Learning About Financial Independence Changed My Life, and I Bet it Can Change Yours Too.
My journey to financial independence began just under a decade ago, around the age of 21.
I was working as an electrician at the time, and one of the most beautiful things about my work was that I could listen to podcasts all day long, filling my head with as much knowledge and information as I pleased.
So I let Dave Ramsey talk to me all day, every day. He taught me about money—how I could use it as a tool, how it might get the best of me if I wasn’t careful, and how it was getting the best of others. He taught me his seven baby steps, how to steer clear of debt, and most importantly, to understand what’s really important: financial freedom.
As an electrician, I worked hard for a number of years, clocking in my 40 hours plus, busting my tail, picking up side gigs, and stacking my money. Of course, I wasn’t always the best saver—I had my periods of spending splurges, but overall, I kept an eye on the prize: financial freedom.
The more I learned about personal finance, the more I wanted to learn. I was downright obsessed.
I started to imagine what it would be like to pursue a career in personal finance.
What might that look like? Would I be any good at it? Could I make the transition?
As with any big transition came the inevitable doubt. I remember telling myself I’d be silly to walk away from a career as an electrician. I mean, come on, I was making great money, I had more work than I could dream of, and the future looked even better. Friends, co-workers, and acquaintances all reinforced these doubts. “Oh yeah, electrical is a great trade—great pay and plenty of work,” people would tell me. And they were right.
But it wasn’t great for me. Plain and simple, I was not in love with the work, and I wanted to try something different.
That’s where Dave saved me. During my time as a sparky, I’d been consistently saving, avoiding debt at all costs, and keeping my lifestyle costs in check. This gave me the safety I needed to make a big move, taking a massive pay cut from around $75k per year to $7.25 an hour.
To many, this appeared foolish, swapping my skilled trade work to become an intern at a Wealth Management firm. What on earth was I thinking? How would this all play out?
Well, four short years later, it appears to be one of the best moves I could have made. I now have the ability to work remotely as a financial writer, seasonally as a tax preparer, and my career options remain wide open with my CFP® designation and experience in financial planning.
Best of all, I am doing work that lights me up, an essential key to living a happy life.
The only reason I was able to do any of this was because Dave had taught me that I should care and learn about financial independence. He taught me that I should be saving as much as possible, buying freedom and flexibility in the process.
That was the first time that learning about financial independence paid off big, now let me tell you about the second.
After making the move to financial services, I worked my way up, eventually landing at a financial planning startup with a mission I loved: bringing high-quality financial planning to the masses.
I dove in headfirst, finding success quickly and being promoted to a management position. Wow I thought, I’ve really made it!
The work was amazing but intense. Managing a team of remote salespeople that alternate morning and night shifts seven days a week meant that I needed to be available, a lot. I was only ever a slack message or phone call away and had to be ready to hop in and put out fires for my team as needed.
With the demand came the compensation. I was officially making more money than I ever had, topping my previous earnings as an electrician and just getting started. But the demand was taking a toll.
I found that even though I was working at a fantastic company with a mission that I loved, the workload was more than I wanted.
Then my daughter was born.
There are certain moments in life where it feels like the fog clears, and you can see things as clear as day, and that was one of them.
I knew I wanted to be the present dad, the dad that was there for all of it, the dad who put his family above his work, no matter what.
I also knew that no matter how hard I tried, that would be tough to do in the environment I was in. So, I knew it was time to pivot.
I left behind the workload and the compensation and traded it in for flexible, seasonal, and freelance work. Whether or not this pivot will prove as successful as the last is to be determined—but one thing is for sure: it wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t learned about financial independence.
Learning about financial independence gave me the financial wiggle room to take a step back, reassess the situation, and make a move based on what’s best for me and my family all around, putting quality of life above financial compensation.
If I hadn’t learned about financial independence, where would I be? Maybe working as an electrician still, doing great work, but not putting my heart into it. Or maybe I’d be hustling as a manager, doing my best to hang out with my wife and daughter for a couple of hours before bed each night, wondering where all the time was going.
In the end, we’ll never know because I learned about financial independence and realized what it could mean for my life.
I want the same for you. You deserve the freedom to choose how you will spend your time, who you will spend it with, and for how long.
I’ll top this off with one of my favorite quotes of all time. It’s from Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money—one of the most talented financial storytellers there is.
Housel writes:
“Being able to wake up one morning and change what you’re doing, on your own terms, whenever you’re ready, seems like the grandmother of all financial goals. Independence, to me, doesn’t mean you’ll stop working. It means you only do the work you like with people you like at the times you want for as long as you want.”