by dhirendra kumar many people ask for different kinds of financial advice sometimes it is about inputs i have a certain amount of money what should i do with it sometimes it is about outputs i need a certain amount in five years so what do i need to do to ensure that this happens sometimes it combines both all these entail wellestablished and sensible ways of finding solutions however theres one request that is really hard to respond to and this has to do with financial independence it may appear to be a vague term but signifies roughly similar things to different people this is not having to worry about money everit is a common enough dream since the daily grind of earning dominates our lives a permanent relief from this is the freedom that most of us desire of course there are many degrees of financial freedom and the highest is not having to work to earn for the rest of your life then again there are many who do not have to work there are those with large inheritances and those whose burden we taxpayers are committed to carrying all our lives however it takes most of us our entire working lives to reach that stage if at all we reach itthe fact is that if we save and invest with a modicum of planning lesser degrees of financial freedom can be achieved earlier in life and can be just as rewarding for salaried people achieving even a mild degree of financial freedom early in life is more important now than it was a decade or two ago india is clearly passing through a job crisis there are a number of people among the urban middleclass who have suddenly lost their jobs youngsters are finding it difficult to find jobs or are forced to accept lowquality employment middlelevel executives are being shunted out of employment because employers think they can be replaced at a lower costthis widespread crisis in personal financial confidence is different from the way things were a few years ago most salaried people were confident in their jobs and sure of frequent increments either in their current jobs or better ones they may not have had actual financial freedom but effectively felt like they did one cant really say when the employment situation will change for the better however those of us who change their attitude towards money savings and personal finance will be much happier and will be able to deal with this new uncertain world much more easily while these jobrelated problems continue the only people who are relaxed and not stressed are the ones who have enough savings unfortunately the proportion of younger earners in their 20s and 30 who save is quite low in fact the young generation is almost uniformly dedicated to negative savings as soon as people start earning they take on loan emis essentially spending future savings todaythis sounds like the same crusty advice that older people