Posts tagged income streams
There’s no time like the present!
Jul 20th
My Google fast-flip brought up this article on the U.S. News site: 21 Ways to Make Extra Money In Retirement. It was aimed at present retirees. The advice ranged from one-time money raisers (sell your stuff) to on-going money savers (ask for discounts, use a rewards credit card) to on-going money makers (consult, temp, garden, blog, etc.)
Starting up a blog, for example, is not fast money. (Take it from someone who knows.) It can take a year to make even $100/month at a blog, unless you’re a superstar like John Chow or the like. It can take a few months just to break even on great, yet inexpensive hosting. It’s work, even if all of the inroads have been paved.
Everyone can only start where they are, but wouldn’t it be far better to start planning for extra retirement income streams now rather than wait until the gold watch is in hand? Even getting a head start of a few years — say, at age 55 for someone planning to retire from their day job at age 65 — can mean all the difference in the world. Ten hours per week, fifty weeks per year, for ten years is 5,000 hours, and that’s more than enough time to become more than proficient at just about anything. Then, when age 65 rolls around, there’s a blog with several thousand readers, one or two thousand posts, and a nice supplementary income stream.
Extra income streams of this kind compound much the same way a savings account does. The time put in at the beginning writing posts doesn’t bring in much. But the more posts that go up, the more the search engines have to feast on, the better the writing is (or should be), and the higher the rewards for doing the same amount of work. That rewards comes with time and consistent effort. Postponing the effort means concentrating the effort (working much harder) to achieve the same results.
So if you’re a bit away from retirement, there’s no time like the present for starting up those extra income streams! Your retirement bank account will thank you.
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Home Buyer Tax Credit Extension Passed
Jul 3rd
The House of Representatives and the Senate passed and updated extension of the homebuyer tax credit.The original $8,000 first time homebuyer’s tax credit and $7,500 tax credit for long-time home owners was set to come off the books on June 30th (purchases had to be agreed upon by April 30th and closed by June 30th to be eligible).
The problem, was that an estimated 200,000 people who met the April 30th deadline would have missed out on the tax credit because it took longer than 60 days to close their home – which isn’t uncommon.
This extension won’t help anyone who is currently shopping for a home, but it will help out the 200,000 or so people who weren’t able to close on their homes by June 30th.
Recommended articles from around the web:
- Moving Toward a Mortgage – a guest post at the PerkStreet Blog. Looking for more information about PerkStreet? Check out this review: PerkStreet Financial – Best Rewards Debit Card Program Anywhere.
- Garage Sale Tips: How To Sell Junk For Cash.
- Morningstar Stars: Are Mutual Fund Star Ratings Any Use?.
- New Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.
- Financial Independence Through Income Streams.
- Why Your Start Up Small Business Should Be an LLC.
- How To Change Your Life By Setting Financial Goals.
- Does Your Stay at Home Spouse Have an IRA?.
- Are Savings Bonds a Sound Investment?.
- Carnival of Money Stories: Spending Wisely Edition, Cavalcade of Risk #108–The “Break in the Virginia Heat Wave” Edition, Carnival of 20s Personal Finance – 1st Edition.
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This article written by Ryan Guina. Ryan is the founder and editor of Cash Money Life. He is a writer, small business owner, entrepreneur, and professional in the corporate world. He served over 6 years in the USAF and also writes about military money topics at The Military Wallet.
All content copyright Cash Money Life; if you are reading this on another website it has been illegally reproduced in violation of copyright laws.
5 Things Putting Your Retirement at Risk
Jun 17th
Many of us want to enjoy a comfortable retirement. We think about what we can do, and we save up, doing our best to build up our nest eggs so that we can do what we want in retirement (or semi-retirement, as the case may be). However, while you are think about your comfortable retirement, you might actually be missing some of the items that put your retirement at risk. Here are 5 things that could be putting your dreams of a comfortable retirement at risk:
1. Inadequate Savings
Many of us are putting something away for retirement. But is it enough? Many of us have an unrealistic view of how quickly our money will grow, and by how much. While the most important thing is to get started with retirement saving, if you are still only putting in $50 a month after you have a better job and a company match, you are doing your retirement a disservice. Get real about how much you need to be setting aside. There are retirement calculators out there from CNN Money, Kiplinger and Bloomberg, among others. At the very least, use a simple savings calculator to estimate how your money will grow.
2. Not Securing Income Streams for Retirement
Once you quite your main job, your steady income evaporates. This means that you need new income streams. Whether you plan to live off interest (and withdrawals) from your nest egg, or whether you have another plan, you need to start thinking about income now. If the market crashes right before your retirement, earnings from your nest egg probably won’t be adequate. Think about income investments, how you can get royalties, how you can get steady income from doing a web site, or even how you can work part time or work online in order to provide a little extra income. Think about where your income is coming from, and remember that government income benefits might be cut in the future, so relying on that for income might be a problem.
3. Inflation
Inflation is a largely silent problem. It erodes your real returns, reducing your buying power. If inflation is growing at 3% a year, but you’re only seeing an increase of 2% a year, in real terms you are actually losing money. It is important to do what you can to find ways of creating a portfolio that at least keeps up with inflation, preferably beating inflation handily. You can protect part of your retirement portfolio with help from inflation protected securities in the form of special government bonds, but it is a bad idea to put everything in such low risk/low yield securities, since you risk winding up with inadequate savings.
4. Debt
Making interest payments, and saddling yourself with obligations is a surefire way to risk your retirement. Instead of putting money to work for you, debt takes your money and puts directly into someone else’s pocket in the form of interest payments. Paying off as much debt as you can before retirement, and carefully living within your means to avoid incurring further obligations is necessary if you want a successful retirement.
5. Long-term Care
It seems a long way off, but long-term care is a very real possibility. With longer lifespans, the chance that you will spend time in a long-term care facility has increased. While there are some government long-term care facilities, many of them do not provide the comforts that many would like. Other facilities, though, can be expensive and drain your accounts quickly. You can consult with a financial professional to help you figure out how to provide for this possibility with long-term care insurance, annuities or some other means.
The Game That Teaches Average People How to Become Rich: CA$HFLOW
Jun 11th
CA$HFLOW is a board game which teaches average people has to grow wealth by creating assets which emerge into passive residual income streams. If you are serious about learning how to make money and create wealth, or just like having fun with the family and teaching your children strong financial skill building, you will love CA$HFLOW.
Top 5 Income Producing Assets Ranked
Jun 9th
Passive income is all the rage these days. Don’t want to work? No problem. Just spend a little time building a few residual income streams and you can retire rich on the beach in no time! Of course, it’s not quite that simple. None of the following income generating opportunities are true set-it-and-forget-it money making opportunities in the true passive income tradition, but some of them do come close.
As an aside, I love these “best of” articles. Why? Because since it’s my site and my opinion, “because I said so” is actually a reasonable argument. Today, I will be ranking the top 5 income producing assets ranked in descending order.
The 4 Best Income Producing Assets
5.) Real Estate
When most people think of passive income, they traditionally think about real estate. Rental properties, the theory goes, are a great source of passive income since the tenants pay you to own real estate! Oh, if only that were true. In reality, real estate isn’t all that passive as a general rule. You may not end up routinely fixing a clogged toilet at 4 in the morning (then again, you might) but you will almost certainly have to perform semi-regular maintenance on your properties. What’s more, you’ll have to fill vacancies, paint and perform repairs between tenants, and even hunt down the occasional late rent check. That’s not to say real estate investing can’t be immensely rewarding; it can. That the majority of American millionaires supposedly got that way via real estate is no fluke. It’s just that, if making money without working for it is your goal, real estate probably isn’t your cup of tea. Note: REIT mutual funds are an exception to this rule and I think everybody should own one.
4.) Blogging Income And Internet Marketing
Plenty of people are obsessed with making money on the internet but let me tell you, it ain’t easy. I’ve been at this about 5 years now (only seriously for 2 years, though) and I’m still not at the point of generating a full-time livable income from it, although I’m getting close. That said, the internet is still young enough that online money making opportunities are not difficult to find if you know how to find them. Don’t expect to retire this time next year, but if you work intelligently and consistently at it for 4 or 5 years I see no reason why you couldn’t easily make 6 figures online. For an older example of how I have made money online in the past, check out my posts on creating online passive income and my niche mini site case study. I no longer use this method myself because I have since found more lucrative methods, but it does work and is a great way for beginners to learn the ropes.
3.) Bonds And Bank Certificates Of Deposit
It would be difficult to think of a more boring investment than a high yield CD, but when it comes to your money, the less excitement the better. Short-term investment-grade bonds and FDIC-insured CD’s are safe, convenient, and as close to a sure thing as you’re likely to get these days (one worries even about treasuries lately) but their downsides should be obvious: relatively low yields and no inflation protection. If you invest $1,000 in a 5 year CD, you will get back exactly $1,000 in 5 years. Meanwhile, the cost of living will have gone up, maybe significantly. That’s why I really prefer:
2.) Income-Oriented Mutual Funds
There are literally hundreds of decent income-focused mutual funds out there (most balanced funds qualify). Vanguard Wellesley Income, Vanguard Equity Income, even Vanguard STAR Fund are just a few I recommend. The really cool thing about these income funds is that if they contain stocks, they have built-in inflation protection. Since corporate earnings tend to rise over time with inflation, so to do corporate dividends. Thus, provided you don’t spend down principal, you should get a modest raise most years. Can’t beat that.
And The Best Income Producing Asset Is…
1.) Immediate Annuities!
Okay, this one is totally a cop-out and they aren’t for everybody, but you can’t deny immediate annuities are among the finest income producing assets around once you’ve reached retirement age. Why? Because you get a guaranteed monthly income stream and what’s more, you get to know what it will be before buying. Yields on immediate annuities are usually significantly higher than bonds, CDs, or practically any other income-producing asset. The downsides are that you have to pay extra for inflation protection and are exposed to non-trivial financial risk if your insurance company goes bankrupt. I would advise anyone considering an immediate annuity to split their money amongst at least 2 or 3 different insurers to hedge that risk and remain below your state’s annuity protection limits since most states have an FDIC-like guarantee for income annuity products: find out what yours is.
E Currency Trading – Income Streams With E-Currency Trading
Jun 1st
E Currency Trading E-currency trading has become the hottest renowned way to be traffic online today by numerous successful people. Any smart investor and residential structure industry owner knows the present dollars is transfered by leveraging oneself and thatâs merely what the e currency exchange program can do. If you are like the rest of
How to Stay Focused With Multiple Streams of Income
May 28th
One of the main problems facing those that have multiple streams of income is managing them. You can start to feel a bit like a juggler and chances are, you may be neglecting areas that could be performing better and making more money. Focusing can be tough, but there are easy ways that you can keep track of your many income streams and make sure that they are all performing up to snuff.
1. Set aside a few hours every week to collect reports.
One of the main keys to staying on top of several income streams is to keep tabs on them every week. Set aside a few hours to focus on the returns and keep track of how each one is performing. You can use special software like Excel to make it easier to keep track of how each one is doing. The added benefit is that you can start to spot trends each week and you’ll know when it may be best to move on to a new opportunity.
2. Keep a paper log of all activity.
While it’s certainly find to keep track of everything on your computer, there is a lot to be said for keeping hard copies of everything. First and foremost, you may need these for the IRS and secondly, we read differently on paper than we do on the screen. You won’t run the risk of missing important information and you’ll have an easy copy for reference at any time. Don’t forget to make disc copies of all of your information as well. You should store your paper copies and your backup disc in a safe place that is fire resistant for extra security.
3. If necessary, minimize.
If you’re running too many streams at once, it can be nice for your bank account, but very hard to keep track of. Find ways to consolidate your income and reporting and if necessary, you may need to drop some of the streams that aren’t performing as well as others.
4. Get passive.
If you’re trying to manage several active streams of income, chances are you’re probably spread pretty thin. Try to diversify and add more passive streams so you don’t have to work so hard. Passive income is a lot more fun, and you’ll be able to spend more time on other things in your life that are even more important than making money, such as your family or hobbies.
5. Get some professional help.
If you’re just too swamped to manage everything on your own, or if you find that you have fallen behind, it’s time to enlist the help of a professional before it spirals out of control. Consider working with an accountant or a financial planner that can take some of the burden off of your shoulders for awhile. This is especially helpful if you are going through a period of extra work or you need to be able to focus on other areas of your life for a few months.
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Originally posted 2008-11-30 21:59:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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