Do you want to know what used vehicles have the best value or how to book a cruise for much less than the asking price?
A lot of TikTok users are turning to Hattiesburg whiz Garner Ted Leverette for answers to those questions and others on how to better manage their money.
Garner Ted (iamgarnerted on TikTok) grew up in a small town in rural Mississippi on the Alabama border, about 55 miles east of Hattiesburg, where he taught himself how to make the best use of his money. There wasn’t a lot to go around, he said, so he made what he had work for him.
“I’ve always been a financially minded person,” he said. “I was always the little kid that the parents would give $2 to go to recess but I would never spend it, I would keep it and save it. I was always interested in money.”
Garner Ted of Hattiesburg is a TikTok sensation, offering financial tips to his more than 750,000 followers.
He said his parents kept snacks at home so he would bring those to school to eat at recess and save his money for other things.
Garner Ted watched videos on YouTube and read books on the subject to improve his financial knowledge.
“I was always interested in money,” he said. “I knew money was more than just getting it and spending it. That’s where the passion for it comes from.”
After he graduated high school, Garner Ted attended Jones College in Ellisville and later earned a degree in health administration from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Garner Ted got a job at Hattiesburg Clinic, where he worked in the marketing department. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy his creative side so he began picking up side jobs in his off time.
“I came straight out of college into an in-state corporate job on the marketing team,” he said. “But then I got to the point where I realized the nine-to-five lifestyle was never for me.”
In addition to dabbling in side hustles, Garner Ted started making Tiktok videos, often sharing the financial tips he has learned over the years, and noticed they were getting a lot of views and feedback.
“When I first started TikTok, I never thought it was going to turn into anything,” he said. “I was just trying to put videos out there. I was always on YouTube and TikTok was the new thing, so I was just pushing it off. But I fell in love with the platform.”
Today Garner Ted makes a living from his TikTok channel. He gave up his day job about a year ago and works full time on his videos.
“I coulda went full time about three years ago,” he said.
The 26-year-old content creator has more than 760,000 followers and nearly 13½ million likes.
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Garner Ted of Hattiesburg is a TikTok sensation, offering financial tips to his more than 750,000 followers.
It is his dream to inspire others to better manage their money. Some of the video topics include how to eat on a budget, manage bank accounts or make large purchases, from the dream car to the dream vacation. He even has tips on how to buy a house.
Garner Ted wants to show people how important financial literacy is and how easy it can be when they plan ahead and do a little research.
“I started educating myself on finances, started learning different things credit cards, real estate, things like that,” he said. “After I found some success in those things I just started creating videos, trying to share that to other people to help them out so they could do that as well.”
Garner Ted does the research and scripting for his videos, which he also shoots and edits. Eventually he’d like to outsource some of the work.
“Right now, the whole process of the video is me,” he said.
In 2021, about two months into Garner Ted’s TikTok gig, he realized he was doing something that people were interested in. He had between 50,000 and 100,00 followers at that time and that’s when it clicked he was on the right track. He doesn’t see himself going back to having a desk job any time soon. Most likely he never will.
“When I first started Tiktok, I didn’t know where it was going to go,” he said. “Sometimes you can put your effort into things and sometimes it can pay off. For me, it’s paid off pretty well.”
Garner Ted said anyone who dreams of becoming a content creator should give it a try. You never know where it may lead you.
“Being from Mississippi, sometimes people don’t feel like they can do things like this,” he said. “But it all just started from me giving it a try. It doesn’t matter where you live because your videos are going to touch people all across the world.”
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Watch more Garner Ted videos here:
Croc Discounts for College Students (10.3M views; 1.2M likes)
Debit vs Credit For Beginners (3.3M views; 627K likes)
3 Best First Cars To Buy For $10,000 or Under (4.2M views; 366.8K likes)
This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: What TikTok and Hattiesburg have in common is Garner Ted
