Assume that the most precious commodity you have is time. Your time is very limited on this earth, so you should spend it wisely. Like mentioned in previous posts, this means spending time how, where and with whom you want.
The more control you have over how you can spend your time, the more freedom you’ll have.
There are certain levels of freedom when it comes to personal finances, and in this post we will define characteristics of those.
Low level of freedom
– You hate your job, but have limited professional skills and a lot of expenses
– Coworkers that you don’t really want to spend any time with
– Limited personal development through work
– Health problems because of work
– Paycheck to paycheck, financial worries
– Credit card debt, mortgage and/or family to pay for
Low to medium freedom
– You like your tasks at work and coworkers most of the time
– Salary covers more than monthly living expenses
– Showing up to the same office/building almost every day
– Driving in traffic to and from work (wasting time)
– Limited amount of vacations, maximum five weeks per year
– Skips physical activity because of workload and feeling exhausted
– Debt and/or family to pay for
– Lifestyle creep
– Boredom
Medium freedom
– Fully remote job, can live where you want
– Living well below your means
– Income from side hustle
– Saving and investing
– Dependent on paychecks from employer
High level of freedom
– Owning a highly profitable online business
– Saving and investing more than 50% of net income
– Can work less than 20 hours per week
– Multiple streams of income
Highest level of freedom
– FatFIRE (net worth of more than five million usd)
– Sold your own business and/or had some luck investing
– Can spend all the time you want with family, friends, on hobbies, traveling, sports, volunteering, real estate portfolio etc.
– Great physical and mental health