Posts about building passive income

Fat stacks blog

What is ‘Fat Stacks’ blog about?

The Fat Stacks blog is all about practical ways to make passive income. Not the kind you get from breaking bad. The legal kind of income that ends the direct relationship between time and money. No more trading-off your precious life directly for your fat stacks dear readers. Our jam is making money when you sleep, go to the beach, or have a drink at the local pub. Basically whenever it looks like you’re doing the opposite of a hard day’s work.

Is it even real you ask? In our experience, the answer is sort of. The internet and the democratisation of technology has fundamentally changed the way we make money but a lot of folks don’t realise this. Anyone can be an entrepreneur or a creator these days. Sometimes you require very little start up capital. There are loads of different ways to make money. It all comes down to degrees of passivity. The more passive, the less time you spend over time, the better.

Why do we want Fat Stacks of passive income?

Because trading time for money is really last decade peeps! Just kidding, but it does seem kind of dumb.

The one thing we can’t make more of is time. Why trade it off for money doing a job you don’t love? Let’s face it, that describes a bunch of us. Life is too short and there are other options! You guessed it dear reader, you can find the best passive income ideas that suit you in our Fat Stacks blog …

Passive income is a must have in the quest for financial independence. Simply because you’re not relying on the decisions of a boss or an organisation to earn it. Also because it’s scaleable. You can make passive income by setting up systems, processes and assets that pay you a continuous income stream or multiple streams over time. There is effort involved – but in setting up and maintaining systems and processes, not in trading time directly for money. And one more important thing up front – this should really read ‘incomes’ because the deeper you delve into our blog the more you’ll discover it’s not just about a single income stream. Setting up multiple income streams can help you diversify, manage risk and stay financially free when you do get there.

8 types of income

If you want to diversify your income (which we’re big fans of), you’re going to want to start with understanding the different types of income streams out there, and where to find them. So here is a run down on 8 categories that most different income streams can be squeezed into.

Like many of you, we ‘earned’ our income for a long time – about the first 12 years of our adult life. We were trading our time directly for money and bearing the brunt of the community tax burden. Earned income is NOT passive peeps and we personally relied on it too long. I wish I’d known better.

We also accrued interest on savings accounts and term deposits when savings rates were around 7% (before the GFC). Nice and passive requiring little effort at all. But once governments started to print their way out of the GFC and savings rates declined, those income streams dried up. They’ve been on life support ever since.

Low savings rates were a signal to invest in assets rather than leave your money in the bank so that’s what we did. This exposed us to real estate rental income and capital gains. These income types can be passive if you have a great property manager and you time your investment in a rising real estate market like a pro. But you can also use value creation strategies to manufacture both – not a passive income per se, but if you work out the hourly rate of smart manufactured capital growth in real estate you’ll probably find its a lot damn better than an hourly wage.

We also earned dividends through managed funds, direct stock ownership and – like most Australians – our superannuation ‘nest egg’ which re-invests these. Passive income sure, but the thing about super is that you can only access it once your life is almost 70% over. It sounds bleak, but what a downer to put all that money away and not get to enjoy it… We’ve made a conscious decision not to rely on super solely in our financial freedom plan. It wouldn’t be the first time government was unable to deliver on a promise, know what I’m saying…

Profit, royalties and residual income never really appeared on our radar until we started to look at how we could further diversify our income streams. And then we found the 24/7 world of apps, automation and the new rules of money….

Passive income ideas for the new rules of money

The internet, the democratisation of technology and blockchain are changing the rules of money for good. This means new opportunities for passive income streams. Here’s some examples:

With the democratisation of tech, you can also sell just about any service or good online and reach a global audience.
You can also sell your expertise online and create digital assets that bring you royalty income.
Advances in computer science and coding mean you can find an App to cheaply automate or outsource just about any task you need, making leveraging your skills and creativity easy.
Ordinary folks can now invest in financial products without middlemen or ‘buy in’ hurdles. You can manage your own money directly, and borrow and lend it all without a bank.

What we’re getting at here is an explosion of creative passive income opportunities right under our noses peeps! Right now.

So delve in to our blog posts, join our community, and get in touch if there’s something you’re keen for us to try out and post about. The fat stacks of passive income are out there people. Let’s go get some.