Want to know what no one else is going to tell you about financial freedom?
Well, that's what today's video is all about.
I am Tiffany Thomas with Wealthy Tiffany Dotcom.
And I achieved financial freedom at age
thirty eight through real estate and stock market investing.
And if you want to become financially free at a young age as well,
hit that like button and the subscribe button and we are going to dive right in.
Let's first off define what financial freedom is.
To me, financial freedom means that you can live the lifestyle you desire without
having to work for money or rely on someone else for money.
Essentially, you have enough passive income coming in to pay for all of your
expenses so you don't actually have to trade time for dollars and you can live
off that passive income for the rest of your life.
I know there's a lot of talk about how
financial freedom doesn't really work and retiring early isn't really a thing.
And I know Suze Orman has said you need at least five million dollars to retire.
But for me and for a lot of other people, that is just not the case.
And if you're wondering how much you actually need to retire early or become
financially free, I have another video all about that.
So I will leave a link below
and the description and above and you can check that video out.
All right.
So here is what no one is really telling you about financial freedom since I have
been financially free for a couple of years now.
Here's just a few things that I want to talk about with you.
First off, when I became financially free,
I honestly didn't really feel like I was financially free.
I felt like it was a joke or it was fake or something.
I had a hard time believing it and just wrapping my mind around it.
I kept looking at my budgeting spreadsheet and thinking, are these numbers right?
Do I really have this amount coming in each month to cover all of my expenses?
And I think part of that was because I was
told my entire life, like most of us have been,
that we should get a job, we should work the nine to five until sixty five.
And then if we're lucky, we can retire sometime in our sixties.
So when I had this passive income coming
in and granted, I want to clarify something.
So I invest in real estate and I have cash
flow coming in, but I manage the properties myself so I do
not have complete passive income through my real estate investments.
But if I wanted to, I could hire a property manager and be just fine.
So I just wanted to let you know that I am still doing some work,
but I could make it pretty much completely passive if I wanted to.
So when I saw all of these amounts coming
in, all of this rental income coming in, I was like, wow, I did it, I did it.
I created this passive income for myself to become financially free at a young age.
So when you actually do the same,
whether it's through real estate or just through the stock market and you're taking
out money from the stock market, you may think, is this for real?
Am I really OK?
I don't have to work a nine to five job.
And yes, if you have done your homework
and you know how much you need to live off of and you create that passive income,
then you are good, you are financially free.
The second thing that I want to bring up
is that sometimes people just kind of think that you're at their beck
and call and they just think, oh, she's sitting at home doing nothing all day.
I can call her and she can come give me
a ride or they'll wonder why isn't she responding to my text message?
You just sit at home and does nothing all
day, so you should immediately respond to my messages.
So there's just different things like that where people are like, well,
are you just sitting at home all day doing nothing?
And for me, that's not the case.
I created this business, these videos that you guys are watching.
So I work a lot on my business and helping
educate people so that they can become financially free as well.
So if I'm in the middle of recording a video such as this one and someone
calls, I'm not going to hit the stop button and answer the phone.
I also love to travel.
I've take taken at least six different trips this year, just this year.
And I know there's the craziness going on.
So they've been a lot of local trips.
I haven't flown anywhere.
The furthest one that I went to was
Lake Tahoe, which was absolutely beautiful, by the way.
And I do have one more trip planned.
I'm going to be going to Vegas next month.
So that should be a fun little getaway.
And yes, sometimes I have gotten bored,
so I might just be sitting at home being like, oh, what should I do today?
Maybe my video is already done. I've edited it.
And yeah, I should go do something fun.
So there might be moments where you're
thinking, oh, I'm a little bored, what should I do?
But that's when you can have kind
of a list of ideas, things that you want to go do or just things that you want to.
Or even books that you want to read,
I love reading books, especially self-improvement books,
so I read a lot of books or I should say listen to a lot of books.
I listen to the majority of them
on Audible, which is fantastic, because then I can multitask,
be doing something else while I'm listening to a book.
And I don't want you thinking, oh, Tiffany is kind of a jerk.
She never answers her phone or never
responds to text messages because that's not the case.
I am happy to help people and I've taken people to the airport before,
if they need a ride and expect that if you
live anywhere near the airport, people are probably going to ask you
for rides to the airport when people start flying again a lot.
I guess. Also with being financially free,
people may not really believe that you are financially free.
Some people are really programmed to have
that nine to five job and think that everyone needs a nine to five job.
So sometimes they might send you links to different jobs that they think you
might be good at or talk to you about different jobs that you could apply for.
So just kind of expect that some people don't really get it and that's fine.
And you can try to explain it to them
again and again and maybe it'll eventually stick.
But if not, you can just say thanks so
much for these job opportunities you've sent me.
That was really nice.
Also, people will ask you, if the real estate market crashes or the stock market
crashes, if that's what you've chosen to invest in, what's going to happen?
Are you going to have to go back to work?
And for me, I'm investing in real estate for the long term.
So I just buy and hold properties. I buy the property.
It's in good condition.
I rent it out and I continue to collect
that rental income each month and have that cash flow coming in.
So I'm not looking to sell my properties any time soon.
So I don't really care if the real estate
market crashes any time soon because I'm not going to sell my properties.
And people always need a place to live.
They always need shelter.
So there will always be people that want to rent.
And maybe I need to lower rent at some point if the rent rates drop.
But my properties aren't just aren't going to sit empty.
I've chosen properties in good locations
that are nice properties that people want to live in and they are affordable.
So I'm not worried about the real estate market crashing.
And if I did have investments in the stock market and I was withdrawing money
from that each year, then if the stock market did crash one
year, maybe I would say, OK, I can withdraw a little bit of money
from my emergency fund or my savings, or maybe I will get a part time job that I
really love and I can go into work twenty hours a week.
Or maybe I just want to create a side hustle and I can bring in just a little
extra income to create a little bit of a buffer.
But the thing is,
if you've done your homework for how much you need invested, then you should be fine
to withdraw even when the stock market goes down.
As long as you're not getting crazy
and taking 12 vacations all across the world in that year,
maybe hold off for a year until the stock market comes back up a little bit.
And that's the thing to keep in mind,
that the stock market will always come back up.
Sure, the stock market will go up and down, but then it will come back up
and up and up and up and it just continues to move up over time.
And let's talk about the best part
of financial freedom, which is the time freedom that you have.
So you get to create your best life
possible because you're not worried about working for money.
And if you want to continue to work
at your nine to five because you love it, then great,
continue to work at your nine to five.
But that's because you want to and not because you actually need the money.
I want you to think about this for a second.
If someone just put a million dollars on your pillow and you woke up
to a million dollars right next to you the next morning,
would you keep your life the same way or would you make a few changes?
And that's essentially what financial freedom is.
You get the freedom to live the life
that you really desire without having to worry about that money aspect.
Financial freedom creates those choices, those options for you.
And you can spend your time on what you want to be spending your time on.
And I love that concept because if
my niece happened to have her baby and she says, hey, I'm going to bring my new baby
over to the grandparents house, to your parents house, the next day and she
invites you, you can be like, yeah, I'm coming for sure.
That happened earlier this year.
So I got to see my little new great-niece, she's adorable.
Or if your friend is like, hey,
I'm starting a new job in a couple of weeks, I have this two week window.
Do you want to go to the Caribbean?
You can say, yes, I do. No problem.
I don't have to ask for time off.
That also happened.
Or since I am a landlord, and I've chosen to manage my properties,
if something goes wrong at my rental, I can go over there immediately.
I don't have to tell my boss. Hey,
I need to take a couple of hours,
I'll be back. I just leave my house and I can go take care of the problem.
Also, if something goes wrong with your
car, you can take it into the car place on a Tuesday morning instead of taking it
on a Saturday afternoon when everyone else is there.
And you have to wait forever to get your car back.
You can also do your grocery shopping
whenever you like instead of on a Saturday with everyone else.
And there's no sitting in traffic jams or feeling pressure to hurry and get to work
so you can be on time.
I know I did that when I was working my nine to five.
I didn't really leave a lot of extra time.
So I cruised into work every day
and sometimes I just created that extra stress on myself, which wasn't necessary.
I could have left earlier, but I didn't.
And there's no pressure of feeling like you have to be the first one to work
and the last one to leave work to get that three percent raise.
Hopefully. If I want to give myself
a raise, then I can increase rent prices or buy another rental property and create
more cash flow to come in or sell some investments in the stock market.
And one other thing I especially love is not using an alarm clock.
I go to bed when I want to and I wake up when I'm ready to wake up.
So if I stay out late on a Wednesday night
dancing all night, then I'm not worried about getting up
super early in the morning and just being tired because I can get up when I want to.
And if I do get up early and I'm tired
later in the day, then I can take a nap if I want.
And here's one other thing.
I am a lot more conscious about what I'm spending my money on.
And I was actually this way when I was working on achieving financial freedom.
But it's made such a difference.
I am so much happier with the purchases that I am making that I'm not getting
buyer's remorse all the time or thinking, oh, why did I spend so much money?
I made a very conscious effort to spend
my money on things that I really want to be spending my money on,
which brings a lot more happiness and joy into my life.
And seriously, I said this in last week's
video, but the best thing money can buy is financial freedom.
Even though I listed a couple of negative
things at the beginning of the video, the positive things outweigh any sort
of negative component to financial freedom so much. It is so worth it to become
financially free as soon as possible because you're not feeling stressed about
money, about making money, about having to get raises all
of the time, about impressing people you don't care to impress.
It will completely change your world.
And there might be some adjustment period there, but it is so worth it.
And if you want more details about how
this is possible, I've created other videos for you.
I will leave a link above and below
in the description and you can check those videos out.
If you found this video helpful, please hit that like button and share it
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Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.