What's Your Financial Freedom Number?

What is the number that will allow you to be debt free and achieve your financial goals?

The other day I found myself "dream shopping" on Costco.com. I was browsing the furniture section to see how much it would cost to completely furnish a 3 bedroom home with an office and outdoor patio area. To furnish my "dream home" would cost me about $20,000. (Although, in reality I am a bargain shopper and would probably spend closer to $12,000-$15,000 on the same or similar furniture).

This then led me to figure out how much of a down payment we would need to put at least 10% down on a home and to keep reasonable monthly mortgage payments. So based on average home prices here in Hawaii and what we would have in mind for our first home, we need about $42,500 for a down payment.

But of course, before we can begin to save for a home we need to have all of our debts paid off and a 3-6 months fully funded Emergency Fund. So if I add up all of these numbers and round up we need a total of $200,000 to get us to this place.

This number sounds outrageous...however now that we know how much money it'll take to get us to that place of feeling financial freedom and accomplishing a major life goal of owning our own home, we can set-up our financial plan to help us achieve this goal.

This now puts in to focus how much income we need to be able to achieve this goal in a reasonable amount of time. I already have my cards in play with going for my Masters Degree which will allow me more opportunities to earn more income and reach my goals.

So our number is $200,000! What's your number? 

You can't get to where you want to be, 

if you don't know where you are going!