DD! Disclaimer! This article is not in any form financial advice! The article depicts my own strategy on investing. I am not responsible for your decisions! Always do your own research before investing! If you invest, only use funds you can afford to loose! If you are having panic attacks and can not handle when your portfolio swings 20% or more then you are too exposed! AGAIN! I am not to be made responsible for your actions! "Do your own fucking research you dumb fuck!"( yes even on wsb people are keeping this in mind! they call it DD! Google it! Or much better: PRE SEARCH IT) this article contains referral links, I will make comissions if you register through these links. THX!
INTRODUCTION
In this article I will give you an insight on my active and passive income streams and how I put this income to use. This is my personal strategy and since I have nothing to hide I will be as transparent as possible. I will give you a closer look on my finances and I hope it will inspire others to have a look at their own.
I am trying to build up a decent amount amount of wealth for the time I retire. And I do not plan to retire at retirement age. That is why I am willing to take some risks and invest a part of my income into high risk products wich on the short run could mean a huge loss but hopefully gives me a good return in a timespan of 20 years.
My strategy
By living in a frugal way, wich means I do not buy myself all the fancy shit others feel obliged to buy. I bought myself a phone in 2020 and it will be my phone until it dies. I don´t own a car and I don´t have any debts. I pay 1€ per day for travelling in my city. I pay my taxes and insurance and rent in time. All this is covered by my primary and active income stream. I am able to save 25% of my major income at this point. By actively investing my savings I am trying to grow my wealth while not changing my lifestyle while trying to achieve more income to be able to raise the amount I can safe up. By saving up more I can raise my investments. By generating more income streams while keeping the same lifestyle I can safe even more and thats where the passive income streams come in handy. When you are able to make money while you sleep you can focus more on the good sides of live. The more I can safe the earlier I will be able to retire. My goal is to just maintain the lifestyle I have now and in the end just live of my savings and my state pension wich would not be enough to live a decent life. The earlier you realize this the better. I am 38 already and just recently started saving for retirement. If i would have had this knowledge with 20 I probably would be able to retire in 5-10 years at age of 43-48.
Sound nice huh? Well if I would have invested just a 100€ a month for the past 20 years in basic really boring index funds my investment would have invested a total of 24100€ after taxation if you sell this investment today you have 37656€ not bad huh?
Well lets do these calculation with the actual yearly performance of the last 20 years and lets just try to increase our investment by whatever we can on a yearly basis. So we invest 100€ a month for 12 month then we increase this number to 200€ over the span of 5 years. With an average of 8% per year you invested a total of 12 times 100 12 times 120 12 times 140 etc all the way up until you pay 200 each month for a year so we spent 6 years to build up a wealth of 11 214 € so lets invest this into a nice etf strategy portfolio wich makes if we take the average of the past 20 years made 8% a year and lets just go on with 300 per month now for the next 5 years after 5 years after tax we have 34.173 so lets take so with 11 years of investing we made quite a nice amount but that is not going to take us anywhere near financial freedom. so lets assume you start saving up more money to be able to invest more. After 11 years we decide we are able to double the amount we can invest on a monthly basis to 600 lets be pessimistic and have a look at only 5% growth per year and keep paying the taxes. So lets assume we keep raising our investment amount always by the maximum while maintaining the same lifestyle. for the next 9 years you keep paying these 600 € after a total of 20 years you only have 118 754 € to maintain my lifestyle and stopping the investment it will cost about 2000€ a month in my opinion but it even could be that it costs 4000€ so lets be a little pessimistic here and count with 4k.
118754 / 4000= 29,68 month
That is the amount of time I could live with no income at all by just living of the amount of money from my investments. Thats only 2,5 years so how the fuck are you going to retire at 40? Well it does not work like this. You need to tweak those numbers a little bit more. The best way to tweak these numbers is by raising the amount of money you are able to save and invest.
Well we forget that there is going to be a minimum state pension depending on where you live of course, but in my opinion central Europe is a safe bet. So lets be really pessimistic saying the pension is just 350€ per month wich is ridiculous because it is now on a minimum of 1000€ approx.
This prolongs my sufferings until I am on zero by 10%
So we have to tweak a little more. Lets say the pension stays as it is now and is still 1000€ per month so you only need 3000 out of your savings account.
118754 / 3000= 39,58 month
Well thats 4 years so this is also not good enough.
Lets tweak a little more? Yeah I know wtf, right?
So lets take a case where you are a badass and able to safe up a lot like 1000 or even 1500 a month in the end.
I will still go with the pessimistic numbers but lets have a look. Currently I am able to save up 700 in my savings account each month starting from january 2021 lets count with this number for 20 years with a 5% growth per year and paying the taxation that makes 239.535€ wich ist still not enough if you count.
So I calculated that in the next 5 years I will be able to save up more than 700€ a month by raising my pay achieving new passive and active income streams. Lets say i am able to grow to a double saving in 5 years meaning that for the last 15 years I pay the same amount of 1400 each month into my boring indexfunds: makes me 426000€ Sounds good but lets count with the same pessimistic numbers as before that last you like a bit less than 12 years if you count with the 1000€ state pension. So if I retire in 20 years with 58 I could live off of my money without investing anything and just spending what I have for 142 month. Well I plan to have money after being 70 as well so how do we do that?
There is several ways and I have not decided how I am going to proceed. I do not need the whole amount at the same time so I can just take out a portion lets say 25% and put it on a low risk higher yield account. Something really boring where you get 0.25% APY so thats approx 100k where in the first year counted with real pessimism i need 48k and in the second year also 48k
If I put the rest of my wealth into dividend stocks we could be in for some serious cash coming from these dividends. Lets check out the top 3 dividend paying stocks from today based on research from this source: https://www.investors.com/research/best-dividend-stocks/
According to their research I would invest my remaining 300k what I do not need for the next 2 years in 3 parts putting a 100k each in the top dividend stocks.
screen shot https://research.investors.com/stock-quotes/nasdaq-broadcom-inc-avgo.htm
for a 100k in € I would get 253,161 shares each share pays 14$ wich as of today accounts for 11,54€
2921€ in dividends after one year, deducting approx 27% tax I will have to pay, leaves me with a net return of 2132€ after 1 year
By reinvesting the dividends at the end of the year I can buy another 7.5 shares assuming the price stayed the same. (if it grew thats gonna be less on the other hand my initial investment will have grown a return as well)
screenshot: https://research.investors.com/stock-quotes/nasdaq-texas-instruments-txn.htm
For 100k in € I get 678,6 shares each share pays 4,08$ dividends wich makes me at the end of the year 2768$ so 2281€ deducting the tax and so on I reinvest the remaining 1666€ and again assuming the price of the stock stayed at the sam level I get myself 11 more shares. Going into the second year I will hold 690 shares.
screenshot: https://research.investors.com/stock-quotes/nasdaq-t-rowe-price-group-inc-trow.htm?fromsearch=1
For 100k in € I would get as of today 740,8 shares each share paying a dividend of 0,95 I get 513€ after tax and I reinvest it to buy more shares assuming the price stays the same I accumulate 4 more shares. And head into the second year of holding the dividend stocks.
Assuming that the price stays the same is a nice thing to think but actually as we know in the long term stock prices tend to grow. So lets be really pessimistic and do a quick look into what happens in different scenarios: if we have a slightly pessimistic view but still assuming growth over the time span of first 2 years of retirement and say the 3 shares grow by 6% each I add about 18k to my wealth and since I have not sold the shares yet I also do not need to pay taxes on the returns. So at the end of the first two year perioud I ate up a 100k of my wealth and invested 300000 wich after the first year was 309000 k but since i reinvested in the stock my holdings grew in the second year. And we again get our dividends. This time a bit more than 4k again
Our shares are now approx 322k worth but depending on growth and dividends
So here we are 2 years have passed and we again need money to live and again need to deduct that from our stock. You see where we are getting? Each year I will make less and less in dividends but assuming a steady price growth in the stock market our share value goes up a bit. But if there is no other income stream at some point we will be appoaching 0 and be left empty handed.
I do not really want to count on how long it would last. The option to see my savings diminish is not an option for me. That is why there has to be some way of passively earning money. Also since I am retired I can look for fun ways to gain some active income streams.
If you don´t find a way to earn money while you sleep, you will have to work till the end of your life!
Warren Buffet
Passive income streams
There are tons of different ways to earn a passive income. But most of these income streams need time to build and are at the very beginning all other than passive. You will have to put in some extra hours and dedication to make your income streams work in the long run. Here are some of the income streams I built or am building at the moment. I would say I dedicate 1 workday each week to build them. (So you can devide that by 5 to see how much time I spend each day the Weekend is holy and wont be touched! You need to rest!)
Flipping
I buy and sell vintage cameras on etsy facebook market place and several other platforms. Since I am a photographer and also know way around analog cameras I am quite good t find objects where I can turn a nice profit. After you are all set up on the different markets It really does not take too much time to maintain. I use my spare time in public transport and whenever I would take my phone to play some mediocre shit I just scan the market for cheap and good bargains. By now this accounts for about 50 € profit each month, but since it I really just began selling 2 month ago I consider that ok. Basic rule: know your product! I know a lot about vintage cameras, thats why I flip those. You can flip any produc you want as long as you know how to buy cheap and sell with a profit.
Selling merch
My girl and I did a redbubble store together she does the designs and I deal the administrative part such as posting on pinterest and other social media. We have not sold a single item yet but since our pinterest is going good it is only a matter of time until it starts dripping some passive income. Once your design is up people will see them if you know your SEO. Since they stay in your shop and you only earn money when actually someone orders this is pretty passive. But you have to put in the time if you do not want spend a lot on advertising. You can start out with as many designs as you want but the more the better. Keep uploading designs and try to figure out seasonal trends to get some decent income on holidays. There is also not only one platform where you can sell your designs!
Writing blogposts
I will continue posting at least 2 times a week on Publish0X and hive network to make some extra cash. I dont know how much that makes in 20 years but I assume it is going to be just fine. Also who knows ho much all the rewards are going to be since prices of coins will certainly vary from todays prices. This is not really a passive income but it comes very close to that. You can pre produce articles in your spare time and publishing only takes a few seconds.
Selling Photoshop templates and filter packs
This is still a part of passive income I have not set up yet. What I will do is I will share my photoshop projects as templates for others to download. Same thing with filters for Lightroom. You can sell these on stockphoto and other sites.
Selling Stock Photography
Still in setup mode but at some point will start to make money!
Affiliate Links
In every other article I use my affiliate links to make some extra cash whenever a person uses that link for a purchase. On my bitpanda account I make 10€ when you spend your first 25% and you get this Bonus ,too! I make 15% of every trading fee you pay on Binance 5% of your fee goes straight back to you! If you order your credit card at Getmore i will make money! If you buy your new Ledger NanoX with my link I will make money! If you sign up at freebitcoin I will make comissions! And I could go on for a while!
Setting up these links is not very hard and creating content around them is also easy.
There is of course tons of other ways to make a passive income and I will add some more when I am done setting up the ones above.
SIDEHUSTLES
Whatever skills you have there is always a way to make a profit on them. I work for a photostudio in summer when they have a bunch of weddings but not enough employees to cover them I jump in for a nice 50€ an hour. Makes about 3-4k a year.
Working on movie sets, I used to do a lot of assistant work in the film industry, if you can take the hours and the workload you can make good money there. This was my main stream of income a year ago and I converted it into a sidehustle. If you do this only part time you can make anything from 150 to 3000€ extra a month You will only make the 3k if you treat it as a main source of income.
I do offer voice over services and I am currently recording a book for a publishing company. You make between 25€-50€ per hour depending on the length of text. This is really fresh yso I cant report any income on this side hustle yet.
Yeah there is nothing on crypto investments here! Because thats a different story! You can read about my crypto investments here: https://www.publish0x.com/passive-income-the-key-to-financial-freedom/my-crypto-portfolio-on-bitpanda-passive-investing-automated-xnqjgew
Conclusion
If you did not get it yet: MAKE money and Invest it early on so your money can work for you! If I would have known this 20 years ago I would have already put aside a good chunk of money. But it is never too late!
START saving now and support my journey to financial freedom by tipping and signing up to all my affiliate links!
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