Reaching financial independence is the holy grail of personal finance. But what does financial independence really mean? In this post I'd like to determine the three levels of financial independence.
That's right. Even in financial independence there is no one size fits all since everybody has a different desired standard of living. Some people are happy living a solo life on a boat. While others want to start a family.
The Meaning Of Financial Independence
As one of the pioneers of the modern day FIRE movement, been writing about achieving financial independence since 2009. I permanently left my job in 2012 at age 34 because I thought I was financially independent.
Contrary to what you may think, financial independence is not only about having enough money to cover all your desired living expenses. Financial independence also means being able to overcome your psychological fears to truly live free.
For example, I have peers who have millions in net worth. Yet, they still make their respective spouses work because they do not feel 100% financially secure. Common reasons include the need for health care coverage or their spouse's “love” for their job even though they'd rather be doing something else.
Here are the three levels of financial independence I've come up with. All three levels of financial independence should meet the following basic criteria:
1) No need to work for a living. Investment income or non-work income covers all living expenses into perpetuity.
or
2) Net worth is equal to or greater than the number of years left in your life X living expenses. For example, $3 million with 30 years left to live is FI if your living expenses are no more than $100,000 a year.
The Three Levels Of Financial Independence
As you work your way to financial independence, you'll find three levels to unlock. These are the fundamentals of FIRE.
1) Budget Financial Independence (Lean FIRE)
If your household income is less than ~$40,000 a year, you are considered lower middle class. Don't be offended. It's just a definition based on millions of datapoints. The current official poverty threshold is an income of $25,000 per year fora family of four. It is $19,000 for a family of three.
If you are happy with living a lower middle class lifestyle, then you would need between $800,000 – $1,600,000 in investable assets returning 2.5% – 5% a year to replicate the $40,000 in gross annual income. Of course if you've been investing in the bull market, you've likely seen a higher return than 5%. But over the long run, it's best to stay conservative since downturns do happen.
Given the 10-year bond yield is around 4.2%, everybody should make at least 4.2% a year on their investable assets risk-free. If you're losing money during your financial independence years, you haven't been investing properly. The 10-year moves every day, which is why everybody should have a dynamic safe withdrawal rate in retirement.
This category of financial independence is interesting because there's a lot of tradeoffs the individual or couple still make.
Tradeoffs for being Budget FI or Lean FIRE
- Making one spouse work in order for one spouse to live the FI life.
- Moving to a lower cost area of the world instead of living where most of your family and friends are.
- Downsizing to a small rental, small house, or even an RV or van.
- Delaying or not having children, which can really hurt the FI budget.
- Taking on a part-time job.
- Aggressively working on your side hustle / passion project.
- Constantly telling other people how much you're worth due to insecurity.
- Relocating to another country to save money, such as how one woman retired with $600,000 and moved to Taiwan
Another thing I've noticed about people who retire early with less than $1 million is that they are often more anxious. They tend to show off their fabulous lifestyles more online. They also like to write about FIRE frequently if they have a blog.
The thing is, once you FIRE, there's no need to talk about FIRE so much anymore. You're just busy living your life.
Are You Really Financially Independent On So Little?
The question many people have in this stage is therefore: Are you really FI if you've got to do one or many of these things?
Many who work a day job argue no. But it doesn't matter because nobody can tell you how to live your FI life. If you don't have to work a full time job and can cover your expenses, you are Budget FI as far as I'm concerned.
Budget Financial Independence is where I found myself between 2012 – 2014. I was earning about $80,000 in passive income, which was more like $40,000 since I lived in San Francisco, and had negotiated a large enough severance to last for 5-6 years of living expenses.
Even with these numbers, I was still afraid that I had made the wrong choice leaving a job at 34. As a result, I tried to sell my house and downsize by 70%. However, nobody wanted to buy my house in 2012 thank goodness!
Further, my wife and I agreed that she work for three years until she turned 34 (hooray for equality) to give us enough time to figure out whether we could both leave the workforce. At the end of 2014, she negotiated her severance as well before her 34th birthday.
2) Baseline Financial Independence (Regular FIRE)
The median household income in the U.S. is about $68,000. $68,000 is therefore considered a comfortable middle class income If you didn't have to work for your $60,000 a year income, then life should be better, maybe even fantastic.
Based on a conservative 2.5% – 5% annual return, a household would need investments of between $1,360,000 – $2,720,000 to be considered financially independent.
Once you've got at least $1,360,000 in investable assets and no longer want to work again, I don't recommend shooting for an overall return much greater than 5%. You can carve out 10% of your investable assets to go swing for the fences if you wish, but not more. There is no need since you have already won the game.
Remember, once you've reached financial independence, you no longer have to save. Everybody striving for financial independence tends to save anywhere from 20% – 80% of their after tax income each year. This is on top of maxing out their pre-tax retirement accounts.
Therefore, if you're able to 100% replicate your gross annual household income through your investments, you're actually getting a raise based on the amount you were saving each year.
If you have 20 years left to live and only require $60,000 a year, having $1,200,000 can also be considered enough even if you make zero return. The only problem is that your purchasing power will decline by 2-3% a year due to inflation. The other problem is that you don't know exactly how many years you have left to live. Therefore, it's always better to have more rather than less.
Baseline Financial Independence Example
My blogging buddy Joe from Retire by 40, who is six years older than me, is a good example. He has enough money (~$3 million net worth), but is still finding it difficult to overcome the fear of not working.
Since 2012, every year, he questions whether his wife can join him in retirement. This is even though they have a $3 million net worth. He also has online income and passive income. Every year I tell him she could have retired years ago, but he's adeptly convinced her to keep on working.
He says his wife loves her work. But he also said his wife does work calls at 5 am and 11 pm as well. So I'm not so sure!
Related:Achieving A Two Spouse Financial Independence Lifestyle
3) Blockbuster Financial Independence (Fat FIRE)
This is a level of FI that I've been trying to achieve since I was 30 years old. I decided back then that an individual income of ~$200,000 – $250,000 and a household income of ~$300,000 was the ideal income for maximum happiness.
Some call Blockbuster FI, Fat FIRE or Obese FIRE. Fat FIRE is the determine that has become most popular today.
With such income, you can live a comfortable life raising a family of up to four anywhere in the world. Given I've spent my post college life living in Manhattan and San Francisco, it was only natural to arrive at much higher income levels than the US household median. Remember, half the country live in more expensive coastal cities.
These figures are partially due to a highly progressive tax code that was implemented in the mid 2000s. The government really went after income levels above these thresholds.
What's important to know about the three levels of financial independence is that they all require one ingredient: fear. Fear is the main ingredient necessary to help you reach fI.
Income Threshold For Maximum Happiness
I carefully observed my happiness level from making much less to making much more. Any dollar earned above $250,000 – $300,000 didn't make a lick of difference. In fact, I often noticed a decline in happiness due to the increased stress from work.
Using the same 2.5% – 5% return figures, one would therefore need $5,000,000 – $10,000,000 per individual and $6,000,000 – $12,000,000 per couple in investable assets to reach Blockbuster Financial Independence. In addition, it is preferable if your home is also paid off.
If you are generating $250,000 – $300,000 in passive income without having to work, life is good, really good. In 1H2017, I got to about ~$220,000 in annualized passive income. But then ended up slashing ~$60,000 from the top after selling my rental house to simplify life. Therefore, I've still got a long ways to go, especially now that I have a son to raise.
Financial Samurai Current Passive Income For Financial Independence
Today, my passive income is around $270,000. It was about $380,000 until I blew up my passive income in October 2023 by selling stocks and bonds to buy a forever home in cash in San Francisco.
It's a comfortable amount of money, but it's not enough to 100% take care of our estimated $265,000 in living expenses for a family of four. As a result, I've got to use supplemental retirement income from writing books and online income to cover the gap. However, by 2027, I will have enough passive income again to be financially independence again. I've been working on building my passive income since 1999.
The way many people reach Blockbuster Financial Independence with income of $250,000 – $300,000 is through a combination of investment income and passion project cash flow. The wealthiest people I know don't depend on index funds.
Since FI allows you to do whatever you want, here's your chance to follow the cliché, “follow your passions and the money will follow” without worry that there will be no money. My passion so happens to be this site.
All Three Levels Of Financial Independence Are Good
Even if you find yourself in the Budget FI category, it's still better than working at a soulless job. Just getting rid of a long commute or a terrible boss makes Budget FI worth it.
Just make sure your financial independence number is real enough to take action. Otherwise, you're probably not even in the Lean FIRE / Budget FI category.
Most people who find themselves in Budget FI are either on the younger side (<40), don't have kids, or are forced to live frugally. I've found that in many cases, folks in Budget FI long to lead a more comfortable life. Therefore, they either get back to work, do some consulting, or try to build a business within three years to move up the pyramid.
The only way I've found to successfully overcome the fear of not working is by either negotiating a severance, building enough passive income to cover all your living expenses for at least 12 consecutive months, or trying out FI living first while your partner still works. Feeling comfortably FI doesn't just happen with a snap of the fingers.
There is this natural urge to still make financial progress by continuing the good financial habits that got you there in the first place. And wonderfully, the progress you make is like finding loose diamonds after you've already found a pot of gold.
Build Passive Income With Real Estate
Out of all the asset classes to reach financial independence, no asset has done more for me than real estate. By the time I was 30, I had bought two properties in San Francisco and one property in Lake Tahoe. These properties and their income streams gave me the confidence to retire early.
In 2016, I starteddiversifying into heartlandrealestateto take advantage of lower valuations and higher cap rates. I did so by investing $954,000 withrealestatecrowdfundingplatforms.
With interest rates down, the value of cash flow is up. The pandemic has made working from home more common. With a rebound in corporate earnings and tremendous support from the government, I'm very bullish on real estate.
Take a look at my two favoriterealestatecrowdfundingplatforms.
Fundrise: A way for accredited and non-accredited investors to diversify intorealestatethrough private real estate funds. Fundrise has been around since 2012 and now manages over $3.5 billion for over 500,000 investors. The funds primarily invest in the Sunbelt region where valuations tend to be lower and rental yields tend to be higher. For most people, investing in a private real estate fund is the easiest way to gainrealestate exposure.
CrowdStreet: A way for accredited investors to invest in individualrealestateopportunities mostly in 18-hour cities. 18-hour cities are secondary cities with lower valuations, higher rental yields, and potentially higher growth due to job growth and demographic trends. If you have a lot more capital, you can build you own diversifiedreal estateportfolio.Just make sure to thoroughly screen each sponsor before investing.
Both platforms are sponsors of Financial Samurai and Financial Samurai is a six-figure investor in Fundrise funds. Over 50% of my passive income now comes from real estate, my favorite investment class to build wealth and achieve financial independence.
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The Three Levels of Financial Independence is a Financial Samurai original post. I've been writing about achieving FIRE since 2009. Come join me on this incredible journey!
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