I recently had a call with a new coaching client.
When asked this question, her answer was:
- Full-time vanlife around New Zealand & Australia.
- Visiting friends and whanau up and down the country
- Travelling and learning about my heritage
When I finally received all her info and started pulling it apart, I learned the following:
- $8k monthly salary between her and husband (ages 49 and 53).
- $1.4k monthly from tenants
- $1.3 million net worth ($830k house, $400k retirement (stocks), $60k stocks, $40k vehicles, $15k cash)
The first thing I said to her was – congratulations!
I explained to her that in her current position, she could already start living her financially-free life at the age of 49.
How?
- Her husband had a stable job and was happy to continue working until retirement.
- She was bringing in $1.4k monthly passive.
- She had $400k in retirement index funds that alone would continue to compound into millions by the time she reaches pension age:
With all the hard work she’d done saving and investing and paying off her mortgage, she had reached the “snowball” stage of her net worth, where it would simply continue to grow without her doing anything!
Not to mention – she already owned the van she planned to travel in!
Our call changed from how can you become financially-free to how to start enjoying your financially-free life right now.
I explained the maths and how it would work, and also some easy ways to improve her finances through better investment allocation, tax planning etc, but in the end, things didn’t need too much improving. Whether she wanted to travel in the summers and come back home to work in the winters, or simply retire and travel full-time, the choice was hers.
“Sometimes we are so busy getting ourselves to a point where we can just enjoy life and be happy, that we forget to enjoy life and be happy!”
What about you?
What is your financially-free life?
When you’re on this journey of building wealth, it’s important to remember there is a destination at the end.
You don’t need to keep building to a billion dollars.
Remember – we aren’t just doing this for fun. We are building this empire from $10 notes for a reason.
Write the vision down of what you would do if you were financially-free today.
Write a whole page in detail. What would you have for breakfast? What car would you drive? What restaurants would you have lunch at? What kind of shoes would you wear?
Your vision may change over time.
When we’re in our twenties, we often dream of driving a Lambo, or living in a New York penthouse.
But as we mature a little bit we tend to grow out of these things.
I know many retired people who could buy a Lambo tomorrow – myself included.
Do any of us have one?
No.
It’s probably one of the last things I would ever want to buy.
We learn our financially-free life is usually much more “normal” and attainable. Whether it’s to retire and ride our motorcycle across Europe, buy a bach at the beach and surf all day, or simply spend time with our kids.
To live at the beach and surf might cost you $3,000 per month.
That’s only $36,000 a year in dividends, or 5% on a $720,000 portfolio.
Anyone can build that in 10 or 20 years.
We’re already 15% of the way there in the public portfolio, which is only 3 years old and built entirely on side hustles!
Once you put into words and visualise what you actually want and what you know will fulfill you, you will realise it actually is much more affordable and possible than you previously believed.
What does your financially-free life look like?
Define it.
Build a plan to get there.
Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy it when you do.
