Passive Income – Part Deux!

Passive Income – Part Deux!

Continuing my blogging catch-up (while sitting backstage at Performance Works on Granville Island during a cue-to-cue for Beggar’s Opera)! Late last August, I decided to undertake a consistently-blogged-about passive income project to help me focus my time toward high up-front effort activities which pay off passively over time (see: here), instead of the usual hours-for-pay model (aka: my minimum wage job). In order to do so, I followed Steve Pavlina’s suggestion and made this declaration:

I will successfully build a new stream of passive income by December 1st, 2012, that generates at least 80$ per month on average, and endures for a minimum of five years, and I will do this in a way that inspires hope and gives value to people anywhere in the world.

Not long after I put this desire out in the world – in October, I believe – a family member came to me with a chance to reduce my rent through offering up a quarter of my place to hold product inventory, so that, while this passive income stream will not last for five years, for at least the last couple of months I have been exceeding my passive income financial goal. I find that, surprisingly and delightfully often, if I announce an intention for some goal, my friends/family/acquaintances/coworkers often very soon come to me with opportunities to help achieve what I am aspiring towards. While I am not a believer in the specific ‘Law of Intention’ philosophy, I put great stock into the idea of ‘ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.’ While there may be an aspect of asking God for help in this, it isn’t about tapping into some mystical force; instead, it is about believing in the good and kind nature of the people I know, about believing in the spirit of community. I am grateful for all your help.

This project does continue in the background, as the storage situation is very temporary. Ultimately, my end goal is to feel financially secure due to my passive income. This may mean that 60% of my daily expenses are covered, as an example. I admittedly don’t expect to achieve this until I am in my 50’s at the earliest.

I have not, probably to my own detriment, been actively pursuing more creative passive income streams. Instead, I have been overfilling my life with minimum wage workshifts, rehearsals, and administrative preparation for fringe festivals this summer. I really should try to take a week off sometime and spend it exclusively on important schemes… but I doubt that will happen voluntarily if opportunities for definite money (workshifts) exist. I do worry for my financial future once my current cheap living situation evaporates in the near future.

One thing I have been doing is researching dividend stocks as a much more potent place to earn, essentially, a slightly more risky but more lucrative form of interest. Certainly a few steps above my 1.2% free savings account. Not that I can make investments at the moment, but I am excited for the opportunity to do so in the future! I am amazed at how excited I am at the idea of making one-time choices to, say, put 100$ away into stocks, in order to have that 100$ earn 5$ a year, every year, for the rest of my life. I really like the idea of one-time sacrifices which lead to continued, constant, secure boosts through the future.

So perhaps it’s time to make a new goal! How about this:

By November 1^st, 2013, my passive income streams will equal at least 120$ per month on average, as a mix of interest and creative enterprises, and I will do so in a way that inspires hope and gives value to people anywhere in the world.

Seems ambitious yet possible. And then I’ll keep raising the bar higher as time goes on.

Keep calm and carry on,
Andrew Wade