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Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

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Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#51

Post by devoutsalsa »

alexknowshtml wrote: post #23
devoutsalsa wrote: post #9

Having been super broke in the past, I’d recommend increasing your primary income first. It’s infinitely easier to have one good paying jobs than two low paying jobs.

This is the best answer. Passive income (in the forms that it actually exists, and isn't a scam being sold by someone who makes their "helping" people create passive income) requires long-term thinking, and it's nearly impossible to make good long-term decisions when you're worrying about rent money or your next meal. If you work full time, focus on getting a raise, a new job, or changing industries. If you're a free…

I made some aggressive investments in crypto this year, and they are paying off nicely… for now. I’m willing to pay the short term price of anxiety for getting these ridiculous returns, but there’s no way I’d recommend that someone put their meager savings into this stuff. I’m willing to take extreme risk, but I can also “afford” to lose the money. Even though the returns are technically passive, worrying about when to take my money out of a full time job. Sleep-at-night passive income only comes from making smart moves over time, along with inheriting money & getting lucky.

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#54

Post by mmphosis »

shp0ngle wrote: post #8

Money don’t grow on trees. If there was a magic way to make money without work, everyone would be doing it.

Start a big bank. The bank can borrow money into existence, and loan it out and make passive income from the interest payments which, by the way, is money that does not exist. Magic. All the big banks do it, and if your big bank fails the government might bail you out.

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#55

Post by nada_ss »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #49
nada_ss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a job but not good salary and I can't change or ask for a raise right now because it is not possible. That's why I'm trying to find another source of income in addition to my current job. Thanks for taking the time to answer

If you’re willing to share, what is preventing you from finding additional work? You obviously feel married to a job that isn’t really working for you, and I’m wondering if you’re really stuck or just feeling stuck.

I'm stuck cz with my age and the skills I have, I can't find better job, I'm trying since more than 6 months to find better job but it didn't work out. So I was thinking about a part time job in addition to my main job. Kind of writing or doing hand made things. I'm just not sure what to do and where to start.

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#56

Post by devoutsalsa »

nada_ss wrote: post #55
devoutsalsa wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re willing to share, what is preventing you from finding additional work? You obviously feel married to a job that isn’t really working for you, and I’m wondering if you’re really stuck or just feeling stuck.

I'm stuck cz with my age and the skills I have, I can't find better job, I'm trying since more than 6 months to find better job but it didn't work out. So I was thinking about a part time job in addition to my main job. Kind of writing or doing hand made things. I'm just not sure what to do and where to start.

If you don’t have the skills to find a better job, consider using your free time to develop those skills. If you think of yourself as a student who has a job to cover living expenses, maybe you will feel motivated and excited. You have an opportunity to work towards a better life and have your costs covered by someone else. It’s all about how you look at it.

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#57

Post by u2077 »

I think it’s important to note that there’s no such thing as passive income, there are plenty of things that require a ton of time upfront, but no time to maintain.

The key is to find something you can create once and sell multiple times.

Be prepared for the amount of time you’ll have to spend to start making “passive” income

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#58

Post by [deleted] »

vmception wrote: post #32

You need capital to make passive income. And you need to be willing to risk that capital. If you dont have those things, dont bother. Fortunately if you are a software developer, you can make things that other people require a lot of capital to do. So you can make your software vending machine of some sort and have passive income from that. Advertising it requires capital, and you have to design the system that has l…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#59

Post by antifa »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #34
CharlesW wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your reply is meaningless. I think the parent commenter's point (and apologies if this is a mis-read, shp0ngle) is that passive income is a fantasy unless you're just stashing extra money in investment vehicles. That doesn't sound like the situation nada_ss finds themselves in.

I bought a fantasy novel recently that was written in 1998. Turns out the author wrote 11 more novels in this series which was a big part of why I chose it. The most recent novel came out in 2021. She no doubt will receive a tiny amount of income in 2022 from my purchase in 2022 stemming from work she completed in 1998. I would classify that as passive income but of course is it really? Would the book have even been…

CharlesW's interpretation was off, but still it's not truly passive until she stops writing books.

Continuously writing books for 20 years is work. The first book would probably have significantly less sales if the author didn't invest time or money in marketing and sequels for 20 years.

The root comment would still hold true:

> If there was a magic way to make money without work

Re: Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

#60

Post by antifa »

jessetemp wrote: post #40
cjhazard wrote: post #35

I live comfortably on passive income at 34 years old with my diverse portfolio of income producing assets, which include but are not limited to: 1. Businesses I founded & own that are managed & operated by my employees. 2. REITs & other dividend paying stocks. 3. Real property that I own that is managed by property managers. 4. Music that I have published and receive streaming royalties on. 5. Personal loans (this is…

So basically, be wealthy. All of your solutions require money up front, except maybe #4 if you're skilled and lucky, and #8 but the cc rewards for day to day spending is like 1 or 2 bowls of raman.

I read a long list of side hustle ideas. The enumeration was great and very useful, but 90% of the list was essentially really obvious things I would already have started doing if I owned specific non-trivial assets.

Most advice and success stories are too vague, unreproducable, and/or obvious to be useful.

I understand some people need to be told not to spend $5000/year on coffee, but it's exhausting when I've never spent money on coffee in my entire life and 99% of personal finance advice is on that level of unhelpful.

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