Search Articles

Find Attorneys

Sharif Ceasar: Teaching Financial Freedom Via Social Media

View of a variety of social media apps, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, on a smartphone.Takeaways

  • Social media influencer Sharif Ceasar is making a significant income by teaching personal finance principles and coaching content creators.
  • Despite skepticism among some people about online content creation, Ceasar emphasizes the importance of adapting to change and encouraging the next generation to seek out legitimate educational content online while advocating for financial, time, and location freedom.

With more than 6 million followers across social media platforms, Sharif Ceasar is making his living – a very, very good living – by teaching people. In addition to coaching content creators on how to grow their brand online, he is also educating young people – and the not-so-young – on basic, yet essential financial literacy principles, including everything from building good credit to budgeting your money properly.

Making his first few hundred dollars after posting a short YouTube video at age 15 was a revelation of sorts for Ceasar. Soon after, he decided to take a personal finance class during his junior year of high school. That one course was the extent of his high school’s offerings on the subject, but he was hooked.

Local Elder Law Attorneys in Your City

Elder Law Attorney

Firm Name
City, State

Elder Law Attorney

Firm Name
City, State

Elder Law Attorney

Firm Name
City, State

“This stuff seemed like it was actually going to prepare me for the real world,” says Ceasar. “It was not about the money. It was about what the money could give me.” He immediately dedicated himself to learning more about financial well-being, already thinking ahead to a career.

“I started preparing,” he says, asking himself: “‘What am I going to be doing five years from now? 10 years, 20 years?’ The dots were connecting: I need to focus more on this thing and just go all in.”

‘I Know I Can Teach Them Something’

At the start, not being a recognized professional in the field did not deter him. Looking back, he says, “I knew: I’m no expert. But I do know more than the average person, so let me teach that person so they can get to at least where I was.” All Ceasar had to do, he realized, was “teach that one person that’s a couple of steps behind me.”

Having dabbled in vlogs about school, friends, and his daily life, he moved on to starting his own YouTube channel focused on personal finance. Within three months, he had more than a million followers across several platforms.

One video he posted early on about stashing away spare dollar bills in a shoebox became among his most viewed pieces of content. And by monetizing his social media accounts with ads displayed alongside the content he shared, he was boosting not only on his visibility but also his own wealth.

“I was able to double my money by saving money,” he says about that video. “That’s a crazy return on investment.”

Very quickly, his thirst for knowledge began paying off in more ways than one.

“I was just learning so much, consuming so much content and actually putting in that work, implementing everything I was learning,” Ceasar says.

By age 20, he had purchased his first house, earned his real estate license, and begun investing in the stock market – in one case turning $500 into $15,000. Today, he is making more than $100,000 a month.

‘You Have to Move Along With the Change’

You can find Ceasar relaying to his followers practical tips on a wide range of personal finance topics. Teens and college students who may not know how to write out a check or make sense of their credit card statement can find tutorials in brief, user-friendly clips on Ceasar’s channels. He’ll walk them through more advanced ideas, too, such as avoiding capital gains on inherited property or understanding the power of compound interest.

He also recognizes that not every generation approaches building personal wealth in the same way. Despite his success, Ceasar has come across more than his fair share of skeptics over the years. Fellow business conference attendees, people unfamiliar with social media, and even his own father have all openly doubted his decision to follow this path. As Ceasar has found, plenty of others don’t believe anyone can make an honest living posting content online or that social media influencers can in fact serve as legitimate sources of information.

“People have to understand that money is not as difficult as they make it out to be. People think that you have to put a direct amount of time to make a direct amount of money; you have to go to school, you have to get a job,” he says. In his experience, many people simply “put their own limiting beliefs onto others.”

“I don’t mean any offense to anybody who’s still thinking traditionally, but they have to understand the world is adapting. You have to move along with the change,” he adds.

His advice is to “stop being so skeptical, be a little more open-minded, and just do your research.”

That guidance holds true for older adults who want to communicate to their kids or grandkids the importance of financial well-being, Ceasar says.

The way he sees it, in today’s creator economy, kids are consuming content online regardless of whether it is beneficial or even informative. They are also hyperaware, so directing them to the right type of content and “the creators that are going to actually educate them” can make all the difference.

“How I learn – and how the world is learning now – is through content creators and influencers,” Ceasar says. In fact, research shows that 89 percent of consumers trust influencer recommendations at the same level as personal recommendations. Ceasar counts real estate investor Graham Stephan and financial minimalist Andrei Jikh among his own motivating mentors, neither of whom he’s met.

Coaching the Next Generation: The Three F’s

Growing up in the Chicago area after immigrating to the United States from Africa, Ceasar watched his parents and his friends’ parents all work different shifts and multiple jobs, missing out on quality time with their families. Even he worked 16-hour shifts as a high schooler while bullied for being “the broke kid.” He quickly realized that was not how he wanted to live his adult life. What he wanted was a life of freedom.

Ceasar regularly touts what he refers to as the three F’s: Financial freedom, time freedom, and location freedom. That includes vacationing when he wants to, spending his free time as he wishes, working hours that he sets for himself, as well as providing for his extended family back in Africa.

Teaching the next generation about how to achieve this level of freedom means, in part, showing them how certain actions will benefit them: “People are selfish by nature,” Ceasar says. They may not be in control of whether they get sick, are laid off from a job, or experience discrimination in the workplace. But what they can control is setting goals.

In addition to seeking out valuable mentors and sources of information, online or otherwise, he recommends that everyone, regardless of their age, look toward securing multiple streams of income – advice he himself follows. While he creates practical educational content for his social media channels, he also teaches workshops, serves as an affiliate marketer, and is currently focused on building software in a dedicated app for content creators.

After he “fell in love with” personal finance, Ceasar never questioned being able to help other people achieve financial independence; he knew he had something to teach them. “If you become addicted to something, there’s no way you can’t get better at that thing,” he says.

Find Sharif Ceasar on YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook YouTube @therealmelaninking.


Created date: 07/31/2025
Medicaid 101
What Medicaid Covers

In addition to nursing home care, Medicaid may cover home care and some care in an assisted living facility. Coverage in your state may depend on waivers of federal rules.

READ MORE
How to Qualify for Medicaid

To be eligible for Medicaid long-term care, recipients must have limited incomes and no more than $2,000 (in most states). Special rules apply for the home and other assets.

READ MORE
Medicaid’s Protections for Spouses

Spouses of Medicaid nursing home residents have special protections to keep them from becoming impoverished.

READ MORE
What Medicaid Covers

In addition to nursing home care, Medicaid may cover home care and some care in an assisted living facility. Coverage in your state may depend on waivers of federal rules.

READ MORE
How to Qualify for Medicaid

To be eligible for Medicaid long-term care, recipients must have limited incomes and no more than $2,000 (in most states). Special rules apply for the home and other assets.

READ MORE
Medicaid’s Protections for Spouses

Spouses of Medicaid nursing home residents have special protections to keep them from becoming impoverished.

READ MORE
Medicaid Planning Strategies

Careful planning for potentially devastating long-term care costs can help protect your estate, whether for your spouse or for your children.

READ MORE
Estate Recovery: Can Medicaid Take My House After I’m Gone?

If steps aren't taken to protect the Medicaid recipient's house from the state’s attempts to recover benefits paid, the house may need to be sold.

READ MORE
Help Qualifying and Paying for Medicaid, Or Avoiding Nursing Home Care

There are ways to handle excess income or assets and still qualify for Medicaid long-term care, and programs that deliver care at home rather than in a nursing home.

READ MORE
Are Adult Children Responsible for Their Parents’ Care?

Most states have laws on the books making adult children responsible if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves.

READ MORE
Applying for Medicaid

Applying for Medicaid is a highly technical and complex process, and bad advice can actually make it more difficult to qualify for benefits.

READ MORE
Alternatives to Medicaid

Medicare's coverage of nursing home care is quite limited. For those who can afford it and who can qualify for coverage, long-term care insurance is the best alternative to Medicaid.

READ MORE
ElderLaw 101
Estate Planning

Distinguish the key concepts in estate planning, including the will, the trust, probate, the power of attorney, and how to avoid estate taxes.

READ MORE
Grandchildren

Learn about grandparents’ visitation rights and how to avoid tax and public benefit issues when making gifts to grandchildren.

READ MORE
Guardianship/Conservatorship

Understand when and how a court appoints a guardian or conservator for an adult who becomes incapacitated, and how to avoid guardianship.

READ MORE
Health Care Decisions

We need to plan for the possibility that we will become unable to make our own medical decisions. This may take the form of a health care proxy, a medical directive, a living will, or a combination of these.

READ MORE
Estate Planning

Distinguish the key concepts in estate planning, including the will, the trust, probate, the power of attorney, and how to avoid estate taxes.

READ MORE
Grandchildren

Learn about grandparents’ visitation rights and how to avoid tax and public benefit issues when making gifts to grandchildren.

READ MORE
Guardianship/Conservatorship

Understand when and how a court appoints a guardian or conservator for an adult who becomes incapacitated, and how to avoid guardianship.

READ MORE
Health Care Decisions

We need to plan for the possibility that we will become unable to make our own medical decisions. This may take the form of a health care proxy, a medical directive, a living will, or a combination of these.

READ MORE
Long-Term Care Insurance

Understand the ins and outs of insurance to cover the high cost of nursing home care, including when to buy it, how much to buy, and which spouse should get the coverage.

READ MORE
Medicare

Learn who qualifies for Medicare, what the program covers, all about Medicare Advantage, and how to supplement Medicare’s coverage.

READ MORE
Retirement Planning

We explain the five phases of retirement planning, the difference between a 401(k) and an IRA, types of investments, asset diversification, the required minimum distribution rules, and more.

READ MORE
Senior Living

Find out how to choose a nursing home or assisted living facility, when to fight a discharge, the rights of nursing home residents, all about reverse mortgages, and more.

READ MORE
Social Security

Get a solid grounding in Social Security, including who is eligible, how to apply, spousal benefits, the taxation of benefits, how work affects payments, and SSDI and SSI.

READ MORE
Special Needs Planning

Learn how a special needs trust can preserve assets for a person with disabilities without jeopardizing Medicaid and SSI, and how to plan for when caregivers are gone.

READ MORE
Veterans Benefits

Explore benefits for older veterans, including the VA’s disability pension benefit, aid and attendance, and long-term care coverage for veterans and surviving spouses.

READ MORE