By Mervin Medel
You must be willing to do the things today that others won’t, so that tomorrow you can have the things that other people won’t have. – Les Brown, an American motivational speaker
Have you been invited to a nice occasion but can’t go because you have work? The worse is, you are in a work you hate. Well, passive income could be an answer.
I came to understand this idea through Robert Kiyosaki’s books. I mentioned these in one of my previous articles but let me mention them again, Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cash Flow Quadrant. They are really eye-opener. Let me explain passive income as much as I could.
Passive income is when you are not working yet money comes into your pocket. Awesome! Sometimes this is called residual income. You receive money continuously in the future from a work you’ve done today.
One guy says it’s like building a pipeline into your bank account. Wherever you are, whatever you do, money continues to pour into that pipeline. Whether you like it or not, asleep or awake, broken-hearted or not, with or without rheumatism, money continues to haunt you.
But don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about laziness or something like that. Passive income involves work. Hard work in fact. But it’s only at the start of the game. Once your endeavour is established, the rest is a joy ride. You can then devote your time on things you love to do.
Also, you’ve got to separate you from your money. If you can work for money (like your daily job), your money can also work for you. Let your money be your slave, not you being enslaved by it. I didn’t know that idea before.
Active income, on the other hand, is when a work demands your presence. You receive money as long as you work. No work, no pay. There is nothing wrong here as long as you love what you’re doing. Being paid for it is actually your bonus. Not many people are paid for a work they love to do.
Income streams
I know of some avenues that could give you passive income. They are rental property, network marketing, royalties (like the royalty fees received from invention or books written), and stock market investing. There are other ways but I’m not familiar with them.
The owner of the apartment where I lived before has many rental properties. And the owner is a very simple woman. You won’t notice at first glance that she owns a lot of apartment buildings. When I computed it, it shocked me. Her monthly income far exceeds than the big time CEOs! (Did I say she just stays at home?)
She can actually relax now but she continues to buy more properties. I tried investing in real estate before but it didn’t work out. I, in fact, put up a corporation but it did not operate (sigh). Only my accountant and I knew this but now my friends will.
I tried networking business as well. Kiyosaki’s ideas really influenced me a lot. This also didn’t work out well because my personality just didn’t fit into it. So I moved on and kept looking for other ways (if you keep looking, you’ll eventually find it). I was really captured by the charm of passive income.
Writing a book? This is one of my dreams. And writing articles like this could be a start. Writing a book could be self-fulfilling. It would be self-transcendence if others could learn from it. And the royalty fee I would receive? Assuming it would be bestseller, I could have more time to write more books.
Stocks
I admit I can’t master all streams of passive income. If you can, good for you. I can only have stock market investing now, and maybe a book later, who knows? This field worked for me, and continues to. You will never know unless you try.
How do you become familiar with how the stock market works? Les Brown says that if you can read one book a month about a certain field, in five years you’ll be an expert in it. Well, if you’re not a person who likes to read, you can watch Youtube; there are lots of materials there. In fact, almost all. Or find a mentor.
There is a misconception here. Some think that to invest in the stock market you need to be in front of a computer all day. No! Others could do that but that’s not passive income! It’s active income. Yes, doing this could be a source of income, that is, if you really, really study this hard.
Again, if you do day trading (buying and selling stocks on a daily basis) just make sure that the money you put in is your extra. I once read a seasoned trader who cautions investors to trade only the money that’s not intended to pay bills.
Indeed passive income in the stock market involves hard work; but it’s only at the beginning, and that is finding that profitable company and buying it at a good price. Doing it needs some study, or you could ask opinions from experts.
In particular, you’ve got to find companies that pay good dividend. I mentioned to you last time that there are companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange that regularly give good dividends to their shareholders. And most of them increase dividends yearly.
You may be retired later but you still receive good money. How does it sound to you? You won’t be asking money anymore from your children or grandchildren for the things you need. Once your passive income starts to roll, you might as well be addicted to finding the next wonderful company.
One last thing, and this is important. Once you make money, don’t forget to be more generous. I said ‘more’ because you can still be generous even if you have a few. Dead Sea is literally dead because it just accumulates water. It has no outlet. Don’t be a dead sea.
Donate to charities or to your church. Share what you have to the needy. It’s a nice feeling to make money. But it’s nicer to share it. It gives more value to your life. By the way, I’m not a pastor.
