Ahh, passive income is the wind beneath my sails. It is the warm blanket on those cold winter nights AND the air conditioning during those hot desert afternoons. Passive income is helpful throughout life—that’s why we go out of our way to build passive income streams.
This article is my second foray into fruit-based literature. My first piece is titled “When Life Gives You Lemons…Make Passive Income Lemonade.” I just finished an article on creativity and design where I mentioned that I got the idea for these articles after seeing the fantastic photos.
Passive income is great for all kinds of life events, so let’s recap some of how I use passive income.
The Business of Being Busy
Inflation. This may be the place where passive income helps us out the most. Having even an extra $200-$400/month coming in passively can be a huge help as our grocery store visits become costlier.
I have a nice series of articles covering how passive income can help us survive the coming inflation bubble. The government says inflation will not stick around, but we know otherwise.
Emergencies. Murphy’s Law states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. When you are low on funds, expect things to go wrong. I remember having insufficient funds, and our car had a $2,000 problem—not fun.
As I wrote in “What Limiting Beliefs Do You Have About Money,” it’s not your money’s fault that you had a spell of bad luck. Don’t get mad about it—just learn how to make more. Having a passive income is like a sword and shield versus a dragon named “Emergency.”
Fun. Of course, my favorite use case for passive income is having fun. Why not use passive income to treat you and your family to dinner and a movie? My wife and I were planning on a $1,000 dividend shopping spree during Black Friday, but we are now looking into buying our fourth home. We will have to postpone the joy ride until we clear the home.
I’m Too Serious
Many months ago, I wrote “How the Rich Buy Their Bling,” where I stated the rich use the income from investments to buy luxury items. I also dug into the topic more in “How to Start Dividend Investing 102: Set Small Goals.”
Passive income starts like a small snowball. The more time, work, and compounding takes place, the bigger the ball becomes. Eventually, you want to live off the massive snowball.
How do you get started with passive income? Now that we know that extra cash is a great thing to have (duh?)—how do we get started? I recommend you pick the income stream that interests you the most and begins there.
The various income streams are retirement income (410K, Roth IRA), investing (stocks, bonds), cryptocurrencies (interest, staking), rental income (homes, rooms), and business (royalties, automated business).
The idea is to start with what you think you will enjoy learning. Get deep into that passive income stream. You may be uncomfortable—that means you are doing something right.
Don’t Gamble With Retirement 4
For each of my income streams, I felt uncomfortable when beginning. These moments include dividend investing, buying treasuries, purchasing homes 1-3, opening my crypto account, releasing my first book, and joining the Marine Corps.
To get to your final destination, you will have to put yourself out there—sorry, those are the ropes. In “Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing,” Robert Kiyosaki says that there are no risky investments, only risky investors. I wholeheartedly agree.
I don’t gamble in the stock market because I am not trying to get rich from stocks. I am looking to earn a 4% dividend yield from my portfolio—that’s all. When I want to make big bucks, I rent rooms because that money is in an infinite return.
I am not losing money on my book business because everything I do is free. I do my own artwork and writing. I also don’t advertise at the moment. If I had sunk tons of money into hiring artists and writers, I’d probably be poor by now. I am using the old technique called “sweat equity.”
When I invest in cryptocurrencies, I invest for interest from my coins. Capital appreciation is excellent, but I am not chasing mega gains. I’ll take my 9% interest from USDC and 7% from VGX while I wait for crypto to rebound.
21 Passive Income Ideas
Once you learn your passive income stream inside and out, time to learn another one. I am currently in the process of learning how to sell covered calls. This will give me “synthetic dividends” and help me earn more cash from my stock positions.
There are ways to increase your rental income and make passive income from decentralized finance in the world of cryptocurrencies. There are so many ways to make money that you can find ways to make money for a living.
It all comes back to you. Do you want to have multiple streams of income? There are two ways to build passive income. First, convert your earned income into investment income. Second, convert your free time into grind time.
Converting your earned income into investment income involves learning about stocks, bonds, dividends, interest, crypto, real estate, etc.
Converting your free time into passive income grind time consists of building royalties via music, videos, writing, and art and starting an automated business in your spare time.
Passive Income for Christmas
Again, you will be uncomfortable in this new world of passive income. 95% of people cannot make the leap into the new mindset. The book “Mindset” talks about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. To build passive income, you will need to achieve a growth mindset. If you are serious about your journey, give that book a read.
Conclusion. Building passive income is more complicated in your mind than it is in real life. Most people don’t want to give up their sports time, boats, cars, and vacations. They also don’t want to read, write, and take notes. Will you be like them?
The saying goes, “Do what everyone does, and get what everyone gets.” After you turn 40, you will start to see the writing on the wall. Everyone wants to show off their new toys, homes, and vacations. However, they will be working until they are 65-70 years old.
If that is what you want, to work for 40+ years and still be on a small fixed income, go right ahead. I want to be rich, young, and happy. I want to ensure my children have houses, my grandkids are homeschooled, and their wives have the option to stay home with their children.
This future takes knowledge and wealth. I don’t want to be like everyone else. We may all look like oranges on the outside, but I look like passive income on the inside.
- Build Passive Income: 21 Passive Income Ideas (book)
- Free PDF Downloads: Download FREE PDF books here
- Financial Mindset: Become CEO of Yourself (book)
- Retirement Planning: Don’t Gamble with Retirement 4 (Free PDF)
- Investing: The Pros and Cons of Dividend ETFs (Free PDF)
- Cryptocurrencies: The Magic of Cryptocurrencies (Free PDF)
- Real Estate: Real Estate is a Mindset (Intermediate) (Free PDF)
- Business: Retire Rich, Retire Comfortable with a Business 2 (Free PDF)
- Everything!: The Biggest Book on Passive Income Ever! (book)(Web Edition)(Art Edition)
- I bought a Kindle Oasis: Check it out Amazon
- Read My Books for Free: Free Kindle Books Schedule
- Sign up to Access our “Hidden” Free Kindle Book Schedule
- My first Children’s book: A Child’s First Book on Passive Income (book)
- Book Reviews: 54 Takeaways from 54 Books (book)
- Want to Build Passive Income from Books and Affiliate Marketing? (Learn here)
- Writing: Can Grammarly Make You a Better Writer? (direct)
- My Favorite Chromebook: The Ultimate Chromebook (direct)
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- Amazon Author Page: Check out my author page on Amazon
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing
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