How to Become Financially Free
If I got a penny every time I heard someone saying “I wish I had more money” – I’d be a millionaire at this point, if not a billionaire, and I wouldn’t have had to look into ways how to achieve my personal financial freedom at all.
However, luckily for you, no one paid me and I’m here to show you and teach you how to become financially free, what is the financial freedom, but also what are some of the best ways to achieve it with the help of the internet.
After all, we live in the modern age and it’s the right time to start taking the internet to your advantage!
What Being Financially Free Actually Means?
Alright, financial freedom differs for everyone. It’s not just the amount of money someone would need to live comfortably (even though it’s a good starting point) but it’s a lot more than just money.
For some people, including me, it’s about not having to work a boring 9-5 job every day for the rest of my life. It’s also about not having to have a strict routine which is based around my day job.
Financial freedom is actually about freedom in all shapes and forms, which most times isn’t related to money. However, why is it called financial freedom after all?
Because money can’t buy happiness – but it can help you work less, start your own business, travel more, or live on your own terms.
If you don’t know what fuels you and why would you want financial freedom – there are two simple ways to find out. However, since you’re here reading my post, I believe you already know why you’re after the financial freedom in your life.
But if you don’t – here are two ways to find out:
- Imagine what would a perfect day be like for you
- Think of the things that you would like to eliminate out of your life (low paying 9-5 job, high-paying yet time-consuming job…)
Therefore, if you really have no idea why would you want to achieve financial freedom (other than it just sounds awesome and it’s something almost everyone is after), it’s a good starting point which will help you think of not one but a couple of things in just under 5 minutes.
So now when you know why you want financial freedom and what fuels you, how to become financially free is what you’re after, right?
If yes, keep on reading through the guide that will help you determine at what point in life you are at and how to take further actions to work towards something of your own that can pay out big time in the end.
Do the Math
When I started chasing my financial freedom, I was just a recent graduate who was struggling to find a paying job that I’d actually like doing.
However, some of you might be holding a job for years or even decades and are looking for a change. Some of you might like your day job – but you’re looking to increase your income in your free time.
Whatever your situation is – here’s what you should do:
- Think of where are you in life and where you’d like to be
- Calculate how much you currently earn
- Calculate your expenses (if needed, log down every expense you make throughout a month)
- If you are in any debt – don’t forget to add it to expenses list
This is more of a financial overview of your situation in life rather than complex math – but hey, this is something that we weren’t taught in school and yet every one of us had to do it by themselves at one point in our lives, right?
Why is this important?
Because this will help you face the truth, fuel your desire for financial freedom, and help you determine how much money you would need to earn in order to be financially free – so I don’t recommend skipping this step!
Think of Your Valuable Skills and Passions
Everyone has got to know something, right? You might have learned skills as a part of your day job, or if you’ve learned it in your free time.
Even if you’ve recently graduated, you probably possess a skill or two you could develop further. If you think you really have no skills – you shouldn’t worry.
The reason for finding your valuable skill (or skills) is because they will help you to start providing a service, start working on a project of your own or even start a whole new online business with just a couple of skills.
If you are terrified and feel like you have no skill – hold on a minute. Even if it’s possible to have no skill you could profit from – there are plenty of skills you can learn in just a month or a couple of months so there’s really nothing to worry about.
Oh yes, and passion?
You can’t do anything and expect to make money, but doing something you love won’t feel like work, right? And that’s exactly what is important.
It’s important to strike a balance between skill and passion of yours.
Therefore, feel free to create another list of:
- Skills you think you could take advantage of (either by offering to the customer or using them to create something)
- Things you’re really passionate about and you know a lot about
Once you have this list, you can take the next step. And I understand that it might not make a lot of sense right now, but you shouldn’t worry.
This will help you determine your path that will help you achieve financial freedom – and this is happening in the next part of the article so keep on reading!
Choose Your Path
Alright, now when I’ve put you through hell by making you create two lists of your current situation and things you do and know the best – it’s time to start taking action.
Since this is a site that’s dedicated to helping achieve financial freedom, I will be focusing on online paths you can choose.
And here are some of the best paths to choose from:
- Freelancing your skill (Writing, proofreading & content editing, graphic designing…)
- Affiliate marketing
- Creating a blog
- Social media marketing
- eCommerce
Freelancing
In my opinion, the easiest way to work towards your financial freedom is by freelancing your skill, especially if you want to start making the income immediately.
Of course, writing might not be fun at all, but writing about something you love doing, know a lot about, and are passionate about is definitely a lot more fun, right?
The biggest benefits of freelancing your skill are having the ability to choose who you work with, build a list of clients, and decide how much would you charge for offering a valuable skill.
Even though you might have to start small, freelancing gives you the opportunity of uncapped earnings – yet your earnings will depend on your rate, the number of clients you have and a number of orders you can handle. And with the options to outsource, you might not even have to invest as much time offering your skill as you think.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has been around for decades and it’s not going anywhere. However, I believe that affiliate marketing is ideal for someone who doesn’t plan on quitting their day job anytime soon and doesn’t require to make any additional income straight away.
The reason for this is that affiliate marketing takes time but it is really rewarding and can help generate passive income in the long run.
It can also be one of the ways to create a sustainable business, but it requires a lot of time and work before even seeing the first dollar.
However, one of the biggest advantages is that you can create your own online business around a specific niche you’re very passionate about which will make working on your site fun instead of making it feel like work.
Other Business Models
Creating a blog is very similar to affiliate marketing since most affiliate marketers utilize their own sites to create a successful business.
Blogging is similar to affiliate marketing, but you shift your focus from promoting products to writing either about personal experiences, things you do in your life, or something you’re very passionate about.
Your main focus doesn’t need to be a single niche but taking advantage of your personality can help you create an engaging blog full of valuable life-experience content.
If you know your way around social media, picking up a skill or two will help you start offering services that thousands of large companies and brands need on a daily basis.
eCommerce is a tricky one, whether you decide to dropship, start selling on Amazon, or sell products you make – you will have a lot to learn and invest a bit of money rather than just your time, however, this can end up being a very profitable and sustainable type of an online business.
Your skills, passion, and current position in life will help determine which path to choose. However, I highly encourage choosing one path and keeping up at it instead of trying to balance a couple of things at the same time.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t become successful in one path and then make more free time to start working on another path.
Create a Portfolio or a Site
If you decided to choose a freelancing path, you’ll want to create a portfolio. However, if you chose any other path, you might want to create a site, personal blog, or even an ecommerce store.
Creating a Portfolio
For freelancers, a simple portfolio featuring 4-5 pages along with a homepage will do just fine and it should include:
- Information about you
- Services you provide
- Work samples
- Optionally – work rates
- Contact me / Hire me page
I have written an easy-to-follow post which explains how to create your own site for free in just under 5 minutes – so I highly recommend checking it out!
But do you really need a portfolio if you’ve decided to become a freelancer? Of course, you don’t. However, I am a strong believer you should still be able to provide more info about you and your work samples.
Luckily for you, you can take advantage of other platforms such as LinkedIn where you can create your own profile, add work samples, and even list the services you provide.
If you decided to do freelance writing, create your portfolio on another network such as Contently and publishing a couple of your own posts on there is a good way to create a portfolio without having to actually create your own site.
Creating a Blog or a Niche Site
If you decided to take a long-term approach such as blogging or affiliate marketing – you will most likely have to create a blog or a niche site.
This will be your most important place where you will take advantage of content and search engines in order to share value to readers who are already looking for it.
If you’ve never created a website, you have nothing to worry about. Thanks to the modern age we live in – you can create a website for free in just under 5 minutes.
In fact, you can even start creating your blog or site directly from my website. All you have to do is write down the site address you’d like to use, down below, and take it from there!
You can either do a couple of samples just for your portfolio or offer to do it for free for a potential client you find along the way. Either way, I strongly believe you should have anywhere between 3 to 5 samples to start with.
It might take you an hour or a couple of hours to make your samples and publish them on your portfolio, but it will go a long way when you finally start looking for work.
It’s getting more real and sooner than you know it, you will have your first client lined up and the rest will be history – so stop at nothing and keep on going!
However, if you’ve decided to
Start Looking for Work (Applies for Freelancers Only)
If you’ve decided to choose a freelancing path, what kind of a business would you be without clients, right? Therefore, finding clients is the last step before getting orders and starting to make your first money online.
Note: If you chose a blogging or affiliate marketing path – read the posts I linked out to for additional help.
But how do you find people who are willing to pay for your services? Here are a couple of ways:
- Freelance job boards
- Facebook groups
- Cold outreach with a letter of introduction
The good news is that there are 100’s of job boards you can look for work and send pitches. When I started freelancing, Facebook groups helped me acquire a lot of clients and make a decent amount of money in my first month. It all snowballed from there.
However, things that used to work for me might not for everyone. Nowadays, I mostly rely on job boards such as ProBlogger’s job board or cold outreach by sending letters of introduction to clients I’d like to work with.
Staying Consistent
It might take some time before getting an opportunity, but offering your services at a slightly lower rate in the beginning is a good way to get some work in just to get you started. Believe me, once you feel the joy of making the first dollar online with the help of your laptop will make you push more and take more action.
If you are struggling to find clients, you shouldn’t give up and say something like “freelancing isn’t for me”. Instead, read one of my posts where I explain how to write a letter of introduction that gets read and gets you responses you want!
Don’t Fall for Freelancing Platforms
While freelancing platforms might seem like a great idea – they’re not a place you would want to rely on in order to achieve a sustainable business with long-term success. UpWork is the most common place where new freelancers start out – but read my post about UpWork and find out why it might not be a deal for both new & seasoned freelancers.
If you’re a new freelancer who decided to start with freelance writing – iWriter is one of the platforms which can help you out. However, you should understand how this platform operates as it’s not all sunshine and rainbow as it is being advertised. I recommend you to read my post on iWriter to find out what to be careful about!
Determine Your Rates
Since you are going to work for yourself and you will be responsible for acquiring clients – you will also be able to work on your own terms which means you get to decide what your rate will be!
This can be both an exciting and scary time for new freelancers, but there’s nothing to worry about. Most asked questions is something like “What rate should I charge?”.
Rates will depend on the freelancer, skill set, even location – so you shouldn’t copy someone else’s rate. Of course, keeping an eye on the standard in the industry is a good place to start.
However, you would want to determine how much would you want to earn hourly, a day, weekly, and even monthly. Also, You shouldn’t forget to include all the expenses you will endure – even if it’s just a PayPal fee for receiving the payment.
Therefore, you can work under an hourly rate, or you can work per-project basis and yet still ensure you make your hourly rate.
Time organization will be crucial, but the more you start working and processing orders – the easier it will get and you will be able to predict how long will a certain task take you.
Make Short Term and Long Term Plans
Now when you are set up and ready to take action towards your financial freedom – there’s one more thing you should do.
You should create short term and long term plans. What are the things you would like to accomplish the next week?
How about things you would like to accomplish the following month? Or in the next 3 months?
Therefore, make two separate lists:
- Short term goals
- Long term goals
And then list things you would like to accomplish. Everyone has an eye on the big picture and the money we’d like to make the following year.
It’s okay to have big plans and big dreams – but to get there, you have to start small.
That’s why short term plan is important. You need to set goals and targets you can do today, tomorrow, the next week, or by the end of the month.
No matter how small these goals are – they’ll get you closer to your long term goals and target.
Here are a couple of tips that I personally use to make my own goals and plans:
- Determine the amount of money I’d like to make as soon as possible
- Determine the amount of money I’d like to make in a year
- Determine how many clients I would need to reach my goal
- Calculate and check my rate helps me achieve this goal
- Write a list of 5 things I could take action on right today to get me closer towards both short & long term goals
Being ready to take action and having a plan & list of actions to do are two different things. Both are great, yet the second one will get you a bit more productive.
Hustle!
No matter how small or big actions you make – it’s all about showing up, doing the work, and making progress.
Nothing happens overnight, but knowing your goals and having a plan you can execute on is as important as being dedicated and self-disciplined enough to achieve financial freedom online.
Some online business models might be a bit fancier than others, but in the end, it’s time-consuming and sometimes boring work – but it’s definitely not hard.
A lot of people might not think they have it in them to go on their own path – and that’s okay. Ever since we were born, we were a part of the routine.
However, taking the matter into your own hands and going on a path you have never been on can seem very scary.
As long as you are self-disciplined and you know if any of the online business models fit your goals – you’re good to go.
Don’t stop and just keep making progress – no matter how small or big it is!
Bonus: Why I Think the Internet is the Best Place to Start a Business to Achieve Financial Freedom?
Personally, I’ve always been interested in the internet and the opportunities it provides. From the way we communicate with anyone around the world, to the way we shop and even make payments online.
However, some of you might not be as technical enough to think you can take on the internet and ensure your reach is good enough.
But when you think about the online business models I’ve mentioned in this post, you will notice that these business models require very little up-front investment.
Instead, they require a lot of time, learning, basic skills, and dedication.
If it seems so easy – why isn’t everyone doing it? It might seem easy – but you still have to put in the hours, learn, and stay dedicated.
In theory, even going to the gym and gaining muscles seems easy – yet how many people you know regularly go to the gym and look decent?
Exactly. It’s all about the mindest and effort. The same thing applies to online business models.
I know many people who learned a skill or two, started offering their skills and were able to make a steady business out of it. It can be a life-changer – when you think of it this way.
So what are you waiting for? Even though most online business models require very little financial investment up-front – I highly recommend you take it seriously and don’t give up easily.
However, since you can decide the type of clients you will go after, your rate, and the amount of time you put into your work – there is no cap on the earnings you can make online. And if you find yourself with a huge workload – you can always hire other freelancers to help you out without having to do double hours for your business.
But believe me, once you make your first dollar online – this will give you a feeling that everything is possible. After that, all you have to do is rinse and repeat.
Conclusion
Financial freedom sounds very attractive and oftentimes you can come across ads of digital marketers that combine financial freedom with ridiculously “easy” ways of achieving it online. Of course, let’s not forget that they’re always around powerful cars or at exotic locations.
Even though these online business models might seem easy – it’s all about finding the right source to learn from, even find a mentor or a community full of people who can help you out – and then get down to work and never stop learning, improving, and taking action.
If you had no clue how to become financially free – I hope that this post didn’t only show you how to become financially free but has motivated you and set you on the right path to take action, starting today!
What do you think are some of the best ways to stay on the right path and achieve financial freedom?
Feel free to leave a comment down below, share your opinion, or ask questions – and I will do my best to help you out!
