Your 5 Step Plan to Financial Freedom

You may have heard the expression ‘Energy flows where focus goes’? Well if so, and you have DECIDED that it’s time for you to get intentional about creating financial freedom, read on as in this blog post, I will be sharing my 5 step framework to do just that.

Firstly, take a moment to decide what financial freedom looks like for you, because everyone's version of success is meant to be personal and different for each of us. It will be influenced by our values, our passions and our goals. 

Maybe you want to eliminate your financial commitments, so you have more disposable cash to travel when you want to. Maybe you want to have more freedom of choice, which is ultimately what financial freedom creates. Maybe you want to work minimal hours, only on the projects that bring you joy and maybe you don't want to work at all. Maybe you want to create a financial legacy for your family and children, that supports them long after you have gone. Maybe you want to invest in charitable causes that are close to your heart, and impact change at a bigger level? 

Take a moment to reflect on this, ideally with anyone that has a stakehold in your future and financial wellbeing - i.e. partners and children. 

Underpinning every stage of this framework however is the need to uplevel, challenge, and evolve your mindset and belief systems about money. (Sorry there are no hacks to financial freedom, it’s a conditional process of evolution and that’s a GOOD thing!). If you fail to commit to this part of the process, you will easily fall back into old habits and patterns of behaviour with money. My Mum always loved the saying 'If you always do what you always did, you will always get, what you always got', for this reason. If you would like help with unlearning these behaviours, and programming your money mindset for success, my Money Course is a great tool to help you do this. 

So without further ado, let’s dive in:

STEP 1 - SAFETY SAVINGS

What is an amount of money that will enable you to:

💸Feel safe knowing that if you had that amount in the bank, that you could cover most unexpected expenses without having to resort to bouncing other bills, borrowing it from high interest lenders or compromising yourself in any way to pay it?
💸Be pretty proud of yourself and empowered, knowing that you are creating a solid financial foundation to build your business and life on?
💸Wouldn’t feel tempted to dip into it or need it for anything else? You can release and forget this money, with the intention that you probably won’t ever need it?

I’ve chosen £1000 as a suggestion, as 46% of people in the UK don’t have it, and as a business owner, with unlimited earning potential (yes even in a cost of living crisis) you can bank this in a relatively short period of time. Women are even less likely to have this amount saved, due to so many contributing factors, such as more financial commitments (especially as single parents), competing priorities and less time to work. 

Your number will be dependant on you, your needs and your goals however so decide a number that is a bit of a stretch but isn’t going to take 10 years to achieve.

We want to stack a ‘win’ as soon as possible, to build upon in the following steps 🔥

If you want inspiration as to how you can generate an extra £1000 THIS MONTH, inside and outside of your business, download my free Wealthy Woman Savings Challenge Tracker here. 

STEP 2 - PAY DOWN YOUR HIGH INTEREST DEBTS

Not all debt is created equal. Leveraging low interest debt such as mortgages, to purchase income producing assets (such as rental properties) is a great way to make money work for you. High interest debts however are the devil, as they often charge you THOUSANDS in interest, make you feel completely overwhelmed, and continually move the goal post, so it can take years to pay off. 

It's easy to coast along, paying your expected monthly repayments, when you have high interest debts. You resign yourself to the fact it will take you years to clear and you carry on living your life. The reality is, however 'doing your time' will be costing you THOUSANDS in additional interest payments, and these loan providers actually count on the fact that you wont make an effort to repay them early! 

In 2008 I was £30k in debt, thanks to loosing my job, my housemate bailing, and my mortgage payments quadrupling. My house was also £100k in negative equity and my mental health was spiralling (thank you property crash 2008). £30k to me at the time was almost an entire year's salary!

The reality is, we are all only a series of unfortunate events away from needing high-interest loans (which are typically anything that charges you 10% interest or above) and there is no shame in needing help. They could include: 

💸Car Loans

💸Short-Term (Pay Day) Loans 

💸High Interest Credit Cards 

As an Entrepreneur, it's even harder to shift debt, without a regular stable income to rely on to budget within. This is why it's my soul's mission to support women to create sustainable, financial freedom, so they can live life on their own terms - because when good women, make good money, the world becomes a better place! There are two approaches you can take, to paying off these debts as quickly as possible: 

 After checking the interest rates for each provider, and the current balance, you can either: 

➡️Focus on clearing the debt with the highest interest rate first, and then move onto the next one once this is cleared. 

➡️Focus on 'stacking your wins' by choosing the loan provider with the SMALLEST balance, so that you can pay it off quicker. Use that mini-win to then pay the next loan in your list using the additional money that you would have paid to the first provider. 

This was my preferred method, as I was literally drowning, and needed those quick wins to keep me feeling like I was moving forwards, even though the mountain was still very big to climb. 

In total I had around £30k of debts, which equated to nearly an entire years salary at the time and not only did I pay off in full, my house also returned to positive equity, and I eventually went on to sell it for a significant six figure profit.

I used this profit to purchase my first business outright.  

The moral of the story - Financial Freedom takes time, but it is possible when you focus on one step after the other. 

I share more about this journey in my new Podcast Episode, that you can: 

Watch here

Listen to here 

Disclaimer - I am not a Financial Advisor, but a seasoned Entrepreneur and Money Mentor, who has been through more than a few financial setbacks, and wants to see you win. 

Because when good women, make good money, the world becomes a better place!

Once you have cleared your high-interest debts, you can move on to:

STEP 3 - CREATING AN EMERGENCY SAVINGS FUND

Most money mentors will not tell you to create an emergency savings fund, because you are putting energy into the very thing that you DON'T want to manifest - an emergency. They will also tell you that there is always more money that you can make, and that the Universe will provide for you if the worst should happen. Both opinions are true, hoever as a seasoned Entrepreneur, who has been through a global pandemic, I will tell you that creating an Emergency Savings fund is a must. 

The reality is, life IS gonna happen, and as an Entrepreneur you don’t have the luxury of paid annual leave or sick pay (like I did when when my Mum unexpectedly had a stroke and I became unemployable over night) to fall back on. 

Yes you have the flexibility as a business owner to pull back on your business output when you need to (like when you are about to birth your sixth human), but there is nothing like knowing that your living standards don’t have to drop in the meantime 🔥

This approach is what supported me through COVID, being a single parent, bad investments, failed business partnerships and more over the years.

An emergency savings fund is enough money that will support 3 months of living & operating expenses in the case of an emergency or life event (such as baby number 6!) so that you can still live your best life.

What is this number for you?

Not just your basic costs, but an amount that will still allow you to live a full and expansive life, so that you can continue to create from abundance, as opposed to scarcity. When you budget, restrict and live in lack, you attract more reasons to experience lack, like unexpected bills. I am convinced that this is where the expression 'when it rains, it pours' comes from!. 

Once you have ammended your savings challenge tracker, allocate the money that you are saving into a high interest savings account or low-risk investment portfolio, so you can also benefit from compound interest & capital gains. 

And that number will be personal to you so don’t feel the pressure of making this a never ending goal. If you have followed step 1 and 2, you should have a lot more disposable cash anyways, so this will come together quicker than you think!

The intention is, that you will never need to use this fund, but knowing it is there (and accruing more money in the meantime) is a gamechanger in feeling safe and secure in your financial needs. 

STEP 4 - PAYING DOWN LOW-INTEREST DEBTS

As mentioned above, not all debt is equal. If your debt is low interest, paying it down might not be a priority for you, especially if you have a 0% interest credit card that is rewarding you with purchase protection benefits, cashback or airmiles for example. You also might have a mortgage that is relatively low interest, and paying it down is not a priority for you because you want to release equity to finance the deal of a second property that can MAKE you money. If this is your situation, skip to stage 5, with a little whoop whoop from me.

I had this dilemma while building my property empire in my 20s, where I started to pay my mortgage down through overpayments, putting all my expenses on 0% credit cards and by leveraging an offset mortgage. I had gotten the balance down to well under 100k and I thought I was essentially winning the financial game. That was, until I realised that if I actually remortgaged my house, and borrowed more money to buy a second property, I could make more money in the long run. This allowed me to replace one of my second jobs with an additional stream of rental income. I had 3 jobs at the time, as I didn't yet have children, and the physical stress was taking it's toll. 

If however, you want to reduce your financial commitments and monthly outgoings, because having disposable cash and less pressure is a priority for you, then paying these down is a must. 

STEP 5 - MAXING OUT YOUR INVESTMENTS & PENSIONS TO PAY YOUR FUTURE SELF

I always tell my clients in business, whatever is working - do more of that. Step 5 is just a reinforcement of that. If you have more disposable cash than ever, you need to ensure that you are maximising the money that you are paying your future self. This could be through investments that will mature over time, increasing your networth steadily, or investing into your future retirements funds and pensions. Yes, as an Entreptreneur, you don't need to 'retire' as such, but chances are, as you simplify your life you wont want to work as much in the future. What is the point of spending so long building your future, if you don't actually get to enjoy it.

As mentioned, I am not a Financial Advisor, so there may be other strategies that would make more sense for you in this season of your journey. Your financial fastrack is personal to you and may have different steps, which is why I encourage you to sit down Today and create your own 5-step plan. It could just be the next 5 things that you want to pay off, but having it written down in an easy to follow plan, will make you 60% more likely to achieve it. 

It also keeps your goals front of mind, and gives you a great reference point to leverage when you are making financial and business decisions and investments along the way. Do they move you closer or further away from your goals? I always have my next 5 steps written down in a 'tickoffable' way in the front of every new journal or planner, so that I know that I am slowly, but surely, always moving forwards. 

As a self-confessed reformed Self-Sabotage Queen, this has been a massive part of accelerating my growth, and ensuring that I don't continue to repeat past mistakes. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post, please let me know in the comments what financial freedom means to you: