In this article you will find out what financial freedom is and what are the fundamental steps to achieve it
DOES MONEY MAKE HAPPINESS?
No, money obviously does not bring happiness!
What is it then that makes happiness?
Great question!
First of all let’s start by saying that happiness is something very subjective , it depends from person to person
There are people for whom happiness is simply spending time with family, others for whom happiness is financial success, and still others for whom it is a nice warm trip to a tropical country.
Personally, happiness for me can be summed up in one word: FREEDOM
freedom understood as the ability to go where I want, do what I want and when I want it …
As a good engineer I tried to give a formula for all this and what comes closest is this:
+ TIME = + FREEDOM
You are free when you have more time!
Do you agree with me?
But if you had more time would you feel freer?
Most people would answer yes to this question, we are so full of obligations and responsibilities that we often feel almost in prison!
Imagine how many things would change and how many more things you could do if you only had more time
freedom also consists in not having to worry about things to do, when to do them and where to do them 🙂
+ TIME = + FREEDOM
The question that arises now is:
how do we increase our time?
First of all doing a lot of sport and eating healthy this keeps us healthy and allows us to buy time in the simplest way possible
And living longer is the easiest way to buy time
The other way to buy time is… with money
“TIME IS MONEY”
And it is with the famous quote from the English philosopher essayist Sir Francis Bacon that I introduce you to the concept of financial freedom
FINANCIAL FREEDOM
Having no money nowadays is a source of great pain, suffering, frustration and anger
Consume your life and become the lens with which you look at the world
As well as the lens with which others look at you
We live in a capitalist society (the debate of “right or wrong capitalism” we will address in another article if you are interested;))
capitalism has rules, unfortunately many people don’t know the rules
imagine playing monopoly without knowing the rules
Here … how can you play a game without knowing the rules?
Once you learn how to play, improve and play better and better until you win the game
financial freedom can simply be translated as winning the game of capitalism
In this article I want to give you the rules to win the game
Hey Jean but are you free financially?
I will be honest with you (as I am in every article)
No I’m not! but I know the rules of this game and in this article I will share these rules with you
So we can play together if you like 🙂
CREATE AN EMERGENCY FUND
The emergency fund is the money you put in and use only in cases of extreme urgency
Not for the holidays, not for the Friday beer and not even for the mundane weekends
the emergency fund is used when your life is derailing, when you are losing control
Why an emergency fund?
Because as Murphy’s law teaches us “if something can go wrong it will”
And instead of borrowing money from your parents or using your credit card, which will only cause you more debt
you’ll have something to lean on!
the best thing about the fund is that it gives you that first little feeling of financial freedom
and it doesn’t matter how small your fund is initially but you will start to feel a pleasant feeling of peace of mind , serenity and financial security.
certainly small at the beginning but on which we will go to work and feed
the emergency fund is an account with money set aside that you need to pay for large and unexpected expenses
It allows you to have a bearing to fall on when your life takes an unexpected turn without having to resort to further indebtedness
Now you are wondering:
How much should I have in my emergency account?
The rule says you have a minimum of 3 months of your fixed expenses
imagine if from tomorrow … or rather what I say now!
imagine now! to be part of that small circle of Italians who have an excellent financial culture
imagine you have wisely built an emergency account
imagine you have 3 months of monthly fixed expenses aside
According to the newspaper La Repubblica , Italian families spend an average of $2,571 per month ( Click here to read the article)
In my opinion a bit high value, let’s start with a more reasonable average of $1,500 🙂
do you spend more or less $1,500 of fixed monthly expenses?
Imagine you have $4,500 ($1,500 x 3 months) in your emergency account
I bet you already feel the feeling of security and trust rising within you
this financial situation would lead you to make decisions in a quieter way without urgency and above all this will lead you to have greater flexibility in your daily life
do you agree with me?
LITTLE SECRET : Remember to put this money into an account with a good interest but above all easily accessible
Because emergencies can happen at any moment
This is the first step in regaining control of your life
START A RETIREMENT FUND
Personal finance can be reduced to a simple concept
“Small sacrifices today to have big earnings tomorrow”
By saving a little today you will be able to secure a worthy retirement in the future
Jean what is a pension fund?
The pension fund is the tool that the state makes available for you to supplement your compulsory pension by providing incentives with tax breaks
In simpler words, you pour money into this pension fund and as a result you will have:
- A bigger pension
- Lower taxes to pay
in your paycheck there is an INPS item equal to 10% of your salary
it is this sum that gives rise to your INPS pension fund which month after month creates the pension you will receive at the end of your career
so far so good
the problem is that..
According to INPS, which is the institution that deals with pensions, the average pension amount is $1,248.22 ( you can find the 2019 INPS report here )
A value that has great probability of decreasing after this difficult world pandemic
As you will have understood, the pension fund is useful because it allows you to support the INPS fund
this is very convenient for 2 big reasons:
- The decrease in the ”average amount of pensions
- The increase in the average age
There are two types of pension funds mainly
1- THE CLOSED PENSION FUND:
They are funds linked to the collective bargaining agreement and each sector has its own.
If an employee joins us, in order to have the employer’s contribution, he must subscribe to that of his sector
precisely for this reason they are also called category funds
Closed-end pension funds are often the ones with the highest interest rates
2- THE OPEN PENSION FUND
They are generally managed by banks and insurance companies and intended for everyone: employees and self-employed.
THE BENEFITS OF THE PENSION FUNDS ARE :
- They allow you to pay less taxes, the contributions paid into the fund are tax deductible for a maximum amount of $5164.57
- Pension fund earnings are taxed less than other investments
- If you are an employee and you choose your category fund , your company is obliged to pay 1% , this usually happens in closed-end funds
In conclusion, we can say that pension funds allow you not to experience an old age of hardship due to the meager public pension
In Italy the trend of pensions is not positive, pensions in the future will be much lower than today while the retirement age will always be higher
it is therefore necessary to save immediately
MAKE MORE
I’ll get straight to the point
“Earn as much as possible as fast as possible”
To become free financially you have to increase your salary there are not a thousand other alternatives,
you have to increase the gap between what you earn and what you need to live
and… invest the difference
I will be direct and honest
Without money, no financial freedom possible!
But let’s go ahead!
BAD NEWS
I have no magic formula to make money overnight like my other colleagues on the web 😀
so if you are part of the gold hunter, I am sorry to have to tell you that you are in the wrong site
and I invite you to close the web page here!
For you who stayed instead I HAVE GOOD NEWS
YES! You can always earn more!
Come on jean tell me how do you earn more?
Follow me and in a few minutes you will find out
There are essentially three ways to earn more , 3 ways that I will list below from the hardest to the easiest way:
- Earn more by working more
- Earn more by creating a business
- Earn more by investing
These 3 ways of earning are different from each other but have a common root:
DEVELOP NEW SKILLS
before you even think you want to earn more, I recommend that you develop the skills that will allow you to earn more
+ COMPETENCE = + MONEY
think about it for a moment !!
in most cases the people who are paid the most are often the most competent
So the secret is all there ! Focus on increasing your skills
You have to be focused at this stage, almost obsessively on wanting to always learn and assimilate new things
Do you want to increase your productivity in order to be more effective? Then read books, blogs or listen to podcasts only about productivity
Do you want to increase your sales skills in order to sell more and increase your earnings? read books and watch movies or documentaries only about selling
Do you want to increase your money management skills? easy read all of Jean’s articles!
and subscribe to the Facebook group where you can find other contents 🙂
The message I want to pass on to you is: do you want to earn more? then you have to increase your value!
And how does Jean increase your value?
Books, podcasts, blogs, youtube, documentaries, in short, valuable content from your favorite sources.
There will be people around you who will try to discourage you
there will be many believe me, people are often afraid of changes
But this must absolutely not make you lose focus, usually success always lies in the opposite direction to the crowd
Money is important for financial freedom so if you can choose, always choose jobs that can help you earn large sums of money
And if you can’t choose, then invest in yourself and your skills
Below I make a list of the jobs, trades, activities that can accelerate your financial freedom (obviously it is not an exhaustive list but it can give you an idea)
- Jobs that are paid well: banker, trader, engineer, computer programmer ..
- Liberal professions: doctor, accountant
- do a second job
- invest in asset creation (Blog, Books, Courses, Investments)
