One of my earliest money lessons came while I was sitting in a K-Mart cafeteria. I was 16 years old and was on a lunch break, eating something I’d just bought from the in-store restaurant. At the time I was making $4.25 per hour, which was minimum wage at that time.

Whatever I’d bought for lunch must have cost about $4.25 because I had thought ‘I just traded an hour of my life for this food.’  I wasn’t upset or bothered. It was just an interesting factoid. But the idea of looking at the cost of an item in terms of time has always stuck with me.

And now I’ve turned that idea into a time currency calculator.

It was during the darkest year of my life when I discovered the FIRE movement and learned about financial independence. I learned about it from a blog post titled The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement written by a guy that was calling himself Mr. Money Mustache.  That article resonated with me like few things ever have. Something inside of me clicked and it’s not an exaggeration to say that my life hasn’t been the same ever since.

I’d just found something that would help me go from broke and unemployed to financially independent in about 13 years. I’ll retire early when I’m 49 years old, all because I learned about one simple concept called Financial Independence.  And just like we tell our friends and family whenever we find a great new restaurant, or find a binge-worthy show on Netflix, I want EVERYONE to know about financial independence.

If you’re like most people, financial independence is your ultimate financial goal.  The road to a financially care-free lifestyle requires planning and dedication and even a bit of luck.  But you may need to fix your finances today, before you can plan for a financially secure tomorrow.

The first draft of this post was about the financial challenges my wife and I face while raising our family of six on a single income. But something about that draft didn’t feel quite right. I was taking the same approach so many others do when discussing this topic. I focused too much on money and not enough on the other sacrifices that get made.