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Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#51

Post by morgante »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #21
morgante wrote: post #5

A stock portfolio that I've built through consulting profits is my main passive income source. Anything else is not really "passive." This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but in my view the average developer is much better off simply selling their time at the maximum rate and funneling the profits into a well-managed portfolio. The median outcome for this is much better than the story on most passive-in…

You're assuming maximizing cashflow is the most important factor. Some of us would be willing to have a lower standard of living (possibly significantly lower) if a passive income could provide that.

In what way did I say that? if anything, I'm maximizing passivity.

You can live off stock dividends a lot longer if you lower your standard of living. Your comment is totally orthogonal.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#52

Post by morgante »

dxhdr wrote: post #31
morgante wrote: post #5

A stock portfolio that I've built through consulting profits is my main passive income source. Anything else is not really "passive." This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but in my view the average developer is much better off simply selling their time at the maximum rate and funneling the profits into a well-managed portfolio. The median outcome for this is much better than the story on most passive-in…

Mind sharing how your portfolio is organized?

25% play money (stocks I pick individually), 75% index funds (with a focus on dividends).

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#53

Post by morgante »

shanecleveland wrote: post #47
morgante wrote: post #5

A stock portfolio that I've built through consulting profits is my main passive income source. Anything else is not really "passive." This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but in my view the average developer is much better off simply selling their time at the maximum rate and funneling the profits into a well-managed portfolio. The median outcome for this is much better than the story on most passive-in…

> Anything else is not really "passive." Sure it is. Yours is just a different method. You had to work to get the money, first. Passive income is the same. Some effort had to be put forth. Passive doesn't mean do nothing and get something. That's idle income. I believe, particularly when we talk about it here on HN, it means to apply a set of already possessed skills, knowledge, resources, etc., and put forth some ef…

I guess we have different definitions of passive income. Obviously you can spend a bunch of time to build and run a business (and, in fact, I try to do that). I just don't really think it's passive when you're working many hours a month on it.

In contrast, my portfolio requires literally 0 work on a monthly basis.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#54

Post by AznHisoka »

luhn wrote: post #34
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #18

I've got a savings account. Interest on that baby is getting me upwards of 30 cents a month.

I know you're being facetious and your real-life investment portfolio likely looks much different but I need to say: Savings accounts are a terrible place to put your savings. If you have anything more than a couple thousand dollars, you can put it in a mutual fund and see several percent return on average, versus the fraction of the percent you can get from a savings account. In certain situations savings accounts c…

but they do help you sleep at night. the market can drop 5% in a day and not many people can stomach that emotionally.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#55

Post by eswat »

mylons wrote: post #29
morgante wrote: post #5

A stock portfolio that I've built through consulting profits is my main passive income source. Anything else is not really "passive." This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but in my view the average developer is much better off simply selling their time at the maximum rate and funneling the profits into a well-managed portfolio. The median outcome for this is much better than the story on most passive-in…

if you've never consulted before, how do you "start"? cold emailing people for freelance gigs that you see on hackernews doesn't usually parlay into high paying consulting gigs.

This might sound hokey, but think of getting into consulting as phases of software releases.

During alpha get to know people and the problems they face that you can potentially help out with (at this point you haven’t started consulting yet), in beta you drop whatever you were doing before, or cut down your time commitment enough, and getting into consulting (or more likely freelancing, where you’re doing more grunt work than being an advisor or strategic partner), in gold master you’ve demonstrated enough value that you’re at least making more than what you were previously and not hemming and hawing for more work.

Don’t expect to start at gold master.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#57

Post by timetoswitch »

wangarific wrote: post #16
morgante wrote: post #5

A stock portfolio that I've built through consulting profits is my main passive income source. Anything else is not really "passive." This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but in my view the average developer is much better off simply selling their time at the maximum rate and funneling the profits into a well-managed portfolio. The median outcome for this is much better than the story on most passive-in…

For 100% passive, you really can't beat this. Funnel your cash into dividend stocks and now you have a stream of income that's taxed at a favorable rate too. Even if you were to go with an S&P 500 index fund you get a near 2% yield.

And also you've taken on the risks associated with those stocks.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#58

Post by mjibson »

ShaneCurran wrote: post #35
mjibson wrote: post #32

I run https://www.goread.io/ which is a subscription-based RSS reader. It's open source and runs on google app engine. It costs ~$2k per year to run and I make between $2k and $3k profit per year for nearly zero effort. Stripe handles payments and app engine keeps the servers running. I consider it a high success because for the amount of marketing I've done in the last 2 years (exactly zero), it still has paying use…

Hi Matt, love the site. Do you mind me asking what brings the running costs up to $2k per year?

In 2015 I paid app engine about $1700 or ~$130/month or a bit over $4/day. I could probably get that down another dollar or so a day if I did some optimization and cleanup work, but I haven't cared.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#59

Post by mjibson »

drinchev wrote: post #36
mjibson wrote: post #32

I run https://www.goread.io/ which is a subscription-based RSS reader. It's open source and runs on google app engine. It costs ~$2k per year to run and I make between $2k and $3k profit per year for nearly zero effort. Stripe handles payments and app engine keeps the servers running. I consider it a high success because for the amount of marketing I've done in the last 2 years (exactly zero), it still has paying use…

Hmm just as a side-question. Do you consider the time developing this product as a part of the "expenses" sheet? I'm asking because I did some side-gigs in the past and I always end up having a product ( aff.links ) that pays the server and some pennies above, but if I count the time lost on developing it, I will be on severe loss for decades.

I did not count my own time, no. If I did I'd almost certainly be below profitable. But I was doing it at the time because I wanted a google reader replacement, not to make money. I only started charging because I had so many users (at the time, most are gone now) that it was costing me above $50 per day, which adds up quick.

Re: Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?

#60

Post by breischl »

AznHisoka wrote: post #54
luhn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're being facetious and your real-life investment portfolio likely looks much different but I need to say: Savings accounts are a terrible place to put your savings. If you have anything more than a couple thousand dollars, you can put it in a mutual fund and see several percent return on average, versus the fraction of the percent you can get from a savings account. In certain situations savings accounts c…

but they do help you sleep at night. the market can drop 5% in a day and not many people can stomach that emotionally.

One should certainly tailor their investments to their own risk tolerance. But there are better investments even with very low risk levels. Money market, CDs, gov't bonds, and high-grade corporate bonds are all options that give better returns than savings accounts with minimal risk (well, before some gov't bonds were negative rate, anyway).
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