What is Financial Freedom?
How would you define financial freedom? Do you have financial freedom? Why or why not?
What are the odds?
Do you believe in coincidence? I’ve been writing these blogs since July 2024, and except for a few detours, each blog aligns with the material you would receive if you were taking the Afterburner Success Partners course. The date they are actually published is just random. So how ironic that, by coincidence, fate, or as I believe, part of God’s divine plan for our lives, the topic for today, April 15, 2025, Tax Day, is financial freedom. Perhaps, as some folks would believe, “It’s a sign.” Oh, and if you wonder how the taxes you pay in 2025 compare historically, click on the link in Note 1 and scroll to the bottom. Do you believe, except for a few short periods, we are paying some of the lowest taxes by rate since about 1916? Of particular interest is the effect of war on tax rates.
No matter what you believe, getting to that point in life where you have financial freedom is one of the significant milestones in life. If you can, in fact, get there. For this post, I want to describe financial freedom in more detail. I will then challenge you to take my description of financial freedom and adjust it to your individual situation. Then, I’ll ask if you are on a definitive path to reaching financial freedom or not. If you are not, I’ll further challenge you to take the Afterburner Success Partners course so we can work toward that significant event.
Life’s milestones
As I just mentioned, financial freedom is a significant milestone in your life. What is a milestone, anyway? One definition is a mile marker sign on a highway, which was initially literally stones placed on the side of the road, hence the name. Our definition of a milestone for our purpose today would be better described as “An action or event marking a significant change or stage in development” (Oxford Language Dictionary). In practical terms, it means an occurrence or an occasion that is especially important to us. These may not be the same for all of us for various reasons, but here are a few of life’s significant milestones as I see them:
The day you get your driver’s license
High school and college graduation
Your first boyfriend or girlfriend
The first time you vote
The day you enlist in the military
The day you start your first job
The day you begin your first professional job
Your birthday
Your wedding day
Birth of a child
Your retirement day
Overcoming an addiction or health issue
These are just a few of the significant events we experience in life. Click the link in Note 2 to see a more complete list. All these significant milestones are generally happy events.
There are also significant milestones that are not as happy as the ones listed above. In the interest of keeping today’s message positive, I won’t go into them, but if you’ve experienced them, then you can readily recall them. Like major positive milestones, these milestones can have a significant effect on us.
What is financial freedom?
If you were taking the course with me right now, you would hear me discuss the importance of “Your Number.” Reaching your number is how I define financial freedom and is an extremely important milestone in your life. We spend a significant amount of time discussing how we get to your number. That includes a lot of learning about our thought processes, how to set goals, and generally getting our mind thinking about the specific actions required to reach this figure. Reaching your number is that point in life where you are confident that you are financially prepared to live the rest of your life, in the style you desire, and not have to worry about money, regardless of what happens. Many people never reach this point in life. For those who do, this event typically occurs on or about the time they retire. If you are an advocate of FIRE, this milestone may be reached much earlier, typically in your 30s or 40s but in some cases as early as your 20s. Click on the link in Note 3 to learn more. Your number, if and when you reach it, is typically a lot of money and results from a lifetime of working, saving, and budgeting.
Now, let me just state something we all innately know. In the quest to reach our number, we need to live our lives. We will have obligations related to work and family that must be satisfied. We want to have security and peace of mind and enjoy ourselves along the way. We want to stop and smell the roses. And let’s be frank; this is a tall order for many of us. Not only reaching our number but living the life I just described. It was a tall order for me as I started out pretty much in the hole and had to dig myself out. I describe this situation elsewhere as finding ourselves in the loser’s bracket (Don’t get discouraged; I teach you how to get out and win the tournament!) This is why I say at Afterburner Success Partners, we take you where you are. Because many, indeed most of us, are not where we would like to be currently in our financial lives. All is not lost if you find yourself like this; read on for more.
Not everyone is just working for “the man” like I was and struggling through life. Let me give you a real-life example. I have a business relationship with two particular young ladies right now. Both are single and college-educated in established professional career positions. They are planning on getting married soon. Their fiancés are also professionals in well-paying career positions. It is highly likely these couples will never experience financial worries and will reach their number earlier in life than later. How can I say that? How did this happen? Well, knowing what I know, they both were trained well at home, they know what they want in life and are making good decisions to achieve those things. They will continue to make good decisions as the future is often predicated on the past. They may or may not have defined their number, but because they are disciplined already and because they will soon be high-income couples, things will likely fall in place for them.
OK, so do you agree with what I just said about defining financial freedom? If not, how would you define it? Regardless of whether you agree with my definition or not, I’m pretty sure you would agree you would like to have it. Of course you would; everyone would. Now, let’s spend a bit of time talking about how we can get it.
How can I achieve financial freedom?
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it were easy, everyone would do it?” It’s that way with financial freedom. Besides being something difficult to define, it’s difficult to obtain. In today’s world, people have very short attention spans and want answers to difficult questions in short sound bites. We see a lot about how much money we should have saved for retirement, like that number, whoever put it together, is the correct number for everyone. If only it were that easy…
Again, this is why I developed the course and Afterburner Success Partners. What we do when you take this very reasonably priced course is learn about how you think and the goal-setting process. We take you in your current situation and give you the tools to learn how to determine your number. This number is strictly tailored to you and your situation. It's not some general theme you read about online. Now, there are a couple of caveats here, and I talk about them often. Your desires and wants, indeed your number, must be tempered to your current situation. I think we all realize that having wild ideas of where we want to be financially may not be possible. I believe you can achieve a lot from where you are, probably more than you think, but we must be realistic at the same time. During the course, we take the time to intelligently map this path out, and that path is designed around your specific situation at the moment. The second caveat is that you may either need professional help from a financial advisor, accountant, or other such folks or educate yourself so that you can determine what your number should be and your path to get there.
So, during the course, we assume you can achieve a lot, probably more than you currently think possible. Individually or working with a professional, with guidance from the course, you will determine what you can achieve and how you can reach your number. You may determine that you need to make some changes to get to where you want to be, and we discuss that in detail as well. I’ve mentioned that in my case, I had determined my number, and due to a few important events coming together about the same time, my number snuck up on me and occurred earlier than I had planned.
The bottom line
Let me summarize. Reaching “Your Number” is a significant milestone in anyone’s life. Reaching this point is typically a result of a lifetime of good decisions and hard work. The important thing to remember is that almost everyone can benefit from learning about the process of doing this, and the Afterburner Success Course is an excellent way to do that. If you are unsure what “Your Number” is or how to obtain it, sign up for the next available course today! That’s all for this week!
What’s in it for Me
I’m not sure I know anyone who would not like to have financial freedom. Would you agree? Learning how to reach that point is what’s in it for you.
Call to Action
Sign up for the next available course so you can start your own journey to financial freedom.
Recommended Resources
It’s always best to have a plan in place if things don’t go as planned. Buy and read Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty by Harvey McKay for some excellent advice on this topic (Note 4).
Up Next
Big Rocks First
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
Historical tax rate, 1913-1924 https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx
31 Life Milestones That Define Everyone’s Journey: https://www.3dphotogifts.com/blogs/blog/life-milestones?srsltid=AfmBOorUVuy0q9vpsZluEdfJXPjiebAVm6qAvFbVysBEZHBbQx6oq_F-
Financial Independence Retire Early: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-retire-early-fire.asp
Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty by Harvey MacKay: https://amzn.to/4hoQpyg