英语演讲：如何实现财务独立？

Every choice that you make comes with a trade-off. Money is an invitation to critical thinking. You can afford anything, but not everything. So if there's something that you value, whether it's travel, food, or a house, you can have that thing. You just can't have an endless series of ands. 

每一个选择都伴随着取舍。金钱是进行批判性思考的邀请函。你能买得起任何东西，但买不起所有东西。无论是旅行、美食还是房子，你看重的东西，你都可以拥有，只是你不可能“无穷无尽”地拥有。

You might not be able to have that thing and something else and something else and something else. And that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention - any limited resource. And life is the ultimate limited resource. So when you practice being better at managing your money, you practice being better at managing your life. 

你无法同时拥有这样东西，又有那样东西、那样东西、那样东西。这不仅适用于金钱，也适用于你的时间、注意力、精力，适用于任何有限的资源，而生命就是终极的有限资源。所以，当你在管理金钱方面做得更好时，你也在练习更好地管理生活。

My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the "Afford Anything Podcast." I want to help you reach financial independence by making smarter decisions with your money. The mistake that I see a lot of people make when they start asking questions about how to manage their money is that oftentimes people will ask a question about a product or a tactic.

我叫宝拉▪潘特，播客《买得起任何东西》的主理人。我想通过教授如何做出更明智的金钱决策，帮助你实现财务独立。很多人在开始询问如何管理金钱时容易犯的错，就是他们经常会问有关理财产品或理财策略的问题。

So for example, they might say, "Should I use this app, or should I invest in cryptocurrency?" First-principles thinking is stripping away everything and really getting to the root of something. So if you think about a tree, the tactics and the products are like the leaves of a tree. That's the most visible surface so, of course, it's what people might ask about first. 

例如，他们可能会问："我应该使用这个app，还是应该投资加密货币？"第一性原理的思维则是：剥离一切，真正抓住问题的根本。想象一棵树，策略和产品就像是树的枝叶。枝叶是最显而易见的表象，当然会是人们首先会询问的事情。

But first, let's start with the roots of that tree. The roots of that tree are your values. It's that question of what matters most. And then from those roots stem that trunk of the tree, which is your philosophy of life, the type of life that you want to lead. And from that philosophy, then your objective or your goals: How does that philosophy of living translate into specific goals? That's really that tree trunk. From there, you go out into the branches of the tree, and they represent the strategy.

但重中之重的是，从那棵树的根开始。那棵树的根就是你的价值观，也就是最根本的问题是什么。然后从这些根中生出树干，树干代表你的生活哲学，你想过的生活方式。从这个生活哲学，再到你的目标或者愿望：生活哲学如何转化为具体的目标？这才是真正的树干。从树干，进入树枝，树枝代表着策略。

Now that you know your philosophy of living, you know your goals, now you can come up with strategies for how to obtain those goals. And then once you have that strategy in place, then those leaves are the tactics and the products. 

现在你知道了自己的生活哲学，知道了自己的目标，现在你可以制定实现这些目标的策略。然后你就会有策略，那些叶子就是策略和产品。

So if you're starting with the question about tactic or product, you've got a leaf in your hand, but you don't have that root system built yet. When personal finance is framed in the context of delayed gratification so that you can have more money when you're 75 years old, it's really hard to get excited about that. 

但如果你从策略或产品的问题开始，你手里只会拿着一片废叶，而不会建立起茁壮的根系。当个人理财被定义为延迟满足感，让你在75岁时有更多的钱，你很难会对此感到兴奋。

But when we reframe that as financial independence and how taking better care of your money leads to this flourishing of freedom, of opportunity, of choice, that becomes much more enticing. FI is the point at which your potential passive income - money that comes to you when you're sleeping, typically through investments - is enough to cover your basic bills. And the reason that matters is because then endless options open up for you. 

但是，当我们将个人理财重新定义为财务独立，以及更好地管理你的钱会带来更广阔的自由、更无尽的机会和选择，就变得更加有吸引力了。财务独立是指你的潜在被动收入达到了一个点-当你睡觉时会给你带来钱，通常是通过投资-足以支付你的基本生活账单。财务独立之所以重要，是因为实现之时无尽的选择就会奔向你。

You have the freedom to do whatever you want - whether that's to stay in your current profession, make a midlife career change, become a full-time parent, or travel the world. Whatever choice you want to make, you're able to make that without having to sweat about how you're gonna keep the lights on, how you're gonna keep the fridge stocked. The pursuit of FI is for everyone, but the first steps that you are going to take will differ depending on where you are in your journey. 

你可以自由去做任何你想做的事情，无论是继续从事当前的职业、中年转变职业、做全职父母还是环游世界。无论你想做出什么选择，你都能够做，而不必担心如何支付水电费、如何保证冰箱里有足够的食物。追求财务独立是每个人的目标，但你如何开始第一步取决于你在旅程中所处的位置。

There are really only three steps to achieving financial independence: Grow the gap, invest the gap, repeat. 

实现财务独立实际上只有三个步骤：增加差距、投资差距、重复。

Grow the gap means to grow the gap between what you earn and what you spend. And there are only two ways to increase that gap: earn more or spend less or both. If you don't make very much, like me when I was in my first job out of college making $21,000 a year, at that stage of life, your goal is to increase your income. 

增加差距意味着增加你的收入和支出之间的差距。增加差距只有两种方式：增加收入、减少支出或两者兼而有之。如果你的收入不高，就像我刚刚毕业时的第一份工作，年薪只有2.1万美元，那个阶段的目标是增加收入。

If you're already making big dollars but you have a spending problem, the low-hanging fruit is to curb that spending problem and to address the root psychological issues that are leading to that spending problem.

如果你已经赚了很多钱但是存在支出问题，最简单的方法是控制支出，并解决导致支出问题的心理根源。

Step two is to then invest that gap. My personal feeling is that everyone should aim to save and invest at least 20% of their income. And when I say save and invest, that includes making additional payments towards the debt above and beyond the minimum required, retirement savings, investments in an investment account. It includes building up your emergency fund. 

第二步是投资这个差距。我个人认为每个人都应该致力于至少将20%的收入用于存款和投资。我说的存款和投资，包括偿还超过最低要求的债务、退休储蓄、在投资账户中进行投资，以及建立应急基金。

Start with the goal of saving 20%, and if you're nowhere close to that, increase your savings rate by 1% and do that every month or two. It will take a few years, but you will over time get to that 20% mark.

从存款20%的目标开始，如果你离这个目标相差甚远，每个月或每两个月增加1%的存款率，这可能需要几年的时间，但随着时间的推移，你将达到存款20%的目标。

And then step three is repeat. This is a lifetime practice. This is not a quick hit or something that's going to happen overnight. Money management happens for life. There has never been a point in history when the world has not been volatile. A hundred years ago, there was also a pandemic going on, and there was a first World War. 

然后第三步是重复。财务独立是一种终身的实践，不是一蹴而就的，也不是一夜之间成真的事情，理财是终身的。历史上从来没有过世界不动荡的时候，一百年前，也有一场大流行病，还有一次第一次世界大战。

A decade later, the Great Depression. After that was World War II. After that, event after event after event that affected the entire globe I came to FI because I was scared and anxious about the volatility in my life and the world.

十年后是大萧条，之后是第二次世界大战，之后，一个接一个的事件影响了整个世界。我追求财务独立，是因为我对生活和世界的不稳定感到恐惧和焦虑。

My response to that was to become obsessed with saving as much as I could because it allowed me to not be so scared of the future. It felt psychologically comforting to have these savings. Change is the nature of the world, the nature of time. And so, if you're looking out at the big global factors that are happening in the world today and you're feeling fear, embrace it and use that fear as motivation, as fuel to make wise decisions about how you spend your money, your time, your effort. That's how you build a life that's more intentional. And there's a lot of joy in that.

我应对不稳定的方式，变成了痴迷于尽可能多地存钱，因为存钱让我对未来不那么害怕。拥有存款在心理上给人安慰。变化是世界的本质，是时间的本质。所以，如果你观察当前世界上发生的重大全球事件，感到恐惧，请拥抱变化，并将这种恐惧转化为动力，转化为如何花费金钱、时间和精力的智慧。这就是你建立更有意义的生活方式的方法，其中伴随着诸多乐趣。