Hopefully, by now you know what this site is about. You understand that it’s all about Financial Independence, or how, by making more money and saving a lot of it ,you can create enough passive income to do anything you want with your time.
In other words, this site is about freedom.
You may also have read my About page and found out who the man behind the screen is. In this post I want to go a little deeper and tell you, in the most entertaining way I can fathom, all there is to know about me.
Name: Ricard Torres
I was born in sunny Barcelona, on a hot summer morning – or so I’m told. At age 10, I was sent to an all-English school by my parents, who wanted me to master the international language by default, and thus enjoy any opportunities that life could throw at me. I’m not sure that starting a blog about financial independence was what they had in mind, though…
So at age 18 I left the nest to go to university in Manchester, UK. All by myself. The change in climate was a shock, to say the least!
The chosen degree was Mechanical Engineering. If you flinched a bit, you’re spot on; high dropout rate, lots of maths, and a miserable 90:10 boy to girl ratio.
Despite all that, university was an awesome experience and I subsequently landed a job in a big car manufacturer, which I really enjoyed until around October 2014 – that’s when it all changed.
Paradigm Shift
On a car journey with my girlfriend Harriet, after a particularly monotonous week at work, we got into a very philosophical conversation. It dawned on us that our working lives were going to be very, very long.
We’d be forced to spend the best years of our lives stuck in offices for most of our waking hours. We would only get the weekends and two or three weeks every year to do the things that we loved in life…
She then spoke the words that caused my paradigm shift:
“Is this all there is to life?”
I initially brushed it off, tried to console her and tell her it wasn’t that bad. We still had evenings and weekends to do stuff we enjoyed. Besides everyone did it as well, so we were all together in it! Like a bad situation that was bearable because everyone was stuck in it.
But something didn’t feel right…
I kept thinking and thinking about it. Was I really happy with my life? Was I prepared to just follow the crowd and prioritise what others thought of me to my own happiness? What if I woke up many years down the line and realised I had just wasted my 20s, 30s or 40s?
I then made the decision to change my life. I wanted to do something meaningful with my life and be happy and healthy. It became clear that the only way I could live that way was if I had enough money to live.
Everybody Needs Money
Money was the only reason why I was spending 8 hours a day sat in an office chair, doing work that I wasn’t passionate about. The only reason! If I could find a way to generate money in another way – one which didn’t require my time – I knew it was worth chasing after it.
So I read, read and read. I took it all in. I looked for different ways to make passive income so that I could put in the work first, and then enjoy the residual income for months or years.
It seemed that a lot of people were in one of these two groups:
- Investing in the stock market to live off either dividends or market gains.
- Starting an online business.
In my eyes, each group had its flaws. The problem with the first is that it can take a long time to amass enough money to become financially independent through investing. The problem with the second is that I’m not sure an online business can be considered long-term enough to last you for the rest of your life.
Here’s what I thought; why can’t I take advantage of each of those methods to supercharge my way into financial independence?
Starting an online business around my passion, making it grow and become very successful, and investing the surplus income it generates is the path I’ve chosen. I mean, the potential income is way ,way higher than I could ever hope to earn in an engineering job, regardless of how far I got promoted (goodbye work-life balance!).
Take a look at what some of the A-listers in blogging are making each month in gross income; Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income makes around $150k each month. Michelle from Making Sense of Cents made around $70k last month and does so on a regular basis.
Of course, they have been working at it for years and are excellent at what they do. It might be crazy to think me or you could reach those income levels – and maybe it is – but I’d be thrilled with a tenth of that income!
Imagine earning $10k or $20k each month, and maintaining expenses of around 1 or 2k. You’d save HUGE amounts every month and would achieve financial independence in a few short years. I’m definitely on board with that!
I’m Glad We’ve Caught Up!
So there you have it, people! Now you know more about me, and my journey to financial independence.
At the end of the day, I believe that it’s super important to keep going and never quit. Most people who start businesses quit when they get discouraged, so they never get to experience what their future success would look like.
I’m determined not to quit – and if I look like I’m about to quit, you all have permission to be mean to me and get my act together 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Did you have an “aha” moment yourself regarding working life and freedom? Let me know with a comment below!
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