What Is Financial Freedom For You?
Every one of us sees “financial freedom” different.
Some people see it as the freedom to buy what they want and when they want.
For some that could be not worrying about how they will pay their bills.
Others think it means becoming debt-free or it could mean being rich enough to retire.
Whatever it is for you and me, some experts give the best way to financial freedom through a few steps.
I will summarize them here.
Financial freedom is a long-term plan to build the life of your dreams.
The Tesla CEO, one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk defines (financial) freedom this way: “Maximum set of possible future actions”.
Set Life Goals
See your current condition knowing where you are now. Make the most important decision in your life by setting life goals, saving and investing in your financial future and taking ownership of it.
In Money Master the Game, authored by Marc Benioff, a motivational speaker, and personal finance instructor, Tony Robbins wrote in an introduction: 7 actions that must be taken to live a comfortable and secure life financially, personally, and professionally:
1. Make the most important financial decision of your life. Invest in your future.
2. Become the insider: Know the rules before you get into the game. Learn the rules of the market, research the most useful mutual funds, and maximize returns by minimizing your cost, taxes and fees, etc.
3. Make the game winnable. Figure out what annual income you need to achieve financial security.
4. Make the most important investment decision of your life. Know where to invest to maintain your wealth.
It is important to know the fees, penalties, limitations, and benefits of each of these investment opportunities.
5. Create a lifetime income plan. Consider real estate.
6. Invest like the .001%. Many billionaires from Carl Icahn to Warren Buffett to John Bogle all shared at least four common obsessions: (1) don’t lose money, (2) risk a little to make a lot, (3) anticipate and diversify, and (4) you’re never done.
7. Just do it, enjoy it, and share it.
Determine Your Number
An important step to financial freedom is thinking about your number or the amount of money required to help you become financially free.
The magic number for every one of us is different. There is a specific amount of money that you could make and it would enable you to live freely and pursue your passions.
How much money is that?
Write down a number that makes sense to you, keeping in mind it might seem large. Now, do some analysis and research.
How much are you currently earning? What do you need to do differently to make this amount of money?
To live the life of your dreams, you have to deal with financial fears and limiting beliefs about money. Abundance is a mindset, not a money amount.
Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That is your job.
The good news is you get to choose which emotions you want to experience the most. Your unconscious beliefs drive your emotions and you first need to address the beliefs you have about money and change them into empowering ones.
Build Your Income
While you work from 9 am-5 pm, and your income is largely limited to your paycheck you can start thinking of making money outside of your 9 to 5 job.
Instead of trading time for money try to buy time. Don’t be income driven but net worth driven and goal driven instead of work driven.
Pay yourself first, then others mean putting a specific amount of money in your savings account before paying anything else, such as bills.
Paying yourself first will develop a habit and guarantee of putting money aside to invest in yourself.
Start by creating a money-making machine. A side hustle from home is the big game changer that will make a difference in your wallet while giving you the freedom you have always wanted.
Pursue your passions and turn them into profit. Let’s dive into the best side jobs that will help you make more money while working from home.
1. Start a Dropshipping Business
Dropshipping allows you to sell a product directly to the customers without having to buy any inventory. The manufacturer not only carries the inventory he also ships it directly to the customer for you. There is no big budget cost for the startup.
The main focus of this business is marketing and customer service. With dropshipping, you can start a business within any of your favourite passions and you become the owner of your very own business.
You can start your own one product store and implement the store ideas. You can make an extra couple thousand dollars or more depends how much effort you put into your business and marketing.
2. Start a Wholesale Business
Wholesale is the business of running an online store, a business model where you buy products in bulk at a lower price and then sell them at a higher retail price to your customers.
You handle the packing and shipping and also keep a close eye on the quality of your products. Find the products you want to stock, and make your purchase.
Wholesale requires having some money upfront and most wholesale marketplaces offer net terms. That means you can purchase products and start selling them weeks or months before you need to pay for them.
3. Become a Freelancer
You can start occasional freelance projects on Upwork, JobsRack or Fiverr. Open your account, write down your knowledge and skills and start searching for the project. You could make anywhere from $50 to $2,000 a month depending on the side project you get.
4. Start an Affiliate Marketing
What is Affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is an advertising model, the process where an affiliate earns a commission for promoting another person’s or company’s products.
You will need to pass a learning process before you can start making money. If you chose to be an affiliate marketer like me, you can join some of affiliate natworks and gather new knowledge.
I will be here to help you start and give you all support you need. My next post is dedicated fully to affiliate marketing. If you want to find more and learn some tips here is the link to Beginner Affiliate Marketing Guide.
Also, you can join a few more affiliate programs like Kinguin Affiliate Program and start selling their products, online games, game keys, software and much more.
5. Start Blogging
Blogging is the best side hustle job to do from home, or anywhere else in the world.
You can blog about anything you want, you can write about your passion which allows you to build a personal brand while owning your own asset.
Start writing a blog in a niche that you have an interest in and understand. You can make money in a few ways: adding affiliate links to your posts or linking to the online store where you sell dropshipping products.
More options for earning money during the time you are building your business are writing blogs for others.
You can get paid per post between 12$ (for 300 words) and 350$ (for 1000 words), on Content Development Pros where you can get all kinds of content writing.
Bring your creative ideas to life with the creative market and start selling your photos, graphics, templates, illustrations and much more.
Sell your design or promote other artists and reach millions of buyers in Creative Market.
A lot of solutions you can find in Sprout Social that can help you develop your business. This is a great way to build your confidence, and become comfortable with writing.
Track Your Spending
To become financially free one important step is tracking your spending.
By doing that you will know exactly how much money you are spending.
In what categories you have overspent? How much money is in all of your accounts and how much debt do you have?
That allows you to set the goals, keeps you accountable and reminds you to keep putting money in front of yourself for some new funds and goals.
Always Keep Your Career Moving Forward
To keep your career moving forward, the best way is networking. Invest time to research, inform yourself, and never stop learning.
Stay positive thinking, stay up to date, develop more skills, and be in control of your career.
Make a career vision, learn some new digital skills with Fiverr Learn and write down what motivates you. Follow the trends in your industry.
Focus on personal and professional development.
Improve yourself mentally, seek opportunities and develop your plan.
Be selective and strategic, and make it happen.
The bottom line is that you cannot control external factors but you can control how you position yourself for success.
Some of the greatest and richest men in the world will tell you: “The missed opportunity is the only opportunity that is never tried”.
Keep going and never give up.
