The Power Of Small Financial Goals

[arve url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8mqdqYnBcA" mode="lazyload" align="center" /] There is power in having small financial goals that once achieved allow you to take stock and then decide on the next goal. In this episode I'm joined by my wife Kelly and we discuss why big financial goals can actually be a bad idea and how a goal like baseline financial freedom can set you up for success. Resources Related To This Episode 2 Properties To Financial Freedom Transcription: Hi Guys, Ryan here from on property and today I am joined by Kelly. Hey guys. And we wanted to talk about the power of small financial goals in your life. And this discussion kind of started when we're talking about the power of aiming for baseline financial freedom rather than extreme wealth, but then kind of evolved from there. So do you wanna kind of expand on this idea? Well, I always loved the idea of they're actually achievable as opposed to like these ginormous things that, well I certainly feel overwhelmed by goals that are just so far out there in the future and I love the ID that you can kind of set a goal that keeps you from just not being present in your life. Like you've, you've setting a goal that's like decades in the future. You're like, you're not going to look up for decades. Like you're not going to be present in your life until you achieve that goal after, if you hopefully achieve that goal and even then you're going to be that same person that you are when you said it. Yup. And so really the revelation for us came, I had the goal that I wanted to be financially by 30 thing. I wanted to be a millionaire as well. It's definitely didn't. But I had that goal and head down, bum up for many years. We strived after that goal. I would work long hours, we still had kids and we'll still living life, but we kind of felt like will sleep walking through a bit of our life. And then we got to the point where it was like, okay, we don't really need to work anymore. We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but our bills are paid and our lifestyle is covered. And then we got to that point and took stock and we realized how unhappy you were. Totally. That was pretty crazy that time, wasn't it? Well then as well as, you know, we were different people when we set those goals and we've probably set them for the wrong reasons, which is would be what a lot of people do because you're just young and you just think you idolize people that are already a decade ahead of you with what they've got and they look like they have it altogether and you analyze the people on instagram and the people on Youtube who looked like they spend their lives flying in private jets and driving lamborghinis or amazing cars wrong with doing that. If you know, if you're, if that's what you want and that's nothing probably prep. Yeah. It's just being more realistic, isn't it? So that you're just not missing out on your life striving for a goal that you don't even necessarily want. Yeah, so I think the big revelation for me was that when we hit that goal a couple of years ago and then I wasn't happy, I thought I would be happy when I achieve financial freedom and I wasn't. And it took us a journey of 18 months, two years to get to where we are now. We feel more comfortable in our lives and in our own skin and in our relationship. Yep. Um, so much of that as well as like really just slowing your life down, isn't it? So if achieving small goals, you've got time to achieve when you've achieved the goal, you can stop, take stock, look around you and then set a new one and you can do that at intervals throughout your life, which I think is so much safer as well. So be on target with what you actually want your life to look like. I liked what you said about how you changed as a person over the decades and one of the problems that I see is that people set the goal based on not, not really knowing what it's going to be like when they get there, but they sent this highly ambitious financial goal to be super wealthy, to have a massive mansion on the beach in Sydney, to have the cars and the lifestyle and everything like that. They set that goal head down, bum up for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, and then they waste all this time in their life, achieve it, and then they realize that stuff didn't make them happy. Anyway. That's my biggest fear is that people will spend all of this time striving for a goal that in the end won't make them happy because you don't actually know until you achieve it, how you're going to feel once you achieve it. Definitely. And that frightens me. Well, it's funny as well, like how uncomfortable it is. I mean when you're setting, when you're setting a goal. I remember talking to her, one of our friends and hate set this big goal and like he was about to achieve it and I was like say like, what are you going to do? Like when you achieve it, like, like there's going to be so sad and he's like, we're just sent another go black. And I was like, oh, that's kind of disappointing. Really. I'm not a gold. That's it. But just thinking about like even just stopping. Like for us, it was so uncomfortable having achieved a goal like people think that it's going to be amazing, but it's really great. It was really quite hard and so challenging to be like, I am aware that I am unhappy. Why am I so unhappy? Like and just really looking around you and deciding, okay, well you've got to find out, well what does make me happy and if it's not the match and then what is it I don't want to get to the end of my life and I'm not even thought about that. Yeah, and I think baseline financial freedom I see as a really good golfer, people because it is achievable in not an extended period of time, so I'm going to happen overnight or within a year, but it'll happen soon enough and it's life changing enough that when you achieve baseline financial freedom, whether it be through the two properties to financial freedom strategy or something else, but when you achieve it, your life has changed to the point where you can then stop. You can then take stock, you can see where you're actually at, and then you can decide what to do next. I feel like people think their financial goals, one goal that they strive to achieve, and then when they achieve it, they just stopped and then that's it. You're done, so you may as well shoot really high because otherwise if you achieve baseline financial freedom, you just going to stop. You're not going to be rich enough for the rest of your life, but that's not how it works at all because once you achieve that baseline financial freedom, then you can decide to go again, which is kind of. We took a couple of years and now we're kind of at that point again where we're pushing a little bit harder to build some more wealth. Our life. Again, I'm always shocked as well that people don't actually think about being financially free. Like I've had conversations with people and the idea of actually getting money for free. Like you're not physically doing light, but for that at a later date isn't even something that they've even considered as a possibility for their lives. So what do they think about? They just think, oh, I've gotta go to work and I'm going to step myself up, but they don't even like even having an investment property, but the investment property just sits there and they're just working really, really hard and like this I realized that he could just like away you can do other things that you've been doing eight and it could be work like there's nothing wrong with going to work. Like we certainly really enjoy and find fulfillment in going to work. We're working right now. That's right. It's just crazy to me that like I just hope that people that watch this, it just can open our eyes a little bit more to just say that there is so much variety and so much choice in how you live your life and that it doesn't have to rely on just going to work. Yeah. And that's why I love the goal of financial freedom and why I always had the goal of financial freedom, not wealth, not a certain amount of money. I think in the early days, in my early twenties or late teens, it was definitely just wanted to be filthy rich. It was about money and about a million dollars or $3, million dollars, $10,000,000, some numbers we lots of zeroes and if it doesn't feel bad bounces, once you achieve it, then you add another zero, but then now being where we are financially free, but not having equity behind us on not having a big pot of cash behind us, you don't actually need the big pot in order to have the financial freedom, which I feel like the financial freedom is the most important part, but everyone searches realize. People don't realize that that is missing important part. They think the pots, the most important. Yeah. The equity and the capital and how much money they have in the bank is the most important part and that's why I still height negatively geared properties. Even though you can make him some money through capital growth is just the fact that it doesn't liberate you. People are making all this money on paper, but it's not impacting their life in any way. Yeah, for sure, and that was one of the things that I come up with Ben Against Ben because he's so analytical and so he can look logically and say, well, this is obviously the best path in the best investment strategy, but then I look socially at people and I say, well, life happens as you're investing. That's divorce happens, job losses happen, sickness happens, and also as we talked about each change as people, all of that stuff happens as you're investing, so to just go into it with a logical mindset and say this is logically the best thing. I prefer to be like, which investment option is going to give me the most options, no matter what life throws at me. So if we go ahead and invest, then what's going to happen if we a divorce,