Most of Us Rent Our Income. Here's Why This Matters.

In this episode of the Money Gains Podcast, I explain why your income is rented, not owned and what to do about it.

I dive into the research on why we spend to prove ourselves, the dopamine trap that keeps us stuck, and the "tend your forest" framework for building real wealth. If you've ever felt like you're working hard but getting nowhere financially, this one's for you.

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IN THIS EPISODE:
✅ Why your salary doesn't actually belong to you — and what to do about it
✅ The psychology behind why we buy things we can't afford
✅ Why 75% of luxury buyers earn less than $150K (the "aspirational" trap)
✅ The boring wealth-building strategy that actually works
✅ How to define your "enough" and stop chasing someone else's version of success
✅ 5 steps to stop renting your income and start owning it

This video is not financial advice. Always do your own research before making financial decisions. When you invest your capital is at risk. Past performance is not a future indicator.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You see, most of us don't actually own our income. We rent it. And if you think about that for a second, if you stop working tomorrow, the money would stop too. So that's not wealth, that's a subscription to your own life. And see, the mad thing is, the entire system is designed to keep you renting forever, to keep you dependent, to keep you showing up. And today I'm going to show you on the Money Games podcast how you can stop renting and start owning. And once you see this, you are never going to unsee it. So part number one, this is the renting trap. Because you are only one payslip away from hitting zero. And your salary feels like yours. It feels like you've earned it. It hits your account, and your name's on the top of that payslip, isn't it? But it doesn't belong to you. It does belong to your job. It belongs to the economy, and it belongs to a decision that is made in a boardroom that you might never sit in. Redundancy, illness, burnout. That company goes under, and that income literally disappears almost overnight. And you could be the best employee that they've ever had. And it really doesn't matter. The tap turns off. And I'll tell you guys a story. I used to work for a Spanish restaurant chain in London in my early 20s. I was the head of marketing, and there were four people in our team. And essentially, one day, and actually there was more, there were three people in HR as well. And one day, there were some meetings happening downstairs, and there were some people downstairs. And you you always knew when people were there, because we worked at the top of this bar called Big Chill, and they would hold meetings downstairs, and it was closed during the day. So if the boss was meeting someone, you knew it, right? And there was these people coming through quite regularly over the course of a few days. And then literally one morning we got into work that day, and they turned around to us and they said, the entire marketing team and HR is being outsourced to an agency. So overnight, seven people, and by the way, the restaurants were doing pretty well. They were doing all right. Like they were opening new locations, there was no real debt anywhere, things were going very well. And they outsourced the whole thing to save costs. Like we were all doing a very good job, turning up to our job. You give your time and your ideas and your energy and your best hours of the day, and you get money back from it. But only while you keep on giving to that company, right? If you miss a month, or the money's gonna stop, right? If you miss a month of work, then the money could stop. If you get ill for six months, well you're on statutory sick pay, and good luck living on £118.75 a week, because that's the actual rate right now. And that's so scary, right? You don't own your own income. Your employer lets you borrow it and exchange it for your time. Because the moment you stop, well, that deal just ends. So why does that actually matter? Well, most people build their entire life on rented income. The mortgage, the car, the lifestyle, the kids' school, the after-school clubs. All of it is very dependent on something which you don't potentially control. In the three months to October 2025, 117,000 people were made redundant in the UK. That's not a recession figure, that's just a normal quarter. One meeting, one email, one risk, we're restructuring, and this whole thing completely wobbles. You're not building anything, you're maintaining a rental agreement, and the landlord can literally end the lease whenever they want. Now I get it. Look, the pressure is where I want to be clear about something. This isn't electro, guys. This is how almost all of us live in the UK. It's the default. And all around the world. But the wealth gap is it is in the UK right now, is currently widening. The richest 10% own 57% of all the wealth, and the bottom 50% less than 5%. And right now, 61% of adults say the cost of living went up just in the last month. 61%. Over 5 million households have had to cut back on meals because they can't afford food. Nearly 4 million have borrowed money just to cover essentials. And a third of UK adults couldn't cover an unexpected £850 expense. So when I talk about renting income, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here. I'm describing the reality. The system is squeezing people properly hard right now. And I totally get it. But we still want you to see this so we can try and do something about it and try and steal the power back. Because the system rewards people cutting down trees. This is what we're taught, right? Wealth equals stuff. Visible stuff. Nice car in the driveway, nice flat, nice design of clothes, holiday photos up on Instagram. Success equals upgrading. New job, well, I'm going to upgrade to the 25 plate. Pay rise, well, I'm going to upgrade the fat. Bonus, well, yeah, you know, I'll just upgrade the wardrobe, get myself some nice bits and bobs. Do you know what I mean? Well, that's just not going to cut through, right? We're taught to show that progress is bought through consumption, to prove that we're moving forward by buying stuff. And that's the trap. You see, every time we earn more, we spend more to signal to other people that we're doing well in life, right? Lifestyle inflation is almost automatic. It doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like treating yourself for. You deserve it most of the time. But what you're actually doing when you do that is resetting back to zero every single time that you do do that. And here's the thing: since 2021, prices have risen 22.7%, while wages on average have grown by 21.5%. So we're not even keeping up. And yet we keep upgrading if we do get our good little thing come our way. So what I spoke about before about cutting trees is I want you to picture wealth as a forest that you're growing. So each tree equals money that you've earned and kept. And felling a tree or cutting a tree down is spending it to show people that you're a successful lumberjack out there. You can chop it down. Look at what I can do. Everyone's impressed with me. But the tree's gone, right? It doesn't grow back. You have to plant that tree again from scratch. And meanwhile, your forest stays empty. There's no canopy, there's no roots, there's nothing compounding for you. But why do we just cut down these trees? Well, because we're surrounded by other people that are cutting down trees too. Social media is a highlight reel of timber, holidays, cars, outfits, restaurants. Nobody posts their ISO balance, nobody shows their pension growing. Nobody brags about their emergency fund. So we all assume that the goal is just more cutting down of trees, not a bigger forest here at all. And that brings us to the real cost of this, all of this, right? Proof is expensive. What we are actually buying when we spend money is proof. Proof that we're doing all right, proof that we're not stuck, proof that we're moving forward in life. That car isn't just a car, it's proof that you've made it. That holiday that you want isn't just a holiday, it's proof that your life is good and you can afford to go away. And that that outfit isn't just clothes, it's proof that you belong on that stage. And this psychology has a name. It's called conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen coined it back in 1899. The idea that we buy things not for their usefulness, but to signal status, to show how we belong to a certain class. And the research is absolutely wild here. Studies have shown that people with lower subjective social status are actually more likely to engage in conspicuous consumption, especially when they feel like their social mobility is blocked. We buy to feel like we're not stuck. And here's a stat which absolutely blew my mind, guys. Nearly 75% of luxury goods purchases around the globe come from people earning under $150,000 a year. So that's £109,000 in the UK. The majority of people buying those Louis Vuitton handbags and designer watches, they are millionaires. They are the aspirationals, the middle class people for whom that purchase is a major, major, major, major discretionary spend and a status badge at best. We're not buying luxury because we have the money to spare. We're buying it because we want to look like we do. When life feels repetitive, uncertain, or emotionally flat, spending creates a sensation that something has changed in our life. A purchase introduces novelty, a before and after, a brief feeling of progress. And retail therapy isn't a joke, it's actually a coping mechanism for a lot of people. A way to feel different without changing anything underneath it. And here's actually the science behind this. When you shop, your brain releases dopamine, the same chemical involved in any reward activity that we have in life. The dopamine actually spikes its highest point, right? During anticipation, not the actual purchase itself. You get the hit from wanting the thing and not having the thing. And a 2023 Deloitte study found that 77% of consumers bought something to lift their mood in the past month, but only 42% of those could actually afford it. So we're buying feelings that we can't pay for. And you see here that proof doesn't compound. You can't invest proof. Proof doesn't pay you dividends. Proof doesn't build security. It doesn't make next month easier. It doesn't protect you when things go wrong. Every purchase for appearance is borrowing from future you. Taking money that could be growing and burning it on validation. You're taking from the future to make present you look more convincing. And the present never stays convinced for long. That feeling fades. The purchase becomes normal. The validation wears off. So you need another one. You needed another hit. You need another tree to cut down. And because spending is frictionless, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on our Apple Pay, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap on our Apple Pay. Whilst wealth building isn't even in our thought process when we're doing that. They're just numbers on a screen, right? Doing absolutely nothing exciting for you. But that tap, tap, tap, tap, tap away, oh, that feels so good. And that loop is so easy to fall into. Now, this isn't a personal failing. For me, it's a structural problem. The way that the system is designed to keep us spending, to keep us cutting down our forest. So how do we actually tend to that forest instead of cutting those trees down? What building actually looks like. Now I just want to touch on this first, because 90% of UK employees say that they lack enthusiasm for their jobs, and only 17% of people say that they actually love what they do. Most people are showing up to jobs that they don't love, just to pay the bills, that keep on rising, buying things to feel better about life that feels stuck. That's the water that we're all swimming in here, guys. So what does it actually look like to swim against the current, to win this battle? Now the uncomfortable truth here is tending to a forest actually building wealth is boring. It's invisible and it's unremarkable from the outside in. Nobody claps at you when you don't upgrade your car. Nobody is impressed when you keep the same flat after a pay rise, and nobody notices when you increase your pension contributions behind the scenes. Maybe your HR manager, right? So what does your tending to that forest actually look like? Well, keeping your costs of living flat when your income rises. You get a pay rise of 5K, you don't add 5K to the lifestyle. You invest the difference. This is the single most powerful wealth move on the planet and the hardest because it feels like deprivation. It's building savings that you don't actually touch. Not savings that become the holiday fund, the new phone fund, the I'll pay myself back in the future fund. Actual untouchable money that sits there. It gets very boring. Investing, right? We just want to invest into ourselves, into our security. And it's also about investing consistently when it's dull. Putting money in every single month, regardless of what the market is doing, and not checking it obsessively and not getting it cited and not panicking and not buying that thing down the road because Dave down the pub told you it was a good idea. Just tending to it. Buying less but buying better. Buying fewer things that last longer. Quality over quantity and not chasing trends and sales or dopamine hits that you need. It's buying a wardrobe you can safely rotate around instead of jumping on ASOS and Sheen every time a new trend comes out and you feel like you need to buy it to fit in. That's the invisible phase that we want here. For years, maybe even decades. And it looks like nothing is absolutely happening on the surface here. When your friends are upgrading, you're not. Your colleagues have nicer stuff and you don't. People might even feel sorry for you. When are you going to treat yourself, mate? From the outside in, it looks like nothing, but under the soil, those roots are growing. And roots is literally where you can weather any storm which is thrown at you. Now, this is where we want to shift from a renting mindset into an owning mindset. So how do we actually own our income? Well, the definition of this is owning income equals money that comes in, whether or not you do anything. And it's a real cringy term, this passive income thing, but the concept is actually quite real. It's the difference between working for money and having money work for you. And there are three ways that we can own our income. Number one is investments. Your money is now making money. Stocks, index funds, ETFs, ownership of companies out there which generate profits. Dividends, which you get paid for owning those companies. They literally pay you for owning a piece of them. It's where your 10K becomes 12K, becoming 15k while you do nothing. And the magic here is that reinvested money returns, compounding for you. Your money starts earning money of its own. Every single pound that you invest is a tiny little employee working for you 24-7. It never sleeps, it never calls in sick. It just grows over time if you leave it. Of course, yes, there's market fluctuations, but the stock market has done one thing, go up over time. And the numbers are absolutely staggering here. If you look at the SP 500, it's returned around an average of 10% annually over the past 100 years. And over the last 20 years specifically, it's averaged about 11% before inflation. That's around 8% after inflation. And that means if you could invest today, realistically, you could potentially double your money in seven to 10 years without you lifting a finger from what you invested today. Now, of course, past performance is not a future indicator of success, but it's all that we have to go on. And that's something you have to look at here. You have to be willing to take that risk, to buy a future day for you, which you are potentially not going to have to worry about rented income. And number two on this list is assets that pay you for things. So it could be property that generates rent, so not your own home that costs you money. It could be a business that runs without your daily involvement after you've built it up over time. It could be royalties from music, books, courses, content that earns money while you are not there. Like, for example, I put out this podcast, and if it goes viral, well, it's going to earn me money. And some of my YouTube videos now are two, three years old, and they're still getting views. They're still bringing in money for me from ads on YouTube and potentially even products. If I list a product on a YouTube video, for example, it's an asset that puts money in your pocket. And a liability is money that takes out of your pocket. It takes money away from you. Most things that we buy are liabilities in life. They're pretending to be assets with a shiny badge and a shiny number that says, hey, look at me and my Louis Vuitton bag. And number three is skills that scale. So it's income that's not tied to hours. Building something once that sells repeatedly, so that's digital products, content systems, expertise that command premium rates so you can work less for more money. Trading time for money has a ceiling, of course, and there are only so many hours in the day. But ownership of something has absolutely no ceiling here. Now the goal is to have enough invested so the growth of that and the income of that covers the baseline of your life. Not necessarily never working again, money, just work becomes optional money. When your forest grows on its own without you having to plant it, water it, and tend to it all of the time, you can finally rest. That is owning. Now, just I want to say here, I appreciate that when you start out investing, start out in business, start out in content, start doing things, the growth is extremely slow for a good long period of time. This is a journey you are going to have to go on over a very, very long period of time. I'm talking potentially five, 10, 15 years in some cases, especially with investing your money. You have to think in decades. Compounding really does only kick off after about 20, 25 years. So you've got to be willing to go on that journey. That's the journey you have to go on. That's probably why you're here, right? So you just have to look at that. But next I want to define what is enough. Enough isn't about wanting less, it's about knowing your number. People hear enough and they think it means deprivation, shrinking our lives, giving up on ambition. And that is not it. Enough is not about definition, not about restriction. Enough is the point where money starts supporting your life instead of dominating it. The point where you stop organizing your days around financial fear. Now, here's why most people never define it. We absorb other people's definitions of success without questioning them. That bigger house, the nicer car, the more stuff. It's always more, right? But more has no endpoint. If you just earned a million pounds and went and spent it, there's a guy earning a billion pounds and spending that. More is a treadmill. You never arrive. And if you don't define enough for yourself, you'll spend your whole life chasing someone else's version of it. So, what enough looks like, for example. For me personally, it's a paid-off home. I don't want a mansion, right? I just literally want my own home. But I want a paid-off car that gets me from A to B. I'm not trying to impress anyone in traffic. Sure, it would be nice to drive a Porsche one day, but I don't really need one, do I? A baseline cost of living for me, which is predictable. I want to go into the supermarket and not necessarily worry so much that milk and eggs have gone up 10p. I want investments which are generating enough that work for me becomes completely optional. And the ability to help out my friends and family without completely destabilizing my own entire life. And I want time for stuff that actually matters. I want to invest into my health, my relationships. I want to be able to rest. I want to be able to be creative when I want to be. So the key mindset here is I'm not trying to look rich. I'm just trying to be free. I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm trying to own my own time. I do not want excess. I want enough. I want enough. And enough is more than most people ever get. So let's work towards it. So the question to ask yourself here is what is your enough? Have you ever actually sat down and defined it? Not when you think it should be what you want, not what you would have to impress other people. What would actually make you feel free? And I bet you it's a lot lower than you will give yourself the time to think about. So next I want to actually talk about the steps to actually doing this. Now, first off is actually write it down. Write down your enough. You know what enough means to you when you really tap into and you really think about it. So write it down. Just be specific. What kind of house do you want? What kind of car do you want to drive? And what kind of lifestyle is enough for you? And what do you actually want to be doing as well? What work would you be doing if it was a target that you set yourself, right? So if you for me, like if you don't have a target, if you don't have something written down, I literally have it up there on the wall, right there in front of me. It's a vision board. That's exactly what I want to go out and achieve for me this year. I have ultimate goals written up there. Once it's written down, it's locked into my brain. And then my brain actually starts trying to find ways of actually doing it. I see it every day when I walk past it. So stick it on the fridge, stick it in front of your work desk, stick it on a bit of paper that you, you know, put up with a post-it note somewhere. That's what you need to do here. Now, next up, we have to widen the gap. So the gap between what you earn and what you spend is absolutely everything. So there are a couple of ways you can widen it. And one is to earn more, simply, yes, so obviously, right? Let's bring some more money through the door. And the other one is obviously to spend less. Ideally both, right? And every pound in that gap is a seed that you can plant for your future forest. The bigger that gap grows, the more trees you can grow. Because you invest the difference, right? Now here's the reality UK households currently save between about 9 and 10%. Of their income on average, right? That's an average. Please don't take it as your exact average. Most people do. They always have an issue with something that's an average, but it's an average, right? Doesn't mean it's you. Okay, let's just get that out of the way. But two and five Brits literally have a thousand pounds or less saved, meaning one bad month, and they are bang in trouble. Could you try again? Oh, Siri, thank you very much for kicking in there. I don't want you to get it. I want you guys to get it. Now the average person has under 50. So the bloody hell, this is phone me. Okay, right. So let's get back to it. The average person under 55 has less than 10,000 pounds saved. That's not a forest, guys. That is a seedling that could potentially become something, but it's not yet. Now the third one is stop felling every single tree that is possible to fell out there. Cut those trees down. Let's buy stuff. No, okay. Not every pay rise needs to upgrade your lifestyle. The next time you get a raise, a bonus, a windfall, pause before you spend it, guys, and ask yourself is this proof that I'm buying or is it progress? You don't have to live like a monk. I'm definitely not telling you to live on baked beans for the rest of your life. Just think about things a little bit more. Just stop automatically upgrading. Make it a conscious choice to do that. And number four is automate this, guys. Set up automatic investment so you don't have to think about it. Payday hits, move that money out into your ISO or pension before you even see it. Investing shouldn't require willpower, it should happen in the background. You can't spend what you don't see. So automate this as much as you possibly can. And then number five is get comfortable with being invisible. Wealth building looks like it's very boring from the outside, and because that is the point. No one will notice what you are doing. You won't have the flashy proof here. Your forest will look sparse to other people, but very, very full to you. And one day, it will happen faster than you can even think. Compounding will kick in and you'll look back at what you've built and you will realize you are free. Think about that as the thing that you want. Get comfortable with nobody noticing. The growth will come, and when it does, you won't need to felt anything. You won't need to cut down any trees anymore to prove it to anyone because you will own the forest. And now the system wants you renting forever, guys. Cutting these trees down, proving yourself to everyone else around you, starting over every single month. But you can opt out of this. Not by earning more, by keeping more, by planting trees, by tending to them. And it's not gonna look impressive for a long time. Your forest is gonna seem empty. People are gonna wonder why you're not upgrading like they are. But under the soil, those roots are growing, and one day those roots are going to support a massive canopy. Stop renting your income. Start owning it. Because freedom isn't about how much you earn, it's about how much you keep working for you guys. Tend to that forest. And look, I hope you've loved this one. You can sign up for the wait list for Gains app if you're still listening now, and you can get entered into when your food shopping paid for an entire year. We're gonna help you with lots of this, and we're gonna put money directly back in your pocket through instant cash back. We've got an AI financial coach you can chat to around your money, find that savings that you didn't know existed. And I've absolutely loved this, and I'll catch you next week for another episode.