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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#101

Post by azatris »

jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

Do I have any rational expectations to beat inflation by having well diversified index funds?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#102

Post by lorenzhs »

azatris wrote: post #101
jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

Do I have any rational expectations to beat inflation by having well diversified index funds?

Historically, as a guideline, you'd have made about 7% p.a. on average, well above inflation. The question is whether you can handle the drawdown (can you keep your nerves during a crash?)

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#103

Post by DangerousPie »

cesarb wrote: post #100
DangerousPie wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably know this, but it's always important to keep in mind what causes such high interest rates. A high interest rate is a signal that lenders are wary of lending money to the borrower because of an increased risk of default/inflation. That's fine as long as you are aware of this, but don't think you're getting a "better deal" than someone investing in a boring 1% German government bond. That 12.5% you're gett…

I live in Brazil, so if the government defaults, every other investment I could have made here would also crash, and the local economy with them. It's not called the "risk-free" interest rate for nothing: it's the lowest risk investment one can get within Brazil. Corporate bonds, for instance, will have a higher return, due to their higher risk. As for inflation, when it increases the SELIC/CDI rates tend to rise wit…

> I live in Brazil, so if the government defaults, every other investment I could have made here would also crash, and the local economy with them.

Wouldn't that be a good reason to invest some money abroad?

> And, actually, the high interest rate is set by the government, as a way to control the inflation

But surely that's the interest rate that their central bank charges to the banks (which influences the interest rates banks pay/charge for savings/loans with them), not the interest rate that they are paying on their own government bonds? I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure those are two very different things.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#105

Post by neals »

I build a small CMS / CRM + app as a freelancer, for a client. This was 6 years ago. I build it for almost nothing, because it's a really simple thing that took a week or two.

I agreed to automated billing with him and he pays per user. I also build API's so he can hire other developers to do stuff with the data and add features.

I myself haven't touched the code for years, but the growth of the database means an extra monthly $1250-ish comes in. Which is nice.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#106

Post by czechdeveloper »

velcro wrote: post #93
jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

Any tips for something solid vanguard-like in the EU?

You can buy Vanguard via their ETF funds using any broker. I do.

Just beware of taxes.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#107

Post by ownagefool »

jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

I recommened reading the parents link but if it's all a bit too much for you vanguard does funds that are already diversified and deals with the rebalancing on your behalf.

https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/lifestrategy/#/

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#108

Post by Tharkun »

My passive income has mostly dried up this year. Years ago I built an automated webshop deployment system for a bloke who makes hundreds of small websites a year, and dozens of webshops a year. The deal was that I'd build it for free, but I'd get a fee per shop he deployed. This worked out pretty well for a couple of years, but now he's swimming in money and is retiring, and my passive income source has dried up.

Of course, because of my laziness, I took the passiveness too far and it's now all but impossible to reuse it for another potential client.

It was fun while it lasted.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#109

Post by bdowling »

wfunction wrote: post #21
buf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the confusion. It's just a set it and forget it robo investment for now. I go in and adjust every quarter.

Ah, so no actual income then? Just stocks going up in value? As in, at some point you'd have to sell before you actually have any income from it, right?

If you sell you pay taxes on the gains, so you are probably better off borrowing against your investments if you need cash, since borrowing isn't a realization event for tax purposes.

Investments that pay dividends aren't as good for individuals since the dividends are taxes at ordinary rates.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#110

Post by ownagefool »

velcro wrote: post #93
jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

Any tips for something solid vanguard-like in the EU?

Rules are a bit different. I'm in the UK and you need £100,000 to go direct with Vanguard and thus you need to go with a broeker.

https://www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk/ is a good shout, but there may be better depending on how you'd like to invest.

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