This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Simmy Dhillon, from London, about financially supporting his parents. Business Insider has verified their payments with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I come from a working-class family. My dad’s parents moved to the UK from India in the 1960s and worked in factories. My dad also went into a factory job, where he stayed for 25 years.
My mum was born in India and came to the UK when she was very young. She worked as a cashier at Tesco, a supermarket chain, for 20 years.
They stayed in their blue-collar jobs for so long because they couldn’t afford to take risks. They provided stability and support for myself and my brother, Jhai. As we grew up, we were both motivated to work hard. Many young people go out partying and drinking, but Jhai and I never really did that. It felt disrespectful to our parents.
I set high expectations for myself. I wanted to be able to take care of my parents so they wouldn’t have to struggle.
I started my own business and retired my mum roughly 2 years later
I launched my business, Rice N Spice, in 2017 as a 20-year-old student. I cooked and delivered healthy meals to other students at my university. I initially ran it part-time, and after a few months, I asked Jhai to help me. Over the last few years, he and I grew it to the point where we could retire both my parents by the time I turned 27. It’s been my proudest achievement, and I don’t think anything can top it.
My brother and I now both work on the business full-time. He runs our kitchen operations team, and I run the office team, which has seven full-time employees, excluding myself.
Over the last seven years, we’ve grown the business into a national meal delivery service. We’re now called Simmer Eats. Our revenue last year was £6 million, which is around $7.6 million.
My mum was involved in the business in the early days because we needed extra hands. She helped with cooking, delivering meals, and picking up supplies. For the first year, it was just the three of us.
By 2019, we were generating enough income that my mom could leave her supermarket job, and we could put her on a higher salary as an employee of Simmer Eats.
It was our long-term ambition to retire her. She made sure we had a good childhood, working multiple part-time jobs alongside her Tesco job. I felt we had stopped her from having the career she wanted.
In 2019, Jhai and I took my mum out for a birthday dinner and told her she could resign and never have to work for anyone else again. I rarely see one of my parents cry, but I could see little tears in her eyes.
She left her supermarket job, but she was having a lot of fun working with us, so she stayed involved in the business until 2022.
I’d dreamt of retiring my parents, but it was unbelievable that we could do it so quickly. I felt really proud.
I convinced my dad to quit his factory job
I felt a sense of urgency in retiring my dad, too. His factory job was physically demanding, and he felt trapped in it.
I recently found out that when my dad first got the job, his father told him to stay employed there until after he was due to pay off his mortgage. He thought it was a good job because it was relatively well-paid compared to other factory jobs. His father died soon after, and I think the promise my dad made to him is part of the reason he stayed in it for so long.
I eventually convinced him it was OK to leave his job, and we could take care of him financially. He left in January this year.
My parents live much more comfortably now
Now, we fully fund our parents’ lifestyles, and they don’t have to worry about being unable to afford things. This year, we gave them £37,500 each in dividends, as they are shareholders in the company. We’ll likely pay them a similar amount each year.
Outside that, we take them out for dinner and to the cinema. Last year, I took my mom to India for a holiday, and we also got my dad a new car in February.
I’ve also paid for my dad to have surgery in a private hospital. He couldn’t have afforded that on the salary from his job.
In June, we paid a lump sum of around £51,000 using dividends from the business to pay off my parents’ mortgage. It’s great that we’ve been able to take that pressure and stress off of them.
My parents are still relatively young, in their 50s, so they’ve got years to enjoy themselves. We go to the gym together as a family. Dad is trying to spend more time reading and says he wants to learn to play the trumpet. Mum does yoga, goes walking, and meets her friends. They’re so unstressed now.
We felt we had more money coming in than we needed, so before we started upgrading our own lifestyles, it was only right to pay for things that would have a huge impact on our parents’ lives.
That said, we haven’t had a huge lifestyle inflation where we go all out on luxury. We can enjoy things like not worrying about menu prices or getting a taxi home from the airport instead of the bus — but we don’t spend much on things we don’t need.
Since my brother and I are quite frugal, we haven’t had to reduce our spending to take care of our parents. We regularly save and invest so even if our business stopped growing so much, I think we would be OK.
I don’t think I could have retired my family with a salaried job
The world is becoming more unequal and it’s very difficult for people who grew up without money to become financially comfortable. I’m lucky that the business has taken off and has enabled me to provide my family with financial stability. It’s fulfilled a childhood dream.
If I had a salaried job, even if it paid well, I don’t think I’d be able to support my family in the same way. That’s partly because running a business is more tax-efficient than being an employee, and there are no caps on earning potential.
I’ve achieved a lot already, but if my business became a billion-pound company, I don’t think that would be as special as what we’ve been able to achieve for our parents.