121–130 of 205 posts
I run Built With Bootstrap ( http://builtwithbootstrap.com ) that brings close to $2,000 on average each month in "mostly passive" income. How? Here are a few things that have helped: 1) I got lucky - I jumped on something early and got picked up quickly and rode on the back of a giant gorilla as it kept getting higher and higher - right place, right time 2) I keep costs low - I use Tumblr (free) and cheap, pluggable…
How do you earn money?
If you're willing to work five hours a month on your passive income project, then I suggest doing five months of work on Passive Rails Consulting, as that has minimal execution risk. Can I make a suggestion? Most people who say "passive income" spend a lot of time fantasizing about the lifestyle relative to actually producing value. It is not terribly difficult to produce value as a programmer. Concentrate on produci…
Generally, completely passive income is massively harder and more time intensive to generate than minimal-time-investment income (which is what Patrick suggests above). I have both completely passive and minimal-time-investment income sources, and the passive ones have been MUCH harder and longer work per dollar over the last few years.
Focus on optimising your $/hr (and your hr/month) rather than going for hr == 0 and you'll likely hit your goal much faster.
$500 per month is $6000 per year. $100,000 in high dividend stocks may generate close to that much in dividends per year. So contract for $100 per hour for 1500 hours in the next 18 months. Then make a good investment.
That's not a safe rate of withdrawal for people who are not gamblers. High dividend stocks are almost by definition risky stocks. More like half that would be sustainable.
Pardon me, but that is more or less the opposite of the traditional received wisdom.
High dividend stocks come in two varieties:
* Low-growth, mature, typically capital-intensive companies, especially those in highly-regulated industries. Think power generation, some real estate investments, and so on. Since stock price appreciation is not in the cards, dividends are the only returns an investor can expect and thus are higher. These are typically the safest stocks, although "safety" is relative; stocks are more risky than most other investments.
* A dividend-paying company whose stock price has been depressed, typically due to specific events: poor management decisions, a bad environment, competition, or what have you. These are typically considered "value" investments; the stock price has been pushed down, usually for good reasons, but also usually, too far. The dividend on these is unlikely to be maintainable---management will usually reduce it as part of doing something to get the company back on its feet or whatever. However, the investment itself is not particularly unsafe, in my personal opinion. See Buffet's "The Superinvestors of Graham-Doddsville" for some other people who feel likewise.
The second group is probably not what the poster wants and I would be uncomfortable focusing solely on the first since those kinds of industries are typically economically linked.
On the other hand, you do have to know what you mean by "high dividend". Thanks to the "dividends are doubly-taxed" lunacy, and double thanks to the "growth is everything" mentality, dividends are very low or non-existent. Anything above, say, 4% (to pull a number out of my flying monkeys) is probably a return of capital, not a return on capital; the money you get as dividends includes a partial payment of your original investment and you cannot expect to get your original investment back when you sell it. In fact, it will disappear entirely over time. And anything over 1.5% to 2% (again with the flying-monkey-numbers) probably represents the value investment situation rather than something sustainable. The 6% mentioned by the grandparent probably is indeed pretty risky.
Also, the bond market is usually considered safer than stocks, with a higher interest "dividend". But I don't really know much about that.
This should not be considered financial advice, I'm some random dude on the internet. Look carefully before you leap, try to learn what you're doing before you try to do it, and try to stick with reputable instruction. There is a crap-ton of bad information out there.
[Did I write something particularly controversial?]
Bonus: Believe in fairy tales. Get a free, pink flying pony.
Also - all developpers are now multimillionaires with the passive income magic formula.
Im astonished this keeps poping up.
$500 per month is $6000 per year. $100,000 in high dividend stocks may generate close to that much in dividends per year. So contract for $100 per hour for 1500 hours in the next 18 months. Then make a good investment.
You don't want to earn a passive income. You want to leave your job. Fine. Except that looking for passive income stream is not the best idea out there. If you can contract for $80/hour for US/EU clients (really possible), you'll need to work only 40 hours to cover a 6 month expenses. But that won't probably be enough for one month, once you start earning it. You've been warned ;)
" If you can contract for $80/hour for US/EU clients (really possible) " Do you have more info/advice about that? I've often flirted with the idea of online freelancing for overseas companies... But a lot of the freelancing sites either seem too dodgy/cheap, or elitist about "github" commits and the like.
Those clients will then give you repeat business or they might bring new contacts for you.
Finding good devs in India is a big pain for the guys in US/UK. So if your client is happy with your service, he will recommend you to others.
I used to be a freelance PHP dev sitting in India back in the old days of rentacoder.com
$500 per month is $6000 per year. $100,000 in high dividend stocks may generate close to that much in dividends per year. So contract for $100 per hour for 1500 hours in the next 18 months. Then make a good investment.
Or you can buy an apartment in eastern Europe and rent it for $700-1000 per month.
I rent my parents' house in a medium-sized midwest US city; I get around $650/month after property management expenses. After taxes, insurance, maintenance expenses, and the occasional empty period, I'm not getting anywhere near that out of it. But it is still profitable, passive, and the investment needed to increase my income (in other words, buying more property) would not really be excessive.
Step 1 make 500/mo after 2mo of work. Step 2 repeat every 2mo. .... Be multimilionnaire. Bonus: Believe in fairy tales. Get a free, pink flying pony. Also - all developpers are now multimillionaires with the passive income magic formula. Im astonished this keeps poping up.