Image via WikipediaThis post at johnchow.com lists out four kinds of spending patterns. Two of them will make you rich over a period of time.
The summary is that you have to save 10% to 90% of your monthly income and invest it in long term savings. The income earned from the investment will eventually cover your monthly costs. That’s when you can consider yourself as financially independent and don’t need to work to earn money, because your savings and investments are enough to generate a decent monthly income.
The only factor here is how much of your income you are saving and investing. The higher that amount, the quicker you will reach financial independence.
This book that I reviewed here helps you achieve exact same goal.
Your thoughts are right but you can do the same thing creating multiple streams of income. If you can create passive income that exceeds your expense than your are financially independent