‘Hello Mr Prime Minister, what’s your plan for the nation’s finances?’

If there’s one person a financial educator would want to interview at the moment it would surely be the man that is ultimately now in charge of the country’s purse strings.

Which is why, when the opportunity to quiz Sir Keir Starmer on all things money came up, social media influencer Gabriel Nussbaum couldn’t refuse.

In Starmer’s first interview with an online content creator, the new Prime Minister told Gabriel, aka ‘That Money Guy’, how he plans to improve the nation’s finances and stablilise the economy.

Starmer said he will make sure that “we don’t have the ups and downs of prices that we have had and then it’s about having plans for wealth creation, for growth and for the jobs of the future and setting up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned renewable energy company that will be much cheaper and for good.

“All of these things will take a bit of time to set up, but they will make a huge difference.’

While the reality of Starmer’s rhetoric remains to be seen, Gabriel will continue doing his own bit for the nation’s finances. The former head boy at Immanuel College, Gabriel uses short form online content to communicate financial advice, tips and teachings to his network of over 1.6m followers across his social media platforms, the majority via TikTok.

He says: “I have spent over three years educating people about personal finance on the internet, with 1000’s of DM’s telling me that I was the first financial lesson they had ever received. I want to share those 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 the finances of this country, it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”

With a desire to break down the stigma often associated with talking about money, Gabriel started making online content in 2021.

He tells Jewish News: “I always felt that there were a lot of useful things that school didn’t teach and so, I would teach myself, and the common theme was money. People always have questions about money but it’s not often spoken about. It’s still such a taboo topic.”

So Gabriel, who was working at Barclays at the time on their graduate scheme, tried posting his educational videos ok TikTok, famously known for its bite-size dance clips. “It was during Covid when everyone was on their phones longing for something on social media that had more depth to it,” recalls Gabriel, 26.

After one month, he had garnered over 100,000 followers, mainly aged 18-30. A big break came when a video on a lifetime ISA – “you couldn’t describe something more boring if you tried” admits Nussbaum – went viral clocking up 4m views.

In early 2022, Gabriel left Barclays to become a full-time content creator and financial educator.

He has since collaborated with some of the world’s most influential brands such as Natwest, Meta, Sainsbury’s, Trading 212, and the FCA.

According to research by Deloitte, 25 per cent of 18-24 year-old banking customers use social media for financial guidance, with one in five having invested money based on social media recommendations. Yet, 33 percent of this age group are not confident in their financial knowledge to take out investment products- something Gabriel is trying to change with his informative shorts.

They have ranged from; the importance of credit scores, to a beginner’s guide to investing, to, how much do you need to live comfortably in the UK?

Asked for the most common money mistakes Gabriel says “tens of thousands of people turn down raises every year because they think that moving into a higher tax bracket will result in taking home less money. They think that moving from 20 to 40 percent tax, for example, means that the 40 percent bracket will be applied to their entire wage. Now there is a small asterisk for parents who lose allowances
when earning over a certain wage, but there are ways to solve for that. However, for the majority of people, please don’t turn down that raise!”

Another message that Gabriel is keen to get across is “live below your means. “As you start to earn more, what tends to happen is something called lifestyle inflation. More money ‘equals’ want nicer things ‘equals’ spend more.

“What this means is that instead of more money taking pressure off you financially, you actually get stuck in a cycle of never progressing, sometimes even going backwards.”

So who’s next on his interview wish list? “I would love to meet and talk to Martin Lewis. He’s pushing heavily to get financial education onto the school curriculum but I would love to get creative with him and see how we could maybe work together (with my creative base and his reputation) to bring financial education to the masses.”

@gabrielinussbaum