Want to know the secret to achieving financial freedom,
living the lifestyle that you desire without having to work for money or rely
on someone else for money, no longer trading time for dollars?
Well, that's what I'm sharing in today's video.
The secret to achieving financial freedom
and how I was able to retire early to live a financially free life.
I am Tiffany Thomas with Wealthy
Tiffany Dotcom, and I achieved financial freedom at age thirty eight.
And if you are interested in becoming financially free at a young age as well,
hit that like button and the subscribe button and we're going to dive right in.
All right.
What is the secret to achieving financial freedom?
Well, I have this 50 grand program.
It's called Overnight Millionaire.
Just click the link below.
Just kidding, you guys.
That seems to be what everyone is looking for, the get rich quick plan.
And that is not the secret to financial freedom.
Those plans are actually how to lose your money really fast.
The secret to financial freedom is not
the hot tip of the day on which stock to purchase or some ridiculously priced
program that promises you things they cannot actually deliver on.
The secret to achieving financial freedom is actually investing your money
in something that is going to make your money work for you instead of you always
working for the money, things like the stock market or real estate.
If you keep trying to look for the quick
way to get rich, you're going to get broke really fast.
And if you're leaving your money sitting
in a savings account, that is not going to help you achieve
financial freedom either because your money is not working for you.
It's earning probably less than one percent and inflation is at three percent.
So if we take that one percent,
you're earning minus the three percent for inflation.
That leaves you at negative two percent.
So you're actually losing money by leaving your money in a savings account.
But if you invest your money consistently
over time, that will help you achieve financial freedom.
That is the secret. You have to actually invest your money.
And honestly, I used to be a big saver.
I had a lot of money sitting in my savings account.
But once I switched over to becoming more
of an investor, my money grew exponentially.
And that is what made the largest
difference in me achieving financial freedom.
There is no way I would be financially
free right now nor be a millionaire right now if I had not invested my money.
If you invest consistently over time,
you will become rich and become financially free.
And I am living proof of that.
And as it turns out, it may not take as much time as you would think.
I did not think I would be financially
free before the age of 40, but it ended up working out that way.
So how is this possible?
How can you invest your money?
Well, first off, you have to have money to invest.
So you have to have some sort of income,
a way of making money so you can have money to invest.
For me, I did that through a nine to five job.
I had that paycheck coming in every two weeks and that's how I made money.
And then I eventually switched over
to investments, which we will talk about in just a moment.
But the next thing you want to be doing is
making sure you are staying out of debt or getting out of debt if you already are
in debt, if you do have extra debt that you want to get rid of.
I do have a video about getting rid of your debt.
So I will leave a link above and below
in the description and you can check that out.
The next thing that you need to have is an emergency fund.
You need to have a cash amount
tucked away somewhere so that you can access that in case there is an emergency.
And I am curious to know.
So tell me in the comments, if you do actually have an emergency fund
right now. And people always ask, how much should I have in my emergency fund?
And for me, this honestly differs for each person.
I personally like to keep the smallest amount possible in my emergency fund
because I want my money to be working for me.
And I am not in the preserving wealth phase.
I'm in the building wealth phase.
Still, even though I am financially free,
I still want to increase that and build my wealth over time because I already have
a cash flow coming in from my rental properties.
But I do have some cash on hand because I do have rental properties.
So if I had an emergency, then it could be kind of expensive.
It could be that I need to replace a water
heater in one of my properties or replace a washer or a refrigerator.
But if you don't own any properties,
then your emergency fund might be a little bit smaller because your emergencies
that would come up wouldn't be as costly as replacing something in a house.
The way I like to look at this is, OK,
what are some potential emergencies that could come up?
Perhaps you have a car and you.
Get a flat and you need to replace your tires.
Well, that could be an emergency or maybe you have some sort of health problem.
So you need to pay the deductible on your health insurance.
Just think of a few different emergencies that could come up and the amount
that would cost to take care of those emergencies.
And could you get access to cash another way?
Maybe you have a credit card that you could put that expense on and that would
give you a buffer of about 30 days to pay that credit card off.
So if you're getting another paycheck
in a couple of weeks, could you maybe cut back on some of your
regular expenses, maybe don't go out to eat a few times or
whatever it is that you are spending kind of that extra money on and put that toward
paying off your credit card for the emergency that has happened.
For me, another way that I have access
to cash is I could pull money out of my brokerage account.
I could sell off a stock and have money that way.
So just do the amount that you feel
comfortable with that you can still sleep at night.
If there was an emergency to happen, that you could cover that.
And the next thing you want to make sure and do is know what your monthly expenses
are so that you can actually invest the rest of the money that's coming in.
And if you don't know what your expenses are currently, then figure it out.
It's very important to know what you're
spending your money on, so you can actually have money to invest.
The way I like to do this is through a spreadsheet that I have.
And then also I use a free app.
It's called Personal Capital,
and you can hook all of your financial institutions to it.
So your checking account, your savings, your credit card, your mortgage,
all of your financial accounts, including your 401k, too.
And you can actually see everything
that you've spent money on and all of the income that is coming in.
So you can see, oh, I spent how much on eating out this month.
I didn't mean to do that.
It just gives you a really clear picture on your finances very quickly.
So if you're not the type that actually
likes spreadsheets, then this might be a good option for you.
And if you are interested, I believe a referral link below.
But honestly, no pressure.
Once you know all of your expenses and you know how much is coming in each month,
how much your paycheck is, then you can say, OK, I have this amount to invest.
If you've already funded your emergency fund, you have the amount that you want,
then you don't need to keep funding that emergency fund.
You can put that money toward investing.
And if you don't have any money left over,
then you need to make some adjustments right away.
Where can you cut back on your expenses or how can you increase your income?
And people always ask, how much should I be investing?
You should be investing as much as possible as soon as possible.
So if you have your emergency fund already funded, you know what your expenses are.
And then you can see, OK,
I have this amount of money left over, then invest that money.
And if you have other goals you're working toward, maybe you want to set aside money
for a down payment or something like that, then that's great.
You don't need to invest that money for the long term.
You can leave that in a high yield savings account so that you can be ready
to purchase that house once you have enough money saved up.
But if you're not saving for something
specific like that, then you should be investing your money.
And where should you invest your money?
Personally, I like real estate, actual real estate.
I have physical properties and I also like the stock market.
That is how I was able to become financially free.
I saved up for a down payment for my first
three properties and for my fourth property.
I actually took money from the stock
market investments that I had and put that toward my down payment.
There's no way I would have had that much
money if I had left it sitting in a savings account.
So I am super glad I decided to invest that money.
And it's true, investing is risky, but I want you to keep this in mind
that the stock market does go up and down over time.
But the general trend of the stock market is that it increases over time.
And with the real estate market, I invest and buy and hold properties.
So I have renters in my property and I collect rent each month.
So I'm not worried about the real estate
market crashing anytime soon because I'm not looking to sell.
I'm just collecting that cash flow every month from my renters.
Those are two options for you to invest your money.
And if you want to keep it super simple, the stock market is very simple.
You can just continue to invest
consistently over time and as much as possible.
And if you want to achieve financial
freedom even sooner, then look at increasing your income
and decreasing your expenses and investing as soon as possible.
If you found this video helpful, please hit the like button and share it
with someone else who would like to hear this information and hit the subscribe
button to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
And don't forget to hit the little bell to get notified on when I post new videos.
Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.