Ranking the Investments That Made Me a Millionaire

We all know investing is the key to building generational wealth, but the secret no one talks about is about focusing on the right investments. And right now, there's a lot of noise, but also silence. And as a woman who has an accounting degree, has worked in banking for seven years, has angel invested in a company that finally sold for 250 million, I've had my fair share of good and bad investments. So today I'm going to rank them. OK, I'm going to give you five of them, starting from the worst on the list and finishing the one that I genuinely feel, believe is the best, and you guys could do as well. Make sure you stick around until the end, because it's the one that has made the biggest difference to my life and actually building generational wealth for my girls. So I'm Patricia, and I spent 16 years documenting my life online and I've built a successful creator business, working with some of the biggest names and brands in the world. I'm a very lucky girl. Now I'm helping women at the break and beyond take control of their money and build a successful business. And if you're ready to build wealth, you're in the right place. And we think about it from a holistic perspective. So number five, property. I'm going to be honest with you, as someone who owns seven properties, right now the property bubble is about to burst. It is not the investment it used to be. Safe as houses means nothing. And I have a video in detail coming on this very soon. So make sure you subscribe. But the numbers people throw around about property returns are often misleading. The UK average house price capital growth over the last 10 years has been around 4.3%. And that sounds decent until you compare it to the stock market, which over the same period has returned upwards of 10 to 12%. And that's before you even factor in what property can cost when it comes to stamp duties, maintenance, voids, the taxes, the legal and everything that's really happened around that industry. As I've said it many times, property is expensive. The average UK house price is now over $267,000, which is about $360,000 US dollars. And the median price in 2026 was $387,000. Let that sink in. We know that when prices skyrocket in cities like New York and London, this is a big problem. You need a significant deposit. You need a significant salary. You need job security. And even if you do have all of that, you then need this money to sit in an asset that you cannot sell when you may want to do other things. The market is not allowing people to grow. And the property market is tired and tight. I'm not anti-property forever. I'm anti-buying emotionally and following the hype. If you are a first-time buyer purchasing a home to live in, that is a different conversation. And I do think is important. But as a pure investment strategy in this climate, I definitely wouldn't go there. Four, picking individual stocks. So this is more for my experienced investors. And I don't think anybody should be picking stocks. It looks exciting. And it's the thing that people talk about. But honestly, it's what most people do badly. About five years ago, I did invest in Nvidia. And that's been one of the best financial decisions I've made. But that was a risk. To put it plainly, for roughly every £100 invested in Nvidia in 2021, would be close to £1,500 today in five years. I got lucky then. This point about individual stocks is that if you are making a specific bet on a specific company, and when you're right, the returns can be extraordinary in a way that the index funds won't be. But by design, it cannot be matched. And I'm going to break that down about index funds another day. But the truth is, you need to be careful when picking individual stocks. Around 90% of active individual stock pickers do worse than a simple index fund over 10 years. Not because they are unintelligent, but because it is hard. To beat it, you actually need to know something that the market doesn't know. And I'm going to call that insider trading. Or you need to be very patient and have conviction when others are scared. And I do not want to give financial advice right now. But my personal rules for picking individual stocks and how I decide on what I invest in is based on four clear rules. One, I only invest money that I can afford to leave untouched for a minimum of five years. And individual stocks are volatile. And I know that I will be willing to risk it. I invest in companies that I genuinely believe in and slightly understand. And honestly, I don't know how the company is working. So really, I think about industries that I'm interested in. Three, I keep individual stock picks to a tiny portion of my overall portfolio. I like safe investments. And I do not recommend anyone putting all on black. Honestly, I do not think picking individual stocks is an overall strategy for most people. Four, I do not chase what has already run. The time to buy Nvidia and get lucky was in 2021. Not after everyone was already talking about it. So the best individual stock opportunities are almost always uncomfortable at the time. My safest strategy is the ETFs, the index funds, a little bit of angel investing with the research. And that is not for everyone, but it has worked for me. So for a safer, more predictable investing, I'm going to say your classics. It's your index funds and your ETFs. So number three, angel investing. Okay, this is not for everyone. And not everyone has access to this. But this has given me significant returns. And I'm talking about 10x. Angel investing is basically putting your money into an idea, a company, a founder, a product that you believe in, have some stake in, have some understanding of. And you decide you're going to back that company till its exit or IPO. This is something that may take five years, 10 years, 15 years or more. But before you get excited, 60 to 70% of individual angel investments return nothing. I've made four angel investments and only one has given me a return back. The majority chance is that you're going to lose everything that you put in. Angel investing is not for the weak. It requires patience, a high risk tolerance, and the ability to emotionally detach from money in a way that most people cannot. As well as having access to some of these conversations. This year for the first time was one of the years where the company I invested in actually sold to Unilever for 250 million. That's not what I put in, obviously. I put in much less, but I did get a 10x return on the amount I put in. And that really changed a lot about how I think about investing. Here's what angel investing has taught me about investing. It's taught me to think about risk differently. It's taught me to read a business, a founder and a market. And it's taught me that the upside of one good investment can outweigh several losses, which is exactly what I've currently experienced. As I mentioned, there's three companies that haven't made a return. So when it comes to building a portfolio, it's building one of many bets and not just one. In the UK, there's also the SEIS and EIS Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and Enterprise Investment Scheme. These give you up to 50% income tax relief on qualifying investments, meaning if you invest £10,000 into an SEIS qualifying company, you can get back £5,000 for your tax returns. The government is literally incentivising you to fund early stage businesses. That changes the risk mathematically. But I will say it one more time. This is high risk. Only ever put money into things you can afford to lose entirely. Diversify across multiple companies if you go down this route and do your research on the founder, not just the idea. By the way, every single week I send out a newsletter where I personally share what I'm doing with my finances and practical tips to help me build real wealth. It's all the ambitious women who want to take control of their money, back themselves and build financial freedom and wealth from a holistic perspective. So if this is something that sounds like you, sign up in the link below. It's free and it goes out every single week. OK, let's keep going. Index funds and ETFs. I'm going to bang on about this for an eternity. In my opinion, it's the most powerful, boring, accessible investment tool available to most people. And most people either do not understand them or are not using them. Feel like I've explained this 100 times. I've told you the tools. I use them in the link below. But when you buy a single stop, you're betting on one company. That company has a bad quarter, a bad CEO, a bad product launch. Your money suffers. Buying one stock is like betting on one horse. The horse might win, the horse might fall at the first fence. Buying an index fund is like owning the entire race. An index fund tracks a group of companies, a whole market, a whole sector, a whole country in one purchase. And when one company or one sector struggles, the others compensate. For example, the S&P 500, which tracks the 500 largest US companies, has returned an average of around 10% per year over the last 30 years. Now, the past performance doesn't guarantee future returns, but the long run data on diversified index funds is the most consistent evidence we have that patient investing works. And in the UK, the best way to invest in these is through a stocks and shares ISA. To get started, you need a platform like eToro, Trading212, Vanguard, Hargreaves, Lansdowne. I'll put my favourites in the description bar below. But choose a platform, set up a direct debit, automate it, invest every month regardless of what the market is doing. This is not about timing the market. It's about time in the market. Number one, building a business. This is my number one investment that has enabled me to build generational wealth. It's building a business. And multiple business. It's genuinely changed my life financially. I have a content creation business. I do property. That's also a business. I sell products. These are also a business. 16 years ago, I started sharing value online, built an audience and sold that audience. What I loved about that model is that you own the traffic and you earn the distribution. I learned a lot about product, marketing, customers and more, and that helped me build other businesses. When you build a business, the ceiling moves with you based on what you put in. But let me be clear about what this actually takes, because I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's easy and that you can build it overnight and this is something that everybody needs to do, especially now when there's such high risk. You need a strong personal brand, whether you're a coach, a consultant, a product business or service business. People need to know who you are and why they should trust in you. You need the right team. You cannot build something significant on your own. And without the people I have around me, I would not be here. There's so much I could say about building a successful creator business and other businesses. And if that is something that you want to see next, comment down below and I will actually make that video for you. Now, I'm working on something specifically to help ambitious women to do exactly this. A program that gives you the structure, the tools and the accountability to build a business that actually works. Not just a side hustle, but something sustainable and genuinely profitable. So if you're an ambitious woman who wants to build wealth, build financial freedom, build something of your own, join the waiting list below. You'll be the first to hear about the launch and find out how you can join. So let me know in the comments what investments you're exploring or cutting back on this year. I read every comment and I love the feedback. So guys, thank you for watching.