100 Reasons You Need Financial Independence

100 Reasons You Need Financial Independence

“Do I need Financial Independence?”

You asked and came to the right place.

Although nobody can answer a lifestyle question for a third party, I firmly believe that reading the 100 facts below will help you make your own mind up.

But beware, it starts light but gets crueler as you read on. You need to be comfortable with numerous reality checks along the way.

100 Non-philosophical Facts About Life

1. You use an alarm clock in order to wake up.
2. You, as an adult, need a formal approval to take days off.
3. You sometimes take days off.
4. Sometimes, you’re happy on Fridays.
5. The schedule and duration of everything you do is determined by your job, including sleep, lunch, dinner, and time with family.
6. You missed at least a dozen of precious moments or occasions with your loved ones.
7. You commute on your own expense – even if you’re financially reimbursed for it. Expenses are not strictly monetary.
8. You need to take care of groceries in the most disadvantageous moments of the day.
9. At least once, you felt guilty because you had to do something personal, but of crucial importance, during working hours. I understand it’s normalized today.
10. You either accepted or decided not to participate but tolerate the game of stabbing people you work with in the back for a negligible raise in the anyway low salary.
11. You can’t survive without the hand that’s feeding you – you can’t produce value by yourself (without your employer).
12. You rent your time at a rate solely set based on how many positions exist and how many people can do what you do.
13. You have an urgency to say things like “I’m good at my job“, “I sincerely enjoy what I’m doing“, but deep inside understand that you’re missing the point.
14. You’re replaceable if a cheaper worker can do what you do. You’re fully disposable in an economic downturn.
15. You signed a contract that quantifies a death of a family member in extra vacation days.
16. You, as an adult, have formal evaluations done by another adult who has to do it, and are graded on your performance.
17. At least once, you waited for a year instead of changing a job for a promotion.
18. At least once, you didn’t get what was promised. That day, you had a reality check that contradicts with how you think today.
19. You fell, or act that you did, for the trick that Friday drinks/snacks, an annual outing, and flexible working hours are making you happier.
20. You’re treated as a child by your employer.
21. You postponed at least one goal you used to be extremely passionate about.
22. You lost passion for almost all things that weren’t a priority.
23. You understood your insignificance through a gradual process of taming and exploitation… Since kindergarten.
24. You continuously bear the consequences, financially and emotionally, of other peoples’ negligence and unprofessionalism, although you’re doing everything right. The society doesn’t care about your contributions.
25. You still have financial issues or worries. You know that nothing is stable or guaranteed.
26. Sometimes, you have the thought that “life isn’t fair“.
27. You learned to prioritize needs to the extend that you completely disregard wants.
28. You’d be happier if you had more time for yourself.
29. You’d be happier if you were able to spend more time with your family.
30. You’d be happier if you could afford, financially and emotionally, a certain vacation, or simply time off, and enjoy it with no friction, worries, or time restrictions.
31. You neglected, partially or fully, physical training or any type of activity. Your posture got worse. Your character weakened too.
32. You’ve completely lost curiosity and are never accumulating currently impractical knowledge.
33. You’re always grinding in the lowest tier of Maslow’s pyramid of needs.
34. You learned to live with self-sabotage and lowered your existence to small-talk-polluted gatherings of boring people waiting to die.
35. You can’t remember the last time you were sincerely excited about something.
36. You’re not getting the treatment you think you deserve.
37. You feel underestimated by your partner, friends, and society in general.
38. You sometimes face the fact that it may not be a case of underestimation.
39. You sometimes regret the decisions you made in the past but aren’t doing much in order to not regret the present decisions in the future.
40. You neglected yourself and are a laughing stock for the society.
41. The sole purpose of your existence, apart from reproduction for the sake of it, is to fund the government spending.
42. You don’t get to decide how the government spends, apart from a vote that’s just steers the wheel slightly to the left or to the right.
43. Without having any say in it, around half of your salary is sent to the tax authorities before it even reaches your bank account.
44. Whenever you’re negotiating a salary, you’re negotiating your contribution to the government’s budget.
45. You learned to live with half of what you’re worth in the market, effectively working for the government from January to June and for yourself from July to December.
46. You’re paying “value added tax” with the already-taxed-part of your salary.
47. If you take a risk with your already-taxed money and profit off of it, you’ll need to pay more money to the government.
48. If you inherit something that your ancestors worked hard to create and preserve (and were taxed on) you’ll need to pay more money to the government.
49. If you receive a gift from a family member that exceeds a negligible amount, you’ll need to pay more money to the government.
50. You’re not assigned an accountant to handle filing your mandatory tax returns. Either become proficient yourself or pay someone to do it for you from your already-taxed salary… Or go to jail.
51. You’re financially punished if you work harder, and the proceeds are gifted to those that don’t. You accepted “progressive tax” as the norm.
52. You pay for property, waste, healthcare, car, road, pet, air, whatever taxes from your already-taxed money.
53. You, as a person living in a free society, are threatened with loss of freedom if you somehow manage to avoid paying.
54. You, as a conscious being capable of making own decisions, can’t even decide not to pay the bribe.
55. While you may or may not find yourself on the “tax the rich” bandwagon, tax-abusing criminals will successfully demand you to pay for their housing and mistakes.
56. You’re forcefully paying for services that don’t work and employ intellectually challenged bureaucrats who almost always make mistakes when processing your forms… The consequences of which you bear alone and the phone line has an average waiting time of 3 hours.
57. You mistake your loss of freedom with “paying your fair share“.
58. You may have developed Stockholm syndrome over the years of oppression.
59. You were tricked into being a patriot.
60. You’re a slave to your government.
61. You were assigned a minor but mandatory role in the eventual fall of another empire – which always starts by government’s generosity and devaluation of its currency.
62. You earn in a currency that’s artificially created, with absolutely nothing backing its value apart from the promise that it’ll be worth something in the future.
63. You earn in a currency you can’t convert into anything outside the borders of your country or economic union.
64. You earn in a currency that’s fully controlled by the central bank.
65. The central bank can adjust the interest rates and the money supply, determining the value of everything you own.
66. The central bank decides which percentage of the money in your bank account can be lent to other people. This number is currently 100%.
67. You get paid in a currency that will lose value – being broke if you spend it, being punished if you save it.
68. You earn in a currency that the central bank can and does print more of, overflooding the economy with the same points you were accumulating for years, making them less valuable.
69. You’re extremely susceptible to interest rate changes. Not because you’re gullible, but because you’re a part of the economy.
70. You didn’t decide to get a mortgage. The central bank lowered the interest rates and the lending requirements.
71. You didn’t decide to wait another year. The central bank increased the interest rates and everything seems more expensive.
72. A rate hike of only a percent could cost you your job, your home, or both.
73. You don’t really understand the law of supply and demand.
74. You believe that there is an institution, public or private, that will take care of your future financial stability.
75. You spend at least half of your awake time to take care of your financial security and still have misconceptions about money.
76. You don’t fully understand how the traditional monetary system really works.
77. You don’t understand what money is.
78. You don’t understand that the economy is being kept on life support and it’s only up to you to take care of yourself in crisis.
79. You fail to realize that you live in a world where your wealth management skills are the decisive factor in how your experience will be.
80. You’re a puppet of the central bank.
81. Do you, as a rational being, fail to realize the importance of self-sufficiency and independence?
82. Do you, as a rational being and knowing all this, spend money on “luxuries“?
83. Do you, as a rational being, believe that anything is a luxury?
84. Do you, as a rational being, think that the emotional rewards of owning/doing/”enjoying” an item or an experience outweigh the psychological damage of those chains you’re tightening on yourself?
85. Do you, as a person living in a democratic country full of opportunities, decide to comply with everything above-mentioned, in exchange for the a temporary safety net in case you lose your job?
86. Do you, as a person living in a free society, freely decide to live under the above-mentioned conditions in exchange for 3 meals per day and 2 vacations per year?
87. Do you still think that sufficient calorie intake isn’t the sole factor that makes you content with every compromise you ever made?
88. Do you fail to see that, metaphorically speaking, stocking up your kitchen for life is the only way of breaking free?
89. Do you consider yourself free?
90. Do you really think that what you see is all there is?
91. Would you make at least one change in your life if you received a windfall today?
92. What’s stopping you of making that change right now?
93. Do you still pretend that personal finance isn’t important?
94. Do you still think you work because you “like your boss“? Why don’t you help each other for free?
95. Do you think any company will help you out solely because you were a “good person“, regardless whether as a customer or employee?
96. Do you trust that the government will take care of you when you’re old?
97. Do you think the banks will act in your best interest when things go south?
98. You fail to understand the utmost importance of complete independence – the financial being only the starting point in that journey.
99. You fail to recognize that financial independence is more than “not working“.
100. You’re a sucker. You sold yourself short: to your employer, the society, the government, the central bank, and your existence.

Conclusion

So… Thanks for reading!

If you can relate to at least one of the points above, here’s a sentence you need to remember:

Every cent you waste in the present is another moment in the future in which you’ll be treated like an animal.

There is absolutely no need to get defensive – it’s not a matter how many points apply to you. They come in a package and nobody’s immune to the full set.

You’re an insignificant, brainwashed, sad, and exploited slave. That’s known a prioi.

The amount of wealth you control is the one and only decisive factor of how free you’ll live your life. From changing an income stream and changing a country, all the way to changing your way of life.

Of course, we can agree to not call it “financial independence“, but the keyword certainly helps people like you to find this post.

Ready to do something about it? Start by visiting these pages:

• What is FIRE? The 5 Levels of Financial Independence
• How to Start Saving Money (5 Steps)
• Become an Investor – The Ultimate Guide to Long-Term Investing for Absolute Beginners