The ex-marketing exec used the 50 30 20 rule \u2013 a simple budgeting method which divides your after-tax income into 50% for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings or debt repayment. Starting by saving \u00a3100 to \u00a3200 per month she was eventually saving \u00a32,000 a month due to multiple promotions at work.<\/p>\n
She also began investing aged 24 and \u201clearned by doing stupid things\u201d, as well as using her credit card every day to pay for her food shopping to improve her credit score. These four principles \u2013 a pay day routine, monthly investing, using credit cards responsibly and negotiating higher salaries meant she was able to save \u00a370,000 for her home and stamp duty which she bought in August 2025.<\/p>\n
Natalie, an influencer, from Hackney, East London said: \u201cI remember when I was about 22, just after I\u2019d moved to London I remember having a conversation with my boss about personal finances and they were telling me about the 50, 30, 20 rule and how it was a well-known way to put X amount in your savings.<\/p>\n
![\"Natalie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775850943_636_0_i-bought-650k-h-1520522.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Natalie started her first marketing job when she was 18 on a \u00a316,000 salary(Image: SWNS)<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2020, I started investing. I learned by doing, when I started, doing stupid things and investing but losing money. You don\u2019t have to lose money to learn like I did, but just getting started and doing what you can is better than doing nothing when it comes to saving money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI opened my stocks and shares ISA in 2020, it\u2019s earned me \u00a315,000 up to now. Every time I would get a pay rise I would make it a non-negotiable when I got paid I would pay my bills, rent, and I didn\u2019t spend a lot on my credit card but that was my time to pay off my credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually, probably at my highest salary I had for six months at \u00a395,000 on that salary, I was able to save \u00a32,000, which is amazing. A lot of the salary came from investing free money, I got \u00a315,000 for free as you don\u2019t have to pay tax on a stocks and shares ISA.”<\/p>\n
Natalie started her first marketing job when she was 18 on a \u00a316,000 salary, while she was living with her boyfriend at the time, renting. She started taking budgeting seriously after moving to London at 22.<\/p>\n
She began using credit cards to pay for things like her weekly food shop to help improve her credit rating and, by the time she reached her highest salary, she was able to save \u00a32,000 per month. She admits she lost around \u00a33,000 over three years by picking stocks, before using Nutmeg to open a stocks and shares ISA in 2020 which earned her \u00a315,000 alone.<\/p>\n
Natalie also managed to negotiate higher salaries \u2013 negotiating a pay increase from \u00a328,000 to \u00a333,000 at her first London job on the basis that her performance was good after her first three months, before increasing the salary on a job she was offered from \u00a375,000 to \u00a395,000.<\/p>\n
She worked across multiple companies to earn \u00a395,000 in her last role before she moved to become an influencer in 2023, and bought her home in August 2025. Natalie advises against \u201clifestyle creep\u201d – where discretionary spending increases in line with income, turning former luxuries into perceived necessities.<\/p>\n
She also says people are ‘hiding from debt’, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s different if you\u2019re tens of thousands of pounds in debt. People who can pay off their debt and are avoiding – it is a bit like procrastinating.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think coming up with a plan of how much you can pay now and later re-invest is the best idea when it comes to paying off debt. There\u2019s an emotional side to money and with paying off debt it\u2019s about forward momentum \u2013 believing you\u2019re moving in the right direction with repayments\u201d.<\/p>\n
Natalie has used credit cards for eight years, and says the goal is to spend only what you would \u201cspend in cash\u201d. She said: \u201cI started by putting what I did daily that was expensive like my food shopping on my credit card and pay it off weekly. The aim is not carrying over the balance and paying it off in full\u201d.<\/p>\n
As a naturally \u201cfrugal person\u201d, Natalie says she will always go to the supermarket with a plan of what to buy and \u201cgot quite strict\u201d with orders to Deliveroo to help save. All these habits enabled her to buy her first home, a two-bed flat for \u00a3650,000 \u2013 putting down a deposit of \u00a365,000 and paying \u00a35,000 in stamp duty in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does feel good,\u201d she says. \u201cHonestly, giving away \u00a370,000 feels terrible though. Especially in this day and age it\u2019s not a fun economy and giving away that much money feels terrible but I\u2019m reminding myself I do have the money, its just in an asset.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnline, I\u2019ve had a few comments, one person said about my work that \u2018marketing salaries don\u2019t exist on that level\u2019 or \u2018I could never hope to earn that much\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think money is so emotionally tied and the more I think about it it\u2019s tied to self-belief and confidence and feeling you can ask for more. It\u2019s a fine line between being arrogant and delusional but I think people should be a bit more delusional than they are to believe that more is possible in your career and in life\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natalie O\u2019Neill started saving aged just 20 for a house. Less than a decade later, she had one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,194889,244,245,814,32354,14193],"class_list":{"0":"post-373427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-peckham","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-property","17":"tag-property-prices","18":"tag-your-money"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}