There is a lot of information floating about these days about FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), side gigs, passive income streams etc. The consensus seems to be that in order to achieve either part of FIRE if you don’t have a significant income it needs to be supplemented by an alternative stream such as a method of passive income. While there is a lot of information about methods to generate passive income, there seems to be little information on how easy (or not) some of these income streams are to implement, how much effort is required to maintain them, how much income they generate for the average person, and how quickly the cash comes rolling in.
One of the aims of this blog is to look further in to generating a passive income using some of the methods suggested by various youtubers, blogs, and finance websites and rating them as to their passivity (how much effort to get started and to maintain the income stream) and how much cash they actually generate, and to do this by actually trying them out.
I will over the coming weeks, months, and maybe even years have a go at some of these ideas and see where they take me. I will report back monthly on income generated by each method and how much time I have put in to each. I will also provide posts on what I am doing to generate income detailing the work that needs to go in to generating money passively in order to give a true account of what is needed to generate a useful amount of passive income.
The blog will obviously form part of the passive income stream at some point, through either adverts, affiliate marketing or similar. Although this is not truly passive in the sense that it requires content on a continuous basis, I will nonetheless record the amount of time taken to write my articles and the amount of money generated by the website each month. As well as just testing income ideas and writing about money and finances in general I will also be writing about some of my other hobbies, pastimes and interests to ensure that there is a continuous stream of content (and be in keeping with the overall theme of this blog). This can also be used to judge which sort of topics are more likely to generate interest and therefore a greater proportion of income.
In addition to the blog, which seems to be the most cited method of generating passive income, one of the first things I will be trying is stock photography (full disclosure I have some of the gear but no idea) this should be the ultimate test as I have no experience other than taking family snaps and pictures of scenery that looks interesting, without really using any of the advanced features of the camera. The article on this will be coming soon.
As well as starting down the stock photography path I will look in to investing some cash to generate an income from stocks and shares. I have a little experience of this as I have previously put money in to a stocks and shares ISA, therefore I know this is likely to lead to more immediate and likely more predictable returns.
The ideas listed above are only the start on my passive income journey, I will be looking in to as many ideas as I can manage (although I will stop short of rental properties and the like as this would involve either large amounts of cash that I do not have or exposure to a level of risk, through mortgages and the like, that I am not comfortable with), suggestions are welcome.
I’m looking forward to digging in to this experiment and seeing where it will take me as well as how much these passive income ideas can actually generate.
MMAM