What is Financial Independence (FI), Anyways?

I was introduced to this concept by my friend Nicole. She read a blog post from Millennial Revolution which explained a movement called FI/RE, Financial Independence, Retire Early.

Initially, I was like “Ok, cool”. This was at a time where I was trying to figure out my life and was burnt out. So, I didn’t want to bother with anything new.

At this time, I was already working on getting my finances life together and had recently acquired my first real estate investment property (Deal#1).

Eventually, I decided to read the book “Quit like a Millionaire” by the authors of the Millennial Revolution blog and it was eye-opening.

I realized I had been chasing the wrong dream.

I had this vision of my “perfect life” where I would build a real estate empire that would make me a millionaire living in a mansion and driving a Bentley.

For years, I had been working on doing this non-stop. I didn’t have a social life per se. It was work, study, work, work.

I stumbled across this financial independence concept at the right time. It was a time where I was willing to take it all in.

In this book, the authors lived a frugal life while working their 9-5, saved and invested 70% of the income for several years, and then retired in their 30s with a million-dollar investment portfolio and now live off their stock portfolio with only $40,000 a year.

While I am not particularly a fan of their strategy, I love the concept. As you probably already know, my retirement strategy is real estate. However, this changed my whole concept of what it meant to be wealthy and financially free. I could also be a millionaire and happy without the real estate empire, the Bentley, and the mansion.

I realized I could obtain my freedom without becoming miserable in the journey. Since then, I have been reading and learning everything I can on Financial Independence. I also came across this amazing book, Retire Early with Real Estate by Chad Carson.

The official definition of Financial Independence is having sufficient income to cover your living expenses without formal employment which is highly desirable by many.

I believe that financial independence means different things to different people. Before you begin your journey, you must define and visualize what financial independence looks like and feels like to you.

To me, Financial Independence means being able to pursue what makes me happy rather than being a slave to a job or business that I am not passionate about just because I need it to cover my bills. It means waking up every day to know that I am doing something that I WANT to do rather than NEED to do. In my case, that thing I want to do is real estate, travel the world, and most importantly spend time with my loved ones.

If you want to read more about how I plan on reaching financial independence and what I am doing today to get there. Check my plan here.

So now I ask you, what does financial independence mean to YOU?

You can get a copy of the books mentioned in the book within the following links.

How to Quit Like a Millionaire link

Retire Early With Real Estate link