About this Video

• Video Title: My Honest Advice To Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom
• Channel: Steve | Call to Leap
• Speakers: Steve
• Duration: 00:08:10

Introduction

This video provides a five-step roadmap to financial freedom, based on the speaker's personal journey from struggling financially to achieving it in his 30s. The speaker emphasizes a practical, actionable approach, focusing on budgeting, investing, and increasing income streams.

Key Takeaways

• Define Your Freedom Number: Calculate the annual income needed to live comfortably without working, considering expenses like housing, transportation, and leisure. The speaker uses the "rule of 25" (multiplying the annual amount by 25) to determine the total savings needed.
• Spend Smarter, Not Just Less: Focus on significant expenses like cars and housing. The speaker advocates for practical choices like driving an older car and using generic products to save money. He also suggests house hacking (renting out spare rooms) to reduce housing costs.
• Smart Credit Card Use: Maintain a credit utilization ratio under 10%, pay on time, and pay the statement balance in full each month to build good credit and access better loan rates.
• Increase Income Streams: Develop multiple sources of income beyond a single job. The speaker suggests side hustles based on existing skills or readily learnable ones (online resources are mentioned), including tutoring, sales, affiliate marketing, or creating digital products.
• Invest Your Savings: Saving alone isn't enough; actively invest your money. The speaker recommends low-cost S&P 500 ETFs as a simple starting point using platforms like Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard.

The "rule of 25" is a method used to estimate the total savings needed to achieve financial freedom. The speaker explains that you take your calculated annual "freedom number" (the amount of money needed annually to live comfortably without working) and multiply it by 25. This resulting figure represents the total amount of savings needed to support that annual expense indefinitely, assuming a reasonable rate of return on investments.