Money buys freedom? At first glance, it may seem that I am obsessed with money. I read articles and books on the subject, listen to podcasts and read blogs about it, I talk about it, and I even dream about it.
Many people find this irritating or offensive…I get that, and I do try to rein myself in a little bit. The average person doesn’t discuss money very often, mostly because they don’t understand it. I don’t understand it completely either, but I’m working on it…a lot.
It is essential to be the master of your finances, or you will be the servant; debt and consumption will be the chains that bind you. Why am I making such a big deal out of this? To drive a newer car, get a bigger home, another vacation? It would be nice…but, no.
I want the ability to choose what I do with my time, all of it.
Time is the most precious thing we possess, and none of us know how much remains. We give away this valuable commodity to people and activities we dislike. You can not buy happiness, but you can buy time.
You might say that you are in control of your time, that you don’t need to buy any. That may be true, but…if you go to a job every day, there are at least 40 hours a week that don’t belong to you.You are trading priceless hours for whatever your employer says they are worth. If you are self-employed or own a business, you might be trading more time for even less.
Maybe you love your job, and that’s great, but if not, there are two things you can do: either clone yourself or achieve financial independence. You might laugh when I say clone yourself, but duplicating your efforts can increase your time significantly. I’ll give you a simple example:
If you sell a product door to door, you are limited to the number of hours that you can put in yourself. Say you hire 10 people to sell your products, your selling capability has increased 10 times. If you were working 10 hours a day on your own, you now have 100 hours a day of selling while freeing up your original 10.
Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but you get the idea.
Financial independence comes when your assets produce enough income to pay all of your expenses. That is, money comes in whether you go to work or not. The bills are paid when you are skiing, when you are traveling, and when you are sleeping. They are also paid when you are at your children’s or grandchildren’s activities.
Are you starting to see how huge this is? Where can I get me some of this financial independence? Chances are you already have enough skills to make it possible, you just need to put in the right amount of consistent effort…and that amount is: massive. Average effort only gets you average results, massive effort gets you whatever the hell you want.
We have been taught to get an education, work hard at our chosen career, and possibly one day we will get to retire and enjoy our Golden Years. They fail to mention that we won’t be able to carry the same standard of living into our retirement without additional financial resources.
You need to learn what you don’t know.
So, what is the first step toward gaining financial independence? Knowledge. You need to learn what you don’t know about personal finance, investing, insurance, real estate, and a whole bunch of other topics. Here’s a couple of great books to get you started (Amazon affiliate links): Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Automatic Millionaire, Unshakable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook.
There are an infinite number of roads to financial independence, you first have to decide if that is your destination. All of your time doesn’t belong to you…don’t you want it back?