If you’d asked me to define financial freedom a year or even two years ago, I would’ve said it’s when your passive and active income are stable enough to “set you up for life.” I would’ve said it’s when you can desire something and buy two of it without going broke.
That was the formula I learned, you know? The whole “if you can’t buy it twice, you can’t afford it” thing. Let’s say you want a Birkin bag, if you can buy two without feeling one heavy financial punch, then technically you can afford it. But if buying two will have you financially limping for months, then no, you can’t afford it.
At first, it honestly didn’t make sense to me. If I can buy one… why should buying two be the litmus test? Why can’t I just buy the one and keep it pushing? I used to think, “Well, if I still have money after buying one, doesn’t that mean I’m not broke?” But here’s the logic that finally clicked for me: buying something once only proves you have enough money today. But being able to buy it twice proves you can absorb the cost without shaking your financial stability. It’s like stress-testing your spending. If buying the second one would tip you over into anxiety, scarcity mode, or recovery mode, then buying the first one is already too close to the edge.
The “buy it twice” rule isn’t about actually buying two, it’s about measuring how deeply a purchase affects your long-term comfort, not just your current account balance. It forces you to separate affordability from impulse and teaches you to think like someone who plans, not someone who survives.
But these days, I find myself slowly waking up to a completely different definition of financial freedom. Or maybe not “completely different,” but definitely deeper. I’m coming into the awareness that financial freedom isn’t just about how much money you have, it’s about how much control you have over it. And that has nothing to do with owning two Birkins.
For me now, financial freedom feels more like understanding, managing, and controlling the inflow and outflow of your income. Whether you’re self-employed or working under someone else, freedom comes from clarity, clarity about how your money comes in and clarity about how it goes out. You can’t be financially free if your income is a mystery to you, or if your expenses are running wild behind your back.
That’s why signing yourself up for a job with a vague salary structure is not financial freedom. You can’t build freedom on uncertainty. If you don’t know what you’re earning, you can’t plan. If you can’t plan, you can’t grow. And if you can’t grow, you’re stuck in that cycle where you’re always earning something… but never enough clarity to feel empowered by it.
And honestly, the sad thing is that these conversations don’t happen enough. So many people trade their financial freedom for “at least I’m getting paid.” They chase the money but lose the autonomy that the whole concept of financial freedom was supposed to give them in the first place. They exchange clarity for security, not realizing that real security actually comes from clarity. They end up with the finances but not the freedom part, and that’s the part that matters most. Because having money is one thing. Knowing your money is another. But having control over your money? That’s the real freedom. And funny enough, it has nothing to do with being able to buy two of anything. It has everything to do with knowing exactly what one purchase, or one job, or one decision, means for your future.
It’s no surprise why most youths are now choosing to become founders/entrepreneurs rather than working for people, because a company with a vague salary structure? Ouuu — tricky!
Dearest gentle reader, I hope in every turn, you choose financial freedom over financial security. Or why chose one, when having freedom can offer you all?