The Simple Path to Achieve Financial Freedom

The Simple Path To Achieve Financial Freedom

Do you want to achieve financial freedom, but not sure where to start or how to get there?

If so, you’ve come to the right place! In fact, my purpose with this blog is:

“To enable you to live the life you want by helping you eliminate your debt and teaching you how to achieve financial freedom”.

Before moving on, we should define financial freedom.

Financial freedom means you have sufficient wealth to live the life you want without depending on income from some form of employment.

Now, I want some of that! I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend their time doing what they enjoy in life without worrying about a job to pay the bills?

Okay, we all want financial freedom. But, trying to figure out on your own how to actually reach financial freedom can be intimidating.

A few Google searches will send you down a rabbit hole trying to understand terms like “safe withdrawal rates” and “Roth” versus “Traditional”. And, you’ll land on various blog posts telling you how to spend less, pay off your student loans, earn more money online, etc.

Many of these articles are insightful, some more than others. But, it can be a real struggle to understand how all that random advice fits into the big picture of you achieving financial freedom.

I’ve been there. Unfortunately, people complicate this when it doesn’t have to be.

The path to achieve financial freedom is quite simple once you have a map to guide you.

That is exactly why I developed the framework below – to provide a map that guides you on your simple path to achieve financial freedom!

The Financial Freedom Framework

The financial freedom framework has three main phases consisting of fifteen total steps.

At a high level, the three phases are to (1) Plan & Budget, (2) Execute Your Plan, and (3) Measure & Improve. Each of these phases consist of steps you should take if you want to reach financial freedom.

Take a look at the framework below to see how it all ties together. We’ll explore each phase and step a little deeper throughout this post.

Achieve financial freedom using the financial freedom framework

Follow The 3 Phase Process To Achieve Financial Freedom

The framework is pretty simple, right? That’s the way it should be.

Now, let’s break down the three phases real fast.

Phase 1: Plan & Budget

The planning and budgeting phase is where you need to define the life you want to create for you and your family. This is your personal vision for the lifestyle you want throughout your life.

Then, you can determine how much wealth you need to achieve your vision and goals. Remember, money is not the goal, money enables you to achieve your goal.

By the end of this phase you’ll know what your ultimate goals are and have a plan with a budget to get you from Point A to Point B.

Think of this phase as your compass to center you on your path to achieve financial freedom. Without it, you’re likely to get lost.

Phase 2: Execute Your Plan

The execution phase is where you put your plan into action to make progress towards your goals. Your focus during this phase is to increase cash moving into your accounts, decrease cash moving out of your accounts and grow your total net worth.

This phase makes your dreams become a reality. To do this, you’ll have to make some behavior changes, sacrifice some and learn the best strategies to put in place.

Please know, execution isn’t something that happens quickly. Execution is a journey that takes time. You’ll want to set a healthy pace for yourself.

Mostly, don’t forget to enjoy your life while you execute your plan to achieve financial freedom.

Phase 3: Measure & Improve

The measuring and improving phase is when you check in on your progress and make changes to keep you on track.

During this phase, you’ll seek to understand how you’re performing and evaluate any changes you didn’t expect. For example, you could have been laid off, promoted or expecting a baby.

Then, you’ll update your plan to account for the changes and continue executing your improved plan.

If you don’t measure your performance against your budget, you risk running off your desired path.

Key Points to Keep In Mind

Okay, now that you have a solid grasp on the three phases, I want to point out two things that are crucial to how they work.

First, the three phases are NOT mutually exclusive. What I mean by this is that they are all tied together and influence or depend on one another. As such, should not exclude or ignore any of the phases. They are all equally important for you to achieve financial independence!

Put simply, your plan and budget exist to guide your execution. Your execution is needed to make progress toward your plan. And, your measurement is needed so you can improve your execution and inform your budget.

If you don’t have all three of these, then you’re unlikely to achieve your vision of living a life of financial freedom.

As the late Nelson Mandela once said,

“Vision without action is just a dream, action without vision just passes the time, and vision with action can change the world.”

Translating that to achieving financial freedom, vision is part of your plan and budget while action is executing your plan. Both of those, combined with measuring and improving, is how you change your world by achieving financial freedom.

Second, the three phases are meant to be a continuous process. For example, you shouldn’t develop a budget once and then focus solely on execution for the foreseeable future.

The continuous process is designed so that each phase informs the next until you reach your financial freedom goals. If you’re visual like me, check out the chart below.

Financial Freedom Framework Continuous Cycle

This provides you flexibility to update your plan as you learn and grow as a person over the years. Plus, it ensures you stay on track to hit your ultimate goal of financial freedom.

Master The Steps Within Each Phase To Achieve Financial Freedom

Moving on, now that you understand how the three phases work together, I’m going to highlight each step within the three phases.

Phase 1 Steps: Planning & Budgeting

Complete the six planning and budgeting steps so you can execute your plan with purpose.

Step 1: Define Your Goals & Desired Lifestyle

This is the step when you define the type of lifestyle you want now and in the future for yourself and your family. For example, mine might look like the following.

“I want to be debt free, raise 2 children and fund their college education. I also want to live a modest lifestyle in a 3 bed 2 bath home with the ability to take an annual international vacation. In addition, I want to stop working for someone else by age 40 (“retire”). Afterwards, I want to pursue entrepreneurship full-time.”

Step 2: Determine How Much Money You Need For Financial Freedom

During this step, you will calculate the amount of money and wealth you need to support your lifestyle goals after “retiring”. Your investments need to be enough for you to withdraw income from them without the risk of completely diminishing them.

Step 3: Understand Your Current Financial Position & Behaviors

This step is where you will calculate your current net worth (i.e. assets minus debts) and the amount of your cash inflows and outflows (i.e. income vs spending). This helps you understand what is happening today with your personal finances.

Step 4: Understand Your Current Path & Risks

During this step, you will develop a budget that forecasts the financial path you’re currently heading down, based on your inputs from Step 3. Then, you’ll compare it to the wealth you need from Step 2.

This gives you the information you need to understand what changes you should make in order to achieve your financial freedom goals. I like to think of this step as your wake-up call.

Step 5: Determine Immediate Changes You Can Make To Achieve Your Goals

In this step, you will analyze the information from Step 4 and identify areas of opportunity for you to improve your financial position.

For example, you may find areas where you can decrease spending (i.e. eating out, shopping) and eliminate high-interest debt (i.e. vehicles). Likewise, you might find ways to increase your income, savings and investments.

Step 6: Develop a Budget To Keep You On Track To Achieve Your Goals

During this step, you will update your budget from Step 4 to incorporate the changes you identified in Step 5. Your new budget will serve as your financial compass to guide you as you execute your plan to achieve financial freedom.

Phase 2 Steps: Executing Your Plan

Focus your efforts on the five execution steps below to earn your financial freedom.

Step 1: Earn Money & Benefits

This step is pretty straight-forward. In order to reach financial freedom, you need to increase your cash inflows by earning money. This includes earning benefits, such as 401K matching and health insurance coverage from your employer.

Step 2: Sell Non-Essential Assets & Eliminate Bad Debt

This step will allow you to free up cash from bad assets (i.e. depreciating vehicle) to payoff bad debt (i.e. high-interest student loans). This will allow you to eliminate bad debt faster and put the funds into appreciating assets, such as your 401K.

Step 3: Spend Wisely

During this step, you will control your spending to only those things that help you reach your goals and have a direct impact on your happiness. Your goal should be to minimize spending and view all spending as an investment.

Step 4: Increase Your Savings

This step is where you build up your personal savings so you have liquid cash available for emergencies or retirement. Your savings are for things like health care costs, car maintenance, or upcoming trips. Keep in mind that you’ll want most of your wealth in investments rather than savings.

Step 5: Increase Your Investments & Build Cash-Flowing Assets

Once you have enough funds, you should increase your investments in income-generating assets. You’ll put your money to work for you rather than you working for your money. Examples include investing in your 401K, IRA, and real estate.


Phase 3 Steps: Measuring & Improving

Dedicate time to monitor and improve your performance by following the four steps below.

Step 1: Measure Your Progress Monthly

This step is necessary so you can measure your actual performance against your plan. You’ll want to gather your spending details, as well as, the balance of all assets and debts. Then, you’ll compare them to your budget.

Step 2: Analyze Your Performance

Next, you’ll analyze your under and over-performance compared to your budget and determine why the results occurred. Then, you will need to figure out what to do about it. For example, you may have spent way more than expected, obtained a promotion, or been laid off.

Step 3: Update Your Plan & Budget Based On Your Analysis

Taking your analysis from Step 2 above, you’ll want to update your budget, if necessary, to ensure you still meet your goals. For example, if you over-spent this month on eating out, then you can decrease your eating out or entertainment budget next month.

Step 4: Make Necessary Changes To Keep You On Track

This steps continues your execution phase and includes the changes you budgeted for during Step 3 above. This is your continuous feedback loop, which informs your execution to make sure you achieve your financial freedom goals.

There you have it!

These 15 steps sum up the financial freedom framework and will guide you on your path to reach your goals.

This is awesome! What’s next?

Earlier, I mentioned this framework provides a map guiding you on your simple path to achieve financial freedom.

In addition, it will serve as my personal map, guiding every blog post, tool and resource I provide for you.

My goal is to provide you with valuable information and tools to help you through all 15 steps on your journey to financial freedom. I realize there are many questions you’ll have along the way like how to invest your money, how to create a budget, and so on.

As a result, I will update this website to add a resource center dedicated to the financial freedom framework!

The resource center will map everything to each phase and step of the framework. This will include every blog post I write, valuable resources I find, and every tool I develop for you, such as my free budget tools.

I hope you are as excited about this as I am!

If you are and want to be the first to know about new resources designed to help you, sign up for my e-newsletter below. Thank you!

* indicates required



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *