If financial freedom is having the money to do what you want when you want it freedom should be having the time to do what you want when you want to. That is my definition of financial freedom and freedom, and for both of them how one define it is personal. Financial freedom for one person can be completely different from another person but what it has in common is the process of reaching it. It’s not about winning a lottery or getting famous and earn huge amounts of money. It’s like Robert Kiyosaki expresses “… a mental, emotional and educational process.”

I have never believed that being rich or having a lot of money should be a goal, for me money should always be seen as a tool to reach something bigger than numbers on a bank account. Having a certain amount of money on your bank card can create financial freedom, but money itself doesn’t automatically equals financial freedom. It is completely up to what you do with the money.

When earning more money there is a certain temptation of getting those things that previously were out of reach. It almost makes us feel a bit powerful being able to buy something without a major impact on our finances that wasn’t possible before. It’s a nice feeling and we want a lot of nice feelings, however, if the temptations drag us down the road of buying more and more our financial freedom will be gone before we realized that we could have it.

I said in the beginning that for me financial freedom is about being able to buy what you want whenever you want it. That would require being extremely rich which is not what I mean. The keyword is “want”. While getting to financial freedom you go through a process and it is not about being able to want everything and then get it, it is about learning what to want. When you’re not dictated by your want you are one step closer to achieving financial freedom and when you have sufficient finances as a tool financial freedom is being reached.

At first glance financial freedom might seem to be all about money but once you start thinking about it you realize that it’s more of a philosophical question. It’s about the relationship between you and the money and to get there you need to go through the journey yourself and explore.