Financial independence

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Financial independence is a state where an individual or household has accumulated sufficient financial resources to cover its living expenses without having to depend on active employment or work to earn money in order to maintain its current lifestyle. [1] These financial resources can be in the form of investment or personal use assets, passive income, income generated from side jobs, inheritance, pension and retirement income sources, and varied other sources.

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The concept of financial independence goes beyond just having enough money or wealth. Achieving financial independence gives freedom to make the best use of time to pursue life's goals and dreams, or help the citizens of the community to lead a life with purpose. [1] It is a state where one has come to terms with the fact of having accumulated enough, has been freed from the shackles of debt and the tendency to make poor financial decisions, and has transformed their relationship with money to make healthy financial choices. [1] Gaining financial independence should not be confused with not having to work at all. [2] Rather, financial independence gives the freedom to make choices at will, enabling individuals to achieve what matters the most while not having to worry about earning money. [2]

Researchers posit that childhood experiences with money play a pivotal role in shaping values, attitudes, and financial behavior. [3] Financial independence is a subjective concept and can be interpreted differently by different individuals. [1] [4] Some people practice frugal living, save and invest a large percentage of income to achieve financial independence early in their career, as evidenced by people following the "financial independence retire early (FIRE)" movement, [2] while others are in pursuit of traditional retirement. Some people may feel financially independent after accumulating enough assets to lead a modest lifestyle, while others may strive for a higher level of financial independence to afford luxuries, increased consumption, and a higher standard of living. Having a financial plan and budget, can provide a clear view of current incomes and expenses, to help identify and choose appropriate strategies to achieve financial independence.

Theoretical frameworks and factors influencing financial independence

Researchers have developed several theories to explain how financial behavior is influenced by values, attitudes, and biases. Parents may knowingly or unknowingly influence their children's relationship with money. [5] [6] These theories offer insights into how an individual or family members think and feel about money, stages of development to embrace a change, ability to resolve money conflicts, and overcoming unexamined cognitive and emotional biases to build a healthy relationship with money. These factors can have major implications on an individual's or family's ability to achieve financial independence. [7]

Researchers have tested several methods of family financial socialization to study how young adults remember their parents teaching them about money when they were growing up and if it contributed in any way to their financial well-being and helped in achieving financial independence. [8] In case of young adults, attaining college education, having an income, owning assets, having basic money management and problem solving skills improved their ability to achieve financial independence. [9] Identity Capital Theory suggests that young adults grow up with the ability to manage money if they have access to physical resources like money knowledge and social connections, and are also able to take responsibility for their actions and able to make their own decisions. [4] These resources help individuals become financially independent later in life.

Psychological perspectives

One of the eight concepts of Bowen's family systems theory is the concept of triangles. [10] An elderly couple with an insurmountable amount of debt, who are not on the same page to pay off the debt, may seek help from their child and involve them in resolving the conflict. The resultant imbalance in the system, where three people each have different opinions, can further lead to unresolved issues and derail the retirement plan of the child. The family projection process explains how children can end up with emotional issues by being witness to their parents' toxic relationship. [10] Financial socialization theory and communication privacy management theory sheds light on how the feelings and attitudes about money developed and influenced by the family members in early childhood can result in marital conflicts later in life. [11]

Behavioral finance perspectives

The Behavior Portfolio Theory governs that investors are "normal" [12] and cannot always make rational decisions due to their cognitive and emotional biases. The field of behavioral finance defines several biases and heuristics that offer insight into individual behavior and how these biases influence an individual's investment decisions.

Prospect theory posits that individuals value gains and losses differently; the pain of experiencing a loss of $1,000 is more intense than the joy of gaining $1,000. [13] Investors also tend to get carried away with recent information, leading to recency bias. [13] An investor may hold onto a losing stock for long periods hoping it will increase in value in the future, indicating that an investor is loss averse. [13] An investor may mimic trades of other investors in hopes of making a huge profit, showing signs of herd mentality. [13] Hindsight bias, confirmation bias, anchoring, familiarity bias, endowment effect, similarity heuristics, affect heuristic are examples of other biases and heuristics. [13]

A couple may benefit from working with a financial therapist to resolve deeply rooted issues and feelings about money. A financial planner can help create a financial plan and increase awareness on the benefits of goal setting, budgeting, investing, diversification to help an individual or family stay the course to achieve financial independence.

Sources of income to achieve financial independence

Income can be classified into multiple categories. In the United States, there are three sources of income; active, portfolio, and passive. [14] The classification may vary by country. Wages, salaries, material participation in trade or business constitutes active income. [14] Portfolio income includes interest, dividends, royalties, annuities, capital gains. [14] Generally, income from rental activities, and activities where an individual does not materially participate are considered passive source of income. [14] An individual can tap into multiple sources of income to satisfy their income needs and maintain desired lifestyle after achieving financial independence.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of sources of income.

Approaches to financial independence

William Bengen conducted research to determine safe withdrawal rates from the portfolio and concluded that an individual can safely withdraw 4% of their portfolio savings in the first year of retirement and can adjust the withdrawal rate by rate of inflation in subsequent years. [15] If an individual can cover their annual expenses by withdrawing 4% of their portfolio savings, the individual is assumed to have achieved financial independence.

Suppose a person can generate enough income to meet their needs from sources other than their primary occupation. In that case, they have achieved financial independence, regardless of age, existing wealth, or current salary. For example, if a 25-year-old has $1000 in monthly expenses, and assets that generate $1000 or more per month, they have achieved financial independence. On the other hand, if a 50-year-old has assets that generate $1,000,000 a month but has expenses that equal more than that per month, they are not financially independent, as they still have to earn the difference each month to make all their payments. However, the effects of inflation must be considered. If a person needs $100/month for living expenses today, they will need $105/month next year and $110.25/month the following year to support the same lifestyle, assuming a 5% annual inflation rate. A person's assets and liabilities are important in determining if they have achieved financial independence. An asset is anything of value that a person owns, whereas a liability is what the person owes. [16] Increasing savings, reducing expenses, consistently investing with a long-term horizon, and having a well-diversified portfolio can help achieve financial independence. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. As a subject of study, it is related to but distinct from economics, which is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Based on the scope of financial activities in financial systems, the discipline can be divided into personal, corporate, and public finance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Efficient-market hypothesis</span> Economic theory that asset prices fully reflect all available information

The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.

Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by classical economic theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Risk aversion</span> Economics theory

In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more certain outcome.

A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe, and the open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.

An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is an expense. Buying food, clothing, furniture, or an automobile is often referred to as an expense. An expense is a cost that is "paid" or "remitted", usually in exchange for something of value. Something that seems to cost a great deal is "expensive". Something that seems to cost little is "inexpensive". "Expenses of the table" are expenses for dining, refreshments, a feast, etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal finance</span> Budgeting and expenses

Personal finance is the financial management that an individual or a family unit performs to budget, save, and spend monetary resources in a controlled manner, taking into account various financial risks and future life events.

Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or Real estate investment trusts.

Active management is an approach to investing. In an actively managed portfolio of investments, the investor selects the investments that make up the portfolio. Active management is often compared to passive management or index investing.

Passive income is a type of unearned income that is acquired with little to no labor to earn or maintain. It is often combined with another source of income, such as regular employment or a side job. Passive income, as an acquired income, is taxable.

Momentum investing is a system of buying stocks or other securities that have had high returns over the past three to twelve months, and selling those that have had poor returns over the same period.

Sexual capital or erotic capital is the social power an individual or group accrues as a result of their sexual attractiveness and social charm. It enables social mobility independent of class origin because sexual capital is convertible, and may be useful in acquiring other forms of capital, including social capital and economic capital.

Liability-driven investment policies and asset management decisions are those largely determined by the sum of current and future liabilities attached to the investor, be it a household or an institution. As it purports to associate constantly both sides of the balance sheet in the investment process, it has been called a "holistic" investment methodology.

Retirement planning, in a financial context, refers to the allocation of savings or revenue for retirement. The goal of retirement planning is to achieve financial independence.

Naïve diversification is a choice heuristic. Essentially, when asked to make several choices at once, people tend to diversify more than when making the same type of decision sequentially. Its first demonstration was made by Itamar Simonson in marketing in the context of consumption decisions by individuals. It was subsequently shown in the context of economic and financial decisions.

At retirement, individuals stop working and no longer get employment earnings, and enter a phase of their lives, where they rely on the assets they have accumulated, to supply money for their spending needs for the rest of their lives. Retirement spend-down, or withdrawal rate, is the strategy a retiree follows to spend, decumulate or withdraw assets during retirement.

Goals-Based Investing or Goal-Driven Investing is the use of financial markets to fund goals within a specified period of time. Traditional portfolio construction balances expected portfolio variance with return and uses a risk aversion metric to select the optimal mix of investments. By contrast, GBI optimizes an investment mix to minimize the probability of failing to achieve a minimum wealth level within a set period of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Investment fund</span> Way of investing money alongside other investors

An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:

Social heuristics are simple decision making strategies that guide people's behavior and decisions in the social environment when time, information, or cognitive resources are scarce. Social environments tend to be characterised by complexity and uncertainty, and in order to simplify the decision-making process, people may use heuristics, which are decision making strategies that involve ignoring some information or relying on simple rules of thumb.

The FIREmovement is a lifestyle movement with the goal of gaining financial independence and retiring early. The model became particularly popular among millennials in the 2010s, gaining traction through online communities via information shared in blogs, podcasts, and online discussion forums.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Robin, Vicki; Dominguez, Joe (2008-12-10). Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018. Penguin. ISBN   978-0-14-311576-2.
  2. 1 2 3 Rieckens, Scott (2019-01-01). Playing with FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early): How Far Would You Go for Financial Freedom?. New World Library. ISBN   978-1-60868-580-6.
  3. ↑ Gudmunson, Clinton G.; Danes, Sharon M. (2011-09-18). "Family Financial Socialization: Theory and Critical Review". Journal of Family and Economic Issues. 32 (4): 644–667. doi:10.1007/s10834-011-9275-y. ISSN   1058-0476. S2CID   144466286.
  4. 1 2 Butterbaugh, Sarah Martin; Ross, D. Bruce; Campbell, Alyssa (2020-03-01). "My Money and Me: Attaining Financial Independence in Emerging Adulthood Through a Conceptual Model of Identity Capital Theory". Contemporary Family Therapy. 42 (1): 33–45. doi:10.1007/s10591-019-09515-8. ISSN   1573-3335. S2CID   254418805.
  5. ↑ Britt, Sonya L. (2016-05-03). "The Intergenerational Transference of Money Attitudes and Behaviors". Journal of Consumer Affairs. 50 (3): 539–556. doi:10.1111/local.12113. ISSN   0022-0078.
  6. ↑ Brown, Jenny (1999). "Bowen Family Systems Theory and Practice: Illustration and Critique". Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. 20 (2): 94–103. doi:10.1002/j.1467-8438.1999.tb00363.x.
  7. ↑ Klontz, Brad; Chaffin, Charles R.; Klontz, Ted (2022-09-27). Psychology of Financial Planning: The Practitioner's Guide to Money and Behavior. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-1-119-98372-9.
  8. ↑ LeBaron‐Black, Ashley B.; Curran, Melissa A.; Hill, E. Jeffrey; Toomey, Russell B.; Speirs, Katherine E.; Freeh, Margaret E. (2023). "Talk is cheap: Parent financial socialization and emerging adult financial well‐being". Family Relations. 72 (3): 1201–1219. doi:10.1111/fare.12751. ISSN   0197-6664. S2CID   251509392.
  9. ↑ Xiao, Jing Jian; Chatterjee, Swarn; Kim, Jinhee (2014). "Factors associated with financial independence of young adults". International Journal of Consumer Studies. 38 (4): 394–403. doi:10.1111/ijcs.12106. ISSN   1470-6423. S2CID   145682919.
  10. 1 2 Bowen, Murray (1993-12-01). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson. ISBN   978-1-4616-2849-1.
  11. ↑ Koochel, Emily; Astle, Nathan D.; Markham, Melinda Stafford (2020-01-25). "Treating Financial Conflict in Couples Through a Bowenian Lens: Applied Financial Socialization and Communication Privacy Theories". Contemporary Family Therapy. 42 (1): 77–83. doi:10.1007/s10591-020-09535-9. ISSN   0892-2764. S2CID   254417837.
  12. ↑ Shefrin, Hersh; Statman, Meir (2000). "Behavioral Portfolio Theory". Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. 35 (2): 127–151. doi:10.2307/2676187. ISSN   1756-6916. JSTOR   2676187. S2CID   51947571.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Dalton, James F. (2022). Investment Planning: Concepts and Strategies (3rd ed.). Money Education. ISBN   978-1-946711-11-3.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Langdon, Thomas P.; Grange, E. Vance; Dalton, Michael A. (March 2023). Income Tax Planning. Money Education. ISBN   978-1-946711-23-6.
  15. ↑ Bengen, William P. (October 1994). "Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data" (PDF). Journal of Financial Planning: 14–24
  16. ↑ Dalton, Michael A.; Dalton, James F. (July 2021). Fundamentals of Financial Planning. Money Education. ISBN   978-1-946711-39-7.

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