Lately I’ve been on a sort of book review kick and have given some suggestion for best investing books but not I want to tackle the best passive income books that I would recommend that you read!
If you’ve never considered a side hustle/passive income/second job before, you’re missing out. Now let me clarify and say that it’s absolutely not for everyone. Some people truly have no more time in their life to be able to devote anything extra to a passive income stream, but I’d challenge you to really think about if you have the extra time or not.
If all that you do every night is come home from work and watch tv, and you replace that time with a side hustle, are you actually worse off? I’d argue that not only are you making more money, but you’re stimulating your brain more, and now maybe you can even cut cable and go to just Netflix! I love lazy days as much as anyone, but a side hustle can truly be a fantastic way to help you reach your goals and also increase the satisfaction in your day-to-day life.
Watching tv all night, every night, can become very boring and even depressing…
It might not seem like it’s worth your time, but if you could spend a few hours a week, look at the possible returns you could have for retirement if you invested it all in the market:
These returns are if you worked for 1/2/5 years making this much each week and then invested it for 40 years at an average CAGR of 8% (S&P 500 average has been over 11% for the last 20 years). So, in other words, working a few extra hours for 1, 2 or 5 years could really give you a HUGE opportunity to retire earlier than you might’ve been able to before. I know it’s not for everyone…. but it should at least be worth considering!
So now that you’re ready to get going with your passive income stream, where do you start? Well, as with almost anything in this investing/financial world – start with research! We have a wealth of knowledge available to us, but I still think one of the most valuable resources for us to learn is with reading. Buffett reads hours upon hours everyday so why would we not try to do the same thing?
I feel like this book really is the unanimous #1 for the passive investing book list. The book was written by Tim Ferris and has been on the New York Times Best Seller List for four years. Ferris goes into detail about his history of being a workaholic and how he was able to transform his life into one of financial freedom and not having to work for “the man”. He really focuses on ways to become more efficient with your time and how to not only become financially free, but also to become free from being a slave to the game and the hustle and bustle.
In KaChing, Joel Comm five main ways that you can make money online. In today’s world, I think that this is more prevalent than ever. Making money online is a much more realistic way for someone to have a passive income stream. Being able to make money online allows you to do it on your own time and still get the most out of your schedule while setting yourself up for future success.
The best thing about Comm’s tips are that they are very practical and easy to duplicate for the common person.
The thing that I love about this book is that it very actively is focused on being a secondary income stream, as identified in the title. David Lindahl focuses on ways that you can turn an online opportunity into a very successful passive income stream. The excerpt that I absolutely love from the book really just shows that this is truly a guide for anyone to follow:
“You don’t have to quit your current job, or already have piles of money, or be 24 years old, or riding a booming economy, in order to start a successful online business.
The Six-Figure Second Income explains how to start or grow a business even when you think you have plenty of strikes against you.”
A lot of times when talking about financial independence we focus on starting early, saving money, etc. While anyone can do these things, you might not be aware of the importance of compound interest and saving money until you’re older, so what now? Are you totally SOL because you didn’t save for retirement when you were 22? NO! This book shows you how you can still achieve your goals regardless of what situation you’re in.
“In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.”
If you were able to read that and not feel extremely excited, then I call BS on you. Chris Guillebeau is someone that has experienced financial freedom at a very young age and takes it upon himself to show us case examples of how everyone else did it. Personally, I love this for many reasons. So many people love to share their story but sometimes their story might not necessarily click with us. Chris is showing us 50 examples of people that have also had success retiring at an early age. I mean, if you like to learn by example, is there really a better way than that?
Just as with anything else, the best thing that you can do is start. Even if you get a book that maybe doesn’t click as much with you as something else might, who cares? You’re not going to be worse off for reading the book and I guarantee that you will learn something from it. I encourage you go get a book right now if you have interest in any of these. Buy it on Amazon, get it for your Kindle, go to the library – I don’t care!
The only thing keeping you from creating that passive income stream right now, is you.
