We can start with a question that may have come to your mind on a late Sunday night when you were looking at your bank balance or scanning a social post about a person who is collecting his/her retirement pension at the age of 35.
Is there a way to construct any different life where money does not rule you?
Where you not just live on payday to payday, but exist in space, dignity and freedom?
When that idea has ever pulled at you, you are not alone. And no it is not late. It does not require that you earn a six figure salary, use a financial advisor or a magical system.
What you require is more valuable something the desire to begin. Financial independence is not a dream of rich people.
It is a fact to the regular. It starts with how you save, the more you invest the more it will grow. Not overnight. Not quite easy. but with possibility for sure.
What Does Financial Independence Really Mean?
We will leave definitions aside a moment. Disregard what the blogs on finance preach or what the influencers display.
Cogitate on your personal life. When you are financially independent you no longer have to concern yourself about whether, by the end of the month, you are going to have enough.
It is when you have the possibility to decide how your time should be consumed since the shackles of money do not bind you in every decision to make.
In the case of others, it is early retirement. To others it will be to be able to work less, travel more or help the family with relaxation rather than stress.
It does not imply to stop working. It implies that you are free to work, it is not a survival mechanism. And perhaps that is a distant pipedream.
However, the highway to it is not full of glamorous investments or unexpected riches. It begins with two tiny steps which are repeated continuously: first, saving all you can and second, investing a wise course.
Saving: Your First Layer of Freedom
Here is to talk about saving but in an interesting way most of us never have.
It is not about quitting coffee or feeling guilty that you want to live your life.
It is about the idea to look at money not as a thing that can be lost, but as a thing that may be preserved.
Controlled. Directed. When you begin to save a small amount of money, this is a message to yourself.
You are telling me, I believe in my future. You are building some space between you and pandemonium.
You are purchasing decision, freedom, tranquility. When you get to see your savings account grow, even twenty dollars, that somehow changes something within you.
You start to understand that money does not show what you have. It is that which you retain. Saving assists you to keep what you have earned.
Why Most People Don’t Save — And How You Can Be Different
The most of people do not save because they do not think it matters.
What comes to their heads is, I do not earn that much that can make the difference.
Here is the reality though, it does not matter much how much one saves but the pattern.
Ten dollars saved every month will generate more power than a hundred dollars that is saved here and there.
What gets in between? Guilt. Shame. There is the sense of lagging behind. And worse, the tendency to spend all the increase in income.
However, you do not have to be perfect. All you must do is to suspend. Apply a look at your habits. Ask yourself, what do I desire the most, another purchase or another step towards freedom.
Gradually, you are going to make different choices. Doesn t think that someone told them to do it, but simply, because it feels better.
Setting Up A Simple Saving Habit
So, it is time to speak practically. So how do you really begin?
Separation is your first step. Develop a different savings account.
One that you can not reach. One that is not associated with your everyday expenditure.
Then, any small automatic transfer can be established. It can be five dollars a week. It is not weak.
That’s movement. Each and every time money is spent, it is a creation of habit.
Habit will survive any outpouring of motivation. When you feel too slim on your budget, find one thing that you no longer appreciate.
Cancel it. Once skip it. Use that money to inject into savings. It is not the part of sacrifice.
It is all about shifting what you truly want. You are not out to reach a figure. It is an emotion- security. Being sure that you are already unlikely to panic over your expense.
Why Investing Isn’t Only For The Rich
After making saving stable, even a little bit, the next thing to do is to get your money to make you grow, with no effort on your part.
Investing comes in there. And this is what causes a lot of people to freeze. They believe that it is complex to invest. Risky.
A preserve of individuals who have advisors or thousands of dollars lying around. However, it is not so.
It (investing) is merely allowing your money to contribute to some of the work. It is not giving it away.
You are keeping it somewhere to grow with time over. You are already half way there – you have already made the money and put money aside. You are only throwing patience into the computations now.
Getting Comfortable With the Idea of Growth
Think of a tree that you are going to plant. Originally, it is nothing but a seed in the ground. You put water on it.
Nothing happens. There is root formation underneath the soil. And sooner or later growth is noticed. Slowly.
Then faster. That is how investment works. When you are a child you grow and you do not see it as you feel that somehow, people cannot see your growth.
However, with time the compound interest is taking over. It is not only that you are making money, your money is also making you money. And then that is when you can ultimately substitute work with wealth.
It is not necessary that you have to go big. It does not matter where you begin, but that you begin.
What Kind of Investing Works For You?
Investment is best known investment. It is not the trend. Not the thing your cousin has said to you at dinner. Begin at the easy stuff.
A pension plan. This is an index fund. A thing that increasesgradually as time goes along. It is possible to study on the job.
You do not have to know everything in order to start. Simply start with what is comfortable, and increase it.
In the long-term, you will develop knowledge and confidence. Note that not always the smartest and fastest ones accumulate the wealth. They are those ones who remain in the game.
Why You Need Both — Saving and Investing
There are individuals who only save. Their money is in safe, but it does not grow. Others invest only.
They earn more money, yet have no insurance cover. You cannot do without either of them.
Saving brings you the peace of mind. Investing brings a certain kind of peace into the future.
A combination of the two forms a base which is not only going to enable you to survive but also assist you in avoiding any financial pressures. It is financial independence.
Not millions on the bank. Not getting fired off the job tomorrow. It is just the feeling that regardless of how hard you are working, every month your money is working even harder and the work no longer owns you.
Saving Isn’t Just About Money — It’s About Identity
Not only to have a figure in your bank. You are saving to make you the one of you who is not frightened to open a bill anymore.
The you who is capable of taking in a breathe between paychecks. The person who is not in panic when a car is broken or they lose a job.
Saving is a way of changing your perception of yourself. Oh, you would imagine at first you are simply saving up money.
However, literally, you condition your brain into thinking that you can cope with life. that you are not a scrambler but a builder up. A person that plans rather than panics. That change is silent yet life altering. And it makes any dollar saved, worth more than it is worth.
Investing Isn’t Gambling | It’s Quiet Compounding
Fear often prevents people to invest, and they become too cautious.
They read or hear such things as occurrence of a market crash or volatility and close up.
However, it is not gambling that you are carrying out. You are not gambling a lottery.
It is patience that is accomplishing security in the long run.
The fact is that investing is among the least stressful activities you can get involved in, just as long as you eliminate the noise. It is not necessary that you keep checking the markets on a daily basis. You never have to be right to get a good purchase or make the best buy.
All you have to do is continue to keep putting something in. Week to week.
Month on month. and, without any ado, without panic. You allow time to work. You allow growth to perform in the backdrop. And one day, you will wake up and you will understand it! The future you wanted to protect yourself with is already financed.
Your Saving and Investing Strategy Doesn’t Need to Be Complicated
You will think that you have to have hand in some expert formula or comprehend ten types of financial products to do this right.
You don’t. The one question that you should always have is; is this taking me where I want to be or is it taking me away?
Whether the habit is working or not is a personal choice. If the answer to the question is yes: the habit seems healthy, sustainable, and provides you with more control over life and decisions you make, then it is functional.
You do not have to compare to a plan of another individual.
You do not have to search to be perfect. You must create a basic rhythm which suits your life. That is when financial independence will become reality because it will be part of your reality and not go against it.
Managing Money During Doubt and Setbacks
This is not a path that goes in a straight line. There will be some instances whereby life will interfere.
There is an emergency occurrence. You tap on your savings. The value of your investments falls.
You are made to feel you need to start all over. Yet it is not like you are starting all over again.
You are just going on. And that difference is enormous. It has not been a failure on your part because you needed to spend your hard earned money.
This was the reason that it was there. Your failing as an investor is not due to the fact that your investment has declined.
That is what they do until they resurrect. You only fail to return when you give up and even at that point, you might still begin again. The idea is not absolute goodness. The aim is advancement. And forward steps with hiatus are also counted.
How to Stay Focused When Results Feel Slow
Both bringing to mind the things that are slow, saving and investing.
That is reality that nobody divulges when they are flashing images of huge profits or going viral with wealth secrets.
You begin with your account that is only incrementing by pennies. Then dollars. Why then perhaps hundreds. And it gets like it will never end.
The tricky bit is having the faith in the procedure before it is even thrilling. Staying focused will depend upon why you started.
To keep yourself focused, you can look back and can find that two months back you were not even started.
You will remain focused on the ultimate goal because you should celebrate every individual milestone including an additional dollar saved or influenced. Due to the fact that each time you follow toward your freedom, you show that this version of you the one who saves, the one who plans, the one who builds is not going away.
Designing A Vision For Your Future Life
Now, taking a step back, we might say at this distance that all of those things matter, but they are all secondary. It is another thing to create financial independence.
But then again have you ever asked yourself what this actually looks like?
How would it feel in your perfect life when money is no longer the source of pressure?
Perhaps you have got traveling in mind. Perhaps, you would like to work either part-time or not to work at all. Perhaps you would like to open a business, go to a quieter place or assist parents in retirement as well.
That vision is significant. Since innovation gets tiresome when someone saves and it takes long to invest in something, then your vision is your energy.
Then make it a note. Visit it as you like. Not in a form of a fantasy, but as a blueprint. Since, when your money has a reason, it moves quicker. and so you.
You Can Build This Without Being Perfect
It is not too late to do it. Not too old are you. You cannot afford things so much.
You haven t far to go. It is that you are already in the right place (where you should be) that is starting.
It is not necessary to adhere to some ideal way of treating finances. You do not have to do everything at the same time.
You do not have to punish yourself because you did not know it all these years. All you need to do is just to keep on.
Not spending when you do not have to. Putting your money where possible. On-Job-Learning.
Having the faith that the steps count. Since financial independence does not have anything to do with smartness. It is all about consistency. and you, at this instant, reading this–you are already doing the most important thing. You are saying that you will not quit.
My Opinion
It is not an outlandish dream to be achieved by those with stock portfolios and trust funds.
It is your life which is the matter. Your evenings. Your mornings. Your freedom.
You do not have to earn some specific amount of money to have some peace.
You know you can feel it today– knowing that you are on a path that generates control rather than chaos.
This allows you to breathe rather than to panic. This aids you to sleep rather than stress.
You stop relying on someone when you reach some goal and this is financial independence. It begins by you understanding that you are doings something concrete that you are constructing with each touch of a choice, a choice, now, now, now. You are on the way to do it.