Getting Started In Passive Income
(Excerpt from the following book, Passive Income Strategy In A Week)
Why You Should NOT Get Into Passive Income
Passive income often does not mean you will get rich. It does mean once you understand how and apply it, it will snowball over a period of time, and you can start having extra money or be paying off some bills here and there.
Taxes are far more complicated once you get past $600. You will also have to set aside at least 15% per month for it. You can use deductions to mitigate that, but it is still a pain.
It usually takes a long time to gain any traction unless you put more hours or money into it.
There is a ton of work in the beginning. Passive income does not mean no work, it means a lot of work at the start, and then keeping up a lot less.
Working smarter is often more prized than working harder. In a job, you can probably just work harder in the things you already know. This will demand learning as you go.
Are you dissuaded yet? If so, you still need to do the first step. Everyone needs to do the first step, Day 1, as it is the easiest way to start with little maintenance involved.
Before You Start
There is always a starting capital: time or money. And behind those two is energy management.
All of these things need computer access. Some may need a smartphone.
Sign up for a Google account and an Amazon account. They will be used for a lot of things.
You will also need a PayPal account, bank account, and social security for some of the forms that need to be filled out so you can get your money.
Note that this process of actually accumulating may take a year or even more. There is always a long drawn out process before it ramps up. What makes it faster is often spending more time and even money on it. But if you’re not going to be spending money, you will need to be spending a lot more time.
There are many set and forget things I include, but some need maintenance.
There is a line between passive income and working from home/working remotely. No passive income is purely passive. There is always a management element involved.
The hardest part is to get started. The trick is being consistent. Google everything you know.
You will need at least an hour per day to do all the things. Some days will take up to three hours or more.
The Goal and Plan
The primary goal is to accumulate assets.
This basic idea is from “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. To put simply, everything you have are either assets and liabilities.
- Assets = Things that make you money. Stocks, businesses, other investments.
- Liabilities = Things that take money from you. Mortgages, debt, loans, taxes.
You can turn liabilities to assets. Some liabilities are assets only when you sell and make a profit.
For example, a house costs you taxes, repairs, and so on. It is a liability.
If the house lets you deduct it from taxes due to a home business, it is still a liability, but a better liability than not using it.
When the house is sold and profits because appreciation, it is an asset.
When it is used as a rental house, and the revenue is over the expenses, it is an asset.
However, if the rental house loses money, it is a liability, until it is sold for profit.
A car you use takes money from you by depreciation, gasoline, wear and tear, repairs, and maintenance. It is a liability.
If you use said car as an Uber driving, or allows you to do business, and you profit from those, it is barely an asset.
The average millionaire has seven income streams, or seven assets or groups of assets.
The high level strategy of this is monetizing every action you make. You make each action as an asset or lessening the impact of a liability.
This is not a one trick pony. You can add or remove things as you see fit, but the point is, monetizing everything you do.
To build on top of that, each action you will take can also be classified as:
- Creating = making material of value that serves as assets
- Repurpose = turning assets and liabilities into more assets
- Promoting = marketing that material of value to people who need it, and they in turn compensate you
- Investing = acquiring assets
Always, always be creating something. Create something every day. Even long Facebook posts. Long Facebook posts means you are passionate about something… and you can copy and paste it.
No. Pyramid. Schemes.
What is a pyramid scheme?
Usually, it means that investors in the scheme are promised profits, but said profits come from new investors, and those new investors are promised profits, so new investors have to be recruited.
Now, not all MLM things are full pyramid schemes. Many have actual products to sell. But usually, the recruits do most of the work for little anything, and only if they recruit others themselves will they actually start earning money.
If the main push of a business is for you to become the team leader of saleswomen and that team leader is earning money while the grunts are losing money, it’s probably an abusive scheme.
A good business will not need recruits to make money. Its products are highly marked up and in demand enough not to need recruits.
Usually a legitimate brokerage business with a similar structure will have more risk in the top and providing a real service. Providing a real service deserves compensation. Putting all the risk in the bottom and taking no risk yourself is abusive.
There are many websites and tools I link to that are paid services, and some others are completely free. You will NOT need these tools. They make things a lot easier, but they are not necessary. Do not pay for anything you will not take time to learn and take time to use, and learn how to do these things without the tools first. Tools do not make you money, you do by wisely applying them.
Especially, never put up your life savings into anything until you know it works. And even then, diversify. Do not put all your eggs in one basket, and all that.
If You Still Work A Job:
Do NOT quit your job (yet) until you are making at least half your living income (or whatever amount you are comfortable) with these things.
Usually the fastest to increase your income is asking for a raise at work. If you can.
Finding a better job even works.
Or ask your boss if you can turn your work into a remote work at home job, even if just part time. Of course, not all jobs can fit that, but a lot of them can.
But if you can’t just get a raise, now, since you have to make time for the plan, you will need to be able to manage your free time after work or before work to do this. Everyone wants to do passive income, but often they are tired from work to enact anything.
Get an energy drink, get a meal, do the three things each day I list, then you can play video games, browse, whatever.
Set up alarms in your phone to execute these things. We will do a week. So Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7.
Day 1 — Set Up An Investment Account:
Invest
If you recall the parable of the talents, the master told the unprofitable servant the very least he could do was to give his talent to the exchangers, instead of hiding it.
So there, I ask you to do that minimum thing, put what you can into the exchangers.
With your existing income, get an investment account. This is the easiest to get immediate passive income. However, the returns are 5% to 15% per year, and it is a slow pace. But you need to start thinking long term. A $1000 investment with nothing else can turn into $1,150 by the year’s end. If you can put in $100 or more per month, do it.
Your goal with the investment account is getting to put at least a couple years salary in it returning about 5–10% (usually more) per year. And get to four times years
Stop. Now, write that goal down somewhere. Anywhere.
It will set your expectations.
Now actually stop and do it. If you won’t, you will not do it later.
If you want to be able to use your money, do not get a retirement account, as you will not be able to get any money back without loss until you are of retirement age. You can get a retirement account on top of this, but always get an investment account first.
This is crucial as it will teach how to manage money, save money automatically, and all that.
Use this link and sign up with Wealthfront: https://wlth.fr/2nBaZkA
It will give you an extra $5,000 LIMIT for free management. Don’t be confused, this will NOT give you $5,000 in cash. It means if you put in $10,000, you will be charged a percentage fee if you have $10,001 in your account. An extra $5,000 LIMIT means you can have $15,000 before you get a fee. It will also give me a $5,000 limit, so we both win.
If you are suspicious or whatever, then you can quickly google for better deals for investment software. Or if you don’t like the stock market, well… Or if you don’t care for the free $5,000 limit, that’s fine, but get an investment account.
What makes Wealthfront different from other stockbrokers is that it uses an computer algorithm that you set, and it will invest for you automatically.
Okay, so open a New Account.
It will ask you which type of account you are looking for.
Choose “General long term investing”. Then choose “Individual”.
Fill in your personal information like birthday, income, etc.
Choose “Both equally”, as you will need to use the tax harvesting.
It should give you the following strategies based on a scenario if the stock market lost money:
Sell all (avoid)
Sell some (eh)
Keep all (conservative)
Buy more (risky)
If you want to follow my pattern, set it to a “keep all” strategy. It means when everything is going down, you will hold it, instead of panic selling. It has returned me 10% to 15% to even 25%, lost me 5% but regained it back in a month.
You can do a riskier strategy, such as “buy more“ when everything is low.
But NEVER do “sell all”, as you know the adage, “buy low, sell high”.
Personally, it has returned me enough money to make a down payment on my house in three years from an initial investment of $500, and monthly $100 payments.
Wealthfront will calculate your risk. It will change if you are older if you have little money to spare.
And yes, it does mean you will have faith that the stock market will rebound if it dips.
Select the second one without Risk Parity as it means a higher fee. They will only activate Risk Parity anyway if you have more than $100,000. This will reduce your taxes automatically.
Finish it, Wealthfront should put you through.
Link your bank.
Transfer funds. I started with $500 from 2016.
But the most important thing is to do an automatic monthly deposit. The minimum is $100 per month.
If you do not have regular income, this may be worrisome. You may deposit manually when you have the money, but I suggest doing a monthly deposit automatically if you have regular income.
As you can see below, I put in $300 per month. I used to do $250 per month.
Change the amounts and the frequency:
There, now you have passive income. But it will take years. So what else?
So, amounts. You want things to snowball.
If you did start at the minimum:
$500 initial, $100 per month, 5% return which is low, you will have $1,758.58 in the end of the year. So a $58.58 profit since you deposited $1,700. You have a “passive income” of $4.88 per month.
Waiting for 2 years, that will be $3,081.56, a $181.56 profit since you deposited $2,900. That is a “passive income” of $7.56 per month (24 months).
Waiting for 5 years, that will be $7,470.62, a $970.62 profit since you deposited $6,500. That is a passive income of $16.17 per month.
Waiting for 10 years, that will be $16,416.43, a $3916.43 profit since you deposited $12,500. That is a passive income of $32.63 per month.
But Sam, I don’t want to wait 10 years for $32.63 per month!
Exactly, you want to get as much as possible in the investment account.
Also notice I used a low percentage return of 5% to make those calculations just to be conservative. It is roughly twice as much with 10%.
You need about $500,000 for a 5% return for about $25,000 per year you can live off for about $2000 a month.
You need about $250,000 for a 10% return for about $25,000 per year you can live off for about $2000 a month.
You need about $180,000 for a 15% return for about $25,000 per year you can live off for about $2000 a month.
You need about $100,000 for a 25% return for about $25,000 per year you can live off for about $2000 a month.
HOWEVER, you will still have more money than if you spent that money already. Better to have $1,758 deposited than having spent that money already and being broke.
Results may vary.
Day 2 — List All Things You Can Repurpose
Look at everything you have.
Is there anything you can rent out? Is there anything you can sell or flip?
Right now, for this day, all I’m asking you to do is just LIST the things. Take a look around your room.
Repurpose your junk
The typical American has a garage full of stuff they never use.
Repurpose your living space
Everyone lives somewhere, right?
If you have a spare room or a spare vacation house: put it up on Airbnb or rent it out through Zillow or Craigslist.
This can pay off all your living expenses quickly. This takes a lot of management time compared to other things here, but it is free to start, if you don’t count the preparing part such as getting furniture, toiletries, or whatever to set up the room or property.
This is probably the fastest consistent way to considerable amount of money I know. I was able to take care of my mortgage payments until the plumbing in my house went kaput, and thus am not able to rent it out. (I still use the house for business, so it is deducted off my taxes).
Of course, you’re going to deal with people living with you as roommates and guests or simply living off your property. Which is a hassle, but you will make good money.
And you can actually do something like subletting by renting from another landlord, and turning that rented place into an Airbnb or so if you don’t have your own place.
Of course, there will be things like if you need a license (especially if you’re in the city) and you may have to do more tax calculations, and may have to work things out with insurance for short term rentals, less so for long term rentals.
Expect to spend at least $400 if you are starting with an empty room for startup costs. Most of that is going to the mattress.
Repurpose your cars
This may be Uber or Lyft, but can be something like Turo, if you have an extra car.
Repurpose your computer
Things like mining Bitcoin come to mind. Do know that
Repurpose your… scam robo calls?
Why yes, you can even turn scam calls into cash. Basically since scam calls are illegal, you can quickly sue and get money from that. Check this article I’ve written that explains the process.
My point is, you can repurpose almost anything to make you money. Which leads me to the next item:
Repurpose legal loopholes!
There are legal loopholes you can take advantage of like the above. And while some are unethical, some definitely are ethical.
Something like taking a finder’s fee for money that the government illegally keeps from foreclosure.
Repurpose… your old entrepreneurship ideas?
Do you have old failed business ideas and still have stuff from that? Look at it a new way.
This is a true story. A florist business in a city was going down as fewer and fewer people bought flowers to mark an occasion.
Did they call it quits? No, they changed something.
In this case, they changed their customers. Instead of waiting for people to come in to their shop, they marketed themselves to hotels so that they could provide premium flowers weekly for their lobbies.
Now they get thousands of dollars in regular, repeating, predictable business.
They scaled up to richer clients. They made their business model recurring.
So maybe your old business idea failed.
What type of people with money would need this business regularly? Usually, this will be businesses themselves, or at least some kind of organization.
Let’s apply these to even some MLM products, since MLM people sell to unsuspecting individuals for little money. How can we scale?
I’ve seen those MLM knives demo. Have those people ever think of selling to restaurants? Or businesses with kitchens and cafeterias?
What type of business would need huge amounts of MLM essential oils? Maybe those natural spa centers. Maybe those holistic alternative medicine clinics may be interested.
In the Christian world, I know quite a few people who sell books, curriculum, gospel tracts, and such to individuals, but it doesn’t hit them that they can sell them in bulk to churches, bookstores, and Bible college libraries.
Day 3 — Writing, Blogging, E-Book, Audiobook
Time: 3 hours
Write a small e-book.
I don’t have expertise! You say.
You turn experiences to expertise.
You have recipes? Put them in a book.
Look up all your long Facebook posts, copy and paste it on a Word document or Google document, export it as a DOC or MOBI file and put it up in Kindle Direct Publishing as an e-book. Upload it and use the automatic price for 70% royalty.
Don’t worry if it isn’t polished. You can polish later. You can add. Don’t worry if you only have 10 pages, 20, 30, 50, 80, as long you have something to say.
Just finish something and get it out.
Repurpose your Facebook and social media posts into blogposts
Repurpose your blog posts into an e-book and even a print book
Repurpose your e-book into an audiobook
Day 4 — YouTube, Courses, Tutoring, Google Ad Revenue
With your expertise with the e-book, you can
Start a YouTube channel. If you can’t take videos worth a lick, use stock video images. Do not use any copyrighted material, you will lose all ad revenue.
Day 5 — Merchandise, Shopify, Print On Demand, Amazon, Zazzle
Canva
Here are some set to forget things.
Day 6 — Promoting, Marketing, Traffic, Customer Lists
“Build a better mousetrap, and people will be knocking on your door” isn’t true.
First, people usually only care if it is ten times better than the previous mousetrap. People’s expectations are exponential, not incremental.
People hate being sold to, and people hate sounding salesy.
But you shouldn’t sell, you should rather help people and solve their problems.
Once someone peruses your page or buys your product, you need to capture their contact information.
Things You Can’t Do (Or Just No Time To Learn)
Hire people through Fiverr.
Traction and consistency is the hardest part:
Marketing, Advertising, Email Marketing
If something is working, double it. If something is not working, halved or remove it.
Every profit you have can go to
Day 7 — Rest
Why is rest important in terms of passive income? You need to consume to give. Inspiration is not borne out of isolation. If you are to be a creator, you need to observe.
Someone Else’s Idea + Someone Else’s Idea = Creative “Original” Idea
Twitter + Photo Album = Instagram
There is nothing new under the sun. Everything is just a remix of everything.
Don’t know what to do?
Read a book!
Reading a book will give you more ideas to write about. More ideas to write about equals more blogs, more ebooks, more videos, more merch, and thus more money.
I have a list of suggestions in the back of this booklet.
Learn a new skill.
Even browsing social media can be restful. A lot of people think social media is a waste, and it can be, but someone will post something that you will think you can do better or disagree with or something, and you can write and make something about of that.
Another form of rest is giving your tithes and offerings to your church as a sign of gratitude to God.
Maintaining and Optimizing:
Optimizing means tweaking things so they are efficient. Most of the time someone is not making money and have everything else in place, is because somewhere, there is a weakest link, and it is literally leaking money. Fix that leak, and you will see improvement.
Now, optimizing many things are beyond the scope of this writing. It is best to look up specialists on YouTube. Google if you are stuck.
Finding Something And Sticking To It:
Jumping to and fro to this strategy and that tool and not settling to one thing.
Well, you can say, are we not jumping to different things with this strategy?
You can see it that way, you can just take a part of this system and run with it and succeed. But you will eve
That’s Just Your First Week.
If you want the rest of the next weeks on how to scale and diversify, check out my book Passive Income Strategy In A Week on Amazon.
