Influencer
Toba Courage Of THE HACK On Creating Money-Saving, Travel Content
Toba Courage never expected that finding himself broke would lead to his popular series where he shares himself living on one pound a day in London. However, this series led to a huge following, many brand opportunities, and the ability to go full-time as a creator. Toba shares his top money-saving hacks, the secret to success online, and how he monetizes his content with us today.
Toba Courage is a video creator sharing tips and insights on living smart and saving money worldwide. His popular YouTube channel, THE HACK, has over 850,000 followers and over 141 million views. He also has a popular Instagram account, thehack_official, where he shares money-saving tips and hacks to help you survive and live around the world.
He began sharing money-saving hacks online after he went broke.
Toba Courage shares, “One day, on my way back from work. I was calculating how much I would receive that month, and once i had subtracted all the bills, the debt, and everything else, I realised I had 30 pounds left… for the whole of the month on food.”
This month left Toba with one pound per day to spend on food, which launched his popular series where he shares himself living on one pound per day in London and other areas of the world. He researched many money-saving hacks extensively during this time to survive, then later shared places he found with free food, community fridges, and much more. At first, these videos were getting average views, but they suddenly took off after the YouTube algorithm picked the series up.
Creating Money-Saving Content
Although many people love Toba’s one pound a day series, some pointed out that he wasn’t actually living on one pound a day. Instead, he ate for one pound a day because he was still renting a place, paying utility bills, etc.
In response, Toba did a completely homeless in London series.
He shares, “That incorporated a lot of challenging parts in the video, like finding somewhere to sleep, finding food, finding travel, going on websites to getting a free bike, finding a free TV and selling it to make some money.”
Before creating a money-saving video, Toba does extensive research to find free resources, like community fridges, to share with his audience.
Toba’s Money-Saving Hacks
Toba’s biggest tip is to find websites that help you book off-peak periods. His personal favorites are Skyscanner and Google, which help him find good deals on flights, hotels, cars, and more.
He adds, “When you get to the city, get to know the locals, you want to ask them a lot of questions, because there’s only so much you can find online. Locals will blow your mind with the knowledge they have.
Toba Courage also recommends hostels, which many people find intimidating since you share a room with many others. However, Toba shares that you’ll quickly get comfortable staying in a hostel, and it’s a great way to save money.
He also plans all of his travel around saving money. For example, he chooses locations to travel to by using Skyscanner and seeing the current cheapest flights and where they are flying to.
As a result, he shares you should always keep extra money on you in case of any emergency.
The Secret to Toba’s Success
Toba Courage feels the secret to his success has been the combination of creating an impossible challenge that other creators haven’t done before and relatable budget tip content that everyone can benefit from watching.
“It’s literally a combination of relatability, a high-stake challenge or impossibility, and the entertainment factor. Those three create the virality.”
He explains, “Incorporating things that are going on in society which people can relate to, then giving them an exaggerated version of it and how to solve it.”
Toba measures online success by traditional analytics, such as views, engagement, comments, and likes, but also by the number of people that come up to him in public. It shows him the magnitude of his reach, and it means a lot to him when he can connect the numbers online to real people that have seen and benefited from his content.
Monetizing His Content
Toba Courage is a full-time content creator. He monetizes his content primarily through YouTube Adsense, sponsorships with brands, and his merch website. He’s also looking to venture into a subscription-based model with exclusive content.
One of Toba’s favorite sponsorships was with Visits Abu Dhabi, a travel and tourism company. For this collaboration, Toba created a video about visiting Abu Dhabi, showing places to stay, things to do, the food, transportation, and much more.
When choosing what brands to work with, Toba Courage looks closely at the brand’s core values.
Favorite Moments as a Creator
One of Toba’s fondest moments as a creator was receiving his hundred thousand subscribers plaque. He hopes to get a million subscribers plaque in the future.
“I’d say being recognized by your peers means a lot. I was in the Black Creator Class of 2022, and was voted to win two awards by fellow creators, that meant a lot to me.“
In the future, Toba is pivoting his channel to incorporate presenters so that it doesn’t rely as heavily on himself. He also wants to create a website with exclusive and behind-the-scenes content behind a subscription model. In addition, he wants to make a second website featuring money-saving travel tips and tricks in programs and courses.
