What and Why

“Schopenhauer’s ideal is to be wealthy enough to have expansive free time and the intellectual capabilities to fill it with contemplation and activity in the service of mankind.” – Derren Brown (source)

Before we go any further, I want to make clear what our objective is. Our goal. As you’ll learn in my story, being unclear about what you want can cause lots of trouble and wasted work.

I’ve used two phrases relating to our goal: financial freedom and financial independence. They may seem interchangeable but we will give them clear meaning now:

• Financial freedom is economic freedom to do what you want.

• Financial Independence is having so much financial freedom that you no longer need to work. You are fully independent (in the sense that your net worth is enough to support your lifestyle).

What we want is more financial freedom until we are financially independent.

The Sliding Scale of Financial Freedom

Financial freedom lives on a scale. At one end we have no freedom at all. 24/7/365 we are working for someone else. At the other end we are independent. 24/7/365 we are doing what we want.

Our ultimate goal may be financial independence. But along the way we will gain more and more financial freedom. And from personal experience I can tell you it feels pretty damn great to build up this freedom.

The first step may be going from paycheck to paycheck -> having an emergency buffer. Everybody should strive at least to have some buffer in their economic life. It will surely remove a lot of unnecessary anxiety and stress.

Or maybe you start by removing any debt you have? I’m sure that will remove some tension as well.

Next step may be building up enough productive assets that you can take 4 weeks unpaid leave every year. Or until you no longer fear being fired as you have enough runway to find another job (this feels really good!). Or whatever you decide to do with your freedom - it is yours after all.

Why?

If you don’t have freedom, what do you have then?