How to achieve financial freedom
Of course not, entrepreneurship is just one of the ways to achieve financial freedom.You can become financially free by also saving up a big percent of your salary and investing it in cash flowing assets.
In order to attain financial freedom, you need a work which keeps giving you money irrespective of whether you do it or not. Here are some key steps to achieve financial freedom.
- The more you dislike working 9 to 5, the greater should be your propensity to save and invest. For those passionate about working 9 to 5, what’s wrong if you invest and make sure that money would indeed never be a reason why you’d have to work a job you dislike.
- Your car is a depreciating asset. Buy a cheap one ffs.
- Your house is an asset that does generate electricity, water and maintenance bills but doesn’t generate cashflow. Get the irony? Live in a small house or rent if it’s cheaper than EMI. if you got a bigger house, try to live in a room and rent out the rest of the apartment. By all means invest in property to rent them out (not to flip them coz that’s too much risk for someone working a 9 to 5)
5. Invest in mutual funds BLINDLY EVERY MONTH. almost every rich person today would narrate a story about how a parent or grandparent made money in property. That HAPPENED to be the booming asset class. Now consider equity. Equity means ownership of business. If property booms, businesses like DLF would profit, if gold price rises, Titan would profit, if demand for cars increases, maruti will benefit. What’s common among them? They’re all businesses. Be an owner of businesses! Invest in mutual funds till you have a corpus 300 times your monthly expense. Once you reach that, withdraw 4% a year and you’re done for life (inflation won’t harm your corpus)
6. Learn to say no to friends. This is the hard part. I’m infamous with my friends for saying no to many plans that involve extravagant spending. While this is where I’d lose many of you understandably, it’s about priorities. I can’t stand the thought of having to work for money at the expense of quality time with people I love (that doesn’t require money btw). I have ONLY seen people suffer because of their “lifestyle” that they boast about.
7. Embrace frugality (different than being cheap).
8. Start a blog or youtube channel. Anything that generates passive income for you.
9. Understand that most of the people know nothing about money. And the fact that they’re not even aware of it, makes learning from them even more dangerous. Learn about what you think you don’t know.
10. Categorise everything as something that either generates cash flow for you or doesn’t.
11. INVEST! in a business, in yourself, in an education (not the same as studies).
12. Read about stars who went bankrupt. Them buying big houses they couldn’t afford at a high pay isn’t different than you buying medium sized houses you can’t afford with a mediocre pay.
13. If you live for 80 years then let me tell you, take a hit and settle for less expense for just 3 days in those 80 years (ie. Your marriage). Ffs! Breathe! Your relatives don’t care about you as much as you do about them caring about you. You do this much and you’d be much happier for the rest of your life ..
14. Ps — I’m only 26 and hence have alot of life to see but yes I’ve researched extensively and thought about this alot. Let me assure you, I’ve got as much skin in the game as one could imagine. A big drawback I see in Indians is that the only qualification they ask for is your age before even considering the logic you bring to the table. Learn from people, their mistakes and their plans as much as you can.
