How a young woman grew her net worth from $8K to $900K in two years

In just two years a 25-year-old podcast host has managed to grow her net worth from $8,000 to an astonishing $900,000.

Simran Kaur, from New Zealand, told Daily Mail Australia she was able to rapidly grow the figure by investing in shares, renovating her rundown home and building her business ‘Girls That Invest’.

In 2020 Simran boosted her savings by taking on side hustles to supplement her income and learnt how to invest her money.

She managed to save $57,000 in one year to purchase her first home worth $565K with a 10 per cent deposit.

But the road to financial success has come with sacrificing her time, as she often works 60 to 80 hours a week focusing on her assets.

‘Initially I worked a normal 9-5 job with some ecommerce side hustles, where I was selling merchandise like shirts and tote bags to a community of 300k people along with a few other ecommerce brands that were in the accessories niche,’ Simran said.

At the time she was also freelancing her time to create online content for financial brands.

‘I realised I was great at social media so I thought ‘if I spend so much time on Instagram and TikTok for free, why not be paid to do it,’ she said.

‘All the money I earned I either invested into my shares or my business. I lived very cheaply by renting out a flat with three other people, spending less than $70 on food every week and splitting bills with my flatmates.’

Her assets include her savings, house, stocks, business cash and the value of her car.  

She also took up side hustles, such as dropshopping and selling ‘print on demand’ products.

Dropshipping involves shipping products from the manufacturer directly to the customer without the supplier or retailer ever seeing it.

‘My eccomerce brands focused on drop shipping for a while but ended up putting more attention into print on demand, where an item is made only when a person purchases it,’ Simran said.

‘It does push the shipping dates out by two to three days but it means that I could keep my overhead to almost $0 and not have hundreds or thousands of dollars stuck in merchandise.’ 

Simran and her best friend Sonya Gupthan started Girls That Invest to spread financial literacy and teach women how to invest. 

Today the brand has a strong community of more than 200,000 people, mostly women, and more than 134,000 followers on Instagram.

The brand itself is now also worth six-figures.  

For the first 18 months Sim said she didn’t take on any paid opportunities and would speak at events for free to share her views and knowledge.

Now the pair also offer a single paid product for our community members who want a more comprehensive in-depth experience to learn more about investing. 

‘Our masterclass has been taken by over 2000 students worldwide from counties like Australia and NZ but also in the US, Canada, UK, Spain and South Korea – it’s phenomenal!’ she said.

Prior to purchasing her first home at the age of 24, Simran had to strategically save and budget her money.  

‘I had to cut down my spending habits by budgeting how much I spent on groceries and caught up with friends at home instead of going out,’ she said. 

Being single with no dependents, she was able to save frugally and strategically over a short period of time. 

But she also had luck on her side, as she invested a large amount of money into the stock market ‘at the right time’ to gain an estimated profit of $4,730 over 12 months. 

‘When I had close to $50,000 I knew I needed to speak to a mortgage broker and apply for a loan,’ she said. 

‘I was lucky enough to invest in the bottom of the market in March and some of my investments did very well, including Tesla which gave me a 400 per cent return on my money,’ she said.  

‘I had dabbled in investing in the past but decided to take it more seriously and invested as much as I could afford slowly every week. 

‘After graduating from uni in 2019 I started work in healthcare in 2020, but after I was stood down during Covid-19 lockdown I temporarily lived on a government wage subsidy.’  

‘When I began my investing journey there wasn’t any information that was female orientated and it felt very intimidating,’ she said.

‘I couldn’t find a voice that related to mine, it was just ‘finance bros’ who overcomplicated investing concepts.’ 

Simran said she mainly investing in Exchange Traded Funds (ETfs) including the S&P500, but also invested in specific companies – Tesla, Shopify, Apple, Amazon and Google – using Sharesies and Hatch. 

She also dabbled in cryptocurrencies by holding Ethereum, Litecoin and Dogecoin, which was a risky investment.  

Over time she initially invested $14,581 and gained an estimated profit over the year of $4,730.

In addition to this she had personal savings of $28,629 and $8,902 in her existing KiwiSaver account.   

In August 2020 Simran and Sonya extended the ‘Girls That Invest’ name and started a podcast for women to ‘break down investing jargon’ and make it easier to understand.

‘We’re two women who spoke about investing in a fun manner that wasn’t intimidating – we spoke about NFTs, crypto, how to get started investing, top ETFs and things to look out for.’

Over a short period of time the podcast is claimed to be ‘one of Australia’s biggest investing podcast for women’ as well as among the ‘top two investing podcasts in New Zealand’. 

‘We don’t tell women what to invest in, we just simplify what the stock market even is, how to tell the difference between an ETF and an Index Fund and overall show that investing should be and can be for women and marginalised groups,’ she said. 

In addition to saving, Simran encourages women to start investing and find ways to boost your income. 

‘There’s a limit to how much you can save but there’s no limit to how much you can invest,’ she said, adding: ‘And it’s really quite simple.’ 

Prior to investing it’s important to always do your own research and only invest as much as you can afford to potentially lose.