A few ideas to start with:

Continuing my series on how to reach a 6 figure income without working 50 hours a week, I will now move forward and talk more about passive sources of income. If you want to work less and earn more, the only way to make it happen is to create little money making machine that works for you while you are sleeping (i.e. generating passive sources of income).

Passive income has been “the buzz phrase” of the 21^st Century. Coming from the strong wave of techno’s and dotcom’s, everybody started to think they could become an online wiz and make money via the internet. Well truth is that real life is not a bowl full of cherries, it’s more like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get!   and usually it ain’t that easy!

Passive income is hard to earn

Regardless of the source of your income, all kinds of passive income is difficult to earn at first. Unfortunately, we only see the end results of those who succeed like John Chow or Pro Bloggers who are making a few hundred thousand dollars annually with their “passive” income models (they are still work many hours to earn their keep).

So making money online is not that easy and the competition is rough. It is probably tougher since you compete against the entire World! Just take The Financial Blogger as an example. While it is primarily a Canadian Blog (Canada is still more than 35 million people!), most people that read English and are interested in personal finance will compare my blog to all the other English blogs out there (coming from  around the globe). So why should they read my blog instead of ten thousand others? This is the question you need to ask yourself before you start your online adventure.

While this series will be more about how to create an online passive income (since this is what I was able to do!), I wanted to share a few other possibilities I have considered and that may be of interest to you:

#1 Rental properties

Buying real estate is definitely part of my plan to become a millionaire. While it is more complicated than it seems, I still think that owning property is a really good way to generate income though passive channels.

People will always have to live somewhere and banks love tangible assets. So obtaining financing for such projects is easier than trying to get an unsecured line of credit to buy a dotcom address

On the down side, you are required to have a substantial downpayment before thinking of buying something. In addition to that, you should also be or know a handyman that will take care of your property maintenance. Sometimes renters can be pretty annoying too

#2 Investment income

Then again, who has not dreamed about having dividend income deposited in their bank account on a monthly basis? On the other hand, in order to be able to live from your dividend or interest income, one must have a lot of money invested in the market!

Investment income as a passive source of income will probably only happen at my retirement stage so I will need to build a strong portfolio.

#3 Starting a “real” company

If you are good at what you do at your job, you may want to consider creating a tangible company. However, you must remain very careful about your primary goals: you want to create a passive source of income, not become your own boss.

If you simply become self employed, you will work the very same amount of hours (and might earn more than before). However, your “company” will depend on you and you alone. This is not a passive source of income. You must be able to hire others to do most of the work and generate income even when you are not there. This is a common mistake most people experience.

#4 Making money online

Making money online is probably the most cliché expression when we talk about passive income. As I said before, we all think that we only need a computer and an internet connection to succeed…. Ooohhh wishful thinking!

But seriously folks, you’ll need several skills to succeed:

- Technical skills to build and maintain your website

- Writing skills to produce content

- Search Engine Optimization skills to be searched, found and read

- Monetization skills to create, diversify and maintain multiple sources of income streams generated by your websites.

If you have (or can get access) to these 4 pillars of generating money online, you will like what will follow on this blog in the upcoming months . From time to time, I will talk about making money online, how to buy a blog and manage a blog. The Financial Blogger won’t transform into one of those then thousand blogs about making money online. It will remain a Personal Financial Blog but I will add a making money online side to it. Stay tuned!

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Related Post

• Passive Income Also Means Patient Income!
• Source of Passive Income: How Does A Web Company Works? – How Can You Really Make Money Off The Internet?
• You Want To Work On A Source Of Passive Income? You Must Be Prepared To Do So.
• Making a 6 Figure Income by Working Less than 50 hours a week Part 2: a Look at What Your Job Has to Offer
• How To Create An Alternative Source Of Income Part 3

All right, so we talked about getting a good job and a few promotions, we also talked about looking for a bonus based on individual performance and getting the most out of your employer’s benefits. Now, we are getting to what you are really looking for: how the heck do you create a viable sideline?

I’ll tell you something you won’t like: you have 90% chance of failure if you start a sideline.  Actually, most people fail when they try to create a real company (statistics demonstrate only 10% of start-ups survive the first 5 years of their existence and 10% of those survivors actually blow out 10 candles on their cake years later). So imagine what your odds are starting something as an alternative source of income? Yup, you are meant to fail! The good news is that we all are capable and some of us succeed. I don’t know about you, but if I play the game, I want to be a winner

Why is it so tough?

I think that the biggest cause of failure (and I didn’t find this in any relevant stat) is the lack of passion. Because if you are not absolutely passionate about what you do, you probably won’t make it. Being passionate means:

- Working several hours in a row, several days in a row, several weeks in a row and several months in a row without any meaning results.

- Doing stuff that you hate and doing it carefully since you can’t afford to start over and you can’t afford to pay someone else to do it.

- Asking your family to believe in your project no matter what. Asking them for support while you still have no tangible results.

- Taking your very first profit and reinvesting them instead of taking your wife out.

- It means continuously thinking about your ideas & goals and developing them regardless if it’s 9 AM or 2 AM

Sometimes at the peril of other important, more pleasant pastimes… (Ummmm forbidden donut… Whups, I digress ;-€ )

If you are not passionate about the sideline you are about the create, then go back on You Tube and look for the latest singing squirrel that will make you laugh.

At best, you will be able to build some decent income on the side for a while. It is true that if you are well organized, you can structure a profitable operation. However, at one point you will let your project die because you are sick of working hard on something that only returns a little. You will get tired of putting in the effort on a daily basis on something that you don’t enjoy that much. Basically, your lack of passion will take you away from the pleasure you had when you started your project.

We all have passions. Some people have thousands of them and others have very few. However, we all have something we really care about and this is what you need to find before starting any sideline income project.

Personally, I have decided to combine both my passions for writing and personal  finance. There is so much to say about finance, it’s a great topic. If you don’t like writing, then, you need to find another way of “producing” your passion. You can either produce a good or create a service, however, it must be related to one of your passions.

So today, take 30 minutes and write down every single topic you find interesting. I’ll talk about what to do with the list later on

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Related Post

• Making a 6 Figure Income By Working Less than 50 hours a week Part 1: a Look at Your Job
• Making a 6 Figure Income by Working Less than 50 hours a week Part 2: a Look at What Your Job Has to Offer
• Now Working 4 Days a Week!
• You Want To Work On A Source Of Passive Income? You Must Be Prepared To Do So.
• Creating Assets

Last week, I had started my “making a 6 figure income” series with the main source of income for most of us: our employers. Getting rich or making 6 figures doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a lot of hard work and more importantly, a consistent effort. Getting a good job and looking for promotions on an annual basis is the first step to obtaining a higher salary (this is when you can get in the very fast lane, if I was able to get 3 promotions in 4 years, anybody can do it, trust me on this!) .

However, your employer can offer you much more than a considerable base salary. He can open the doors to many other sources of income that will help you achieve the “magical” 6 figures.

Before I continue on that path, I wanted to share how my sources of income were distributed to make a little bit more than $100,000 in 2009:

As you can see, most of my income came from my base salary. However, there is also a big part from my bonus and other employee benefits. And this is the part I want to focus on today.

Selecting a position with Individual Performance Based Bonuses

The last 4 years, I had been working in a structure where our bonus was  company performance based or also known as “Team bonus”. What I don’t like about this structure is that your bonus is being decreased by people on your team who don’t work very hard. Unfortunately, there are always a few lazy people concentrated on finding a good deal on Expedia for their next vacation than on actually doing the job! This is the main reason why I decided to switch to a job with individual performance based bonuses.

Optimizing other employee benefits

Sure you can dabble with insurance and dental care. However, this becomes too complicated for me to consider so I don’t take them into consideration in my overall income. However, I want to concentrate on other employee benefits such as the deferred profit sharing plan.

This is a very interesting part as the employer tends to put money in it too. I actually put the maximum I am allowed in my company’s stock (which is 8% of my base salary) and they add an additional 2% (so 25% of my contribution). In order to not be over exposed in my portfolio, I cash in my shares once a year. I still get more than a thousand dollar in my pocket through this method.

Another very interesting point is the rebate I get on my mortgage and line of credit since I work for a bank. This would make my decision much tougher if I ever wanted to quit. Along with the money I save, it’s also come down to a psychological effect.

Without making much noise, those benefits represent slightly over 4% of my 6 figure income. So it is definitely worthwhile spending a few minutes on what your employer has to offer in term of marginal benefits

I know that most of you read this series to know about my alternative source of income and how I manage it despite my busy routine. This is why I will spend more time on those aspect in the coming weeks Stay tuned next week for the next post on the series

If you liked this articles, you might want to sign for my FULL RSS FEEDS. Then, you will get my daily post to your email and can read it at any time. To subscribe CLICK HERE

Related Post

• Making a 6 Figure Income by Working Less than 50 hours a week Part 3: Start a Sideline
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Two weeks ago, I wrote about how I achieved my goal to earn a 6 figure income at the age of 28. Since I got a lot of feedback from the post (comments, emails, visits, etc.), I have decided to dig a little deeper to let you know how I was able to optimize each aspect of my overall income in order to reach the psychological mark of $100,000.

Technically, making a 6 figure income is pretty easy. $100,000 per year is $1,923 per week. Therefore, if you are earning $20/hour, you would simply have to work 96 hours a week and you could do it. The problem is that you may die from a heart attack at the age of 40  (ever seen a fifty year manager at UPS, HARD livin’)… if you don’t suffer through a burnout and/or a divorce before then;-)

I found it was easier to diversify my income rather than trying desperately to find a single 6 figure income job.  Those jobs require a lot of talent, knowledge (i.e. diplomas), connections and devotion (read working almost 96 hours a week ). While I am not so dumb, have a few piece of papers stuck in frames at work and I know a few people, I certainly don’t want to work 96 hours a week!

So, I decided to create source of alternative income. But before I start anything, I had to improve my current salary. So here how I did it:

How to increase your salary

#1 Getting a promotion

I have already covered this topic partially in a few other articles but getting a promotion has nothing to do with being your manager’s pet. My first boss came to my office after I was working for him for 3 months and asked:

“Do you want a promotion?”

“hell yeah!… I mean, yes sir, I really would like to climb the corporate ladder, sir”.

“Then, you have to do 3 things:

#1 Dress like you get the job.

#2 Act like you get the job.

#3 Do your job and do additional tasks linked to the next job you want.”

YES SIR, may I please have another SIR!

And this is how I changed my way of seeing work. I started to pay attention to what I was wearing (we all have our too much casual Fridays… I never let myself hav casual Fridays anymore). If you want to become a senior or a manager in your team, you must look like one. People won’t respect you because your title changed overnight. But they will if they see you as a great leader and a professional in front of them. Dressing like one and not looking like a sloppy goof, with running shoes and a Batman t-shirt, will enhance the perception  others (your coworkers and your managers too!) have of you.

Acting like you get the job doesn’t mean being cocky or looking at others in an intimidating matter. It means thinking twice about what you say in meetings (stop complaining and whining and start acting proactively and suggest solutions). It means you need to  get to know colleagues in the water-cooler conversations. Some people are just too good to make you talk and spread the word after . You don’t have to defend anybody, but you can simply say that you don’t bite the hand that feeds and that you respect your boss and co-workers.

Not entering the stupid games will definitely help earn others’ respect. If people like you and respect you, they are more likely to be happy about your promotion and your manager will be pleased to give you a push up the corporate ladder.

Finally, if you want another job, show people that you can do it. Telling people that you would do better is easy and annoys most everyone around you However, you actually show how you would do things better, that you actually cover your work and do more in order to improve efficiency, ambiance at work or profitability.  This will land you better odds of getting a promotion.

One last thing to mention is that if you follow those 3 rules and you don’t get a promotion in the next 2-3 years, you need to ask yourself some questions. People that get promotions usually don’t have to wait 5 years to get one. There is the fast lane and there is the HR lane (remember, HR are evil!). So you better be in the fast lane of change department right away. Sometimes, the best move is a lateral one

If you liked this articles, you might want to sign for my FULL RSS FEEDS. Then, you will get my daily post to your email and can read it at any time. To subscribe CLICK HERE

Related Post

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• Making a 6 Figure Income by Working Less than 50 hours a week Part 3: Start a Sideline
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Back in May, my wife stopped working full time so she could return to school part time and take care of our children. She is currently completing an online degree (sponsored by a real university ) so she can take care of everything while at home.

As I wrote yesterday, the company is picking up and we are making more and more money. However, since we want the company to grow at the same pace during these growth years, we are not taking much money out of it. And while I am not working full time anymore either, we see our debt in a holding pattern since she quit her job. While it is not the end of the world as we are under 30 and have a positive net worth, I would like to be in a better position to pay off my debt faster.

So we are stuck in the middle of another dilemma: continue to enjoy our quality of life, or reduce debt load and accept a modest lifestyle. So, we are trying to find alternative ways to make money without affecting our routine.

Working part time

Working part time seems to be a great idea. We found an ad in the newspaper to work at the library for 17 hours a week. Working for a city would probably be one of the best places to be a part time employee as they have nice working conditions and it pays above minimum wage.

We found a few other places where my wife could work part time:

- Coffee shop

- Work for a municipality

- Administrative work for a small office

- Cashier at a bank

Pros

The jobs we found were not too demanding and it was easy to get part time job. Most employers offering these positions will experience high turnover as many workers are students. So if they can find someone with experience, maturity that will stay more than a semester, they would be happy to hire this person.

Cons

Most part time jobs include evenings and weekend shifts. We are not too excited about this perspective as it would result in cutting into our “family time”.

The other major con is the salary. Most of these jobs are paid minimum wage so we are still waiting for the PowerBall.  ;-D

Housekeeping

Nothing incredibly original here, but housekeeping is pretty well paid and you don’t have to give half of your cash to the government . We are living in an area where most of our neighbours use a housekeeping lady. While I don’t think it would be a great idea to clean our neighbours’ houses, it is obvious that it would be easy to find a similar neighbourhood in our city.

Pros

The pay is good (compared to minimum wage) and the schedule is perfect since you make your own. You select the house you want to clean and you don’t have a manager breathing down your neck.

Cons

The major problem I see with this job is that nobody really loves  housekeeping and it is not an easy job (more demanding than working in a library ). On top of that, I don’t know how you feel when you have cleaned 2 houses and you come home to do your own the same day.

The good news is that we are not in a hurry so we can take our time and pick the right solution. We have dropped the idea of a daycare at home since my wife wouldn’t be able to study at the same time.

If you liked this articles, you might want to sign for my FULL RSS FEEDS. Then, you will get my daily post to your email and can read it at any time. To subscribe CLICK HERE

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