Want to Make $50K/Year Without Working? Set Up a Passive Income Stream Now
Can you imagine a life where you don’t have to work every day? Instead of needing to work, you could work because you wanted to, or you could just choose not to work.
Conventional wisdom tells you the path you’re supposed to live looks like this:
- Go to college.
- Get a good job.
- Take out a loan for school, your wedding, a car, furniture and a house.
- Work hard for 30-plus years to pay off all the debt you accumulated.
- Maybe you’ll have enough to retire, and then again, maybe not.
The truth is that there is another way to live. You don’t have to go the traditional route. After all, you’re the one in control of your life. You can do anything you want.
Isn’t that a freeing thought? To know you’re in the driver’s seat of your own life? For me, it is.
One thing that has been on my mind a lot, and that I have begun to work toward, is creating passive income so my limited time isn’t constantly being exchanged for money.
And because I’ve always had a fascination with passive income, I’ve been drilling down on it lately and not only learning more, but also taking action.
I think most people could happily live on $50,000 per year (provided they had no debt), so I thought it would be a good idea to explore some ways to make $50,000 per year without working.
How This Works: Front Load Your Life
Front loading your life is working hard now so you don’t have to work so hard later.
It’s kind of like making a snowball. At first, you’re packing the snow and rolling the ball around to make it bigger. After a little work, your ball starts to roll down a hill and gets bigger and bigger and bigger all on its own.
At this point, the snowball’s momentum starts to work in your favor.
That’s what front loading is all about. That, my friends, is exactly how you can earn $50,000 per year without working.
You have to work hard up front, and in anywhere from 10 to 30 years (depending on how much you invest and how smart you are about the way you invest), you could earn a good amount of passive income.
Here are just a few ideas for earning $50,000 per year without working.
Own 10 Rental Properties
Net: $4,200 per month
Ten rental properties that provided you a net income of $4,200 per month — after figuring in things like vacancies, maintenance, repairs, property management, taxes and insurance — would bring in $50,400 per year.
Depending on the locations and types of properties you have, it may take more or fewer properties for you to reach that $50,000 per year mark.
One successful real estate investor I’ve enjoyed learning from is Paula Pant. Paula has a total of seven rental units that net her around $80,000 per year.
If you’re wondering what to look for in rental properties, here’s an excellent post from Paula on why she purchased one rental property. It includes how she evaluated the neighborhood and the math she uses to figure out whether a particular rental is a good investment.
If rental properties are something you’d like to get into, I’d highly suggest you start doing research now. Real estate is something that has always interested me, and from my research it seems like everyone has different goals and different criteria for how they choose their investments.
That means you’ll need to create your own path and consider your risk tolerance to reach your particular goals.
Invest $1.25 Million in Dividend Stocks
Net: $50,000 per year
This particular method appears, at first glance, a little harder to achieve than the rental property scenario, but stick with me, please. These methods are actually very similar. With both, you’re buying an asset that provides you cash flow.
Dividend stocks are great because, while they pay dividends, they can also appreciate (or depreciate) in value. This means you’ll still get to take advantage of compound interest on the value of the stock. Plus, you can reinvest your dividends until you reach your desired amount.
The cool thing about dividend stocks is when you need the dividend checks to live off of, you don’t have to touch the underlying assets. In other words, you don’t have to sell your stocks to get money. The value you have in stocks still has the chance to compound and grow without you ever adding anything else to it!
And because you get to take advantage of compound interest and can reinvest your dividends while growing your nest egg, you’re not actually contributing that full $1.25 million.
Build a Business, and Outsource the Work
Net: $4,200 a month
I don’t want to sound all “4-Hour Workweek” here, but outsourcing a business is possible.
My dad owns three businesses: two department stores and one greenhouse. He works at one of these businesses.
The other two are outsourced to different family members. There are also managers for different departments and, of course, employees.
There’s simply no way that he could run all three businesses by himself. Quite frankly, he doesn’t want to.
I’ve tried copying this method in my own online business, and so far am headed in the right direction.
For instance, there are a couple parts to my businesses. First, there’s freelancing. Freelancing is very much active and requires my direct involvement. I can’t hand this off to other people.
The other side is blogging. My own blog generates around $2,500 to $3,000 per month and I normally spend around five to seven hours a week on it.
I used to spend much more time on it, until I started to outsource. I hired out social media and brought on a writer to help with the workload. My expenses rarely exceed $500 per month.
This means I’m now netting around $2,000 to $2,500 per month from a blog I enjoy running while only spending 20 to 28 hours per month on it. That’s around $75 to $100 per hour.
While it’s not completely passive, it’s headed in the right direction and sure beats my old day job that paid $11.50 per hour.
It is completely possible for you to build a business in any area you enjoy and then outsource once you get systems in place. This doesn’t happen without a bunch of initial hard work, though — it’s all about front loading.
This post originally appeared on The College Investor. The College Investor helps millennials get out of student loan debt, earn more money, start investing and build real wealth.
