Passive Income Ideas

Today I will briefly go through some ideas I am implementing for passive income. I have already started doing these things and will be doing deep dives on each explaining how to get started and documenting how successful they are. I am certainly hoping they are all successful at least to some degree. Remember, my ultimate goal is to have passive income for retirement so I can spend time with my family without having to continue to work; essentially working hard/smart now to reap the rewards later. This is much like putting money in a 401k or other investment accounts. You are building something over time which you will be able to live off of later. None of these ideas are get rich quick and all require initial investment dollars, but they are things that once you set them up they are very low maintenance or essentially passive income. I will outline some “side hustles” as people like to call them these days in another post. So here we go...

Fundrise.com

This is a site that I had heard a lot about recently with my research in real estate investment. The site kept coming up and so I looked into it and found that it is essentially a way to invest in real estate without a whole lot of money and with very little effort. It is much like investing in the stock market, but you are investing in real estate projects. You can diversify your investments and decide whether you are looking for safer/lower returns or riskier/higher returns. Seems like you can expect similar returns as those of the stock market, but it is less intimidating than the stock market in my opinion. 

LendingClub.com

You may have received something in the mail with a loan offer from this company. Essentially they are a crowdfunded loan provider. You can go get yourself a personal or business loan from LendingClub and they actually fund your loan with multiple investors. In this case, I am talking about being one of those investors that puts money in to be loaned to individuals and in return you get interest from the loans. This is another investment opportunity where you can put a little money in and decide if you would like to focus more on higher return/higher risk loans versus lower return/lower risk loans.

Cryptocurrency Mining 

This one was all the rage in 2017 due to the skyrocketing cryptocurrency market; mostly Ethereum’s rise which was a coin that could be mined very profitably for a while. This idea is one that many have given up because the market dropped horribly in 2018 and has only recently started to show signs of possibly coming back. Currently it is only profitable if you have low electricity costs (which I do), but it is possible to outsource your mining in places where the electricity cost is very low which would be even more passive than what I currently do. I will get much further in depth into cryptocurrency and mining in the future because it is a fun hobby that can make you money too, but for now just know that it can be a nice additional passive income stream. I have continued to stay profitable through this downturn of the market and although it could still take multiple years to pay off my initial investment (at current return rates), if the market gets hot again I will be in a good position to make some decent extra income with essentially no effort past the initial setup and occasional maintenance of the mining rigs.

Rental Properties

When I first got into real estate I was working on fix and flip properties because I think it is a lot of fun to fix and improve things around the house. It can be rewarding for sure, but it is also very high risk and a ton of work. I had a few successes and a few failures on flips and ultimately determined it is just too much time and effort to make since as a side gig. So for now, I am really only interested in acquiring rental properties. I started with one property in Kennesaw, GA and got a good property manager (this is key) and have basically just let it make money monthly for the last 3 years. This is not completely passive because it does require some extra effort with taxes and insurance and mortgages and when things come up that need to be fixed you have to make decisions, but overall it is definitely something I would consider passive income. Also, generally real estate will appreciate in value over time so having positive cash flow while paying off the mortgage can lead to great benefits down the road. Of course, investing in rental properties can be intimidating and does require a decent amount of money for that initial investment, but the benefits have outweighed the downsides for me so far. I look forward to buying more rental properties and building my portfolio for the long term.

So there are a few things I am working on now. Again, I will be taking a deep dive into each and documenting how they are turning out overall so you can look into them yourself and see if any fit into your financial plans.

Staying Motivated, Staying Positive

Sometimes, people will get you down. I like to think the best of people so most the time, when people get you down, I don't believe it is intentional. Case in point, I recently had a conversation with someone I respect very much. They have "made it" in life and are now comfortably enjoying their retirement. It took long hard work to get where they are today and is well deserved, but this is a very different perspective from the one I currently have. I am half their age so I have 35 years to get where they are. They did not say anything directly negative about my ideas or results to date, but they questioned what it was I was doing and indicated I needed to focus on paying off debts.

Ok, all sounds good and clearly not intended to be negative, but in the moment it crushed my spirit. I have been working very hard to turn around my financial situation and focus on moving in the right direction and this one conversation made me feel like all of those efforts were for nothing and that I was not doing the right things. However, when I stepped back and took a harder look at it, they were not saying anything that I had not already said to myself. I of course do need to focus on paying off debts and creating more positive cash flow. The difference is that they did not know any of the efforts I had recently made in this regard. They are only looking at the results of what I have done in the past. So, I should have just responded with a simple yes, you are right, thanks for the advice. Hopefully, I will have much better results from my recent efforts and I will be able to go back to this same person let them know how it is going; they meant well by the comments and truly want me to succeed.

So, when you find yourself in a situation where something someone has said or done is getting you down, take a step back and think about it from their perspective. People usually mean well and even if they don't, they don't know what you know about what it is you are going. They don't know all the struggles you may have had or the efforts you have made in the positive direction. Just take their advice at face value and see if it works into or improves upon your current goals and use it as positive motivation. As long as you know you are moving in the right direction and staying positive it is going to get better; some things just take time.

What will later be my About page

As the title implies, this first post will at some point be revised to the point where it can be a permanent fixture on the website. Let me start off with some background. First, this is not my first "blog" and/or website, but I can definitely say I am still a beginner in the world of web publishing (I mean I am writing this on google blogger). I had a movie review blog back in 2007 through 2013 or so; although I think I lost my passion for it after a couple years. I loved movies and although I still do, I don't much care for writing about movies. I always wanted to make movies, but never took the steps necessary to really push into that profession. I instead took my general business degree and landed in a general business job. I always figured I would be in my first "real" job for a couple years and move on and up in life, but somehow, I am still in the same job 12 years later. I have already worked here for a third of my life. I should be happy to have had a steady job that has supported my family and I am, but something is still missing. The passion about the work I am doing is not what I had hoped and the promise of a comfortable retirement (even a possible retirement really) has seemed less and less likely. So, what does that have to do with this site, The Lifer, you ask? Well, this site is a place for me to find my passion in my work and find ways to make more money and have more time with my family and friends. I am on the search for ideas about how to accomplish this and will use this site as a place to document the successes and failures hopefully along the way to a worry free (I would mind early) retirement. For now, this is mostly just a place for me to keep track of this journey, but I truly hope that it will prove useful or encouraging to others as well.