Time to start my move to freedom.
You may be asking yourself, where to or from where? The answer is neither. Freedom is the place we all seek to have the ultimate control and complete balance in our lives. The balance of work and life that is. We are all striving to improve ourselves in hopes of moving up the next rung on the company ladder, by putting extra time into our education and our places of work. But there comes a time when you won't have control of your future at your current place of employment. You've put in the time and shown others how you can make things and people better. You've put your soul into the company, only to be stopped by the company. By the 'company' I mean your management chain. Have you ever worked in a place where the sections of management above you are so disconnected that their reality and your reality will never connect and that the only way of moving up is to wait for one of them to retire? Then what? You'll have to still compete and break into the management cirlce. If your opinions and ideas or work ethics aren't the same you could work you butt off and it won't matter. They will select someone who is one of them.
So I have some options:
1.)
Find a new job at the next rung of the ladder. This posses the same risks as the current job. In addition you would have to spend a large amount of time learning the new company and possibly the industry. Now your work & life balance is all out of wack. At my current job I'm in the know but just not in the 'approved' crowed. I can get work done quickly with little effort. So This first option has many downsides for me.
2.)
Find a new spot in the company. This is better than the first, yet I would still face the learning curve for a short period of time and would have to work harder to impress the 'new' boss. My current company, which has less than 500 employees, has very tight click of Senior management/executives so the upward barrier is still there.
3.)
I could try to invent something. This would take an enourmous amount of time and capital to really succed.
4.)
I could quit and start my own business. The idea sounds good but you actually end up working all of the time and have little time for the family. My uncle used to own a resturant and he and his family worked like migrant farm workers. Not my idea of freedom.
So those were the only options that would come to me. I was thinking there has to be a better way. So I applied my work capabilities, Computer Science background, to work up a potentual solution. I'm big into process improvement, not just code, more on the people and how they use the tools they have to get work done. I was thinking how could I do some form of 'work' where I could make money to pay for my bills and medical expenses for my family? The medical insurance is what keeps me from option #4 now, since my wife is diabetic. In addition, what kind of work can I do that I would enjoy and get good at quickly to get the true Freedom? Then it came to me... let my money do the work for me.
So you're probbaly asking yourself don't you need lots of money to make enough interest off of to live? Yes, you're right. So the key is how can I turn what I have into enough to live off of? Well, I'm fortunate to have been able to get a bonus this past year at my current job bad have about 10k in my Roth IRA and decided to borrow 5k against my company 401K. Now you're proabaly thinking it's a bad idea to borrow from your 401K, well not totaly. As long as you don't lower your contribution you should be ok. In addition my choices to invest in my 401K are horible!
Ok so I have the idea and some starter capital so what is the game plan?
Find some sound stock picks and get in and out of them with a target profit of %5. I ran the numbers and if I can stay disciplened and make the right picks then in about 2 years I can quit my job and have completed my flight to freedom.
So this will be my story of how I've taken the leap of faith in myself and start my flight to freedom.
