Getting Started
A new (and old) way of thinking about life and finances have been sweeping the globe in the form of “financial independence”. Financial independence is defined as the moment when you believe that you will have enough to live off of your investment income without having to work. You may also hear about FI (financial independence) referred to as FIRE (financial independence, retire early). Financial independence really aligns with the Islamic goal of striving to disconnect ourselves from excessive material wealth, ultimately reducing our desire to consume things we really don’t need.
Traditional financial independence is made up of 3 core principles:
Make money and save
Reduce spending and debt
Invest money to generate returns
Throughout the journey of this blog, we will be exploring Islamically-based perspectives and strategies to deal with these 3 major topics.
Making Money and Save
We will focus on various ways to maximize your earning potential in your prime earning years, as well as introduce tools and methods to establish a healthy saving rate as well as explore side hustles and the “gig” economy. We will also look at industry trends and career areas where newer workers can evolve their career. In this day and age, some careers pay higher and having more earning potential than others so providing advice on educational opportunities to improve skills will be beneficial.
Reduce Spending and Debt
The blog will also try and give you tools to budget, as well as identify where you can consolidate and ultimately eliminate debt. For Muslims, the primary vehicles of debt is traditional banking which comes with interest. In Islam, Riba (interest) is forbidden for both the borrower as well as the lender, so many of our strategies will be focused on eliminating forbidden debt as quickly in possible; while still trying to save money and invest. We will also explore new and exciting vehicles in Islamic Finance, which can allow us to borrow money for business / personal transactions that is still compliant with the Shariah (Islamic Law).
Invest Money and Generate Returns
We will also explore the concept of Islamically-compliant investing as well as ethical investment opportunities. Muslims have clear guidelines in the types of investing we can be apart of, so its important that we avoid forbidden industries such as sin stocks (weapons, alcohol, cannabis, casinos, pornography) as well as business where the primary profit is generated through interest (banks, trusts) or are overly leveraged with debt. We will also look at new and interesting companies, funds and financial opportunities that can offer us the ability to generate permissible returns.
Through this journey, we are looking to answer questions and get feedback from the community on interesting topics that the community would like to discuss. We look forward to using this platform to engage and provide value the Muslim Ummah (community) as a whole.