10 Levels of Financial Independence And Early Retirement | How to Retire Early
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Long-term financial goals can sometimes seem
so big that they feel almost unattainable especially when we’re just getting started
on our road to financial independence. I and many others like me in the financially
independent, retired early community have found it helpful to break down the goal of
becoming financially independent into smaller and more manageable levels of financial independence. Not only because it makes it easier for us
to track our progress, which in turns helps us to stay motivated throughout the process,
but also because it helps us get over that initial hurdle of starting to chip away at
this mountain of a task. In today’s video, I’m going to take you
through what I consider to be the 10 levels of financial independence as well as give
an example on how to go from the first level to the top level in your lifetime. Hey everyone Daniel here and welcome to Next
Level Life a channel where you can learn about Investing, debt, retirement, and many other
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Now obviously these ideas of the levels of
financial independence are not solely my own nor are they very new as there are many articles
and blog posts that have covered this topic already and have done so for many years. So consider this more of a summary of many
of the ideas expressed in those articles and if you want to learn more about the topic
feel free to check out some of the articles for yourself. I’ve left some links in the description. With that out of the way, let’s get started. Okay so real quick the 10 levels of financial
Independence are Level 0 Financial dependence, level 1 Financial solvency, level 2 Financial
stability, level 3 debt Freedom, level four coasting Financial Independence (also sometimes
known as freedom from employer), level 5 Financial Security, level six Financial flexibility,
level 7 Financial independence, level eight Financial Freedom, and finally level 9 Financial
abundance. The levels are usually defined as something
like the following: Level 0 – Financial dependency is when your
debt payments and other living expenses are greater than your own income.
This means that you are in one way or another
dependent on someone or something else to help you pay for your bills or if you happen
to be a kid and don't actually have any bills you need someone else, usually your parents,
to pay to put food on the table and keep the lights on and have a roof over your head. This is the level that all of us start out
on and it is referred to as level 0 because as a financial dependent you obviously have
no Financial Independence. Level 1 – Financial solvency is when you are
current on all your debt payments and you can meet your financial commitments and your
other living expenses without any outside help. Level 2 – Financial stability is usually defined
as when you have built some sort of emergency fund in addition to being financially solvent. Level 3 – Is again debt freedom and it's defined
differently depending on who you ask. For some, it is being completely debt-free,
mortgage and everything.
For others, it's being just free of the high-interest
debts like credit cards but you still might have a mortgage or other debts like student
loans. And for some others, it is paying off all
of your debts except for the mortgage but your credit cards and student loans or car
loans all that stuff is all paid off. Level 4 – Coasting Financial Independence
also sometimes known as freedom from the employer, Barista Financial Independence, or Agency
in blogs and other mediums. I personally like the idea of it being coasting
Financial Independence so that's what I'm going to be using in this video but know that
some people refer to it by one of those other titles but the idea is the same. You have reached the level of coasting Financial
Independence when you could, if you wanted to, step down from a job that may be higher-paying
but may also be either less satisfying or more stressful or both into a new job that
is lower paying but more enjoyable or less stressful or both.
This is because in the early years of your
career or just thought most recent years you have managed to save a very decent sum of
money that would be able to provide for the later years of your retirement after it has
grown even if you don't put much more in. Therefore all you need to do is make enough
money to get you to age 60 or 65 or 70 or whatever your numbers work out to be when
that amount of money you've already invested will be able to fund your lifestyle because
it's been given enough time to grow. So in a sense, you've worked really really
hard and been very frugal in the first few years so that you can coast into your retirement. I have gone into more detail on the various
types of financial Independence in a previous video which I'll leave Linked In the description
if you're interested in learning more.
Level 5 – Financial Security is effectively
when your cash flow from wealth such as you are investments has grown to large enough
that it can provide for your annual basic survival expenses. Now I say survival expenses because I do differentiate
that from living expenses survival expenses are just the basic things you need to survive
Food, Water, Shelter, some form of transportation, clothing and probably insurance. This does not include things like Netflix
subscriptions or cable bills or things like that it is purely survival expenses. So this may not be exactly the ideal spot
to retire and I certainly wouldn't want to retire at this point but it is an important
level to keep in mind because it does give you… well security. If you were to get fired today and you were
on level 5 you would be okay you could survive until you found another job. This is essentially the first level that really
gives you I guess that piece of mind even if the lifestyle should you have chosen to
live it may not be the most lavish.
Level 6 – Financial flexibility is similar
to Financial Security just one step up. It is when you have the ability to live off
of your current cash flow from your wealth assuming that you have a flexible spending
plan that adjusts for up and downs in the market. So if the markets up 20% one year you're able
to spend a little bit more but if the market is down 20% the next year then you don't spend
quite as much. I’ve seen it defined many different ways
so it could vary depending on who you ask, but the one that I personally like the most
is that it is roughly half of your full financial independence goal, or roughly about 12.5x
your current annual expenses if you follow the 4% rule to get an idea of how much money
you need to retire like I’ve explained in previous videos.
So it isn't quite Financial Independence yet
but it's close. Level 7 – Is financial Independence and it's
usually based on the 4% rule which I have covered in a previous video. You can follow the 4% rule when you have saved
roughly 25x your annual expenses. The vast majority of the time this will be
enough money to allow you to maintain your current lifestyle in retirement and as a result,
you can be considered financially independent. And some articles end it right there but I
think there are a couple of levels that are a bit higher than that that are worth considering
even if some of us may decide to not ever try to achieve them because being at level
7 allows them to do what they wanted all along. So let's talk about those other levels. Level 8 – Is Financial Freedom which I've
often seen defined as the cash flow from your Investments is greater than financial Independence
and a few more life goals.
Life goals, of course, will differ for everybody
but this is could be something like taking a trip or two overseas or moving to a new
place you've always wanted to live but haven't had quite enough money to live there up till
now or whatever the case may be for you like I said it's different for everybody. Level 9 – Is financial abundance and this
is quite simply just that the cash flow from your Investments is more than you will ever
need.
You could spend it if you really wanted to
but it would actually take some effort. And the stuff from level 8 doesn't really
cut into it much at all. So you could up those goals even more and
still have more cash flow left over at the end of the year. This also probably has a slightly different
definition for each person depending on who you ask, but I like to think of it as roughly
3x your financial freedom number because this would allow you to experience a horrible bear
market where your investments go down by 50% and still has 1.5x the amount that you would
need to maintain the lifestyle you lead when you reach level 8.
To me, that means that it is likely more than
you will ever need, but again that one is strictly my own opinion on the matter. So those are the 10 levels of financial Independence,
now let's walk through a hypothetical example of how someone could go from Level 0 to being
financially independent in a single lifetime. John and Jane are recently married couple
each making $20 an hour at age 23 or $83,200 a year between them assuming no overtime. They manage this because they are not only
good hard-working people but got great grades in school and we're selective about the job
that they decided to pursue. Obviously just like everyone else they would
have started off as Financial dependents and as they were going through college they would
have been building up student loans that they would not have had the money to pay off (assuming
of course that they didn't earn enough money while in school to keep up with the rising
debt).
In all they have credit card debt, two car
payments and the student loans which have balances of $5,000, $35,000, and $60,000 respectively,
but since they got their jobs they are no longer financially dependent and their incomes
have allowed them to become current on all their debt payments without the help of others. In addition to the regular monthly debt payments,
their annual expenses are $48,000 a year. So they are currently in level one Financial
solvency and trying to figure out a way to move to level 2 Financial stability. In order to do that they need to figure out
a way to build up an emergency fund.
Now if they're following the 10 levels system
to a T then they would look to build a 3 to 6-month emergency fund of their survival expenses. However, this is not the only way to approach
it say if you were to follow Dave Ramsey 7 baby steps you would start off with just a
$1,000 starter emergency fund and then get right onto attacking your debts. And other Financial systems and plans may
have you approached it an entirely different way.
Either way is perfectly fine because the 10
levels system is not meant to be a financial formula per say it's more there to give us
some sort of guidepost so that we can better track our progress towards achieving Financial
Independence. But for the purposes of this video, I am going
to assume that they follow the 10 levels in order so we are going to be building up a
full emergency fund. In order to find how much of an emergency
fund they will need we will need to know how much money they need to survive not necessarily
on their current level of expenses while they have jobs but purely on Survival expenses
which are basically your four walls of your financial house or in other words food shelter
including utilities Basic clothing and some form of transportation as well as the insurances
that are related to that assuming there are any.
In this case, I'm going to assume that their
survival expenses are right around $3,000 a month. Which means that in order to get a 3-month
emergency fund they would need $9,000 in order to get a six-month emergency fund they would
need to save $18,000. Both John and Jane feel that their jobs are
pretty darn secure and the market is doing fairly well so it's not likely at least in
the near-term that they would get laid off because the company has to downsize so they
decide together that they are comfortable with having just a 3-month emergency fund
of $9,000. So with $83,200 a year in income, $48,000
a year and expenses, plus minimum monthly payments of $100 on the credit card which
is 2% of the balance, $550.78 on the car loans, and $621.83 on the student loans they will
have approximately $1,660.72 a month left over to start building their emergency fund.
However, both John and Jane have been looking
into their finances and researching a lot lately and they become fired up at the possibility
of becoming financially independent while they're still young. So they want to see if there's a way that
they can speed this whole process up. And as it turns out thankfully there are many. After taking a look at the options they decide
that they're going to work as much overtime as they possibly can (for the sake of Simplicity
I'm going to assume that they manage to work on average 5 hours per week of overtime which
will increase their monthly income by about $1,300 a month, meaning that instead of $1,660
a month they will have $2,960 a month left over) and they're going to sell both of their
cars and buy some nice used cars with cash to help knock down some of that initial debt. After putting out a couple of ads online they
managed to find buyers for each of their cars that is willing to give them $15,000.
So they take that $30,000 and use $5,000 of
it to pay off the credit card balance and another $10,000 to buy a couple of used cars
from someone that they know takes good care of their Vehicles whether that be a family
friend or just a mechanic that they Trust. The remaining $15,000 is thrown at their car
loans. This means that the credit card loan is fully
paid off and therefore the hundred-dollar minimum payment is no longer needed. So John and Jane start throwing $3,060 per
month into their emergency fund and get it fully funded in 3 months with a little bit
left over at the end of the third month to throw out their car loan. Over the course of those first three months,
they managed to bring the car loans balances down to $18,423 thanks in large part to the
$15,000 that they threw at it in the first month after selling the cars and also making
the minimum payments in the first three months. Now that their emergency fund is fully funded
however they're able to throw that $3,060 a month in addition to the $550 a month minimum
payment at the car loan and get it paid off in 6 months flat.
So a mere nine months into their Journey John
and Jane not only have a fully funded emergency fund but they also have paid off both of their
car loans. Now there are just the student loans to tackle. And thanks to the fact that they've been making
minimum payments on them for 9 months and the fact that they had a little over $3,000
at the end of the ninth month after paying off their car loans their student loans now
have a balance of $53,263. John and Jane follow the same pattern that
they did with the car loans throwing the $3,600+ which is what they now have left over at the
end of every month because they no longer had a $550 car payment to make and they managed
to get their student loans paid off in full in 13 months. So John and Jane have managed to become debt
free and have a fully funded emergency fund in 22 months.
They have now reached level three and because
of that they now have over $4,200 a month left over to start investing. This brings us to level four coasting Financial
Independence. Let's assume that John and Jane want to retire
by the age of 65. That means that whatever they put in now needs
to be enough to grow to a point where it can support their lifestyle in retirement by the
time they're 65. If we assume a rate of return on an average
in the market of about 10% before inflation and an inflation rate of about 3% per year
on average then we can get a rough estimate of how much John and Jane need to put away
in order to achieve a state of coasting Financial Independence. In this case, since they're 24 about to be
25 they will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 39 or 40 years to let the money grow before
needing to take any of it out. If their expenses were $48,000 a year at age
23 then 42 years later if we assume a 3% rate of inflation they would need a tad bit over
$166,000 each year to live on.
Again assuming we follow the 4% rule to figure
out how much they need once they fully retire to be financially independent that means that
they would have to have at least $4.15 million invested in the market by the time they turn
65. In their case, they would need about $110,000
saved up give or take in order to achieve coasting Financial Independence and because
they're able to save about $4,233 a month now that they’re debt free, they’re able
to hit that goal in 2 years flat.
Meaning that in theory, they would be able
to step down from their jobs to a more rewarding less stressful but probably lower-paying job
just 3 years and 10 months into their financial Journey. That is incredible! But like I said coasting Financial Independence
wasn't their end goal. They wanted to be fully Financial Independent
so they keep working and investing for now. The next level is level 5 Financial Security
which is achieved when your cash flow from your Investments is greater than your annual
survival expenses which remember is $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year in John and James
case. Because they are debt-free, are making good
money at their jobs, and being intentional with their finances they Achieve Financial
Security in a little over 4 years with over $367,000 in their portfolio.
It is been a mere 87 months or 7 years and
3 months since they began their financial Journey. John and Jane are 30 years old and they are
able to get by on their Investments alone. In theory, they could retire now, it wouldn't
be the most glamorous retirement and it wasn't their goal but it is an option they have. They don't have to worry about losing their
jobs anymore because even if both of them lost their jobs today they would be able to
make it long enough to either find a new job or some other source of income. This is really the first level where you start
to get that piece of mind when it comes to money at least in my opinion. Next is financial flexibility which as I mentioned
earlier in the video has many definitions depending on who you ask but for the purposes
of this video, I'm assuming that it is roughly 12.5x your current annual expenses which for
John and Jane would be roughly $600,000 or about $855,000 if you account for inflation. This means that they would Achieve Financial
flexibility 9 years and 8 months into their Journey not accounting for inflation or about
11 years and 9 months if we do account for inflation.
John and Jane continue investing through all
the highs and lows of the markets until they reach Financial Independence exactly 14 years
into their financial Journey assuming we don't account for inflation or 18 years and 3 months
if we do. So you might be wondering why did I split
up the accounting for inflation time frames and the not accounting for inflation time
frames should we always be accounting for inflation? Well technically yes but the reason I split
them up is because in my experience taking this journey myself as well as seeing others
take it, this journey changes how you view a lot of things and more often than not those
changes lead to you valuing things such as freedom of mobility and location and freedom
of time to be able to spend with the people you love more and valuing more material things
that cost possibly a lot of money less and less. That's not to say that everybody becomes minimalist
going through this journey, I'm not saying that at all but I have seen a lot of people
who have gone through this journey become closer to minimalist than they were when they
started the journey as they find out more and more things that they used to buy just
don’t provide enough value or happiness for them to be worth the purchase.
They find better uses for their money and
time and as a result, they generally tend to spend less. Which means that even though inflation is
technically increasing your expenses by making every dollar less and less valuable over time,
if you're also decreasing your expenses because what you value is changing it may even out
or in some cases, you may even see your regular expenses going down year-over-year as you
continue through this journey. So that's why I split them up. And, before I go, I do want to mention that
based on what I've seen on various articles and forums some people really like to have
even more goals to chase as they go through this journey than what I've laid out today
in this video so if that's something that would help you feel free to break down these
levels even further then I have today this is obviously just the list that I used and
what worked for me, but you could take it even further.
For example, Debt Freedom could be broken
down into three separate stages: One where you are free from all high-interest debt,
a second where you are free from all debts except for the house (if you have one), and
a third where you are totally debt-free. You could tackle the coasting Financial Independence
level in a similar way breaking it down into two stages: One where are you have invested
enough to survive in retirement and a second where you have invested enough in order to
maintain your current lifestyle, adjusting for inflation of course, in retirement.
And the financial independence level could
also be broken down into three stages: Stage one would be where you are at a survivable
level of financial Independence, stage 2 would be where you have achieved leanfire status,
and stage 3 would be where you have achieved full Financial Independence on your current
lifestyle assuming that it is above the leanfire level. So what do you guys think of this 10 levels
system of tracking our progress to financial Independence? Do any of you use a similar system to track
your progress? If so, what is it and what level, step, or
stage are you guys currently on? Let me know in the comments section below. But that'll do it for me today once again
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