There are two main ways to achieve financial independence (FI).

One way is to cut down your lifestyle eg, downgrade from condo to 3 rm hdb flat, sell off your car, dont travel overseas, cook your own food, dont go out with friends for tea etc.... In this way, you will be able to achieve FI. After a while of living this way, you will wonder if you were missing out something in your life.

The other way to achieve FI is to go and earn more. Here you achieve more income by trying to get a higher paying job, and creating passive income streams. Passive incomes come from making your savings work hard for you - through investment (either shares or property).

My wife and I are used to our current lifestyle and are reluctant to downgrade. We currently live in a 4 bedroom condo, have a car each, travel twice a year for holidays overseas, and employ a domestic helper to do household chores. We knew long ago that we could not be forever working to earn the income to support our lifestyle. So we have been building up our passive income streams for more than 10 years already with the aim that the passive income will eventually take over our earned income (ie when we retire).

To maintain our current lifestyle, we would need a passive income of $10k pm or $120k pa. Last year, our passive income hit $160k pa. As we are still working, we invested all our salaries to increase our passive income. This year we are targeting to hit $170k in passive income. If we work till 60, our passive income with consistent injection of investment fund, will hit $200k pa.

My advise is not to retire too early. The period from 55 yo to 60+ is the period where your financial commitment taper off while your salary is at its peak ! This is where savings accelerates and forms the bulk of your retirement savings.