5 Unusual Ways To Accelerate Your Financial Independence

5 unusual ways to accelerate your financial independence

I was having a chat with my wife, Mary, recently and we were talking about the things we’ve done on this journey to financial independence that has worked for us. 

We carried on that conversation and explored what we would do differently, had we started this journey again. 

I’m going to share with you five unusual tips for accelerating your progress towards financial independence.

One thing I know for sure is that the journey to financial independence requires boldness.

It requires you to do things in an unusual way to the way that most people would do it. 

Especially at this very time when most of the world face a time of uncertainty.

So, I would encourage you wherever possible in your life, to begin applying some of these ideas and taking bold steps in helping you work towards that journey of financial independence. 

Although most people right now are focusing on protecting what they have, the people who will forge ahead will be making radically different decisions now.

Let’s dive straight in and explore these unusual tips.

We’ve kept these pretty varied by the way. 

5 Unusual Ways To Accelerate Your Financial Independence

1. Choose Where You Live Carefully

The first one is that you should choose where you live carefully, that’s the first step. 

Have you seen our video on how we paid off our mortgage in seven years ?

Part of the reason why that was even a possibility was that we chose to live in an area that was a lot cheaper relative to a major city like London, for example. 

I worked in London and made money in London, but then I used that money made in London to pay off a cheaper house in a cheaper area. 

We had an arbitrage there in effect.

The other point about choosing a place you live very carefully is that this dictates how much you take on from a debt perspective. 

A lot of us get carried away with buying a house, we get so emotional.

We’re like, “Oh, my dream house, I want this dream thing”. 

And then you buy the house that is far too expensive for you. 

Then you live in it, shackled to the debt and unable to pay it off.

I know people who at this very moment have given up on trying to pay off their mortgage.

They’ve become accustomed to having a mortgage as a part of their lives pretty much forever! 

I can tell you, choosing a place that’s cheaper relative to where you make your income makes a huge difference because paying off that mortgage becomes a practical reality.

You should note down some of the ideas I shared in that video, explore it, and begin applying them.

Paying off your mortgage is, of course, important because the minute that mortgage is out of the way, your costs drop massively such that, the income you generate from your assets would then exceed, the cost you have left, and you become financially independent. 

So, paying off your mortgage, especially in this climate is a top tip, one that I recommend, and I’ve always recommended even due low interest rates.

It’s one that’s counter-cultural because the usual advice is typically to invest only through the stock market.

Whereas we have always seen the benefit in overpaying and getting rid of that mortgage over time. 

2. Create Your Own Audience

We have an audience on YouTube (over 20,000 subscribers) and this audience started back in June of 2019.

It has just grown and grown.

Thank you, by the way if you have subscribed to our channel, watched and liked our videos. 

Now, aside from that audience, we also have an audience on this blog (30,000+ per month), and we have an email list of more than 10,000 people.

All in 2.5 years and with a commitment of 2 hours per day, 7 days per week. 

I now do this full time, having taken a leap from my 6-figure job recently to have more fun doing what I love 😊.

The beauty of creating an audience is that you can over time by delivering value, start getting paid by that audience, either directly or indirectly. 

The metric for an email list is that you should be looking to generate on average, about $2 per subscriber per month.

I’m just putting that out there just so you can have an idea.

Now I’m mentioning building an audience because I know it’s something that absolutely everyone can work towards doing in their own lives as well.

It might sound complicated, but it’s quite easy. 

The minute you realise that the way you build an audience is by 

• being yourself
• sharing really useful information
• being consistent

If you do all those things over a period of time, you gradually build trust, likability and an audience. 

Now from a monetary perspective, building an audience can massively accelerate your journey towards financial independence, because you’ll find different ways to get paid by that audience. 

A practical example with our email list of more than 10,000 people is this…

Without even making money from any of our subscribers, we could approach brands who might pay for a slot within our emails that we send out in our newsletters every week. 

You could do exactly the same thing too.

Brands can pay anything between £200 to £300 per email that you send out to your email list because brands want access to a particular type of audience. 

Provided you like that brand and support their products, you can see a way in which you can start to generate some really good passive income simply through your email list without actually doing anything. 

We find ourselves generating hundreds from this idea of email marketing.

That’s just one way. There are so many other ways. 

Another example, every single month, we receive an income from YouTube because we deliver value.

And by doing that when people watch our videos, we get paid an income. 

The other thing I wanted to mention, is that we launched a product not too long ago and we had one of our best days from an income perspective. 

This would not have been possible at all without actually having an audience that loves what you do and delivering value to them.

They, therefore, pay you over a period of time, almost like crowdfund. 

Think of it that way.

You’re essentially getting crowdfunded efforts from lots of different places by you delivering specific value to people in different ways.

You know, I’ve never really talked about this, but I’ve just put it out there, that launch generated in a day, actually, less than a day, a really good five-figure income. 

So you can imagine, you know, waking up one day, launching a product and ending the day

“Wow, I’ve just just made a five-figure sum” 

The only reason that’s possible is because we’ve employed creativity, we’ve delivered value and over time by building an audience, we get paid by that audience.

So you can see that is definitely a huge incentive for exploring building an audience as a way to accelerate your journey towards financial independence. 

3. Invest in Unconventional Assets

So typically, we will talk about investing through the stock market.

And yes, you should invest in the stock market. Potentially, you might want to invest in property too, although it’s not for everyone. 

But what I love are unconventional asset classes, things that really can completely blow your mind if you get it right. 

Especially if you surround yourself with the right type of people to offer you the correct type of advice on how to do this. 

An example is I talk about blogging, and a lot of people don’t understand the power that it carries and the potential it has for really changing your financial life. 

I mentioned earlier, that we’ve generated a decent amount of money from launching a product.

The one thing I know for certain is that the product would not have happened had we not actually started a blog. 

So I recommend massively that everybody explores this idea of unconventional assets.

It doesn’t even have to be blogging and could be anything else.

For example, you could explore starting a YouTube channel, selling on eBay and things like that. 

Ideas that could essentially generate you money beyond what you might conventionally generate through your day job. 

The reason why these unconventional assets, particularly the ones online, is that you can leverage the power of the internet.

One that does not have a maximum upside.

You do have to put in a lot of work and I want to stress that particular point. But I did it with 2 hours per day everyday!

Note also that you might not make anything in six months or even make anything in one year. 

But the key is to just remain at it, stay patient.

Keep sowing those seeds and over time, you find this compounding machine taking off and the thing that you’ve been working on for so long, suddenly starting to generate you an income.

You should look into a way in which you can explore investing some of your time, and maybe a couple of pounds, £5, £10 a month, or whatever amount is financially suitable, into starting your own blog.

Check that out as a possible way in which you can take this unconventional step towards generating some extra money for yourself on the side. 

4. Choose Your Life Partner Carefully

So the next one’s slightly unusual, and it’s that you should marry wisely.

I appreciate that there are many people in our audience are single, not married or who are still to get married and divorced.

I completely get that. 

But my point here really should hopefully appeal to some people, which is that it’s very important to have the right partner together on that journey with you. 

Because if you choose the wrong partner on this journey, life could get very, very difficult and frustrating.

Your partner might not be interested in this idea of becoming financially independent. 

Now, I mentioned this because, I’ve got my life partner, Mary and this journey for us in the last 10 years has been absolutely amazing because we’ve been on the same page. 

This is a picture of us in the park somewhere about nine years ago.

Planning our lives and working towards this idea of designing a life that works for us. 

The results you see today began a decade ago!

So I’m throwing this out there as a way to accelerate your journey to financial independence.

If you’re somebody who perhaps hasn’t gotten married or if you’re somebody who’s still in a relationship and working towards having a life partner. 

It’s very important you have these conversations now because if you get it right at the very beginning and set off on that journey with the right person, you will most certainly accelerate that journey towards financial independence.

There will be no frustrations and you will know exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

And you will achieve it even faster by being on the same page. 

5. Turn Your Home Into An Asset

If you own a home now or renting somewhere, chances are that house or that flat is costing you a lot more money than it is making you money. 

Now, a good way to accelerate your journey towards financial independence is to ask yourself –

How can I use this current space I’ve got, to turn it into something that can generate me money on an ongoing basis. 

It might be that you have a spare room and you might want to bring in a lodger and generate an income. 

At the back of my house where we have a small garden building where I used to dump things we had collected over time.

And we just thought, we’re going to turn this into a really valuable space, we cleared everything out through a process of decluttering. 

And we’ve turned it into this nice, airy space where I can come in without my kids screaming or anything like that. I can just film and generate an income by doing things I’m passionate about. 

Here is our big reveal of our studio space:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Humble Penny® (@thehumblepenny)

You might not have a space like mine and might just have a corner in your room.

I’d say use that space, find a way to utilise that little corner.

When I film my YouTube videos, I’m usually using just a corner of the above room.

I have got enough space to look at the camera.

Here I create all kinds of content – I do Facebook Lives, write blog posts, I offer coaching and I speak to brands all from this space in our garden building.

So you can see the idea is using what you have in your hands and using it to your advantage.

And before you know it, you find that your home is making you a ton more money than you pay out towards your rent or your mortgage. 

In conclusion,

This is all a bit of a mindset shift, but there are many options that you can get involved with today.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these various steps to accelerate your journey towards financial independence. 

I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

How are you finding your journey towards financial independence? Are you seeing some progress on your way forward rather than backwards? 

What To Read Next>>

• Why Your Lack of Consistency Is Keeping You Poor
• 10 Things I Did Differently To Become Financially Independent
• The Not So Simple Path To Financial Independence

What is the challenge you’re having right now, in making a goal like financial independence, a real one in your life? Please comment below.

Do please share this post if you found it useful, and remember, in all things be thankful and Seek Joy.