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I recently saw the film The Gambler, and one scene stood out at me, where John Goodmans character describes his financial philosophy to the main character, played by Mark Wahlberg. Heres that scene, but beware, the language here is very rough and very not safe for work.

Heres the idea Goodmans character presented, reworded into more, eh, polite terminology.

He encourages the main character to earn and carefully save a large sum of money  specifically, two and a half million dollars. You use that money to buy a house with a good roof  not a poorly-built McMansion, but a modest and sturdy home. You buy an economical car with a long lifespan, like a Honda or a Toyota of your particular flavor. Take the rest of the money and invest it in something that returns 3 to 5% per year. If you have $2 million in the bank and earn 5% a year inreturns, youll have $100,000 a year in income. Youll pay 15% of that in taxes  hooray for capital gains  and you have $85,000 a year to live on.

When you have that type of steady income, youre financially independent. You have freedom money (Goodmans character uses a rougher term for it, of course).

What can you do when you have freedom money? If someone wants you to do somethingyou dont want to do, you dont have to do it. If you dont like your boss, you can just walk away from your job and go do something else with your time, so you can be really selective about your work. It becomes your Fortress of Solitude, enabling

 you to be free of many of the day-to-day struggles.

(His only other piece of advice is to stay off alcohol and presumably other addictive substances, as they cloud your judgment and can drain your situation.)

The idea of freedom money, as expressed by Goodman in this film, lines up perfectly with my own views on financial independence. My financial goal is to have freedom money, in other words.

Five Simple Reasons Why Freedom Money Is My Primary Financial Goal

The ability to walk away from a domineering boss and the ability to just avoid doing things you dont want to do are nice, but thats just the start of the story. H

ere are five reasons why I have set freedom money as my major financial goal.

I want to spend my time on things that wont necessarily earn money. Id like to write novels, for example, but theres a good chance that will earn me nothing at all, and my current life affords little devoted time to make it happen.

I want security. I want to know that, aside from a calamity event, things are going to be just fine a week or a month or a year from now. I want to know that my children will have a secure childhood and that we will be there for them as they grow into adulthood.

I want personal flexibility. I look forward to a day where I can just decide togo camping for two weeks, pack up, lock the house, and leave. Professional entan

glements keep that from happening  or at least from happening with maximum enjoyment.

I want to have the time to explore my areas of interest in more than a cursory fashion. There are many, many things Id like to understand on a much deeper level. I do this in the cracks of my current life, but what I really need are large chunks of uninterrupted time. Freedom money gives me that.

I want stability in my golden years. I have witnessed loved ones suffer throughsome very lean times in their final years. Having freedom money means that not onl

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y is that not a worry in my life, it also means that those final years will be good ones for me and my wife.

10 Simple Steps Im Taking to Get There

How are my wife and I going to reach that state of financial independence wherewe have that kind of freedom money? These ten steps are something of a summary ofmy entire financial philosophy, since my end goal has been financial independence for a while. So far, were completely debt free  we own our house without a mortgage  and we have a very healthy start on our saving and investing to reach that level of freedom money.

Here are ten specific steps Sarah and I are taking to reach that point.