Multiple sources of income
as a strategy
How many streams of income do millionaires have?
Tom Corley, author of "Rich Habits", studied the habits of millionaires during a five-year study of the rich and poor. Here's what he found as it pertains to most self-made millionaires and their income streams:
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65% of self-made millionaires had three streams of income.
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45% of self-made millionaires had four streams of income.
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29% of self-made millionaires had five or more streams of income.
Having multiple streams of income is the same idea as diversifying your investment portfolio. When one income stream suffers, the others make up for it.
Types of Income
Passive income
Passive income means money you make while not actively having to tend to it. Some passive income ideas take a degree of upfront work to earn, like writing an e-book and some don’t take very much effort at all.
Active Income
Active income is money earned when you perform a service. This is money you make from a job and includes salary, tips, and commission.
Residual Income
Residual income is when you continue to get paid after the work is done. This includes royalties from books, movies, or songs and also revenue that comes from real estate or business investments where you don’t have to be present to earn it.
Obviously, since we only have this one life to live it is only natural that most of us don't want to be forced to earn active income to just barely get by in life. When your basic needs are barely met sometimes it can seem like an endless cycle of barely surviving. At those times it is hard to see outside of the hamster wheel you are on since you are often preoccupied with the next 'Due date', the next work schedule, or the next unexpected financial crisis. Even though it can be difficult to focus what little time or energy you have at the end of the day or week - I encourage you to explore and consider these multiple forms of income that can be (in most cases) easily started, lightly maintained, with little to no startup. The Idea is to aim towards the passive incomes. This isn't a pipe dream, and the sooner you peer out from your hamster wheel by establishing multiple sources of income (in something you are passionate about) the sooner your life will become free from that same hamster wheel you are finding it so hard to keep up with.
Creating multiple streams of income isn't just a survival technique, it's also a strategy for building wealth.
If you still have a regular job, start a business.
Want to know another habit of millionaires? Most of them have companies. According to a study by the Economist, about half of the world's millionaires own their own businesses.
If you already have a business, great! You're on your way!
If you don't, consider ways to start one. At first, it may look like extra money, just as it has for many of us employees turned business-owners. But, eventually, you may be able to take the leap into full-time self-employment.
Find multiple streams of income to incorporate into your existing business.
In my opinion, it's a lot easier to find multiple sources of income within the same business.
For example, if I'm a blogger and writer by trade, I can get paid to create content. However, I can self-publish and sell books on various topics on Amazon. I can also make money in affiliate sales by recommending the products I use to run my business. There's more! I can also make money consulting. Or I can make money through ad revenue and sponsorship on my blog. I can have a membership site where people can access all of my digital work for a monthly fee.
The reason I say this is easier is that I've tried the two different businesses thing. It was a lot of work (that didn't work), and I realized I was not at a stage with the first business where I could take some time to start the second. With that being said, I could still generate different sources of income within my first business until it could sustain itself without needing so much of my attention.
Why I advocate for an online business? Because a brick and mortar business only goes so far. You have to physically be present, and there is a logical maximum you can earn based simply on space restrictions. Restaurants can only turnover so quickly; clothing stores can only fit so many people inside at a time.The internet is infinitely scalable. It has almost limitless reach. There are people from every corner of the world who hear what Foraging For Freedom has to say.
An online business gives you the freedom we all want. You aren’t tied to a location. You can work anywhere that has an internet connection. I’m working right now, writing this from poolside on a 90 degree Florida day in November. Sure beats a cubicle!
The nature of the internet is not linear progress but exponential as network effects deliver your message to ever larger audiences. As a result, in year two you should grow at a faster rate than year one, and so on.
Revenue can be doubled every year while the effort remains surprisingly consistent and much time has been spent on other ventures or simply taking a break from the business.
Your entire business doesn’t have to be online, but there should be at least some online component to your business even if 100% of your revenue isn’t internet based.
Be fulfilled; there will be nothing more fulfilling in your life than creating something that other people can enjoy and appreciate. That could be impacting 10 people a year or 10 million people a year. Doing something that matters is what counts.
We want all of you to have security, freedom, and fulfillment and the best way to get those things, in my opinion, is to be your own boss.
Passive Income On-Line Businesses
E-Commerce:
The level of difficulty depends on what you’re selling. If you are making things yourself, it’s harder than re-selling already existing items. Either way, E-commerce sites have made it easier than ever to make money selling items online.
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BigCommerce:
Selling stuff is a great way to make extra money whether you sell things you make or re-sell stuff you buy. If you want to build an online store, BigCommerce makes it easy. They have ready-made templates, so you don’t have to spend time designing your store.
They also have a lot of tools to help you do things like create coupons and promotions, process payments, handle returns, and share your store on sites like eBay, Google Shopping, Facebook, and several price comparison sites like Nextag, Bizrate, and PriceGrabber.
Square Space: Square Space offers a fully integrated e-commerce solutions and design templates geared for e-commerce. They aren’t only an e-commerce site, so some of the features are not as comprehensive as other sites, but if you just need a simple store, Square Space can meet your needs.
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Buy Royalties:
Had no idea this was a thing! Music ownership is managed via royalties. Having ownership of those rights means the holder earns money on the earnings of that music. Royalty rights are not affected by financial markets and provide a steady stream of passive income.
You can bid on royalties on the site Royalty Exchange.
Writing
Start a Blog:
We are doing this to make money, and the way to do that is by providing value to your readers which drives traffic to your site and by using affiliate links.
You can make affiliate money by linking to Amazon to all of the products you write about on the site.Part of providing value is building trust. Don’t link to things that aren’t of good quality or people won’t trust your recommendations. The other part of making an audience is consistency. It matters less how often you post than how consistently. If you only have time to do one post a month, that post should come out on the same date and time each month.
An excellent way to stay consistent is to write several posts before you release the blog. That means if life gets in the way and you don’t have time, you have a backlog of material you can consistently publish. I highly recommend starting with Wix since you can get started for Free - 99.
How to Monetize:
Affiliate links work well when you discuss products on your blog. For our Healthy Eating blog, we would link to all the things you need to buy for eating healthy and then when people click on that link and buy that item (and other items they purchase with it with some exceptions) you get a percentage of the purchase. Amazon is the best-known affiliate program. There are others like LinkShare, ShareASale, Rakuten, Clickbank, and Skimlinks which happen to be a few of the best affiliate networks and tools that can help you make money from the content you already produce, thus amplifying your business idea income. Check out this extensive list by Justine Grey, covering the 59 Best Affiliate Programs for Business Bloggers.
Google Adsense pays to post ads on your blog. There are two ways to make money with Adsense; impressions which give you money for every 1,000 page views and clicks which provide you with money when a visitor to your site clicks on a displayed ad.
You can sell information to your readers. If you write a travel site, for example, you could write a series of city guides and charge people to download them.
You can design courses and charge for access to those. In fact, plenty of bloggers sell classes on how to make money blogging.
Buy a Blog:
You can also buy an existing blog that is already making money. People sell successful blogs for all sorts of reasons.
It takes some research to find a blog worth buying though, kind of like choosing the right rental property. There are some minimum criteria that should be met before you delve further. The blog should be at least 12 months old and get at least 10,000 visits a month with at least half those coming from search engines (meaning the site’s SEO is pretty good), and it should be under-monetized meaning the current owner isn’t fully exploiting the potential.
You can then choose to take over the blog yourself or make an offer to keep the founder on as a writer and perhaps the face of the blog too while you collect the income generated. You can peruse sites for sale at Flippa, and some can be had for just a few dollars.
E-Book:
This is another place to find a niche, and you’ll do better writing some non-fiction like a how-to or a book on some aspect of fitness or wellness. This is not the format to try to make a splash with your “great American novel.”
Ebooks don’t have to be terribly long either, so you don’t have to write an opus to make some money. There are several places you can publish including Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Booktango, and Lulu. The essential services on most of the publishing sites are free, and you can pay for premium services like marketing and editing.
Audio Book:
Doing an audiobook is more complicated than an e-book but you’ve already done the work of the e-book so why not get it out there in another format. You don’t have to have all of the specialized equipment to do it yourself; you can outsource it to someone else on a site like Up work or Guru.You can use AudioBook Creation Exchange to create and sell your audiobook.
Write a Guide:
If you know anything well, a place, how to fix something, how to make something, how to do something, you can write a guide for it. You can sell your guide as an e-book, offer it as a download for a fee on your site or reach out to bloggers with similar content and ask if they will offer it as a paid download on their website (for a price of course).
The truth of the matter is that time is far more valuable than money. While money can be spent and earned, time can only be spent once, then it's gone forever. As we age and grow older, we understand the importance of time and being able to freely choose what we do with those precious moments that we do have in life.
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Passive income gives you the freedom of time
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It reduces your stress, anxiety, and fear of the future
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It allows you to pursue doing the things you love rather than what pays the bills
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It gives you the ability to live and work from anywhere
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It provides a platform for financial stability and growth
No matter how you look at it, the importance of passive income is paramount. Many people discount it because they either don’t understand it or don’t think that having passive income that exceeds your expenses isn’t an attainable goal. Well, whatever the mind believes, the mind can achieve. That’s as true for passive income as it is for anything else in life. Believe it wholeheartedly with your spirit, and you can accomplish it. As long as you don’t give up.
Businesses you can start for next to nothing
Graphic Design.
Having a formal background in graphic design is going to be helpful, but certainly not required. It’s relatively easy to learn the foundations of graphic design on your own and as you go. Just about anyone with two opposable thumbs, a bit of creativity, and motivation can earn a side income doing things like designing (and selling) images that can be printed onto posters and sold on platforms like Etsy. Or you can find a local startup, small business owner, or photographer who could benefit from some extra help designing or altering images.
Instagram Marketing.
Build up a following on your Instagram account and you could quickly be approached by major brands, gear companies, and other relevant businesses that sell products or services related to the type of content you share on Instagram. If you have the right marketing skills and hundreds of thousands of followers, you can easily charge anywhere between $500 to $5,000 per post or more—which makes for a very profitable side hustle business idea. Check out this fashion Instagrammer on ThePennyHoarder, making a significant income from brand sponsorships.
eBooks.
Packaging your skills and knowledge into a downloadable eBook that delivers real value to those seeking to learn a skill, advance in their careers, or start their own businesses, makes for a strong value proposition if you target the right audience. Put in some serious work with your eBook, build an audience and you'll have a platform, then you can write one of the best business books and really build your personal brand.
You can check out my ebook here: https://www.amazon.com/Vaccination-Safety-Mothers-Research-Treatise-ebook/dp/B07NJ2RYZ7
Amazon Reselling.
Anyone can sell goods on Amazon, provided you have products to sell (or buy low, then resell). If you’re the type to hit all the local garage sales each weekend, there are all sorts of valuable things that can be resold online as a side hustle business idea. Grow this home-based business idea from side hustle into a lucrative money-maker.
Social Media Manager.
We're all guilty of spending too much time on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest sometimes, so why not get paid to put your expertise to work as a side hustle? Lots of companies, especially startups or those in retail and travel—even influencers have heavy social media presences and are constantly in need of people to help build their brands online. You can find these types of opportunities on sites like Flexjobs and CareerBuilder.
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Build your own social following and create a personal brand for yourself and countless opportunities will come your way.
Google Paid Ad Specialist.
If you know a thing or two about paid internet marketing and are comfortable with Google, a great way to make some extra income on the side is to manage a company’s Google Ad Campaigns, and slowly start bringing on more clients as your consulting business grows. Just be sure to brush up on all the right business slang and industry lingo that's pervasive in the online marketing world.
Landing Page Specialist.
If you have a way with words and know how to make the keyword-friendly, beautifully designed, SEO-optimized landing pages, why not charge other companies for your services and turn it into a money-making side hustle business? Even a short landing page is worth a couple of hundred bucks in most cases, and so much more if you know how to pitch well. Get started as a landing page specialist or freelance copywriter, check out Neville Medhora's awesome post on How to Become a Copywriter with No Experience.
Sell on Etsy.
Have a talent for crafting or creating other handmade goods? From bracelets to phone cases, rings, furniture, and more, Etsy is one of the world's largest independent marketplaces that’s perfect for anyone who is creative and willing to sell their handmade creations. As long as you have space this can make for one of the best home business ideas that can be started as a side hustle with a very limited investment.
Fiverr Gigs.
Fiverr is a great place for first-time freelancers who might not have tons of experience and want to build up a portfolio of their work. You'll be able to complete simple tasks ranging from logo design to creating animations or even drawing a company logo on your forehead.
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Portrait Photographer.
If you own a camera, starting a freelance portrait photography business could be a very natural way to make a side income. Start with doing free shoots for friends and family to build up a strong online portfolio, get familiar with your gear and the editing process, then you'll be able to get paid for photographing professional headshots and celebratory family moments as your side hustle business idea.
Investing
The Gold-to-Silver Ratio: What is It and Why Does It Matter?
For experienced investors, the gold-to-silver ratio is one of many indicators used to determine the right (and wrong) time to buy or sell their precious metals.
Other factors – including economic uncertainty, inflation frenzy and debt – have encouraged millions to invest in gold and silver, and in the past few years, small-scale investors have begun to climb aboard.
Yet despite these market developments, to many, the gold-to-silver ratio remains a vague, elusive mystery.
So what IS the Gold-to-Silver Ratio and why does it even matter?
Good question. First, a simple definition: Basically, the gold-to-silver ratio is the amount of silver it takes to purchase one ounce of gold.
At the time this was written, the gold-to-silver ratio stood at approximately 50 to 1.
That means, at the current price, it would take 50 ounces of silver to buy 1 ounce of gold.
While there are countless websites providing the current ratio, it’s relatively painless to calculate on your own.
Simply take the price of gold, divide it by the price of silver and Voilà! You have the gold-to-silver ratio.
Here is an example of using recent market prices:
$1,497.11 (gold price) ÷ $17.53 (silver price) = approximately 88+ (Gold-to-Silver Ratio)
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Thanks for the information, but what does it really mean?
Investors who trade gold bullion, silver bullion and other precious metals scrutinize the gold-to-silver ratio as a signal for the right time to buy or sell a particular metal.
When the ratio is high, the general consensus is that silver is favored. This is because, relative to the ratio, silver is somewhat cheap.
Conversely, a low ratio tends to favor gold and may be a signal it’s a good time to buy the yellow metal. Many large-scale, experienced investors may trade their silver for gold as the ratio drops.
So the take away from all of this information. Invest in Silver. When the silver to gold ration is high trade your gold for silver. Once the ratio fluctuates (usually over a few years) and is closer to each other you sell your silver and buy gold. What you will have in an ever-expanding investment of precious metals