What if I told you that you should be saving 75% of your income? You might think that is pure insanity. This is what many people do in order to reach financial independence. No, no! Don’t stop reading just yet! Okay, okay, that might be on the extreme end of things. I don’t currently save that much of my income. (Though I wish I did…) I just did a rough estimate on my phone calculator and I currently save approximately 60% of the income that I earn. Maybe that’s high to you or maybe that’s low. That’s beside the point though for now. That is currently where I’m at in my journey to financial independence and we all start somewhere.
So you might be asking, WHY on earth would anybody save that much amount of money. You must not be enjoying life. You must be really miserable when you aren’t spending money on things. On the contrary though. I want to explain to you WHY people want to reach financial independence. Though it seems completely understandable to me why someone would want to reach financial independence, I do know people who personally don’t understand the WHY of what I’m doing and I wanted to explain this. You might just start to rethink your current way of life.
As I said in my first blog post, the reason I save money is to buy myself FREEDOM. In my mind, saving money provides me with a way out of a situation I might not be enjoying. Do you hate working a 9-5 job? Are you actually working 9-5 or is it more like 7-5? Are you working 40, 50, or even 60 hours a week? Is your current work environment toxic? Do you dread going back to work every Sunday? Are there other ways you’d rather be spending your life than working for someone else during the prime years of your life? Do you wish you could spend more time with your family? Maybe even do projects that are more fulfilling to you. These are all just a few reasons I’m saving as much money as possible. If you are in a toxic work environment, saving enough money can give you the freedom to leave a job that might not be healthy. You won’t be tied to a toxic environment because you have provided yourself with some security.
An even bigger reason I’m saving is to work towards financial independence and the ability to retire early. What does that even mean you might ask? Well, it means that once I’m able to save my yearly living expenses times 25, then I can retire forever. The higher the percentage of money you are saving, the sooner you are able to retire (we can do the math later). Never have to go back to a corporate 9-5 job again.
Do you enjoy going to work every day? Maybe you do actually enjoy your job! If so, I’m jealous, but I don’t think the greater percentage of people enjoy working at their job. Do you enjoy being told to sit at work for 8 hours a day? Do you often feel like it’s society’s way of keeping you contained and sedated in their own version of jail? Is going to the bathroom exciting and a small bit of freedom? That’s how I feel at least and there HAS to be more to life than that.
People have worked 40+ years of their life like this. I know it’s possible to do but are these people truly happy? Can’t we want more out of life? Isn’t the goal to always try to do better in the next generations? I firmly believe that the way our society is currently built is causing a lot of depression and unhappiness. People are working in jobs that they don’t enjoy because they are stuck in debt. We are bombarded with advertising and commercials that tell us if we buy their product, we will have a happy life! Then, before we realize it, we’ve bought so much stuff that doesn’t make us happy and the money we worked so hard for is gone. Which then means that we have to keep working at that job that isn’t bringing us happiness. We are trapped. A positive outlook on the future is hard to find. Never mind the fact that working 8+ hours a day takes all of your best energy. When you go home, do you have the energy to do other things you enjoy? Often not. And your mood often isn’t the best when you go home. I’m sure your family doesn’t enjoy that.
So wouldn’t you like to have the ability to escape that? Have all the time you want to work on projects that benefit you? You can work on projects that you enjoy. Not spend 8-9 hours a day working for the benefit of someone else. Time to take vacations that are multiple weeks long. Not just a vacation that is crammed into a week only to be tired having to go back to work Monday morning. Do you want to spend more time with those you love? Isn’t that what’s important in life? Well those are all the reasons that I’m working towards financial independence.