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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#51
post #24
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you earn the money to invest?

Income from my job. No side projects pulling in cash (yet). Getting close on a few though. Hoping I can post something far more interesting here next year when this question comes around again.

The next few years will be a very interesting time in global markets, so whichever way it goes, I'm sure you'll have something to write about. ;-)

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#52
post #31
post #12

To me, passive means little or no ongoing time investment. If we are looking at "best" in terms of revenue, then dividends from investing in the stock market are by far the best source of passive income I can imagine. I've got a 1.5x leveraged portfolio over on IBKR that is currently yielding ~2.9% dividends across a wide range of sectors. I am paying ~1% in margin fees at the moment, so I basically get to use their…

Where are you getting margin fees less than 1%? Per year?

They said IBKR. Margin rates here: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1595

Subject to change at any time, but 1.59% per annum up to $100k, 1.09% up to $1M, and 0.75% after that. Lower rates in some other currencies.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#53
Roughly $350/mo at this point, and I’d love to 10x it this coming year.

I have an Etsy business that I set up last year that doesn’t require much input from me and uses third party fulfillment. I average about 30 sales per month including the holiday season and about $10/order profit.

Dividend stocks currently pay around $50/mo, which buys more stock every time (DRIP), so that should increase nicely over the next 30-40 years. I also buy more on a regular basis, but that does take some effort/research on my part.

I’ll leave out stock, bond and mutual fund growth on its own since that’s not really income per se.

I’m also working on a YouTube channel that I just started last month. It doesn’t even have 10 subscribers but I do point people to product recommendations, which has already gotten me a $45 referral payout. Could be a fluke, but I’m in it for the long term, so we shall see.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#55
post #10

https://isitketo.org It's just a content site about the keto diet. It runs in the background and earns money from Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate links, the latter of which are dwindling because I haven't had time to fix dead product links. It's a plain static site, so it doesn't need any server maintenance or software upgrades. Not totally passive because I actively tried to grow it for three months when I had t…

Why does Covid drop traffic for a content site about keto?

I'm guessing just a shift in priorities. People felt panicked when COVID hit, and I imagine for most of them, learning about a new diet wasn't the most important thing.

Also, in some places, there were food panics, so people might have been less interested in buying keto groceries, as keto's heavy on meats, cheeses, and other things that spoil quickly.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#58
I built a niche site dedicated to professional e-sports streamers (mainly focused on League of Legends).

https://prostreams.gg

It just launched a few weeks ago, but is on track for ~300K page views / month. The top 5% of users spend over 8 hours / week watching content. Looking to grow the site first, then monetize through affiliates and advertising.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#59

I started a niche YouTube channel on Python for Stock and Crypto Trading, very beginner level: https://youtube.com/parttimelarry Over $2K/month as of November from a combination of YouTube ad revenue, Buy Me a Coffee donations, and affiliate links (TradingView Pro Subscriptions, Tradier, Amazon books etc). Should hit 10,000 subscribers in the next couple of weeks. Plan is to grow this to 100,000 subscribers over the…

How long does it take you to make a video, and how often do you release?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2020?

#60
post #10

https://isitketo.org It's just a content site about the keto diet. It runs in the background and earns money from Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate links, the latter of which are dwindling because I haven't had time to fix dead product links. It's a plain static site, so it doesn't need any server maintenance or software upgrades. Not totally passive because I actively tried to grow it for three months when I had t…

Are you interested in selling your Keto site?

Not really. I find it fun to own it and watch what happens to it, so I likely value it much higher than its real market value.

I have considered finding someone who wants to manage it under some sort of revenue-sharing agreement. I don't know if that's a common practice or if there are existing precedents for that, but I feel like the numbers are too small for it to be worthwhile for anyone.

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