Episode 178- Start and Map Out Your Journey To Financial Independence With These Steps

Jamila Souffrant 0:00

You're listening to the Journey to Launch Podcast, I'm giving you a sneak peek of five of the 10 steps you need to implement in order to map your journey to financial independence.

Recording 0:14

Welcome to the Journey to Launch Podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant. As a money expert who walks her talk, she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom.

Jamila Souffrant 0:41

Hey, hey, hey journeyers welcome to the journey to launch podcast if you are totally new, welcome, welcome. Sit back. Buckle up, we are taking off to financial freedom and independence. And if you're an OG journeyer, or someone who's been following me for a while, and you know what's up, this is going to be a solo episode and I can't wait to get into it.

Before we happen to this week's episode, I want to bring you a word from today's sponsor. Journey to Launch is brought to you by First Republic bank, the world is changing and your needs are evolving. As your focus turns to what matters most to you and your community. First Republic remains committed to offering personalized financial solutions that fit your needs. From day one, you'll be connected with a dedicated banker who will serve as your primary point of contact throughout your relationship with the bank. They'll be there to listen to you understand your values and meet you on your financial journey. Your banker can offer solutions that support your goals at any stage from setting up a personal checking account to refinancing household debt to buying a first home. As your needs evolve. You can call or email your banker at any time for the support you need. Because First Republic believes what matters to you matters most. Learn more at firstrepublic.com that's firstrepublic.com. Member FDIC Equal Housing lender.

If you want the episode Show Notes for this episode, go to journeytolaunch.com. Or you can click the description of wherever you listen to this episode to get the full episode show notes. Now, if you are a new listener to the podcast or OG journeyer I've created a jumpstart guide to help you on your journey to financial freedom. It includes the top episodes, so listen to the stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources to help you and so much more. Get it for FREE by texting, launch to 33777 text launch to 33777 or go to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart to get your guide for free right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode.

All right, so funny thing, I am doing a solo episode today. And I keep promising that I'm going to do more of them. And I will so this week is going to be a solo episode. And next week is going to be one. And if you follow me on my Journey to Launch or Jamila Souffrant, Instagram, I sometimes share the behind the scenes of my life. And really I do it on Jamila Souffrant, mostly like the personal side of building Journey to Launch and the business. And fun fact, this is the second time I'm recording this episode, but it will be the last time I recorded this originally a couple days ago. And I shared on my Jamila Souffrant stories, how hard it is for me to do solo episodes. And so when I did that, I got a couple of responses, like keep it don't delete it, don't we record? And I'm like, Yes, I know. I know. But I feel like the first time I recorded this, I left some things out, I wanted to be clear. And so I'm doing this one more time. And I'm going to make sure this is going to be it and I'm sharing the behind the scenes even on the podcast right now to show you that despite the finished effect, or the product that you see comes out from myself Journey to Launch. I'm human. I have lots of hang ups, especially like about talking which people can't believe right? Like you're like, come on Jamila, like you speak to thousands of people on your podcast every week, you are confident in all those things. And I am you know, I'm all those things, but you can be confident, you can be successful, and you can still have doubts, you can still you know have that negative Nancy in your head telling you that you can't do something and I'm here to be proof to you that you can push through all those blocks because that's what I do every day. When I show up. And I do this work for Journey to Launch. It's not easy putting myself out there and speaking in this way, but I have something to share that I know can help others and I know it helps you guys you you let me know and it's really helpful that you let me know. You know sometimes yes, internal validation is all you should need. And I'm all for that not needing any outside proof or validation, but it doesn't hurt. When you get people who tell you listen, what you're doing is changing my life has changed my life. And so that for me is just even more fuel.

So in this week's episode, what I wanted to do is break down and kind of give you some some tips. So I created this 10 step framework for you, for anyone to be able to create their path to financial independence, I created this 10 step framework. And by the way, I'm also doing a free class on October 22. So depending on when you're listening to this, you can still join me journeytolaunch.com/free class. And at that free class, I'll be talking about how you can craft your financial freedom and independence journey. So how you can unlock freedom while you are on the journey, which is so important. Because I am not one to wait to enjoy the fruits of your labor, to deprive yourself while you're on this path to having all the money you ever need and not having to work for anyone else for the rest of your life. That's the big goal.

But until then, how do you live a life that is something that you deserve, that you're happy and fulfilled with and that you're still unable to unlock options along the way. So this free class, we'll be talking about that. It's going to be on October 22. So I know this episode comes out real time, on Wednesday, October 21. Sometimes you guys like listen right away, sometimes it takes a while. So I'm doing this episode to one remind you to sign up for the course, the course. Why don't keep saying course? Free class, journeytolaunch.com/free class, you still have time to join me. And then though if you are listening to this after the fact do not fret, I still have some tips for you. And this is why I keep saying course because I am launching my 10 step course. So I wanted to share with you some steps that are within that course, that way you can even if you're just like listening, and maybe this is the first time you're hearing my voice, or you don't even know who I am, maybe you've been around for a while that you can now take some ideas from this course that you can still take so you can still if you happen to listen to this when the course doors are open. So I'm only having doors open for this course from October 23 to the 29th, only a week. And if you happen to listen to this, within that time for me, you want to join us you can. But even like if you don't, even if you don't use this after the fact, I want to give you some key takeaways that you can start to think about in terms of how you can craft your own financial independence journey. And literally like these are the things that I've done. So I've tested, I've done these things I've even like tested this course, with like this framework. So I'm going to go between course and framework, I'm going to call it the same thing right now, this framework is the same framework that I've had my money launch club members go through, and it has produced like wild results for people, it's produced wild results for me. So I want to share some of that with you on the podcast today.

Now, I'm not going to go through all 10 steps. If you want more information, I'll go through that in the free class I'm doing on October 22. And you can get more details on the course sales page, if you want to sign up and join us in this first round, where I'm going to be taking people really through the 10 steps together we are going to do with this as like a group, you're going to have me coaching you through it. So I wanted to give you some of the tidbits from these 10 steps in order for you to craft your plan. So we're going to start with step one. So step one is like the beginning step. It's a step that allows you to understand what financial independence and financial freedom means to you. Because it means something different to a lot of people, even when I mentioned it, like I kind of use it interchangeably. Like I say, Oh, you know, come with me on the journey to financial independence, financial freedom. But financial independence or freedom can mean different things. Independence, like the technical term for financial independence, is having enough money saved and invested in your portfolio. So your investment accounts across your retirement account, non retirement accounts, maybe you have a real estate portfolio, even a business that spins off money, where you don't have to actually work again. So you know, picture, you having a million dollar portfolio, and it's giving you dividends is returning you on an annual basis $40,000, then if you can live up to $40,000. Meaning like that's enough to cover your expenses, then you don't have to work actively. Again, that's the technical definition of financial independence. And so this is the goal that I encourage everyone to work towards. When you think about this as a big goal. It's very, I think, inspiring, right? But I think once you get into the numbers of it, it can be overwhelming, quite frankly, because depending on where you are like if you're listening to this, and you have tons of debt, right, let's say you're paying off student loan debt, you're paying off car notes, you have a big mortgage, you have kids, there's so many things that can be just in your path that you have to figure out in order to get to this big goal. So what does that mean? Does it mean that you can experience happiness and freedom until you have a million dollars $2 million in your investment account? I think not. You know so I believe in unlocking financial freedom. On the path. So defining what that all means is really important. Because if you don't defined what financial freedom means, like what it means for you to feel happy on the journey, then you'll forever be on the treadmill, it will feel like you know, the people who wait until they're retired, to have fun and be happy. So that person at your job, you know, when I was working, you know, there are people at my job where they were maybe in their 30s, or 40s. And they were working for retirement, like, they were like, when I get to 65, that's when I live my life. And I'm like, Oh, hell, no, that's not gonna be me. And to me, I see that as like the same people who are on this path to financial independence. And they're not happy, right? Like, they're like, well, it's gonna take me 10,15 years to get there to retire early, quote, unquote. So I'm gonna have to like struggle the whole time. But you're not enjoying anything on the way, right? So unless you figure out what it is that it means to you. So financial freedom can mean different things, you cannot unlock different levels of freedom as you go. So that's every time you pay off a debt. That's every time you learn a concept, and you feel more energized and confident in investing. That's when you take a risk and invest in yourself, like all these things are unlocking options and giving you freedom along the path. So first, we need to define what that is. So that's what step one is all about. You define what it is, and you define your ultimate financial independence number. So I've talked about this in previous podcasts. But I think the biggest issue that people have with thinking about financial independence is like what is my number, and sometimes even to calculate the number is overwhelming. Because if you think about how much it will take for you to never have to work again, like how much you'd have to amass in your portfolios. That's a lot of money. You know, and it depends on how much you want to spend. So if you are, you know, frugal, it's just you by yourself, maybe you, you want to only spend $40,000 a year. And so to calculate that number, I'll give you a quick kind of like, when do it, you would take how much you want to spend annually, and you multiply it by 25. That's based on the 25 times rule and 4% withdrawal rate. And I go through more of that in the course. And there's some more content, even if you just like Google the 25 times rule of 4% withdrawal rate, tons of great information on that. But that's just like figuring out your number. And that's kind of what the first step is. Because unless you kind of understand what it is that you're working towards, it's gonna be super hard to figure out like, then the next steps to take. So we do that in step one. That's what I talk about.

The next step. So step two, this is a really important step. I do talk more about this, obviously, in the course, but also in the free class. If you have time to sign up on October 22 8:30pm. Eastern Time to see me live talk about this is your mindset and your your habits. So understanding what those things are. Because I know we want to jump right into Okay, this is numbers, right? You're telling me I need $2 million, or a million dollars invested? How do I get to the numbers? How do I make more? How do I spend less if that's your goal. And honestly, like you can't do any of those things properly, until you get your mindset and habits, right? Because that's what's really gonna drive and sustain you on the journey. That's what's gonna get you to where you ultimately want to be. So step two is really understanding where you currently are, what your mindset is, and what it is that you need to do to improve any limiting beliefs or things that are holding you back. And with that, you have to be super, super honest with yourself.

So changing your mindset, changing your perspective is every thing because if you think you can't, you can't, if you think paying off one credit card means nothing and you're still going to be stuck, then you're going to be stuck, right? It's all about how you see things. It's all about how you view money. There's all these like hidden roots in ourselves that we need to unnerve, and unearth in order to bloom. And so a lot of this stuff is important. And people want to jump to all like the fancy like sexy things, right. But some of this stuff right here, like the mindset, the habits, envisioning what your life is, this is important not only for like your ultimate goals, but this is what allows you to enjoy the journey along the way. Because then you get a better understanding of who it is you're becoming as you work towards financial independence. So while the goal is so important, like for me, it's it's important, but it's not the most important part, the journey is. So until you can understand how you could enjoy the journey, you'll be miserable. So step two is like a combination of a lot of things. It's your mindset, it's your habits. It's identifying where you are, but then understanding like what it is going to take for you to like become the person you want to be and not wait to do that. Right. The numbers like you know, let's just say your goals are to earn more money, your goals, some of these things, take a while to do some things. But you can change your mindset. You can change the way you perceive something, you can change how you feel about something faster than some of the other things that you'll have to do on this journey doesn't mean it'll be easy.

But it means you are a, you are in control completely of your mind of your habits. The other things, yes, maybe other people have inputs in it, right, your boss, or maybe your current situation is like kind of something that right away, you can't change, but you are the driver, you are the pilot of your own rocket ship. I know I talked a lot about launching to financial independence and coming with me, but I like to see that or envision that we all are like in separate rockets. I mean, you know, you can get in my rocket if you want. But we all are on our paths. And we are, you know, getting inspired and you know, you're getting some rocket boosts from my rocket, I'm getting some rocket fuel from your rocket, we're all in sync, like kind of doing our own thing, but together in order to reach our goal. So therefore it's you that has to decide and figure out what exactly it is that you need on this journey. So that's step two. Okay, step three, I know it seems like I'm going through all the steps, but I'm not I'm gonna have to skip some. If you want to see all the steps join me at the class on October 22 Journeytolaunch.com/free class.

And if you happen to watch this after or listen to this, after the fact check out the FI course where we are, we go through all this in detail. Okay? So and that you can find that journeytolaunch.com/FIcourse.

Step three, defining and mapping out your goals. Super important, because we already talked about this big goal of having all the money you'll ever need, never having to work again, which is great, amazing. But there are so many other things that you have to do before you reach that. So in order to map out your goals, you need to understand where you are at each level, and what goals go with each stage of your journey. Now I've talked about the five journeyer stages before I won't go into too much detail, I'll link the episode where I talked about the five journeyer stages in the episode show notes. But essentially, there are five stages to reach financial independence, the first stage is reaching financial stability. So that's where you get out of the red every month. And you know, you can pay your bills and your debt. Stage Two is the cadet stage, that's where you're working on paying off all your consumer debt. Once you finish that stage, you move on to the aviator stage. Remember, these are the five journeyer stages, stage three is The aviator stage, you are now building financial security. So this is the stage where you're investing and saving, and you're building your assets up. After you have a secure ground here, you can move to stage four, which is the captain stage, the captain stage allows you to have work flexibility. Now this is a stage I believe everyone can get to. But this stage allows you to essentially choose what you do for work. That doesn't mean you never work again. But you have more flexibility. This is the stage where I am in. And then after this stage, you can move to the commander stage, this is the commander stages financial independence. So that's stage five.

So I just really quickly broke down those five stages, because within those stages, as you can see, while it took me maybe a couple of minutes to just go through that, in real life, it does not take you a couple of minutes, it can take years to go through a stage. So if you are in the cadet paying off that stage that can take you years depending on your starting point. So how do you measure your success here? How do you define and map out your goals within this. And so it's important to know at each stage, especially the stage you're in, you can forecast your goals in the other stages. But the stage you're in right now, it's important to understand what it's going to take for you to get from where you are now to the next stage. So for the debt payoff stage, you'd create goals around paying off your debt around understanding how to invest all these things which are specific to your stage.

So that's step three, defining and mapping out your goals. And there, you know, there are different ways to map out your goals. But one of the ways that I do it in the FI course, is you map it out by the five journeyer stages. But then you do map it out just by making also each goal no matter like what stage you're in smart. You make it a SMART goal. You make it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. You also need to what I call do a goal fuel. So this is a nifty thing I came up with thinking about how to you get to any goal that you want to accomplish. And regardless of what goal it is, at what level or stage you're in, typically it's going to take either one or all of these things, you're going to either need to increase your income, be more conscious with your expenses. So either cut back or optimize, or change your habit, and or mindset. So these things are going to fuel how you get to your goal.

And so we work through what that is but really important step three, defining and mapping out your goals. All right, I'm going to give you a taste of two more steps. And hopefully again, this can help you regardless if you you know decide to take action and join us in the FI course or not but really believe that this will be helpful to you even if you just start to think about this, how you can start applying this in your life.

Okay, step For, okay, so this has been the hardest step for people who have taken the course what is the most like, once you do it, you are done like not done forever, but done meaning you, you laid it all out on the line, this is step four, the money assessment. So this is where I am asking you to be real with yourself an intimate, intimate with your finances. So that's where we're going to look at all your assets, all your debt, all your income, all your expenses. So this allows us to really see where you are. Because until we understand where you are, there's no way we can map out how you get from $20,000 of debt to a million dollars in investments. We can't do that unless we understand one if you really are $20,000 in debt, or maybe $30,000 in debt, or until we realize, okay, what's your income? And what's your expenses, right? What do we need to change? What do we need to focus on in order to accelerate in order to get to the goals that you're trying to reach? Right, so this is money assessment, every time that I've had someone go through it, it was like, Oh, my gosh, like, I've been avoiding this. But once I did it, it just felt so good. And I just it opened my eyes to what was happening with my finances. So this is where you basically just like pull everything out. So this is where you organize things into the things you own your assets, the things you owe liabilities, your income, so what's coming in your household and your expenses, what's going out. We get a sense of this, and then we're able to get to work. This is where now we're starting to get to where we can work on what's going on, there are a few more steps between

I'm going to skip forward. But this one I really want to get to because this step really means a lot, this is what I find to be the most powerful step. And the whole thing, I mean, all the steps have equal footing, you need to do it in order, I believe in order to get the full effect. But when you get to this step, this is more later down in step eight. This is where you can start to see the confidence change and like yourself and you reaching your goals, because I know like you listen to this podcast, especially if you've been listening for a while. I know you know that financial independence and freedom is for you. I know you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if it wasn't. But unfortunately, sometimes like feeling that way. And then having doubts about being able to reach it like it's normal, it's normal to feel that way, you know, and what happens is we we get excited about the prospects of reaching financial independence.

When we vision our life, like doing what we want, it's amazing. I mean, not having to work for a paycheck working because you want to who doesn't want that. And I think when you do realize like your starting point, and basically where you need to be. So you know, we figured out in step one, kind of like how much is this that I need based on my spending? It can be discouraging, it can feel like, Wait a second, how how do I get especially you know, after you even do that assessment? How do I get from here to there? And how long will it take. And so this point, this steps, I'm skipping a step eight here, because it's time now to map out your plan. It's time to map it out, not in a way in which you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna pay off debt. And then maybe I'll just put away $2,000 a year and you know, my investing accounts. And I don't know, hopefully, I'll get to 1.5 million, we're not doing that. Not In this step, we are able now in this step, what I want you to do in this step.

And what I've done in my course with this is I'm allowing you to actually plug in your actual numbers, you're plugging in your numbers to see exactly how it is you're going to get from point A where you are now to point z, where you ultimately want to be. And so it's literally putting in your, your your investing numbers, it's putting in how much you want to spend. And it's doing it actually, very specifically, I created this thing called the fire calc tool, I feel like I need to come up with a better name for it. So name I have now. And it allows you to put in exactly per year, how much you're investing and saving. Now I actually created this tool, and I used it. So this was something really powerful for me, because this is the tool that I created that when I did it, I showed my husband what our life could look like, how we could you know, essentially still live a good life now but then reach this goal and have a million dollars $2 million by this point. This is the spreadsheet. I showed him for him to be like, wait, we can do that? And I said yes look, because if we do this per year, we can do that. Oh, but if we take a break, because you know we're buying a car or we're doing something different. It's okay because this, this is what's happening. This is the same tool that I use when it was time to think about quitting my job if it was possible that I could do this. Could I jump into entrepreneurship full time taking a break because if you followed my story started Journey to Launch really just a chronicle. My path to financial independence was all good. I was just gonna stay working at my job earn in my six figures saving and investing aggressively. And we were able to do that. That's how we were able to save $169,000 in two years, we were able to pool our income together my husband and I and like, save and invest like crazy.

So now when I had the opportunity to do journey to launch full time, and I was faced with this idea of freedom, and here's, you know, this is why it's so important to map out your goals and to understand what freedom means to you. Because when I first started, it was about our income and money, and saving and investing as much as I could. That's how it first started out Journey to Launch. And as I started to go down the path, I realized how much more important my time was, it will no longer became just about investing and saving as much as possible. I realized, especially like as a mom, you know, at that point starting Journey to Launch into where I am now I was like having more kids, I have three altogether. Now, I had my job, which was crazy, long commute, two hours, typically one and a half to two hours one way driving, and Journey to Launch, which was like, you know, budding and taking off and doing all these amazing things, right. And so I quickly realized that nope, I'm not valuing the money and income for my freedom. I'm valuing the time and flexibility. That's what's more important for me. So it didn't, it no longer became about how fast I can reach financial independence. It became how can like in terms of the money, it became how can I enjoy my time while I have now? How could I not overextend myself, How can I be here more for my kids, and be more just lively as a mom, because quite honestly, like I was so like, over like everything I was it was just overwhelming. And so in order for me to take the leap into entrepreneurship, it meant that we had to sacrifice the income, because Journey to Launch wasn't earning money when I quit my job, like it still doesn't replace me my take home income when I had when I was working. So how did I feel comfortable enough? with three kids at the time? I'd just given birth, or you know, I was planning. So this is when I was pregnant with my third planning to possibly leave my job. How did I feel comfortable enough to take this leap? Now granted, my husband still works, he's a teacher, and you know, his his income, while bless it, we need it. It doesn't cover everything. So how did we figure out we could still take this leap to be able for me to do this, right. And so I use the FIRE calculator, the same tool that I use with my husband to show him that, hey, if you put more towards your retirement account, we can have this amount of money in 15 years, this is a tool where I said, Okay, if we're not able to save and invest for the next two, three years, because all our money is now going to cover our expenses.

And if we're pulling from our savings account, because then I had to create an FU Fund, which I talked about in other episodes, and I talked about overall in the FI course, is that you really, really need like this runway in order to help you like take this leap. So then how do you do that? Right. So I created this tool, and I still use it today. This is what's included in step eight. Is that even though right? Because my issue to why I created it was I would go to other calculators online. And you know, they would say, Okay, how much do you want to put away for the next 20 years? And it would just assume that you're putting the same amount away from me for the next 20 years? But what about when things changed? Right? Like, what if I wanted to take a break from my job, which is kind of how I modeled this? What if I didn't have money to invest for two years? What if I'm paying off debt, right? So in the case of you, if you're listening, and you're paying off debt? What if you can't aggressively invest or save for another two years? How do you put that into your financial independence? Like goals? And how do you map that out? So you know, okay, I'll have x amount in five years, in 10 years, if I do this, oh, but if I'm able to, you know, max out my retirement account, and, or earn more income and do this, this is where I'll be in 10 years. So this tool allows you to do that, and allows you to be flexible to around it. Because the other thing is, there are levels to this. You can reach freedom and get to that stage for that I talked about where you are at the work flexibility stage, and you don't have all the money right? So you don't have all the money that you'll ever need. Again, like you're maybe you're halfway there, but you have maybe a job where you can take a part time job or a job that pays less that can supplement your income for the meantime for the next three four years while you're working on your business. While maybe you take a maybe you're traveling the world you know when things open back up, who knows right? How do you bake that into your financial independence journey? Because it's not just a set it and forget it, things won't change.

Things change all the time, because there's so many things outside of our control. Our passions, change, our preferences change, you know, again, if you are like me, as I grew my family, I realized it wasn't about the money. If it takes me 10,15 you know, years longer than I thought which I don't Don't think you will. But you know, my goal was to reach financial independence by 40. I am 37. Now, oh my gosh, I can't believe I just said that. I'm 37. Now, if it takes me now because I quit my job, and you know, I'm an entrepreneur, it takes me longer, maybe not maybe, you know, because I am doing the bomb job at Journey to Launch and impacting people's lives, I make even more money, right? It's faster. But even if the trade off if that if it takes me until I'm 50,55, even standard retirement age, but I get this quality of life now. I'll take that, right. And so me knowing what I was giving up what the trade off would be. And I love that I can come in and like, play around with the tool, like it's so important.

So even if you know this tool, right, like you can start to envision what it is you need to do every year, even if it takes from you paying off debt to not being able to max out of retirement accounts because life right, maybe you're trying to buy a house, maybe you're trying to travel, you have to figure out how you're saving and investing plan looks over time in order for you to reach this ultimate financial independence number.

Okay, so just to review, this comes from the 10 step FI course and program framework that I created for you to figure out how to reach financial independence. And what I've done for you in this episode is just pull out, I think, some of the steps because I didn't want to overwhelm you. So just to recap, step one, you got to define financial independence and financial freedom is super important to figure out what it means for you, whether that is being able to care for your family, being home more with your kids, or being able to do your own thing and create your own business. What does financial independence and financial freedom mean, you'll need to understand the numbers but then just conceptually, and what makes you happy, you'll need to understand that next step, step two, you need to identify your current money mindset, and your habits, but then also understand and see how you can change them. If they're not positive, into more positive mindsets and habits, things that will help fuel you. Step three, understanding your goals. So not just saying you want to have $2 million invested, not just saying you want to pay off debt, but really understanding your goals, all of them, and they can change by the way, but understanding how they fit into your financial independence journey. Because there are levels there are stages to this. So to understand which stage you're in, and where to go through each one is important. Step four, is completing a money assessment. So being brutally honest with where you are with your finances. All of it, I'm talking about let's just like rip the band aid off and do it. So understanding your assets, your liabilities, your income and your expenses. And then the other step I mentioned is step eight. So I'm skipping steps because there are 10 of them. And I don't want to overwhelm you in this episode. But the next step that I find really important is step eight. This is where you actually map out how you reach it. So how do you get from where you are with your assessment, where you get all your numbers to? How do you get to your ultimate financial independence number, but then how do you map out a flexible path. So if you want to take a break from work, want to start a business, want to start a family, want to just maybe not be so aggressive, maybe you don't want to save and invest half of your income, maybe you want to take luxurious vacations, when the world opens back up, maybe you want to buy that car, or buy an investment property, how does that fit in. And so understanding how to map out a flexible path is important.

And of course, I like to do that in the fire calc tool that I created. So again, I hope you enjoyed this episode, I hope it gives you some tips for you mapping out your own financial independence path. If you want to join me depending on when you listen to this to the free class that I'm doing, it's going to be on October 22 at 8:30pm. Eastern time, you could sign up by going to journeytolaunch.com/free class. So regardless of whatever steps you take, this class will go through more of the steps and the journeyer stages. And what it is that stopping you from reaching your goals. And if you happen to miss it.

So if you happen to not be able to get to the class, because you listen to this too late, then check out the FI course. So this is where I go more into detail on all these steps. So, so proud of this framework in this course I created. It's the first time that I'm launching this course by itself to the masses. And it's really just something that I'm proud of because the same framework that allowed me to live what you see now, this level of freedom and have these options and I can't even begin to tell you how my life has opened up once I started this journey is like I'm so happy to be able to bring it to other people. So the course will be open from October 23 to 29th. So if you want to join this is the first time I'm watching it this way. So it's gonna be really special. We're going to have coaching calls, there's going to be a group community feature so you can meet other journeyers who are also figuring this all out, it's gonna be super fun. So if you are listening to this in that timeframe come join us at journeytolaunch.com/FIcourse.

If you want to check out the episode shownotes that's where you can get links to anything that's mentioned, and even get a transcribed version of this episode that you can read, go to journeytolaunch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode. Now you can also still grab your free journeyer jumpstart guide by texting, launch to 33777 or go to journeytolaunch.com/jumpstart.

If you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this and Apple Podcasts, rate, review, and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm @JourneytoLaunch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And I love love love interacting with journeyers there. Three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here. So show them some love for supporting your girl for. And last but not least, share this episode this podcast with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to Launch. Alright, that's it. Until next week, keep on journeying journeyers.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai