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Alright. I'll be that guy. I look at your list of side projects and I see nothing that's remotely passive. They all look like tons of work! My best passive

Alright. I'll be that guy. I look at your list of side projects and I see nothing that's remotely passive. They all look like tons of work! My best passive income this year is my index funds -- for instance, the S&P 500 is up 3.9% year-to-date, and I've cumulatively spent under an hour this year thinking about it. Hard to imagine what else besides investments qualifies as passive. Maybe real estate? But how passive that is is questionable and very dependent on your particular circumstances.

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
I think it's pretty well understood that passive means without requiring on-going work, support or maintenance. Even investing takes up-front work in the form of research and to actually setup the investment.
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  And the work to get the money in the first place of course
- qnsi 8y ago
  you don't need that much research to invest in index fund
arbol 8y ago
It's not income unless it's realised.
- rullelito 8y ago
  And if you invest your passive income?..
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  Dividends are realized (so realized that you have to pay taxes on them every year), and with a proper diversified portfolio they can very easily reach 3%, which is close to the number the parent poster was quoting.
plaidfuji 8y ago
The best example I’ve heard is that a friend of a friend made the CatFacts app. It automatically texts you (or someone else) cat trivia and he claims to get $8k/month from it. Sounds like a very high ROI on the up front and recurring labor investment, and I think that’s the point of this thread. Sure, appreciating assets are the best passive income, but the income is a function of how much money you already had / how shrewdly you picked the asset / how much research you put into it (back to work). I think the underlying ideal here is “passive income through talent, wit, or execution” - passive income that you’re earning based on your skills and ideas (or ridiculous dumb luck) not your existing money.
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  I struggled with this thought for a while, specifically the decision between putting significant effort into revenue generating side projects (I have ideas for a few saas services and a couple domain-specific books that I would likely be qualified for writing), or giving all my intellectual power to my employer and getting a higher compensation than people who have stuff going on on the side (on average, that is). I opted for the second, so I haven’t done even a single side project in my life and have completely focused on my full time job. It allowed me to quickly grow my net worth and now I’m in the 7 figures after 8 years of full time work, and the effect of having large assets invested in index funds can be felt now. So, I humbly think my “strategy” is also a form of “passive income through talent, wit, or execution”. I’m 100% sure that if I dabbled with side ideas and put in the hundreds of hours required to write books, courses, ... I wouldn’t have been able to obtain the impact I had at my job, so my net worth would be significantly lower. As I said though, I thought about it a lot so I haven’t necessarily come to the conclusion that it’s the best thing to do, there are certainly other factors that go in side projects, such as personal satisfaction, pride and sense of ownership, which are only relative when contributing to an employer.
blastofrocks 8y ago
and then there is depression and the market fell off by 50%
- Simon_says 8y ago
  OP specified 2018. Different years would give different numbers.

Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago

I think it's pretty well understood that passive means without requiring on-going work, support or maintenance. Even investing takes up-front work in the form of research and to actually setup the investment.

albertgoeswoof 8y ago
And the work to get the money in the first place of course
qnsi 8y ago
you don't need that much research to invest in index fund

arbol 8y ago

It's not income unless it's realised.

rullelito 8y ago
And if you invest your passive income?..
deanmoriarty 8y ago
Dividends are realized (so realized that you have to pay taxes on them every year), and with a proper diversified portfolio they can very easily reach 3%, which is close to the number the parent poster was quoting.

plaidfuji 8y ago

The best example I’ve heard is that a friend of a friend made the CatFacts app. It automatically texts you (or someone else) cat trivia and he claims to get $8k/month from it. Sounds like a very high ROI on the up front and recurring labor investment, and I think that’s the point of this thread. Sure, appreciating assets are the best passive income, but the income is a function of how much money you already had / how shrewdly you picked the asset / how much research you put into it (back to work). I think the underlying ideal here is “passive income through talent, wit, or execution” - passive income that you’re earning based on your skills and ideas (or ridiculous dumb luck) not your existing money.

deanmoriarty 8y ago
I struggled with this thought for a while, specifically the decision between putting significant effort into revenue generating side projects (I have ideas for a few saas services and a couple domain-specific books that I would likely be qualified for writing), or giving all my intellectual power to my employer and getting a higher compensation than people who have stuff going on on the side (on average, that is). I opted for the second, so I haven’t done even a single side project in my life and have completely focused on my full time job. It allowed me to quickly grow my net worth and now I’m in the 7 figures after 8 years of full time work, and the effect of having large assets invested in index funds can be felt now. So, I humbly think my “strategy” is also a form of “passive income through talent, wit, or execution”. I’m 100% sure that if I dabbled with side ideas and put in the hundreds of hours required to write books, courses, ... I wouldn’t have been able to obtain the impact I had at my job, so my net worth would be significantly lower. As I said though, I thought about it a lot so I haven’t necessarily come to the conclusion that it’s the best thing to do, there are certainly other factors that go in side projects, such as personal satisfaction, pride and sense of ownership, which are only relative when contributing to an employer.

blastofrocks 8y ago

and then there is depression and the market fell off by 50%

Simon_says 8y ago
OP specified 2018. Different years would give different numbers.