Most people chase income. Very few design freedom. If you want to retire early or simply live life on your own terms, you need to know your financial freedom score.
Your financial freedom score comes down to two numbers:
• Runway: How many months you can live if your income stops today
- Freedom Fund: How much money you need invested so you never have to work for money again
One tells you how much time you have. The other tells you what it takes to be free forever. Freedom is not about earning more, it is about knowing what is enough and making that enough work for you.
Rich, but not free
I was in my late 30s, doing well in my job. The kind of “well” that would have made my 25-year-old self-stare in disbelief. Career-wise, I had it all—promotions, pay cheques, recognition.
My lifestyle reflected it too—travelling, shopping, dining out without even glancing at the right-hand price column. By every measure, I looked successful. People would look at me and say “She has made it.”
And yet I did not feel free. There was a constant thought in the background: Is this really enough? What if it all stopped tomorrow? How long could I last?
I had money, but I did not have clarity and without clarity, money feels uncertain. It is strange, isn’t it? You can be celebrated at work, ticking every box and still feel like a financial impostor—successful on the outside, uncertain on the inside. That was me. Not broke. Not careless. But I had no idea what my freedom number was. And that ignorance was expensive—not in money, but in peace.
You can be rich in income and still poor in peace, if you do not know your “enough”.
I remember one evening vividly. It was after a long day of back-to-back meetings with my inbox still buzzing and my head pounding. I logged into my bank account and saw the numbers staring back at me. It looked like a lot, but instead of pride I felt uneasy. Was it enough? Was I one year away from freedom? Ten? Or nowhere close? I simply did not know.
That is when it hit me: The real trap is not lack of money The real trap is not knowing how much is enough. Because when you don’t know your number, you don’t know your direction. You just keep running.
That night, I stopped thinking in terms of income or net worth. I shifted to a far more decisive question: Can my life sustain itself without me?
That question changes everything. Because it forces you to confront two realities:
• How long you can survive without income
• How close you are to never needing it again
And once you see that clearly, money stops being a chase and starts becoming a plan.
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How I got off the treadmill
That is when I finally sat down with a pen, paper, a calculator and complete honesty to work out my number. And something shifted. I realized I had been running without direction, believing that “more” was the only answer. It was both humbling and liberating. For the first time, I had a target. I did not need infinite. I did not need to compare myself with anyone else. I just needed to reach my number. And the moment I knew it, the fog lifted.
The treadmill slowed. I could breathe again.
Wealth without a number is a treadmill. Wealth with a number is direction.
This excerpt from ‘Money Karma’ by Moona Ssahni has been published with permission from Om Books International.