This post is part of a 30 days series called the 30 steps program to financial independence. You can check the list of other posts here.
We have talked in the past few days about what financial independence can mean to different people, and what it means to me. It means being able to live a nice life without having to worry about money. And there are two ways to do this: earn more, and save more. If you reduce clutter, unnecessary expenses and bad money habits in your life, then you should be able to live the same life for less money.
Moreover, if you are now able to perform maintenance on your car, do simple DYI projects around the house or grow a garden, then life is much cheaper than before. Hence the lesser need for money, and work in order to earn said money.
So go over the numbers once more. A few weeks back, if you did the calculations of how much money you would need to live a life where you don’t need to work, you may have come up with a much higher number.
If you needed $1,000,000 and now only need $500,000, you are $500,000 closer to financial independence!! I think my number was already pretty low, but every time I learn a new skill like maintenance for my home or my car, or a homemade recipe, I consider the amount saved in my daily life. I used to pay $15 for pizza. Now I can bake a delicious $5 pizza with a lot of much better ingredients. I am saving $10 each time to keep it simple (I am saving by staying healthier, by not driving to the pizza joint, etc). If I need $30 per day in retirement, every three times that I make pizza instead of eating out is a day of retirement saved.
Now that your number is lower, you can use a savings calculator to figure out how long you will need to come up with that amount of money. You may have saved months or even years by reducing your wants and keeping your life simple.