Make Your Money Work For you
Passive income is something every person should be striving to achieve in some way. Gone are the days, where you could simply leave your money in a savings account. Passive income can help you pay monthly bills and increase your ability to save, invest, and/ give. In this article I want to define exactly what passive income is, and ways that I make my money work for me. Along with, some of my financial goals and go to dividend stocks.
This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information may be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.
What is passive income?It’s a way to earn steady money with little to no daily effort. Earning passive income is not a sit-on-your-butt-and-make-fast-money gig. You’ll need to put in the work — at least on the front end. Some passive income projcets — like building a blog or an app — take time (and sometimes money) to get up and running. But if you play your cards right, they could eventually earn you money while you sleep. —Ramsey Solutions
1 — Stock Dividends
Receiving dividends each month takes some initial money to get started. But, once established it could be a great stream of passive income.
Definition of a dividend: “Dividends are payments made by publicly listed companies as a reward to investors for putting their money into the venture.”
In other words the company is giving you a small portion of the overall companies earnings. I use two different investing appsRobinhoodandWebull. Having two accounts allows me to maximize my potential gains. This is due toRobinhoodandWebullnot having the same stocks and cryptocurrencies to invest in.
My goal is to earn an extra $1,000 dollars a month in dividends. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an extra $12,000 a year in passive income? It may take a while as the average dividend payout is between 2–6% annual percentage yield (APY). Yet, some of the dividend stocks I invest in are ~10%+ APY. A great thing to remember as well is, most of the time if the stock value goes up, so will the dividends.
You should always do your own research but here are a few of my go to dividend stocks (in no particular order): TWO, SMHB, SRET, WMC, IVR, KYN, RITM, KBWD, BAC, RWT, SPY, NLY and AGNC.
2— Real Estate
Real estate is one of the most sought after longterm investment strategies. I want to invest in real estate but don’t want to deal with all the headaches and work needed to actually own it. Well, there’re real estate crowdfunding investment companies that help solve that issue. What these platforms do is take investors money and fund different real estate projects.
I have used three different investment platforms for over a year. Each platform has a super small annual investment advisory fee. The interest received far out weighs the small fees. This past year I earned over 20% back on my money utilizing the following platformsDiversyFund,Fundrise, andGroundFloor.
Fundrise
Each platform has it’s pros and cons but to meFundriseis my favorite. It provides frequent updates on what projects your money has funded. They provide updates on how far from completion the project is and they even show photos of each project. It is pretty cool to see all the different projects that your money is going to fund.Fundriseused to have a much higher minimum needed to start an account but now it is only $10 dollars. At the time of writing this article there’re over 210,000 investors utilizingFundrise. For everything friend that you invite, Fundrise will give you and your friend $50 dollars.
DiversyFund
OverallDiversyFundis a decent platform. It provides dividends on the money that you put in. I’m happy with the returns so far. It isn’t as flashy asFundrisebut I like using it. If you signup throughmy linkyou will receive $100 dollars after your first deposit. This is a much better starting bonus than all the other platforms combined.DiversyFundyet,has the biggest minimum deposit needed to start an account at $500 dollars.
GroundFloor
GroundFlooris a little different of a platformas you get to choose the exact project that you want to invest in. Upon logging into the investor dashboard, you’ re provided a list of projects all throughout the US that you can invest in. Each project has a picture, a neighborhood rating, term of investment, and how much you should receive back in interest. The minimum amount that you need to start aGroundFlooraccount is only $10 dollars. If you signup throughmy linkyou get $10 dollars free, which isn’t that bad of a deal. I recommend checking outGroundFloorand use the platform to diversify your passive income portfolio.
Roofstack
Roofstackis a lot likeGroundFloor. However, withRoofstackyou need a lot more money upfront. You need thousands of dollars to start investing inRoofstack. I wanted to provide their platform to you as an option but personally, I’d rather stick toDiversyFund,Fundrise, and/GroundFloor. Their minimum investments are a lot lower. Low enough that you could start investing today.
Landa
Landa is a new, up and coming platform that lets you buy shares of properties starting as low as $5 dollars. I opened an account in the middle of 2022 to test it out and I invested in three different properties. The amount of money you can earn each month is dependent on the percentage of shares you hold for a given property. As the property appreciates in value your invested account balance increases as well. If you signup through my link here, you will get 5 free shares.
3 — Peer-To-Peer Lending
I was weary at first when I decided to try out peer-to-peer lending. After reading through some reviews I decided to try out bothProsper InvestandWorthyand I’m happy that I did. Peer-to-peer lending is investing in personal/business loans. You receive interest as the borrower repays the loan. I would recommend peer-to-peer investing as a way to diversify your portfolio.
Prosper Invest
Prosper Invest allows you to invest in various personal loans. Each loan is given a “prosper score”, which is a rating based on the borrowers credit score, past financial experiences, and income. Prosper Invest’s smart phone app is nice and easy to use. I have invested in over 100 different loans since November of 2021 and my account currently has a 9.44% return. The minimum to start investing in a prosper loan is only $25 dollars.
Worthy
Worthy is different than Prosper Invest as it focuses solely on business loans. These business loans are referred to as bonds that are backed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Worthy allows you to invest into loans at a minimum of only $10 dollars and in exchange receive a 7% return. Money invested with worth is liquid and can be pulled out at any time.
4 — Be Creative, Start Publishing Online Content
Start a YouTube Channel, or aRumble channel.Rumbleis similar to YouTube and has been gaining a lot of traction over the years. You can even upload videos on both websites to maximize your exposure! Here is a few other ways you could publish content online:
- Start a blog (like my wife and I did withMaverick Life).
- Release a book (like my buddy Patrick Ware did here).
- Release your own original music (like I recently did here).
- Develop a following on social media by posting photos/videos in your niche.
- Is there a certain video game that you play? Stream it.
- Develop your own video game and release it on steam.
There are some people makingmillionsof dollars a year by putting content out on the internet. Who is to say that can’t be you? Find your niche and run with it! Be consistent, be creative and start pushing out content online. What do you have to lose?
5 — Get Paid For Being Fit
You walk, workout (at least you should haha) and sleep already so why not get paid for it? Here is a few apps that I use to make some extra money each year. The more active you are the more you make. For example, if you’re a marathon runner you could rack up points needed to redeem money a lot faster.Evidationused to be known as Achievement,SweatcoinandWalgreens Balance Rewardsare all great options. The awesome thing is you can use all three programs at the same time! Which means you to earn three times the points.
I don’t earn a crazy amount of money through these apps each year. However, it’s always exciting when I get a notification that I’m able to redeem money out of my account.
Well that is my list of ways to make your money work for you. Please, let me know what you think about my passive income ideas below. I would also love to hear about your ideas as well!
