Financial Freedom is the dream. It is an awesome concept, see my previous post about what it is and how it works, if you are unsure. Financial freedom makes so much sense to me, not everybody can or will do it but for us, it is a lifeline.
Right now with the way things are, if we traveled the conventional route of work until we retire at 75 and then take a pension and super to survive on, we would be living in poverty in retirement as many Australians already do.
The problem with this is, Who’s to say the age pension will still be available when we are 75?
What happens if we need to access it earlier due to injury or sickness? We don’t want to spend months fighting to access our money. In the best-case scenario, we will be living with our kids and struggling to feed ourselves.
This is especially relevant to me, as a woman I am more likely to live in poverty in retirement. One, women on average live longer than men, and two, women are more likely to take a break from the workforce due to career roles, raising children, taking care of ailing parents, etc. That sounds awful to me.
This is why, living frugally, saving money, and investing in our future is so essential for us.
Having a guaranteed income we can access in retirement or even before if something happened, is essential for us. It would give us confidence and the freedom to live our lives.
This would give us the freedom to one day retire.
So here is the plan for us:
- Keeping our expenses low and avoiding lifestyle creep wherever we can.
- Paying off our high-interest debt, again. $24,250 as of right now March 15th.
- Save emergency fund $10,000.
- Start and Top up superannuation
- Invest in dividend stocks.
- Eventually, reduce work and do passion projects to supplement income.
- Spend more time with our kids and supplement our super and pensions for retirement.
As of right now, I have started my own superannuation fund and I will be slowly contributing to it soon as we are done with Family Court costs. Hubby already contributes an extra 5% to his superannuation of about $45/week.
So what are our Short term goals? The Breakdown of how we are going to do this
Stage (1)
- Finalise Family court
- Save $5000 as a starter emergency fund
- Start paying 15% to superannuation on all my income
- Pay off our car loan of $24,250
Stage (2)
- Increase our emergency fund to $10,000
- Start investing $xxxx into dividend-paying stocks and ETFs
- Start saving for a House Deposit of $50,000
Disclaimer
Nothing I post about should be considered financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. I am only documenting my journey to financial independence. You should consider seeking independent legal, financial, taxation, or other advice to check how the website information relates to your unique circumstances.
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