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‘Hello, Mr. Prime Minister, what is your plan for the nation’s finances?’
If there is one person a financial educator would like to interview right now, it would certainly be the man who is now in charge of the country’s financial purses.
That’s why when the opportunity arose to quiz Sir Keir Starmer on all things money, social media influencer Gabriel Nussbaum couldn’t refuse.
In the first Starmer interview with an online content creator, the new prime minister told Gabriel, also known as “the money guy”, how he plans to improve the country’s finances and stabilize the economy.
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Starmer said he would ensure “we don’t have the price booms and busts that we’ve had and that we’ll then have to have plans for wealth creation, for growth and for the jobs of the future and create Great British Energy, a public renewable energy company that will be much cheaper and for good.
“All of these things will take a little time to set up, but they will make a big difference.”
Gabriel Nussbaum is believed to be the first online content creator to interview Keir Starmer
While the reality of Starmer’s rhetoric remains to be seen, Gabriel will continue to do his bit for the nation’s finances. A former head of Immanuel College, Gabriel uses short-form online content to communicate financial advice, tips and teachings to his network of over 1.6 million followers across his social media platforms, the majority via TikTok.
He says: “I’ve spent over three years educating people about personal finance online, with thousands of DMs telling me I was the first financial lesson they’ve ever received. I want to share these messages with senior leaders so that, once and for all, we can change the lack of financial education in this country.
“I don’t know about you, but I never received a single lesson on the topic of money during my 18 years of formal education. That’s why when I was invited to interview Keir Starmer about his plans to improve this country’s finances, it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”
Wanting to break the stigma often associated with talking about money, Gabriel began creating online content in 2021.
He counts New Jewishs: “I always felt like there were a lot of useful things that school didn’t teach, and so I taught myself, and the common theme was money. People always have questions about money, but it’s not talked about much. It’s still such a taboo subject.”
So Gabriel, who was working at Barclays at the time on his graduate program, tried posting his educational videos on TikTok, famous for its short dance clips. “It was during Covid when everyone was on their phones craving something on social media that had more depth,” recalls Gabriel, 26.
Within a month, he had amassed more than 100,000 followers, mostly between the ages of 18 and 30. A big break came when a video on a lifelong ISA – “you couldn’t describe it more boring if you tried,” Nussbaum admits – went viral, racking up 4 million views.
In early 2022, Gabriel left Barclays to become a full-time content creator and financial educator.
Since then, he has collaborated with some of the world’s most influential brands including Natwest, Meta, Sainsbury’s, Trading 212 and FCA.
According to research from Deloitte, 25 per cent of banking customers aged 18 to 24 use social media for financial advice, with one in five having invested money based on social media recommendations. However, 33 per cent of this age group are not confident in their financial knowledge to buy investment products – something Gabriel is trying to change with his informational shorts.
These cover everything from the importance of credit scores to a beginner’s guide to investing and how much you need to live comfortably in the UK.
Asked about the most common financial mistakes, Gabriel says that “tens of thousands of people turn down raises every year because they think that moving to a higher tax bracket will result in them taking home less money. They think that moving from a 20 to 40 percent tax bracket, for example, means that the 40 percent bracket will apply to their entire paycheck. Now, there’s a little asterisk for parents who miss out on allowances.”
when you earn above a certain salary, but there are ways to work around this. However, for most people, please don’t turn down that raise!”
Another message Gabriel is keen to get across is to “live below your means.” As you start earning more, what tends to happen is something called lifestyle inflation. More money equals wanting better things equals spending more.
“What this means is that instead of more money relieving financial pressure, you get stuck in a cycle of never progressing, sometimes even going backwards.”
So who’s next on his interview wish list? “I’d love to meet and chat with Martin Lewis. He’s pushing really hard to get financial education into the school curriculum, but I’d love to get creative with him and see how we could maybe work together (with my creative background and his reputation) to bring financial education to the masses.”