Finance guru plants seeds of ‘cents’

GO-GETTER, driven and family man are just a few choice words to characterise Hillcrest’s finance guru, Justin Harrison.

With his wit, money smarts and the need to help others, he launched a YouTube channel, Global Money Academy, to help individuals with financial advice.

With a wake-up call of 3.30am each morning, Harrison jokingly described his household’s time schedule as being run and maintained similar to that of the army’s. His main business, sees him give individuals advice on how to improve and maintain a healthy credit score.

“Every consumer has a credit score and, to access finance and rental properties or any instance where you are financially vetted, you need to have a good or above average score. Generally speaking, you should be in the 600s. It’s a very complex thing and what we have done is decode it into steps that people must take to increase their individual scores,” he said.

He started this finance journey in 2008 and is a figurative fountain of knowledge when it comes to anything finance related.

“One had ever really gone to the average consumer before and most people would only end up finding out they had a bad credit score when they went to apply for something,” he said.

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The YouTube channel was an idea created by himself and his five business partners.

“We were seeing the results the coronavirus was having on people and we saw some real financial effects. While we can’t see personal profile data we could see that people were taking micro loans, second bonds and we sat down and had a deep conversation one day. People were and are sitting at home, they can’t go to work and they had a constant negativity across social media. We wanted to be a beacon of light,” he said.

It began with a simple newsletter and more than 4 500 people signed up within the first month. “We then talked about taking it further and give people tangible advice they could action. Traditional financial advice usually comes from a top down approach and we wanted to avoid this,” he said.

From offering simple advice to people during lockdown, such as changing their insurance plans to investments, the channel has grown in leaps and bounds and has 3 860 subscribers and more than 140 000 views across its videos.

“What is so surprising to me is that it gave me such renewed hope in our country as we don’t realise how entrepreneurial we are. Almost every single mom has some side hustle going on. Each person who lost their job has gone out there and found a way to make an income for their families,” said Harrison.

“Every video and piece of advice we give we first ask ourselves if this will help people be better citizens. I get a lump in my throat as it is truly a privilege to have found this outlet and give advice and guide people through a very difficult situation.”

Harrison firmly believes that it is the simple advice that is able to give viewers the biggest bang and has helped bring people back to basics.

“Every house needs to have a budget and every family member needs to buy into it and commit to it. During this time, communities, business partners and families need to come together,” he said. “In uncertain times, people look for certainty. Now people are making decisions on how to make the little money they have work for them.”

With a full day carved out each day, he has found it important to add in time for both family as well as for himself. When he isn’t filming YouTube videos, helping clients or working furiously behind his laptop, he finds himself at the ocean, his quiet place and a way for him to disconnect.

Harrison is also studying neuroscience and is in the process of writing another book, to add to the six he completed during lockdown last year.