Welcome to Pathway to FI (Financial Independence)!
If you are looking to significantly improve your financial situation while enjoying your life, you have come to the right place. This website will provide you with the knowledge and confidence you need to save more, invest wisely, and build your best life no matter where you are on your financial journey.
The Pathway to FI framework consists of four financial stages—Trailhead, Ascent, Summit, and Descent—and a fifth category, the Pathway. To help you navigate this website, its content has been organized according to these categories, which you can select from by clicking the corresponding image or heading below.
1. trailhead
In this stage, you are making preparations and charting your course to FI. This includes activities such as getting out of debt, building a low level of savings for bumps along the path, getting expenses under control, and establishing a stronger income in your business or career. There are great experiences beyond the Trailhead, so you won’t want to stay here long. But that is precisely what many people do. In fact, so many people spend most of their lives at the Trailhead that much of mainstream financial literature has been written about this stage. Pathway to FI, therefore, does not focus as much on Stage 1, but provides enough resources and guidance to get you started and quickly moving to Stage 2.
2. ascent
In this stage, your net worth is really climbing. Your career and income are more established, your debt is under control, and you are building your savings and investing in assets that are growing and producing their own income, which can be reinvested for even faster growth. As your investments climb higher and higher, you are now at a vantage point where the Summit is coming into view and seeming more achievable every step of the way. This is an exciting place on your financial journey, and the more you learn the more your confidence will grow in your ability to reach financial independence faster than you ever thought possible.
3. summit
In this stage, you are above the tree line and can see limitless possibilities for the future. You are steps away or have already reached financial independence and have the ultimate privilege to choose whether or not to continue to work for pay. Your financial priorities can shift now from accumulation to preservation of wealth as you prepare for the Descent, where for the first time you will begin to draw from your investments and use the money to fund the dreams that you have been planning for all along the path. However, there is no rush to leave the Summit. Soak it in and stay as long as you want.
4. Descent
In this stage, the most strenuous part of the journey is over. You have climbed the Pathway to FI, reached the Summit, and can enjoy the beautiful Descent, pointing the way to others as you encounter them on the way down. Your investments are covering your expenses, and you are living your best life, able to do things that you never had time for during earlier stages of life. Your financial challenges are split between ensuring that your money lasts for the rest of your life and that enough remains to carry on your legacy.
the pathway
The Pathway intersects all four stages of FI. It includes topics that are relevant no matter where you are on your financial journey such as lifestyle, psychology, health, happiness, relationships, and time. Many of these universal topics comprise the real reason that we pursue FI in the first place. Others, such as tax and investment fundamentals, are simply part of the financial world that we live in, and a working knowledge of them can help us reach FI faster or with more certainty. These topics are woven into two or more or the stages above. Pathway topics can also be accessed separately.
Which stage are you in?
You may be best served by starting with your current stage. When you are ready, you will also benefit from reading ahead to prepare for the next stage, particularly if you are reaching the Summit and planning to quickly transition to the Descent (for instance, if you are within 5 years of retirement).
Click here if you just want to read the most recent articles regardless of where they fall in the Pathway to FI framework.
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