Financial Freedom – Secure a Stable Future

Let’s talk money! Who doesn’t want to have stability and financial freedom? Who doesn’t seek independence in life and have the means to do anything they want? I personally started to focus on learning and reading about money around a year ago. As we all know, building our financial stability is never an overnight success. Therefore, commitment and planning should happen from an early age to cultivate later. In this year of research, I started gaining some personal financial literacy. In addition, I learned that each individual should diversify their revenue streams by investing and/or having a side hustle next to their main profession.

Financial literacy

Financial literacy is the effective understanding of financial skills such as budgeting, financial management and investment. I am so disappointed that this important knowledge is not taught in schools. It is only provided to the ones that study finance/business/accounting though it is part of each one’s life. After that year of learning, I would like to highlight the following findings:

1) The flow of money

In this section, I learned the dynamic between asset & liability and revenue & expenses. Building my personal balance sheet to track my personal finances. Contrary to the traditional accounting definition, I got introduced to the idea that assets should generate money. Following this new school of thought, your own house is not considered an asset because it won’t generate any money unless it is sold at a higher price. Therefore, to create self-generating wealth, it is important to start collecting assets. Money dynamics was introduced to me by an interesting book called Rich dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

2) Revenue diversification

To mitigate risks and ensure a continuous flow of revenues, companies rely on several revenue streams. Why not apply the same to our personal life? In addition to our direct source of income which is our employment, it would be good to have other things running on the side such as investments or side hustles. Having a diverse revenue stream will work as a safety cushion in case something happen to our main source of income such as getting fired or simply deciding to change career direction.

3) Budget division

It is important to control our expenses and follow a budgeting system. One of the budget division strategies is the 50,30,20. This budgeting strategy implies that 50% of your net income goes toward necessities (rent, utilities, insurance, food), 30% for luxury or things we want (cloth, new bags, new shoes), and 20% should be invested or saved.

4) Investing rather than saving

Saving is inevitable especially when it comes to unforeseen events. Therefore, a certain amount of liquid cash should stay in our bank account. However, people should prioritise investing as its interest rate is higher than the bank and it is less affected by inflation.

Investments

To reach financial freedom, having passive income is important. The most explicit passive income generator is investments. By investing you won’t be actively working to generate money, but your money will be working for you. Investment is a big umbrella that includes many small areas. People can invest in stocks, bonds, commodities, crypto, real estate and many more. Your investment portfolio should follow your age, risk tolerance and interests. To build an investment portfolio, you can get the help of a professional, sometimes a robot (app) or you can be fully in charge. When engaging in complex investment opportunities or a new area, professional help is always advised.

Side Hustle

Side hustles are another contributor to financial freedom. They are activities that a person is passionate about and performed next to the main job to make extra income. It is debatable if side hustles are considered passive or active sources of income as they require active work effort to reach success. As an example of side hustles, I can name blogging, vlogging, writing a book, giving online courses, drop shipping, and online marketing. Sometimes, people’s side hustle reaches a high success to the point that it becomes their main source of income.

Conclusion

Everyone seeks financial freedom to live in dignity, happily, and with less stress. Therefore, it is important to gain financial literacy and diversify our revenue streams. Although money is important, it is worth noting that it should not be our main focus. After listening to many entrepreneurs and investors, they all agreed that a person should follow their passion and then money will follow. Therefore, If you are starting a side hustle just for the money, the probability of quitting before making any cent is very high. In addition, the earlier you start your financial planning and awareness the better.

If you have a side hustle or you have an investment interest, let us know in the comment below. If you are like me, learning and interested in this area, I would love to share with you the podcasts, books, and webinars that I used, and would love to hear yours.

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