Fuck You Money is the level of security you need, in order for you to be able to tell anyone to ‘fuck you’ without it having a direct impact on your earning potential or what you want to do in life.
Granted, this rule is never absolute – there will always be people who you can’t, or indeed don’t want to, tell to ‘fuck you’.
Close friends and family should probably be excluded from this rule (with a few exceptions, depending on the circumstances) along with the taxman, police officers, and judges – but the premise remains firm.
Ultimate freedom is the ability to wake up every morning and tell the World to ‘fuck you’ – you’re doing what you want that day, and every day thereafter, and there’s nothing and noone that can stop you from doing that.
It’s probably explained best by John Goodman in the film ‘The gambler’:
As eloquent as ever.
Why work all the hours god sends, for big money, a big house, a garage full of fancy cars, when you’re still in a position where you HAVE to answer to someone, whether it be your boss, the bank manager, customers, clients, a regulatory body, whatever.
You’re still in a position where, if you don’t turn in to work, if you consistently avoid their calls, if you miss a meeting, or if you outright tell that important someone to ‘fuck you’ – your World as you know it will come tumbling down.
You have no power, you’re a puppet to someone else, maybe several people – and they ultimately still control your destiny.
To me, money in this scenario is worthless (unless you are investing it in something that can eventually earn you freedom from your current position of powerlessness). And be careful here, because a lot of ‘investments’ you make, can still rob you of the ultimate reward in life – freedom.
Money is only useful insofar as it can create freedom.
Despite what a lot of people may think, money is not the ultimate goal. Money is a facilitator to the ultimate goal.
Even seemingly wholly materialistic goals, like earning enough money to buy a Lamborghini, is based around freedom – the freedom to be able to buy a Lamborghini, should you wish.
This is freedom most people will never feel.
And by the way, if you’re ever fortunate enough to gain this freedom of choice – please choose to NOT buy the Lamborghini. Or I strongly suspect your feeling of freedom will be short-lived, as the payments, the depreciation, the fuel, the maintenance, the insurance, the fact you’ll still be stuck in that same traffic jam the guy in the Ford Fiesta is stuck in, the unwanted attention and jealousy, will soon bring about buyer’s remorse.
So what amount of money is ‘Fuck You Money’?
It’s not actually as much as you might think.
See freedom and income are not in any way relative to one another – you don’t need a great deal of income to achieve absolute freedom in your life.
Ask the top CEOs in the World how free their lives are – with constant scrutiny from the media, the public, boards of Directors, shareholders, and other stakeholders – and I guarantee, relative to the income they receive – even though it may be in the millions – they are earning less freedom per dollar or pound earned than most people.
Earning big bucks isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.
Unless you’re earning big bucks in ‘fuck you’ money.
But here’s the great thing – the exchange value from regular currency to GB’FUCKYOU’P is extraordinary – if you engineer your life, your income, and your responsibilities properly, each GB’FUCKYOU’P can be worth 10, 20, even 100 times more than any regular GBP you earn.
How much ‘fuck you money’ you need depends on you, and your personal goals and needs at this point in time – and ensuring you see these clearly.
I’m talking re-assessing every single outgoing you have – that car you have on finance, those big mortgage repayments, all those gifts you buy on special occasions like Christmas, those designer clothes you wear, all that alcohol you drink (just to damage your health and feel shitty the following day), the cigarettes you smoke, right down to the god-damn toilet paper you use. Assess every £ you are regularly spending, and whether it’s contributing towards earning your freedom, or whether it’s actually keeping you trapped.
And here’s the biggest key to releasing your freedom – leave your ego and your ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ mentality at the door.
Do you think you’re really driving around in that fancy car, wearing those designer jeans, living in that obscenely huge house that’s well beyond necessity, purely for your own satisfaction, and it’s not in any way related to how you like to see yourself being perceived by others?
Fuck off. Get real.
Don’t live life for other people, and certainly don’t trade freedom to feed your ego. If it’s not absolutely necessary, or aligned with your own goals (peer pressure, competition, and ego aside), don’t do it. Don’t trade your hard earned GBP for all this bullshit, convert it to GB’FUCKYOU’P instead.
‘Fuck You’ is the only currency I want to be dealing in – because it’s the only currency that buys freedom. If I’m getting paid in anything but GB’FUCKYOU’P I’m channelling as much of that regular currency into something that will eventually be, or is, generating GB’FUCKYOU’P.
So what is ‘Fuck You Money’ and how can I earn some?
For me, the epitome of Fuck You Money is passive income.
In other words, income you earn each day whether you choose to get out of bed, or not.
Once you’ve done the above, and removed any outgoing that isn’t directed towards achieving your own goals, you should be directing every GBP saved in doing this exercise, into passive income sources that can in-turn supply you with ‘Fuck You Money’ – the holy grail.
I have a ‘passive income challenge‘ going on right now, and that article will help you to understand what passive income is, and provide some ideas for how you can start to generate your own passive income.
I’ll soon be posting an update on my progress with the passive income challenges that I set for myself, and I have some very interesting results to show – so stay tuned to my blog for this.