For what it is worth, every time I hear the phrase "working toward financial independence", it sounds like Newspeak to me. Let's call it what it is: almost everyone wants to make money because satisfying our various needs is part of the human condition.

Or it could mean "having made and then saved enough to make one's own way in a capitalistic economy instead of being at the behest of employers."

I think the phrase "financial independence" has a lot to offer as a description of a mode of living that poor communities generally do not display. A lot of poor people spend a sort of weighted average of the earnings of their family group -- if your personal income happens to be down right now, you can borrow money from someone who's having an up period. This is what winston_smith is referring to when he says "in some poor communities, there's a strong ethic of sharing good fortune", and it's a different concept than "money is good".