I bought my FREEDOM with $62,000

Let's talk about "freedom" today.

I used to confuse freedom with financial freedom for life. It's not the same.

Derek Sivers once told this story: He had a day job paying $20k per year. His cost of living was about $1000/month, and he was earning $1800/month. He did this for two years, and saved up $12,000. He was 22 years old. Once he had $12,000 he could quit his job and become a full-time musician. So he was free. He quit his job a month later, and never had a job again.

I always saw fancy entrepreneurs flash their fancy cars online and thought — that's FREEDOM. And then I read "Psychology of Money" in Feb 2021, and everything changed. I learned the real definition of FREEDOM: "Money's greatest intrinsic value is its ability to give you control over your time."

Here's what I did after reading this: I started accumulating a 12-month emergency fund. Worked 20 hours/day to generate income from multiple sources. We reduced our expenses by 20%. I stopped investing, stopped browsing real estate. I only had one objective — accumulate $50,000 in savings as soon as possible.

By Oct 2021, I had $62,000 in my savings account — Voila! And in my tireless quest to achieve this, I worked extremely hard on building my side hustle to a point where it made me $3,000 to $4,000 a month.

These $62,000 made me feel FREE — free to do what I want in life. It gave me the freedom to quit my job, take my mortgage license, and start teaching about Finance on YouTube.

It gave me the freedom to: Say no to clients who weren't ready. Say no to projects that did not align with my values. Say no to a $190,000 promotion from my ex-employer.

I make decent money today but we live in a 1500 sqft townhome with mortgage expenses at under 10% of our household income — this gave my wife the freedom to leave her job and start her passion project.

That's FREEDOM for me — I am doing what I want, when I want, with whom I want.

— Nav