Financial Freedom

The July 1 was celebrated as National Financial Freedom Day, in the US. Considering the fact that whatever the US does the rest of the world follows. So, lets talk about the financial freedom.

What Do They Mean

FI is different from FIRE. Financial freedom is a mystery. Retiring early is mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Financial Independence is about accumulating enough money to sustain a life independent of the salary. How is to achieve is a long and deep topic refined on each passing days, all over the world.

Retiring Early is about getting so much wealth so as to quit working. This is complicated than FI, according to me.

Workforce and FI

When we start working its all about receiving money at regular interval for the time and effort spent to the employer. Apart from surviving with this regular income, we do concentrate about the career growth, moving to the next stage in the path we chose. But that can’t be all. There should be some long-term goal.

The popular TV shows follows a theme - few episodes will be about the characters, the defects in the characters and how they came around the specific problems that’s limited to the episode. And then, the creators introduce the bigger problem (or villain). Once the bigger problem is established the season will be directed towards it, all the episode-level problem becomes a setup.

Same way, the long term goal should be FI. Earning the regular money and make it work to earn more to move away from its grip.

Me and FI

I’m part of society where parents sees their children as the insurance, the children sees their parents as an emergency fund. This is structurally wrong.

The FI we pursue will help me be independent of my children. Likewise, the lack of financial burden on the children may allow them to chase their own dream. Without this freedom the person entering the workforce is burdened with the debt of holding your parents bill.

I have seen several contemporary folks who are self-made following their own dream. The type of interest they possess is niche - doodling, make up artistry, voice actors and more. One can’t carry parents burden with money earned through doodling. They must have been free from the financial obligations.

You can have a luxury to choose a road less traveled if you travel light. Carrying financial burden and reverting the direction of travel is not easy.

That’s the reason why I find the FI interesting. With FI, I can give my kids the freedom they want, the freedom for them to invest their time and effort on their dream. May be if we allow them to be themselves more niche path might get unlocked.

With the impending AI Doom, the conventional path of College Degree → employment until retirement is going to be the very first victim. With the financial freedom, we can offer them an alternate path to build their own life.

So, yea. FI is in one way future proofing your descendant’s life.