, the need for me to hear my own voice and say, Well, actually, this is what I think about stuff. And I'm gonna choose to go down this specific pathway because of x, y, and z, like, you know, like a much bigger, individual reason for why I was doing what I was doing. I didn't have that almost self awareness, and you

Jason Butler 30:37
still learning who you were right? And what mattered to us and your priority. So, okay, she had the nice car, you bought your first house, which is a good move, because I've always you could rent one. So then what happened?

Ken Okoroafor 30:47
Yeah, and then I just carried on. Relationship upon relationship, bad breakups, because like you meet people who you've met for the wrong reasons,

Jason Butler 30:57
you're attracting the wrong people, right?

Ken Okoroafor 30:59
You're attracting the wrong partner send the wrong signals in the wrong.

And fast forward to autumn 2009. After a terrible breakup, I then take off, read it read the metro newspaper, I think it's called things in Metro London people, one of those, there's an advert in there to come come and learn about property investing. So you head out and you know, go to a seminar event in London, to learn about property investing, and I went on the back of reading that book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad after work, yeah, this would be a good thing to do. I've got no dates or anything like that. I'm just gonna go and learn. It was at that event, the next stage of my life adventure really began because I met my wife at that time.

Jason Butler 31:44
Ah, now ticking the same boxes, right? You're thinking you're on the same similar mindset, right? She's at the property investing event. And you are?

Ken Okoroafor 31:53
Yeah, yep. Yeah. So I've met somebody who, you know, number one hasn't met because I was driving a nice car, but we made it an educational environment. And we just became friends. And I found out over time of just getting to know her, number one, she had some savings, and I didn't. Number two, she still lives at home, like you're still building up her money, but she still lives at her parents as a hack for saving more money. And that's, that's quite good.

Jason Butler 32:23
You know, learner, right? You're a fast learner.

Ken Okoroafor 32:26
Exactly. I thought. Number three, she's attractive, and she's intelligent. And number four, desire are different, like she's, she's born in Hackney, in London to look much again to immigrant parents, and has this desire for just really doing life radically different parents, you know, just kind of choosing to do life in a different way. That really aligns with kind of what I'm thinking about having read this book. And this is kind of how we started off as a couple as, as friends, you know, from the event.

Jason Butler 32:57
But you make a good point there can and this is really important for people out there is that we, when it comes to managing money well, and having the life that you want and money in proportion, you need to be on the same page with your life partner. And if you're not, you're not pulling in the same direction. That's when conflict happens. That's when misalignment of spending happens, so Okay, so you met you were friends, you were doing the property thing. Okay, then what happened?

Ken Okoroafor 33:21
Yeah. Then we said, okay, well, I said to myself, you know, what, if this friendship thing carries on and goes well, for one year, exactly, yeah. That'll be

Jason Butler 33:33
the game plan.

Ken Okoroafor 33:36
And that year was one of the best years of my life literally, because, like so many good things to happen. I just felt like, you know, life. I just felt like, like, I don't know, like, something new, like a new

Jason Butler 33:52
new chapter.

Ken Okoroafor 33:54
opened up for me, you know. And a year later in December 2010, on her birthday on the 27th, exactly. I proposed, you know, and seven months, eight months later in August 27 Yes, we got married 2011. And that was it. This is where my life then began. Like a completely different version of my life, because now I'm no longer thinking as a selfish individual. I now have to, you know, think of my wife and think about, you know, how we are making decisions and our team now, right? We're a team that dreams that what vision Do we have, you know, what we'd like what would we love life can look like in 10 years, Mary and I always kind of mine easily, but this has meant so much to us. later on. We had this idea of a 10 year plan to say like, in 10 years. What would we want life to look like? And he's really starting to paint a picture we wanted a door that we could walk to, and like you could if you come off the street, you can go to the door and you can put your key in and open the door so you don't have to climb some stairs to get to Because it gets to the door and open the door, that was one of those on our kind of vision board as well, that we wanted to have children wanted to, you know, really grown in our careers at the same time and wanted more over, you know, more time back and you know, family life and stuff like that we none of this was, had existed, but we were kind of like, thinking we had it for good habit in a particular way. 10 years, what would that look like?

Jason Butler 35:26
So you're envisaging What did good in terms of your life and what mattered to you? And that's, that's the bit, isn't it? So you weren't worried about how you're going to get there and exactly what the date was, but you started to sort of, say what you did want and what you didn't want. So then what happened then, because you were still doing the accountancy where you knew

Ken Okoroafor 35:45
you're counting on my career as a first year in a qualified accounts and carried on pursuing my career. Mary also carried on to her career in in it in London, and that carried on and then the year after we teach it become pregnant, like, Oh, wow. Okay. So when it's kind of

Jason Butler 36:09
time to grow up, right.

Ken Okoroafor 36:15
We thought actually, we'd save share some savings at you know, share her savings by going to have my place. So we're still living where I had already been before actually children, probably somewhere else. So we then worked hard said building up savings to buy a family, which is this, this house I'm in

Jason Butler 36:33
right now. So at that stage, Ken had you kind of avoided overdrafts, credit cards and loans and car loans. And I had, did you have a bit of that?

Ken Okoroafor 36:43
I still, I still had some of my car actually. 20 Yeah, still, I still had, I think I just about paid off my car. Because right off the car, Park cash and park financing, I didn't have a credit card. And I didn't have a student loan. All I had was the kind of the financing every month. And so the goal was to get rid of that. And at that point, I realized, oh my god, this car's worth, it was nothing now. It was no longer it's just like, okay, it's kind of worn off now. And we're now talking about the idea of buying a family car and maybe on something that will you could put, you know, a car seats, and stuff like that. And we don't, you know, came together and decided to buy a home, you know, actual house, our vision was when we didn't have any children at this stage. You're buying a house, in fact, by faith, you were like, okay, you know, you know, hopefully, you know, you know, the child will come and that sort of stuff. And we went ahead and were able to buy an item. And the year after that 2013 my career carried on Mary at this point was starting to now you know, come off the come off the the city life you know, because it's pregnant 2013 our first iPhone came in March and this is where the challenge another challenge came in because I became the sole kind of breadwinner as it were, because you know, going through maternity and all of that kind of stuff with drop in income. Yeah, so huge drop there. And at the same time,

Jason Butler 38:21
but can you didn't have a big mortgage at this time? Did you and you didn't have any debt? So did that help?

Ken Okoroafor 38:26
I don't know what we did because we did because we bought a new house. Oh, cool. She had right so yeah,

Jason Butler 38:29
did you keep the old fat then that you were living in?

Ken Okoroafor 38:33
With bought this house? This house that we live in? really stretch them? Oh, yeah. Oh, big time. Oh, big time. But at the same time, I was also making leaps in my job in my career and stuff. I've moved jobs only a bit more. 20 1230 Yeah, earning quite good income, you know, not a six figure income

Jason Butler 38:55
and how to get your lifestyle costs under control while you still living in

Ken Okoroafor 38:59
Britain. Because I've met my wife, who was who already had like, in the office. She, you know, she she had a lot to say when it came to kind of managing our family finances. So there was no, it was now a case of almost getting rid of the things that I had acquired when I was living the single life. So getting rid of expensive watch and expensive bracelet and yeah,

Jason Butler 39:27
get stuff that you didn't need.

Ken Okoroafor 39:29
The expensive cards bounce us think about family life and stuff like that. So that influence that came from my wife just gave me a different was a different way of thinking as well because we started to shift the focus, move the focus away from like, acquiring things are more sustainable. What do we actually need? You know, at the base level, it's kind of, you know, able to welcome a child into our home, it's our family into our life and so on. And so yeah, so yeah, that that became And that was quite pivotal time because as soon as the child came into picture and our son Joshua was gone, again, the game changed. Because like, when you have a child, Kevin's your life, it's just like a complete shock, you know, because you never raise a child before, there are huge costs that come with that. We were very fortunate in the Mary's brother brothers, they'd had children's red, lots of hand me downs given to us, my sister had had children and boys had lots of things given to us as well, addition to that, we've had quite generous friends where, you know, you have these gift lists, gifts, gift lists, that people writes when they're having children, and people are able to kind of dip in and kind of donate or kind of buying things for them when they do their baby showers. And so so we were actually okay to start off with, but that was the beginning of a much more response, call it much more responsible life, because it then became very clear to me that I can really carry on working, you know, 10 hours, 12 hour days, and all the huge pressure on her, you know, to do everything else, whilst I'm doing all of that stuff. Like somehow we have to do something slightly different. And we could, we could start to think about doing that, by using the money that we were making, you know, in some ways, putting money aside and using that money to you know, start to invest money in different things to gradually start to help us so is win back some of our lives in different ways.

Jason Butler 41:26
So what did you do over the last six years to get you where you are now, where you've, you're no longer doing the accountancy job, but what was your primary focus? What's your primary focus been over the last five or six years? Building investment assets?

Ken Okoroafor 41:39
Exactly. That's the getting rid of that. So this house, we now paid off this this home in 2019. So that's been a huge thing for us well done, as a way of reducing the, you know, the huge expense that we have each month such, you know, I can, I can afford to do something else, you know, big thing. Career maximization, so really like, trying to earn as much as I could through my career, while also putting a lot of our money away invest into stock market. So there was always that balance between, yes, we have ongoing expenses. So there was also lifestyle, kind of simplification. So we kept our lifestyle pretty flat, you know, driving a different car now much more efficient, you know, living in our home keeping just keeping things being attention on.

our income was going up, we were using the power of the stock market power of overpayments and our home and exploring seitan you know, whether it's a joint project somebody else when a side business, or whether it's me starting my own thing, or Where's Mary running a party business, there was always something happened, that meant that we were looking at alternative ways of boosting that income was one of the key things I learned from my mom specifically what she said, like, even when I when I was going to accountants, she said, Well, why don't you start a business and just hire an accountant, as because her life has always been, you know, entrepreneurial, she was trying to figure out how to do things slightly differently. One thing She always said to me was, don't ever rely on just that job that you've got, you might think, yeah, you're a professional now, that job one day, it's definitely guarantee that you will leave that job, today you leave or they will, they will push it, it will definitely happen. And so she said, she always said, Well, why don't you figure out something else you can do to help you make some extra income? What she was really saying was, what is your creative ability to solve problems and through by doing that, you get more confidence in your abilities and you met, you know, you have more ability to make your own ink.

Jason Butler 43:47
So what was the pivotal point that made you decide to give up the job and do what you do now? And obviously, you've got some investments, you've paid off the mortgage, you've got yourself in a good position. What was the final? What was the what was the catalyst? The final? Yes, I'm gonna do this.

Ken Okoroafor 44:00
humongous catalysts. We knew something was gonna happen this year, biggest catalyst was what we've all been facing this pandemic, because I got to a stage where as working crazy hours ordinarily, because like when you're not seeing colleagues, and you're working remotely, and you're still having to meet all the deadlines, and do all the all the brain work that you have to do build your financial models doing things you have to do, you still have to put those hours in. On top of that, like, I had my kids running around everywhere, because I still have to do I know how to do home schooling. And on top of that, I mean money in the humble Penny since 2017, in December, that was starting to gather momentum. And I was also running that with Mary on the side. So he just felt like there were too many things going on. And I'd always known that at some point. I wanted to take the leap, but then Where you are earning a really good income? In my case, a good six figure income, it's hard to just say, Hey, you know, obviously you

Jason Butler 45:07
don't want it. Yeah, of course, you're like,

Ken Okoroafor 45:10
put that money up and just say, hey, like, keep that. But I got to that point where it was either I stopped doing anything with humble Penny off, and then focus fully on my job and family life. Or I said, You know what, I kind of want to back myself and see what happens. Because like, we've been good stewards of money all these years. How about we give it a go? And what's the worst that can happen? Because after all, like, like, our living costs are very low. And we have income coming in anyway, from different sources, as well as from this, this theme, which started off started life is just as a blog, why don't I just give this thing a go and see what happens. And so April was a, it was that pivotal moment, where I had to go and have that conversation. And that conversation went well, because it was able to get in a bit of a bit of a, an income from a bit of a payout from doing that, having that chat at that point of a negotiation. And, and then began what was in effect, my first call it full time, leap into doing my own thing full time. Because over the years, I've been doing things on the side part time, you know, parallel to doing a normal job. But for the first time, I now have to wear a different hat, which is like, Okay, this thing's gonna, you know, run a bit sustainable, how's it going to be that, you know, like, what, what are the ideas? Yeah, that's that's the thing as a, as a visionary, how are you going to do that? And how do you start to have some structures and processes and systems and a bit of a team to help and stuff like that, then, so yeah, and then then there's obviously a transition from the corporate life, which no one tells you about because that transition is not easy. Because in the normal world, you're used to, you have a boss, and you have, you know, a salary and you have a balance sheet that you know, you can go spend money from and, you know, you have all these things just... Like, suddenly, one day is like, there's a line I can't marry show them, right. Yeah, suddenly, you're like, Okay,

Jason Butler 47:23
so Ken, obviously, just thinking of the time now, but before we sort of close what, what sort of pearls of wisdom or kind of principles, or do you want to share with, with listeners in terms of your money journey, what what you learned about money that has been most relevant for us, sort of top two or three tips.

Ken Okoroafor 47:41
So the first one would be, not to let life happen to you. But for you to choose the life that you actually want to happen, is completely the version of life you will arrive at in years from now is the version that you actually choose, if you if you understand yourself enough to come powered through working on your mindset to choose that life that you really want. And to go for it. That's the first thing.

Second thing is, is that the internet is actually hugely powerful, and under many things that are wrong, many things that are weird about it. But in the world we live in today, an individual through their experience, through their, their knowledge could actually if they work really smartly, and use the power of you know, him to use, virtual assistants and so on could actually create their own business that actually helps them on that journey towards potentially creating a life that they want. My point being the one path as a career isn't really necessarily valid any longer. We're all going to have portfolio careers in my view that you know, your 30s you might be one person doing one thing in your 40s or later, you might find something multiple tastes like I'm doing various things right now that I never envisaged that I might be doing at all and then finding adaptable Yeah, yeah, the final thing will be when possible really aim to if you've got partner to collaborate and really be on the same page because I found that being completely on the same page and my wife has been like, life changing because we're not fighting we're not arguing about stuff. Or we're like, there's a almost a family vision. And that family vision is what's then being bought into into reality. Every day you can feel like you haven't seen the purpose for which you for which you're working towards. And it begins at home. Really if you can do that with your partner it will be it will be completely life changing.

Jason Butler 49:47
Those three pieces of wisdom, Ken are wise beyond your age you still look to me like you're 25 so amazing. Thank you for sharing that and as I will make sure the websites the humblepenny.com isn't it and we'll make sure that there's links in the show notes, check out Ken's YouTube channel. I know. He's got various videos there. So definitely worth checking out. Thank you very much for your time. I'm really gonna look forward to watching the next stage of your life we've greatly interested.

Ken Okoroafor 50:15
Thank you really appreciate it, Jason.

Jason Butler 50:21
Thanks for listening to Real Money Stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey. Real Money Stories is sponsored by Vanguard bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk For more details, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai