Financial freedom is definitely not a myth. Although it remains as a dream for most people who are still struggling and running in their own rat race, financial freedom is just a state when some numbers are met. The good news is that every one of us has different set of numbers to meet.

It is commonly known that when the passive income is more than enough to cover the required expenses, you are financially free. Based on this formula alone, it is enough to show that FF can be achieved in many different ways.

Passive income > expenses

You can either reduce your expenses or increase your passive income. The problem is most of us can’t compromise on a lower spending.

If you sell all your stuff such as house, vehicles and all other belongings, you are almost financially free if you are a single working adult. Move to a place where everything is still cheap, and you are okay to live cheap and stay cheap, you got your financial freedom almost instantly.

Look at the formula again. On the other hand, it seems more fun to have a high passive income level that enables you to afford a more luxurious lifestyle. Isn’t that most people are chasing after in their rat race?

Besides measuring FF with your passive income, which most people don’t have, you can also measure FF in terms of “time”. The formula works this way – calculate how much money you had accumulated, and divide it by the monthly required expenses to sustain your lifestyle.

That number represents how many months you can survive without additional inflow of money. If you are 50 years old and you spend RM1000 a month, you only need RM360,000 to achieve FF assuming you will live up to 80 years old.

So even if you do nothing to increase passive income, you can still accumulate enough money to stop working.

But most people are simply lost in the rat race of chasing after FF dreams. Some people want to be able to stop working on their boring jobs. They thought that financial freedom is the only way out.

Let me ask you this question – why do you want to achieve FF?
So that you can stop working?
So that you can have enough money to spend?
So that you can travel the world?

The ultimate answer I can think of is that you want to do whatever you want without worrying about money, right?

So can I conclude that what you actually want is the freedom of time and location, more than money? You want time freedom and location freedom rather than financial freedom, am I right? Money is just a way to get you there.


KCLau
KCLau

Personal finance author and trainer

    13 replies to "How to Achieve Financial Freedom"

    • chang wai sin

      Very good and very inspiring video for me to think and reshape my life after years of working life. Thank you very much for your sharing. Good job from you KC Lau.
      Nice to hear from you all the time.

    • Patricia

      Thanks for sharing the financial freedom which we have been chasing in our rat race each day. A good reminder for us but a pit quite difficult to get out 🙂

    • yuva

      Gday KCLAU,

      Can you teach me how to make passive income? I’m very much interested in it and ready to work for it.. Hear from u soon..

      Cheers,
      yuva

    • haja

      hi nina.it will be a great help if you could let me have some tips on getting on to passive income ways to attain financial freedom.thanking you in advance.

      • nina nordin

        hi haja,

        i do apologise for the late reply……hv been quite tied up that only recently i start checking my email. Anyway, do email me at elfin14@gmail.com and i shall give a few tips on how to create passive income in order to achieve financial freedom… hv a wonderful producrtive day…cheers!!

    • NINA NORDIN

      thank you for the tips…i agree that everyone should have financial freedom. With FF, instead of both hands up ‘carrying’ all the financial burden, the passive income will act as pillars carrying all those burdens. One of the ways to ‘build’ those pillars is by making good and sound investment.

      • Kelvin Tan

        Hey Nina,

        Do you mind explaining it to me? It sounds great and I would like to give a try! 🙂

    • Mastura Shah

      I need to achieve financial freedom to contribute to my family (and not be a burden to them), to my community and country. Why without any spare change I can’t even donate to charity!

      • NINA NORDIN

        Dear Mastura,

        There are a few ways of achieving these financial freedom. One of it is creating passive income. How? well, one of it is actually making good and sound investment. If you think you would like to know some tips, let me know….best part is even if you don’t have cash, you could create passive income. Safe, Legal and approved by Bank Negara!…cheers!

    • Belinda

      Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Being an ordinary employee, I certainly need to learn more about financial freedom, manipulate money instead of being manipulated by money.

    • Hannah Verona

      Thank you KC Lau for helping and inspiring ordinary people like me in moving our journey towards financial freedom.

      I would like to add something for financial freedom information. The shortest path to financial freedom requires that you do two things. First, live below your means. Second, learn to make your money work as hard for you as you do for it.

      Regards,
      Hannah Verona

    • auction

      wow..nice info here….thanks for sharing….

    • Ricky Ching

      Beautiful piece of mind workout for a person who could not sleep at 2.00 am.
      Right,FF is about time horizon and a right place to stay.So, its all boil down to
      planning and and executing one’s future financial needs.
      It’s all about a financial life journey.
      Keep it up!Great advice.

      Rgds
      Ricky

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