Right before I chose which college I was going to
attend, I had earned over $1.8 million in
scholarships. And that's a combination of full ride
offers as well as different outside scholarship
opportunities. By the time that I had graduated from
Princeton four years later, I earned over $2 million in
scholarships.
I'm Gabriella Carter, a 22-year-old recent graduate
from Princeton University who earned over $2 million
in scholarships.
I recently moved to New York City, where I made
$133,000 last year.
I was originally born in Jamaica.
I spent the majority of my life growing up in London.
My parents definitely struggled a lot when they
were in Jamaica, which is why they were so adamant
about moving us wherever we needed to be in the world so
that we can have the best opportunities possible.
I think I did always want to go to college, even
though I didn't necessarily know what that process
looked like at all, because I'm the first person in my
family to go to college.
So I spent a lot of time on YouTube and Google just
figuring out ways to help me pay for college.
And that's how I stumbled upon scholarships.
In the beginning, I didn't have as much success as I
would like, and rejection is not the easiest pill to
swallow. I remember getting rejected to 30 different
opportunities back to back and it was demoralizing.
But right when I was about to give up, I won a $20,000
scholarship from the Coca-Cola Foundation.
So once I got that win, it really upped my confidence
again. And because I had applied to so many
scholarships before, even though I got rejected, my
skills were getting better at writing and articulating
my story. So the more scholarships I applied to,
the better applications I was able to submit and
ultimately have more success down the line.
I ended up ultimately choosing to attend Princeton
University because of the prestige, I was becoming
increasingly aware of how the Ivy League could open a
lot of doors that may not necessarily have access to
at other schools.
Fortunately, I did not have to stress about money while
I was in school.
I keep me a few jobs all the time, so I definitely
had like three different jobs on campus.
But on top of that, I received a lot of money in
scholarship disbursements, which is basically like when
you get a refund check that can go into your bank
account. So by the time I had graduated, I was able to
save over six figures in my bank account, which really
gave me a lot of good cushioning to prepare for
adulthood. My main goals with the money that I'm
saving and investing are definitely to acquire
property as soon as possible.
I feel like that's a really great way to diversify the
assets that I have and income generating
opportunities. And then outside of that, I just want
to give myself a good head start and cushioning to be
able to do what I want. Like, if I want to go
travel, I don't want to have to be worried about
that. Or if I wanted to start a different business
venture. I feel like money opens up a lot of doors to
be able to explore your dreams and have really
unique experiences.
So that's what pushes me to save and invest as much as
possible. I moved to New York City in July of 2022.
My apartment is worth $4,500 a month and I live
with two other roommates and my share of the rent is
$1,245. Majority of that food is eating out.
But I definitely do cook sometimes.
Some of those meals are business dinners and others
are for more social activities where I'm going
out to eat with friends.
I definitely do try to take the train when I can, but a
significant portion of that budget comes from taking
Ubers and Lyfts around the city.
Each month I allocate around 5 to $10,000 towards
saving and investing.
I save majority of my money in a high yield savings
account, whereas another portion of that money goes
towards my brokerage account.
I definitely do plan to retire early.
And when I say that I want to retire early, that
doesn't mean that I don't plan to do work.
I just don't want to have to be working to make a
living. And I want my work to be more related to my
passions. My first job out of college was working as a
global marketing analyst.
I felt comfortable enough to quit my 9 to 5 job once I
was on a trajectory to earn more money than I had the
previous year.
When I was at my corporate job, I was making $90,000 a
year and working 50 hours a week.
But now through my business, I'm on track to
make $200K this year, and I typically work between 30 to
40 hours a week.
If you need help with your scholarship essays, keep
watching this video because I'm about to show you how
you can see actual essays that won thousands of
dollars. Quitting my job was liberating, but very
scary as well, especially since I'm pretty young and
very early in my corporate career.
If I had graduated with student loan debt, I think
it would have been harder to leave my corporate job
because at the end of the day, debt doesn't have to
deter you from making the decisions that are best for
you in your life, but it definitely can make some
decisions like that harder.
Growing with Gabby existed offline before it ever
existed online.
I remember when we had our scholarship banquet at my
high school, I had to get up at least 20 times to
collect my different awards. That made people
very curious about how I was able to have scholarship
success. So in my free time, I would just be
telling people like different tips and free
games. The influx of inquiries for people to
learn about scholarships from me kind of got
overwhelming. So I decided to look to social media as
like the great equalizer so that I could just
disseminate information whenever I found it.
And people from all across the world can really benefit
from my expertise.
I started monetizing pretty organically.
Honestly, I didn't even know people were really
making money like that from posting online until I was
approached with an opportunity from a major
retailer and they paid me $2,500 to share about a
scholarship opportunity that they had.
And once that happened, I was like, okay, I see the
value in the information that I'm offering.
There are definitely some challenges to being your own
boss and running a business as well, especially if
you're doing it in terms of content creation.
The first that comes to mind is the fact that
sometimes your clients won't pay you on time.
On top of that, running a business can be really
strenuous because even though you're technically
not working, your brain is always on.
Since you continue to ideate and think about ways that
you can elevate your products, offer more value
to your audience and just become a better business
person. And then outside of that, especially being an
entrepreneur so young, it can really be hard to find
other people who are in the same sphere as you.
Growing with Gabby is definitely going to be
expanding, which is why I'm super excited about my show.
Y'all should tune in when it comes out.
But aside from that, I feel like there's always going to
be a really big need for people to be able to go to
college, either debt-free or at least be able to
afford it. So I definitely will be continuing to
provide value in that space because that's a part of my
testimony. But I do want to create more content and just
offer more experiences that talk about money at large.
Because figuring out how to earn money through side
hustles or other ventures as an adult is also really
hard, but something that I can help people figure out
as well. And then on top of that, I want to be
collaborating more directly with different schools
across the nation to offer scholarship workshops and
really just pour into students in person.