I'm new to Get Rich Slowly and wanted to get a healthy discussion started about financial freedom.

I'm 31 years old and should hit financial freedom this year; financial freedom being defined as my passive income exceeds my monthly bills. It wasn't difficult; it just took determination and a great team. I'm looking forward to a LOT more free time to spend with my wife and daughter!

I see a lot of posts here about paying off debt, which is a good and noble cause. We pay our credit card off every month, and have as little outstanding debt as possible. The debt we have outstanding is all below 5.25%. Why pay that off when we can get 15% returns through investing?

Have a great day!

Thanks for the post.

Request for more details to start the healthy discussion!

I'm also on the quest for financial freedom ... although I'm going the old-fashioned route of working for a big company and hoarding as much money as I can. You could call it the hard way or the easy way, depending on your perspective. I try to keep my savings rate as high as possible but lately I've been looking at cashflow issues too ... so I'm starting to spend money to "make" money. Right now that involves refinancing my rental property so that I won't have to come out-of-pocket every month. (I already learned from that mistake big-time.) Next thing on the agenda is purchasing furniture and other necessary elements to rent out a room in my home. Eventually I'll look at acquiring another property or taxable/dividend investing or P2P lending ... or some combination thereof. It's just very slow with having to wait for a new paycheck to roll in every two weeks. I get impatient because it seems like it's taking forever.

Ask yourself would you borrow a 100k to invest in the market? I hope not! Your current debt is no different. All debt is bad!

The best feeling the world is being debt free!
Retire all debt and build your pile!

RayinPenn, I agree a debt free life can minimize stress but borrowing money to invest isn't inherently wrong. If done correctly through a margin account, it can be a great tool. Obviously most wouldn't engage in the level of borrowing you mention, but a smaller amount for most traders can be beneficial.

Congratulations Ktwolfe!

That is an inspiration to us all.
The idea of financial freedom as the state of having passive income in excess of your bills is a great way of thinking. I used to be troubled by the thought that passive income isn't very secure. But then I realized that a job isn't very secure either and usually has a lot less scope for income expansion too.