More and more I hear and read about people wanting to attain financial independence and retire early aka FIRE. Even though the acronym FIRE is pretty cheesy I love the idea of financial independence. But is it really as attainable as many make it out to be? In this episode I’m going to break down what financial independence really is, how one might go about attaining financial independence, and if it is attainable how you can do it earlier in life as opposed to later in life. Also, as a side note I’m going to abbreviate financial independence to findie. Financial independence takes too long to say and write plus findie is much more fun to say.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to leave your 9 to 5 job and still have money coming in so you could do whatever you wanted to do? I think this would be pretty amazing! This is what being findie could offer you. Findie means that your investments are bringing in more income than you have for expenses. Therefore, at the end of the month, for example, you have more money than the start of the month even after you pay for your expenses. Finance geeks might argue on specifics but that’s what financial independence is to me. The greatest thing about findie is that it gives you the freedom from not being tied down for 40 plus hours per week working at your J.O.B. Can you imagine all the things you could do if you didn’t have to punch in and out of a time clock all week! You could travel the world, start a business selling your favorite crafts, be involved in a community outreach program, you could even have time to mow your yard before the yard waste bin is picked up! Crazy! I know! It sounds too good to be true, but is it? For some people findie is an attainable goal, but for others, they will likely never attain findie – they won’t even get close.

So, how does one go about attaining findie? In short, you can get there by taking one of two paths. You either have to win Powerball or you have to work hard and be smart with your money. The latter is much more likely something that you can do, so that’s the option I would choose if I were you. However, winning Powerball sounds like it would be pretty fun.

So what does working hard and being smart with your money entail? Let’s break this down. If our goal is to attain enough monthly income from our investments to cover our expenses, then we first need to accumulate a certain amount of wealth. This is where working hard comes into play. If you’re like nearly everyone you’ve started out with almost nothing. Maybe now you have a good education and you’re working at a steady job. That’s good. That’s where a lot of people are. What you need to do know is figure out how to maximize your income. You need to ask yourself, “What can I be doing to earn more money?” Maybe you can pick up some overtime. Maybe you can get a side job. Or maybe you can go to a trade school or higher education that will allow you to move into a job that pays twice as much as your current job. The goal here is to figure out how to bring in more money so you can maximize the amount of money you can contribute to your investments. Ok, so that’s the working hard aspect. You have to work hard to earn as much as you can – got it.

The next aspect of becoming findie is being smart with your money. So, you’ve got the good job, you’ve been putting in overtime, and you’re doing everything in your power to maximize your earn potential. Perfect. A lot of people make it this far. But, where 97% of people fail at attaining findie is the next part – figuring out how to keep the money that they ...