Joe's Journal | Financial independence

I despise being required to do most things, out of the simple fact that I’m being forced into something. This very much applies to how I feel about having to work. I have 0 issues with working, putting in the time to better something, so long as it’s something I have agency and meaning in.

Let’s take my current job as an example, I enjoy helping the people at work, but I despise the fact that I have to continue working, Monday - Friday, blocking out 10 hours out of my day. I don’t think I spend 10 hours a day doing anything of my own personal interest.

So I want to change that. I don’t want to continue working out of necessity. I want to shift it to something that I do out of enjoyment, or something that I find great meaning in. I think that all of us can find that, and myself being no different. Throughout my travels, I’ve noticed that there are people in non-western and western countries that have found a balance in all of this. This journal piece is about my approach to that balance.

Let’s start off with the definition I use for financial independence. Looking this up in the internet will yield varying results, so let’s work from this definition: Not depending on work to generate income.

As simple as those 7 words were, it took me a considerable amount of time to figure out how exactly I felt about financial independence. In a passing conversation, I may describe it as not working, not having to work, not working full-time, or simply working part-time. I think it’s good to remember that the goal is to remove the dependence on work to generate income.

This is something that I place great priority on. Sometimes this can be annoying, not only for myself, but for Kim as well. I talk about this often, strategizing, wondering, researching, crunching numbers, and fantasizing what the end will look like. Exciting on a routine basis, but also exhausting. However, let me get into how we have decided to go about this.

Real estate. This form of investing is great, it just requires a bit more involvement and planning than I had originally thought. Our thought process behind this is to rent out a property at a profit. Fairly simple idea, the difficulty has come in thinking about what expenses/fees that will come along with this. Examples of those would be: vacancy, maintenance, misc/unforeseen maintenance, property management, and move out/in maintenance like painting, wall repair, etc. Just typing that out raises my stress levels, however it is possible. If at the end of the day you come out with money left over, that’s a good indicator.

Stock dividend investing. This one is a bit more hands-off, which I love. Dividends are payouts from a company for investing in their company. This is generally on a per share basis. Example being I buy 10 shares of company X, and that company pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share. That means in that year I made $5.

The idea behind this is to invest in a company that pays regular and increasing dividends, and reinvest those dividends by purchasing more shares with that dividend. Doing this over a longer period generally results in larger annual income. This can easily be something that reaches the level of another person’s salary.

We have started. Kim and I have recently purchased our first property, and given our situation at the time, we purchased it with a 0 down mortgage. This was great for us to get into the home and call it ours, however this means that we have a higher monthly payment. So, we are focusing on paying down the principal of this loan, and then refinancing to achieve a lower monthly payment. That refinancing will allow us to rent out the property at a profit.

Given both of these things require a lot of financial responsibility and planning, things will move relatively slower than we generally like to go. That’s okay though, it’ll be a good lesson for us to learn, especially as we go down something that is new and filled with ‘learning experiences’ (code for ‘Oh shit’ moments). Perhaps slower is better ;)

That’s us and our plan. Financial independence is something I hope more people strive for. I hope that us sharing this will at least spark an idea for you to look into it, and perhaps commit to it by making it a priority in your life.

Joe