Is My Financial Independence Plan Flawed?
With respect to Financial Independence, I now realize that previously, I’ve put my entire financial independence strategy in just one well known plan.
My “Financial Independence Plan A” is pretty much your standard run-of-the-mill savings by frugal means and invest that savings like a fiend. To be honest, so far Plan A is working for me, I’m doing about as well as can be expected in this economic environment. While I’m not a millionaire yet, I’m on my way to achieving a net worth of a million in the next eight years following this path (fingers crossed).
But, what if something happens? What if Unemployment keeps rising and I get laid off?
Getting laid off would severely affect my current employer paying income stream, and would be a serious blow to my investment strategy since eating and feeding my family would get in the way of investing (my family members are so inconsiderate that way, lol).
What if I get Madoffed? Then I find myself much older and less inclined to want (or even able) to work as diligently? Is having only one plan analogous to having all your eggs in one basket?
Alternative Plans for Financial Independence
I’m now pursuing at least two other paths for Financial Independence!
Financial Independence Plan B – “Side Job Income“: Find a job (or create one via entrepreneurship) that in five years should pay at least a quarter of your current “primary job” salary earnings (or self-employed income). Then take the entire income stream (minus taxes) and invest it in dividend stocks or decent bonds (perhaps municipal bonds – do this when and if the bond market comes back) with a decent yield that are still safe.
The advantages of Financial Independence Plan B are as follows:
- In combination with Plan A, you should be able to save twice as much as you do if you are just using a Plan A. This is a great accelerator to achieving Financial Independence!
- The dividend stream should be invested back into your dividend investments, but alternatively (if you are willing to sacrifice slower growth), you can use a portion of that dividend stream for rewards such as vacations and other family/personal fun activities. The family/personal fun activities provided by a dividend stream is the route that I am following as seen in the following articles:
- Lunch Dividend Experiment – This dividend income stream is paying off already! Not bad for only two years of existance!
- Creating a Blogging Dividend Income Stream - I can now cover my blogging expenses with this dividend income stream.
- If something happens to my primary job, I have this one to serve as a backup. This second income source, dividend streams and the fact that I’m totally totally debt free means that I can get by without any real hardships. However, my lifestyle (and especially my kids) would definitely have a dip in enjoyment since I would have to forgo vacations and they kids would have to stop playing sports and other fun and educational activities!
The primary disadvantage of Plan B is time. You will have less time to spend watching TV, being with family, and leisure in general.
Financial Independence Plan C – “Being Smart about spending and saving money” – This is about getting the best deal on a product without doing something foolish like driving wasting gas money, while trying to save a dollar. And about detecting and taking advantages of income making opportunities instead of giving away time, your work, and stuff away for free. I will have a more detailed post about this in the future.
Both of my Plans B and C are evolving, so in the future, I’ll expand on each!
Do you have 2 or 3 alternative plans on becoming financially independent? The beauty of such plans is that as long as they aren’t too expensive, anything goes since they aren’t necessary for you or your family’s livelihood.
Have a great weekend!
MR
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