How to achieve financial freedom

By Ritah Namwanje

While growing up, we have always been taught that in order to be successful in life, we need to read hard, work hard, pay close attention to every detail, get as many good grades as possible, then get the best job possible.

When you get that dream job, if lucky, you will be secure financially, and build a good pension pot, where you will live your golden years in comfort!! This is no longer a reality, but instead a pipe dream. Does this plan really guarantee a decent house, well-kept garden and picket fence around it? You cannot rely on anything or anyone else to give you freedom in your later years.

If we track the life of some educated people, the financial script often goes; the child goes to school, graduates, finds a dream job and soon has some money to spend. The young adult now rents an apartment, buys a TV set, new clothes, some furniture and of course a car.

And now bills begin to come in. One day he meets someone special and sparks fly, they fall in love and get married. For a while life is blissful because the costs are more or less the same as when they were single.

They now have two incomes, only one rent to pay and they afford to save a few dollars aside to buy their dream house, which is okay! So they now have a mortgage. Because they have a new house, they need new furnishings and so they find furniture stores that advertise with those magic words, "No money down, easy monthly payments". Life is wonderful so they throw a party to all friends as they enter their new home.

They are now deeply in debt!!! Then the first child arrives. The well educated hardworking couple after having their child start school must now work even much harder. They become trapped by the need for job security simply because they never planned well for their few saved dollars and on average they are less than three months away from bankruptcy. From these people you often hear, "I can't afford to quit this job", because of the ever increasing bills. 

Worse still, there is no longer such a thing as job security and companies all over the world are proving it again and again with countless layoffs and cutbacks. The people we always admire because they seem to have job security are suffering under the weight of the recession and many are losing their jobs, along with the promise of a very generous pension.

So what exactly am I saying? Financial independence and freedom is not a pipe dream, in fact it is fast becoming a realisation amongst so many business owners, start-ups and self-employed people who are looking up to the financial security strategy. These are the people who know they need to look beyond the promise of a job; the promise of employment. When it comes down to it, you are just working to make someone else's dream come true, or someone else's business grow which ends up draining you!

The other reason people struggle financially is because every time they make money, they spend heavily and end up increasing these two big expenses; taxes and interest on debt. Now to top this off, government often offers you tax breaks to get deeper into debt. Shouldn't that make you a little afraid? It is not so much how much you make, but how much you keep, how hard it works for you and how many generations you keep it for.

So why not get off your behind and work on your dream? Work on something that is going to eventually work for you and support you and your family in the long run! Whatever the excuses stop them now, because none of them is going to cut it and the smell of comfort is not going to mask your fear and inability to realize your full potential. Perhaps you want to turn around now and say that your passion is in a job.

 Well whatever you have a real passion about, you can turn it into a business or a lifetime investment that is going to serve you. You don't need to give yourself to the rat race and the companies that are never going to pay back; they will only praise your good deeds with a peanut increment. Is the praise worth your hard work?

Some of the best opportunities come in the form of socializing, network marketing, online business opportunities, business ventures and your clever ideas. One good idea alone backed with the proper amount of enthusiasm has the potential to give you financial freedom and occupation, alongside passion, for the rest of your days.

So ask yourself now; is there something you have a burning passion for, or maybe even something you could get passionate about? Then just act on it, no matter what obstacles you encounter, and with the adequate skill, experience and persistence, the outcome will surely be overwhelmingly good.

Writer is a member of the Critical Thought Group, and a business economist in Kampala.