Financial Freedom

Wiki's Definition of Passive Income

A Brief Introduction to Passive Income

Passive income is a rent received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it. It is advocated by some authors, especially by Robert Kiyosaki.

Some examples of passive income are:
Repeated regular income, earned by a sales person, generated from the payment of a product or service that must be renewed on a regular basis, in order to continue receiving its benefits - also called residual income.

Rental from property;

Royalties from publishing a book or from licensing a patent or other form of intellectual property;

Earnings from internet advertisement on your websites;

Earnings from a business that does not require direct involvement from the owner or merchant;

Dividend and interest income from owning securities, such as stocks and bonds, are usually referred to as portfolio income, which can be considered a form of passive income;
Pensions.

Passive income is usually taxable. The American Internal Revenue Service defines passive income as "any activity... in which the taxpayer does not materially participate." Other financial and government institutions also recognize it as an income obtained as a result of capital growth or in relation to negative gearing.

The Interent Revolution

Edward de Bono in his book Handbook for the Positive Revolution states that "at some point value must be created in order to be distributed and enjoyed." [2] There is a lot of real value on the Internet, and a lot of it is free to any websurfer. There is value in free information, free education, free entertainment, free socialization, and social interaction platforms. Since the beginning of the commercialization of the Web, entrepreneurs have been trying to find viable business models of selling the web content and services. [3] Some of the problems of selling the online content can be attributed to high cost of software, high cost of qualified labour, expensive equipment, office space etc. These can be minimized in one person operations which use free software and have very small business overheads. In such cases, even a relatively modest income, together with frugal lifestyle, might be sufficient enough to form a basis for a viable passive income model.

An Emerging Industry

With the advent of Web 2.0, the concept of a passive income became a nucleus of an informal grassroots, (bottom up) movement and an emerging cottage industry of loosely coupled, independent individuals, who use a combination of their life story, personality, interests, and practical knowledge, to produce an engaging content and an alleged passive income. Appearing honest, transparent, and promising nothing, these individuals report in their blogs, podcasts or websites, their income sources, methods and strategies they use, to any reader or listener, without any additional requirements. There are no registration, subscriptions, or any other kind of fees. They claim to obtain their income mainly through advertising, remuneration for referrals and recommendations, and through donations from appreciative readers. Steve Pavlina represents but one example of such activities; although, it is not clear how long a passive income generated in such manner can remain so without any interventions, addition of new material, or site maintenance. The long tail effect could partly explain survival potential of such one person or family businesses.

Four Steps to Financial Freedom

When one googles "Financial Freedom", the website Four Steps to Financial Freedom will appear as one of the top websites. This website is apparently owned by a certain Sean Toh.

It is quite amazing. How did he capture the keyword financial freedom such that his website appears top on the list when the word "financial freedom" is googled?

Is his website interesting to read? Was there any useful information about financial freedom?

I must admit that the website has a lot of words like "financial freedom" and "wealth" but overall, the website does not provide any useful information on the four steps to Financial Freedom. Unless you buy his product of course

So today, SgFinancialFreedom is offering his very own thoughts on what the Four Steps to Financial Freedom should be:

Step 1. Earn Money

It is impossible to start your journey to become financially free if you do not start earning money. Income can come from two sources: Active and Passive.

Active income is earned from your day job. Passive income is earned without you having to do anything. An example of passive income is dividends from stocks that you earn.

Explore increasing your income through both active and passive sources.

Step 2. Save Money

The second step is simple. You just need to make sure that you spend much less than the money you are earning. A good start will be to save 10% of your income.

For those who are more hungry, you can save as much as 50% of your income.

Step 3. Buy Assets

Assets put money into your pocket while liabilities take money out of your pocket.

To become rich, you need to acquire assets like stocks, real estate, businesses. This will help increase your income.

Step 4. Repeat Steps 1 to 3

I know this sounds lame. But it isn't. Simply work through Steps 1 to 3 repeatedly and you will see your income increase, your savings increase and your assets slowly build up over time.

Read Related Articles:
1. Top 10 Money Saving Tips
2. Save Electricity, Save Money
3. Retire Young, Retire Rich
4. 3 Key Lessons from Rich Dad Poor Dad
5. 3 Sources of Passive Income

Stable Job versus "Unstable" Job

Should one leave a stable and well paying job for an "unstable" job (a job that one is interested in)?

What if by staying on for another 20 years in the stable paying job (that one does not really like), one is able to earn more than $2 million? This would be more than enough to pay off all debts (housing loans and car loan) and even have some cash to spare for investment. After achieving this financial freedom, one can then move on to pursue one's interests that might not pay so well (the "unstable" job).

But what is the opportunity cost? What if by opting for the "unstable" job (i.e. pursuing one's interest, one is able to earn even much more? Should one take such a great risk? We only live once..

These are questions that I have been pondering over and over again in the past few weeks.

How important is financial stability to me?
Should I stick to the stable job and guarantee myself a comfortable life or should I opt for a job that interests me but that might not pay me so well?
Would I regret it if I stay on in my current job and give up 20 years of my life doing something that I do not like?

If I stay on in my current job, I am certain that by the age of 50, I would be able to pay off all my debts and even have quite a sizeable sum of money (region of 6 figure). That is given that I do not overspend.

However, what if I leave my job and am able to earn even much more than my current job?

The Gone Fishing Portfolio

As most people will have heard before : "Never put all your eggs into one basket".

This saying is perhaps what everyone hears when they first start investing. But how many of us truly understand what it means to diversify?

When I first heard of this saying, I thought it meant not to put all my investment money into 1 single stock. How wrong was I! The proper interpretation of this saying should be " Never put all your money into stocks alone "

Asset allocation is perhaps the single most important determining factor of any investor's investment returns. Based on the Nobel Prize Winning Modern Portfolio Theory, rational investors ought to use diversification to optimise their portfolios. This does not mean just diversifying within stocks in a single stock exchange but across countries and across other investment instruments like bonds, gold, commodities, fixed income instruments, etc.

In the book Gone Fishing Portfolio, Alexander Green who is the investement director of The Oxford Club proposes an asset allocation that beats both the S&P500 in returns for both good years and bad years by just spending 15 minutes a year for making your investment decisions.

In the Gone Fishing Portfolio, the Vanguard mutual funds is chosen because of its low cost and also because it provides an excellent diversification opportunity. 5 principal long term investments are used : stocks, bonds, property, cash and precious metals.

Your eggs are spread around by diversifying into investment instruments that do not perform similarly so that your overall investment is protected in both good times and bad times.

Have you been burnt by the recent selloff in the stock market? Has your networth depreciated significantly? This could be due to the fact that you have placed all your eggs into a single basket called the stock market. Perhaps it is useful to take this opportunity to diversify your assets so as to optimise your returns for both good years and bad years.

The proposed asset allocation mix under the Gone Fishing Portfolio is as follows:

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX) - 15%
Vanguard Small-Cap Index (NAESX) - 15%
Vanguard European Stock Index (VEURX) - 10%
Vanguard Pacific Stock Index (VPACX) - 10%
Vanguard Emerging Markets Index (VEIEX) - 10%
Vanguard Short-term Bond Index (VFSTX) - 10%
Vanguard High-Yield Corporates Fund (VWEHX) - 10%
Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX) - 10%
Vanguard REIT Index (VGSIX) - 5%
Vanguard Precious Metals Fund (VGPMX) - 5%

Determining Your Financial Freedom Number

In the book Commonsense Rules for Financial Freedom, the author comes up with a financial freedom number. What is this financial freedom number and how do you calculate your financial freedom number?

The financial freedom number is simply taking your monthly total passive income and subtracting it with your monthly expenses.

Financial Freedom Number = Monthly Total Passive Income - Monthly Expenses

A negative number would mean that you are still not financially free and would need to make up for that number in terms of passive income to become financially free. Let's take for example my scenario:

I have $224 in monthly total passive income and $3887 in monthly expenses. My financial freedom number is thus -$3663. That would mean to be financially free, I will need to make an additional $3663 per month in terms of passive income to maintain my current standard of living (without accounting for inflation).

This is enlightening. First it means that in my initial financial freedom goal, the sum of $2800 per month that I was targeting is not enough for me to be financially free. That is unless I continue to reduce my monthly expenses to $2800 or less.

There you have it, a simple way to calculate your financial freedom number. Mine is -$3663. What is your financial freedom number?

Why People Read This Blog

This hugely popular blog is intended for readers from all countries.

It's sole purpose is to provide a platform to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience to all who are on their journey to financial success.

Why Spend Time Reading This Blog?

There are only two ways to gain knowledge. One is to experience it yourself, the other is to read and learn from other's experience.

People who visit this blog want to:

1. Achieve Financial Freedom
2. Increase their Financial IQ

3. Learn from the experinces of others.

So why do people read this blog?

I seriously do not have an answer to that. Perhaps Google's Search Engine Optimisation is doing me a favour and sending me loads of traffic. Or perhaps it could be that people simply enjoy reading the posts.

Whatever the reason, I do hope that you find the articles in this blog useful for your own journey.

For starters, I suggest that you turn to this page to read about My Financial Freedom Journey.

That will be a good way to get you acquainted to this blog.

Don't forget to check out the Most Popular Posts, Most Commented Posts and Most Recent Posts on the sidebar! There is surely something that you will find interesting.

Should you have any suggestions on how this blog can be further improved, please contact sgfinancialfreedom@gmail.com

High Dividend Yielding Companies

Have been thinking of buying Singpost to boost my dividends earnings. They have paid out constant dividends over the years. A purchase will help to boost my passive income closer to the $400 per month goal I have set for myself for next year.