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Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#41

Post by newsoul2019 »

derekp7 wrote: post #9

One route to success is to take some other domain that you have expertise in, that most software devs aren't familiar with. Come up with an application that solves a problem in that domain, then market to those people. Here's a simple example (this probably won't make any money, but it is good for illustrative purposes). If you look at an egg carton, there is a sell by date on there, but it doesn't list the date that…

Here is a free business idea! I ran into a niche problem the other day.

If you have a family with X family members, and each person has a loyalty number for Y airlines and Z hotels, that starts to become a lot to keep track of. Wouldn't it be great to see all of your loyalty accounts on a single page? Then you could have cool graphs, growth rates over time, etc. Also a tool to make sure that all family members are getting credit for all of their miles/stays.

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#42

Post by module0000 »

pastor_elm wrote: post #10

SP 500 ETF

No: ETF decay is real and always has been. You're better off shorting an inverse ETF than buying and holding SPX.

edit: and shorting an inverse ETF has it's own problems, mainly what happens to your position if the market crashes - but that problem exists in any strategy.

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#43

Post by rpedela »

Games, books, and other entertainment forms only provide passive income if they are hits, and it is hard, if not impossible, to predict a hit. Tools are a much better path because you don't need to guess if people will like it since there is an obvious market. You just need to execute well and sell which is also hard, but not as hard as coming up with a hit.

In other words, more like Stripe and less like Angry Birds.

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#44

Post by nyxtom »

The best way I've found to have some "passive income" is to manage my finances better.

- Use a savings account that is completely disconnected from your checking account bank. Bonus if you find a high yield savings like Synchrony for instance (2.25%)

- Use a method for separating what you spend from what you pay monthly on mostly predictable billing amounts (bills that end up being the same each month). I have 2 checking accounts, one for spending and one for billing. I use schwab banking. The main banks like WF and others all charge fees. Fees that could be used for other things like gas or other small monthly expenses.

- Automate everything (savings, bills, spending)

- Apply financial minimalism where possible. Minimize unnecessary spending, increase spending on things you actually like, set goals associated with this and fearsetting for things that you know you probably shouldn't be spending money on. (Perceived net quality of life should improve)

- Take advantage of automated investment portfolio offerings (or do the research yourself and invest).

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#45

Post by jawns »

One way to think of passive income is investing your time up front to develop a product for which you do not receive all of your compensation right away.

At my day job, I put in 40 hours of work and then get paid in full for those 40 hours shortly afterward.

In contrast, as an author of science-themed gift books, I invest a lot of time up front to research and write the books and a moderate amount of time to market them. And then the books have the potential to bring in recurring income over some indeterminate time horizon.

In one sense, getting royalty checks every six months for a book I wrote years ago feels passive.

On the other hand, if you have the choice between getting paid in full right away or getting paid over the course of many years, wouldn't you rather get paid quicker?

Ask lottery winners. Most choose the immediate lump-sum payment, even if the 30-year annuity is considerably larger.

So if you're looking for passive-income opportunities, please remember to take into account opportunity cost. Could you be doing something that gets you paid in full right away?

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#46

Post by thrower123 »

It's not exactly passive, but real-estate is where you want to go for a reliable, substantial, secondary income stream. Obviously, if you are in an insane market, it's difficult to get your foot in the door, but there are some options. One can typically get an FHA loan for multi-family properties of four units or less, if you are going to be occupying one of the units, which allows you to get in the substantially lower down-payment. Renting the other units will cover the bulk of the mortgage, and you also have a roof over your own head, and you should have enough slack to make extra payments. PMI is kind of a pain, but unless things do go over a cliff, within a couple of years you can build enough equity, and valuations will go up enough that you can refinance out of FHA.

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#47

Post by cellis »

cellis wrote: post #35

I think there's only one way to earn passive income reliably at this point. And it's not going to be easy ( otherwise, everyone on HN would already be doing it! ). Here it is: 1) Learn how to interview for top tier companies in your free time. 2) Interview at those companies. 3) Work at those companies really hard, make $300k/yr. 4) Work for 10 years, save 200k/yr. 5) Invest in ? 6) You've now achieved purely passive…

And please, for the love of all that is pure, DO NOT try to build a game hoping to make money. ~ former game dev

Re: Ask HN: Best Passive Income Method?

#50

Post by 0xEFF »

None of the options are passive income. Passive income are from things like dividends, rents, and royalties. The closest item on the list is the ebook, but even then you'd be more in the role of a publisher which is very active on the marketing side.
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