Money is Freedom

Welcome to Millennial Money. To me this is more than blog, it’s my pursuit to make enough money, save enough money, and manage money well enough so work is optional for the rest of my life. I don’t want to spend all of my time making money or thinking about money and I’m sure you don’t either – I just want to have enough of it so I can do the things I love, like traveling to random places on a whim with my wife, upgrading to first class, eating the best food in the world, drinking the best wine, jamming with my friends, and exploring insane outdoor places.

I want to live the good life.

It’s best you get to know me if you are down to take this journey with me. So I brought you here to my first post. It’s got some real feels in it. Here we go. Ever since I was a little kid I have wanted to make money. I think a lot of kids are like this, but I tended to take it to the extreme. For example, I didn’t just set up lemonade stands, I mowed yards, shoveled snow, watched dogs, watched cats, and even started a weekly newsletter that I sold a subscription to for $10/year. I did it all, but where did this drive to make money come from? I think it came from my Dad, who when I was growing up often would tell me “money is freedom”. I am pretty sure that’s where I got my deep drive and interest in money. I remember thinking that if I had enough money I could do anything I wanted.

“Money is Freedom” to means having the ability to do whatever you want when you wake up in the morning. Freedom is where work is optional. It also means you can spend your time pursuing your passion and living the life you want to live. So many people spend their lives living without passion. I see them everyday – they have that blank look in their eyes on the subway or on the street as you pass them. They are the “get up go to work… come home go to sleep….wake up repeat people.” Those people freak me out. They just have the deadness to them. Of course I don’t know their story or where they came from, but I can tell that work is killing them. It’s wearing them down. I worry about becoming one those people. I am only 30 and I have been working 70+ hour weeks for the past 5 years and I don’t want to do it forever. In fact I think I have about 5 more years left, but that means I have to get focused and figure all this investing stuff out.

So how can I “make work optional “and live the life I want to live? It’s a simple equation:

Money = Time = Freedom

So the goal is to have enough money so I don’t need to work for it. I essentially need to make enough money so I can buy my own time or be your own boss. I want to wake up in the morning and be like….uh… I’m not waking up yet and have the whole day ahead of me. I want to wake up somewhere beautiful and hang out with my wife and kids (kids hopefully soon!), take them school, drink insanely good coffee, and get involved in projects I am excited about. I want to be able to chase my whims and be present in my relationships. I want time to breathe.

One of the reasons I am writing this blog is so I force myself to slow down a little bit and try to collect my thoughts. Writing also helps me make sense of things – it forces me to think slower and I need that. I always thought it was crazy that people pay you for your time. That whatever you are making per hour is what you are being paid for an hour of your life. Have you ever stepped back and thought about what an hour of your life is worth? But unless you happen to inherit some crazy sum of money or you get really really lucky, then this is what you have to do – sell your time so you can make money to live.

So how do you make enough money so work is optional? You just need solid plan. This involves simple saving, investing, and wealth management. For most people there are no magic pathways to wealth, but there are tried and true principles that will give you a pretty good shot at having enough money so you can do whatever you want to do. So we can live the good life.

To learn more checkout my Financial Freedom book.