{"id":192905,"date":"2019-11-25T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T02:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=192905"},"modified":"2019-11-25T18:51:50","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T02:51:50","slug":"what-is-financial-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/25\/what-is-financial-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Financial Independence?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My definition of financial independence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To no longer be a slave to money as a way to self-value yourself, your worth, or your progress in life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a businessman, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not a businessman<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Eric<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ever since I was a kid, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never really desired to have a ton of money. Sure, I liked fashion (clothes, shoes, etc), and I liked hanging out. I liked photography, blogging, sports, being social, and teaching. To me, entrepreneurship<\/a> was simply a means to an end \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the end being having freedom over my schedule and life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But somewhere along the way, I got a bit corrupted. Not sure why or when. But as a reminder to self:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accumulating money isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the goal of life. The goal is to maximize our personal creative output \u00e2\u20ac\u201d through blogging, videos, and sharing new art and turbo thoughts. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Selfie<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Financial independence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to gain freedom for wanting money for money\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Red<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Obviously dinero is good. But money for money\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I even feel the notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fuck you money\u00e2\u20ac\u009dis a bit misguided \u00e2\u20ac\u201d people think you need millions in the bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps better is Dr. Dre<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notion of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fuck off money\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d having enough money that you can fuck off and not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153work\u00e2\u20ac\u009dfor extended periods of time and not go broke. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Flowers<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Independence as not being a slave.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stare at money too long, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Medusa!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – Kanye<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Architecture<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When do we know when we have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thought:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will never have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d money\u00e2\u20ac\u201d no matter how rich (or poor) you are. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And I also do believe it is wise to continue to pursue making money and saving it up<\/a> (for fun, as a game)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d but not as a form of quantifying your self-worth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Save
Save Money collective <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To save is to feel safe.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Salvus<\/a> is the Latin etymology for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153save\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. It literally means to feel safe, and to preserve your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whole<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009dself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the goal isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to save money for the sake of saving money. The goal is to feel safe, secure, solid, and whole!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can be a billionaire and still not feel safe or secure. So\u00e2\u20ac\u201d how do we feel safe, secure, and whole?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Halo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Practical thoughts <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Turn<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For myself, this is what works for me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Adopting a life of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153voluntary poverty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: You realize if you can live like a broke college student (or better yet, broke high school student) and if your earnings outstrip your meager expenses, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re balling!<\/strong><\/li>
  2. Easier to reduce your expenses than to increase your earnings<\/strong>. Best ways to save money include getting rid of Amazon prime (less tempted to buy superfluous things), to unsubscribe from services like Evernote\/Spotify\/Netflix (or any services which cost a monthly fee), getting rid of your car (no car payments, insurance, parking, gas, maintenance).<\/li>
  3. Not owning more than 1 item of a certain thing (one camera\/one lens \u00e2\u20ac\u201d like RICOH GR III<\/a>), not owning more than one jacket, one pair of shoes, etc.<\/li>
  4. Be a lagger in terms of adopting new technologies<\/strong>. Lag behind buying an electric car, new iPhone, new Laptop, etc. To procrastinate as long as you can before buying new things, technology, or tools.<\/li>
  5. Make it a game to NOT to buy anything new. You can afford it, but the fun game is to not buy anything new.<\/li>
  6. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reverse flex<\/em><\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: More interesting to NOT own a phone instead of having the newest iPhone. More impressive to NOT own a car instead of having the newest BMW. More impressive to NOT own a home and be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153digital nomad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\/ \u00e2\u20ac\u0153location independent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. More impressive to live in a tiny apartment than to live in a huge house. Minimalism and simplicity as sexy!<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Thrive on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ERIC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    FINANCIAL STOICISM is the goal.<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My definition of financial independence: To no longer be a slave to money as a way to self-value yourself, your worth, or your progress in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/eric-kim-photography-providence-2019-ricoh-griii-082-scaled.jpg?fit=1707%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192905"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192939,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192905\/revisions\/192939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}