Passive Family Income » passive income opportunties

5 Tips for Investing in a High Yield Certificate of Deposit

John S. — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:13:56 +0000

Investing in a high yield certificate of deposit (CD) can be one of the safest investments you can make. Most CD’s offer competitive interest rates compared to savings and checking accounts, making them an attractive short term investment. It is hard to go wrong stashing a portion of your savings away in these types of investments. There are however some considerations you should make before investing your money.

Here are a few tips that you should consider before investing your money into a certificate of deposit account .

5 Tips for Investing in a High Yield Certificate of Deposit

FDIC Insured – Make absolute sure that any high yield certificate of deposit you may decided to purchase is backed by the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation (FDIC). If you are investing your hard earned money into an uninsured CD, then you might as well be investing the money in the stock market instead.
Early Withdrawal – Be sure to check if your CD has any early withdrawal penalty. If it does, then you should be aware that if you need access to that money in an emergency, you will be required to pay a fee. Since CD’s are not usually as liquid as a high yield savings account, you need to weigh all your options before investing your money.
Fixed Interest Rate – Are you purchasing a fixed rate certificate of deposit or one that comes with a variable rate? Traditional CD’s come with a fixed interest rate that you can rely on. However, not all deposits are created equal and some come with an adjustable rate. Make absolute sure that you know which type of investment you are getting. You don’t want to be locked into a long term certificate of deposit only to find out that the interest rate is adjusting downward.
Maturity and Call Dates – Do you know the difference between the maturity and call dates on your high yield certificate of deposit? Most people don’t look at any call date information when investing and barely review the maturity date. The maturity date on a CD is the date in which your investment fully matures and the funds are returned to you or reinvested back into a new deposit. The call date refers to the date in which the bank can “call back” the deposit from you. You will still receive your initial deposit along with the interest earned up to that date.
CD Laddering – If you have a few thousands dollars to invest, then you should strongly consider building a CD ladder. Creating a portfolio of high yield certificate of deposits will provide a diversified and competitive investment. Traditional CD ladders normally spread across 5 different deposit accounts with expiration dates of equal distance apart. This insures that you are getting the best possible interest rates spread across your investments.

Passive Income Tip

Consider adding a high yield certificate of deposit to your passive income portfolio. Once you have completed your initial review of the investment, there is little action required on your part until the CD matures or is called back by the bank. Another option is to take the money generated from other income streams and use it to fund new CD accounts to setup a stable and safe recurring income stream.

Originally posted 2009-08-26 06:56:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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How to Make Over $400 per Hour in Passive Income

John S. — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:44:22 +0000

Do you own a home that you are paying a mortgage on? What about other forms of debt that you may have? Wouldn’t you like to pay off your debts sooner so that you could use that money on other things? Think of all the extra cash you would have coming in each month just by eliminating your mortgage payments!

What if I said that you could make $400 per hour or more by building passive income streams? Sounds to good to be true – I know. However, if you break down the numbers (as I have below), you can see the power of passive income and the importance of paying down your debt early.

We are going to look at an example of how we can devote some time and hard work upfront creating a passive income stream that will pay us over and over in the future. Each month after we have received our passive income earnings, we will use that money to make additional payments on a mortgage which will show the importance of paying down debt and how much money it can actually save us!

Hypothetical Mortgage

The following is a hypothetical mortgage payment that we will use as an example. All of the numbers are fictitious and are simply being used to show the importance of passive income and paying down debt.

Total Mortgage Amount – $250,000
Interest Rate – 6.5%
Length of Loan (Years) – 30
Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest) – $1,580.17
Total Amount to be Paid on the Loan – $568,861.20

Passive Income Stream

For the purposes of this article, we will be using eHow as our passive income stream because of the low barriers to entry with this tool. If you are just starting out or don’t know anything about eHow – all you need is a computer, internet access, and a creative mind. If you don’t like eHow, then feel free to plug in any passive income stream of your choice.

“How To” Articles to Write – 100
Total Estimated Hours to Complete – ~75 hours
Estimated Months to Complete – 2 months
Estimated Earnings per Month – $50

Are you looking for some ideas on how to maximize your eHow earnings? There are people just like you earning over a $1,000 each month on a recurring basis from eHow. Here is a great resource that can help – How to Earn Passive Income on eHow.com: Maximize Your Online Earnings. I purchased this resource several months ago and have made my money back within the first month using the guidelines laid out.

I have estimated that it would take an average person approximately 45 minutes to write 1 eHow article. For more advanced eHow contributors, it may take as little as 15 minutes to write one article compared to 60 minutes for someone who is new to the tool.

Based on spending 45 minutes per article, I am estimating it will take approximately 75 hours (4,500 minutes) to write 100 eHow articles. In addition, I am estimating that publishing 100 quality eHow articles should allow you to make at least $50 per month (.50 cents per article per month). This number is definitely on the low side and some authors earn several dollars per month per article.

I am also estimating that it would take an average person between 2 – 4 months to publish these articles if they remain dedicated. That would translate into about 5 – 10 hours spent per week over the course of a couple months.

Pay $50 Extra per Month on Your Mortgage

Since we now have spent around 75 hours building our passive income stream, we can sit back and start watching the money flow in. The only thing we need to do at this point is to funnel our earnings from eHow into our monthly mortgage payments.

Updated Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest) – $1,630.17
Length of Loan – 27 years & 5 months
Total Amount to be Paid on the Loan – $535,950.18
Total Savings – $32,911.02

Assuming we can maintain at least $50 each month in passive income earnings that can be including in our monthly mortgage payment, we would save $32,911.02 over the lifetime of the loan. If we calculated out how much we made back by dedicating that 75 hours upfront, we would have made $438.81 per hour for our time spent.

Assumptions

We obviously made some assumptions in figuring out our calculations and savings noted above. Here are some of those assumptions we made.

We can maintain a $50 per month passive income stream until the mortgage is paid off. This is probably unlikely using eHow – but you never know.
The $50 additional payment is made on your mortgage starting in the first month.
Your passive income earnings don’t exceed $50 per month. This is also somewhat unlikely as your earnings from eHow should increase month to month.

Final Thoughts

The example of earning over $400 per hour above is based on a ficticious mortgage and passive income stream. However, based on personal experience, these numbers can be achieved with some upfront hard work and dedication. As stated earlier, the mortgage can be replaced with any type of debt (i.e. car payment, credit card debt, etc.) and the passive income stream could be anything you have found success with. There are obviously some passive or alternative income streams that can earn you thousands of dollars each month. The key is what will you do to maximize your earnings from this income?

Do you use your passive or alternative income to pay down any debt? What has your experience been doing this?

Originally posted 2009-06-16 08:46:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Make Money Online – How to Use SwagBucks

John S. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:25:11 +0000

Do you use the internet as a tool to find helpful information? Have you ever purchased anything online? If you answered yes to either question, then you may want to check out SwagBucks.

SwagBucks is a tool that allows you to make money online by earning points that can be redeemed for gift cards and other prizes. Points or “Swag Bucks” are earned in a variety of methods at no cost to the user. Depending on the number of points accumulated, you can redeem them for prizes like Amazon and Starbucks gift cards. For those who spend a lot of time using this service, you could redeem your SwagBucks for more expensive items like an iPod Touch or flat panel television.

So what are the different ways to make money using SwagBucks? Check out the list below for more details.

Ways to Make Money Online Using SwagBucks

There are 5 different ways to make money using SwagBucks. While the methods vary, they are all FREE and don’t require any out of pocket expense.

Search – The most common way to make money online with SwagBucks is to earn points by searching the web. Instead of using one of the more popular search engines like Google or Yahoo!, you can use the SwagBucks search engine to earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards and other prizes.
Special Offers – I have not participated in any special offers to date using SwagBucks. However, it seems like they have some decent offers that you can sign up for and earn additional points. For example, if you join Netflix through their site, you can earn 75 points just for signing up. If you are thinking about starting a blog or website and need a domain name, you can open up a Go Daddy account and earn 150 SwagBucks for spending at least $5. These are just a couple of the special offers where you can earn additional points.
Trading In Electronic Devices – One of the opportunities to earn a little extra money on SwagBucks is to take advantage of their Trade-In program. You can turn in your old cell phones, MP3 Players, and video games & consoles for Swag Bucks! While the amount of points you earn is not a lot, it beats putting your used electronic devices into a land fill. Regardless the number of points you earn, SwagBucks still offers a pre-paid shipping label which allows you to recycle your old devices at no cost to you!
Online Shopping – A nice way to make some extra money through SwagBucks is to shop online using their portal. Just the other day, I spent over $400 at Wal-Mart using Swag Bucks. As a result of my purchase, I earned enough points to get $10 worth of Amazon Gift Cards. I will note that there are some services like EBates that may have better returns on purchases you make. If you are looking to maximize your online shopping return, be sure to check out several of these services to find the best option for you.
Promote & Invite Friends – This service also allows you to promote their product through Email, referral links, and website banners in return for points. They will match the points your referrals earn up to 100 for each friend. This is where I find the real value of using SwagBucks! I really like that they offer the referral points, which makes it a bit more “passive”. Any income stream that allows me to earn points and dollars based on actions taken by others is a win in my book!

Final Thoughts

Am I going to get rich off of using SwagBucks? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that using this service is not worth the effort. I believe that every little bit of alternative income you can earn is worth the effort, as long as you are not spending too much time on it. While I may not treat SwagBucks as a passive income source, it is still a worthwhile tool that can be used to put some money back in your pocket!

Do you use Swag Bucks? Have you taken advantage of all their ways to earn Swag Bucks? I would love to hear your opinions!

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Passive Income eHow Updates – October (2009)

John S. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:10:23 +0000

The month of October has come to an end and things are looking very bright for eHow. I have logged my 14th month as an eHow writer and continue to be inspired by the potential of this passive income tool. If you live in the United States and are interested in starting an alternative income stream, I strongly suggest you check it out.

During the past month, I hit an important milestone in my short eHow career. I officially passed $1,000 in total earnings which is a wonderful feeling! The great thing about this is that I only spent a few hours in October working on this income stream as I pushed passed this mark.

eHow Dollars per Hour Earnings

I enjoy tracking my eHow dollars per hour earnings each month to show the power of passive income. While this number varies from month to month depending on the number of articles I publish, it is still a great motivator.

I wrote 4 new articles in October, which took me about 2 hours to complete (30 minutes per article). Based on my October earnings (see below), I earned $126.92 per hour for the time I spent during the month. For every hour that I spend now building this passive income stream, the more dollars per hour I will earn in the future.

I have been asked many times – how can I write eHow articles in just 30 minutes. I always tell people it just seems to come with experience. Some of the first articles I ever wrote took me over an hour to complete. There are also a few tools that I try and leverage in order to increase my efficiency. One of these tools is the Micro Niche Finder. This tool has really helped me to quickly narrow down topic and keyword ideas and is well worth the investment!

October Updates

As I begin focusing on building other passive income streams, the amount of time dedicated to writing for eHow has dropped. I was still able to sweak out 4 new articles during the month and saw a 13.4% increase in earnings compared to September. Seeing my earnings growing by double digits while only writing a few articles is a wonderful feeling. This is what passive income is all about!

Here is the breakdown of my eHow earnings from the past 14 months -

October (2009)
- Earnings – $253.84
- Articles Published – 4
September (2009)
- Earnings – $223.79
- Articles Published – 12
Year #1
- Earnings – $656.48
- Articles Published – 224

GRAND TOTAL (14 Months)

Earnings – $1,134.11
Articles Published – 240
Articles Deleted from eHow – 10

Are you looking for a free way to start increasing your income? If so, eHow is one option that allows you to accomplish this goal. There are people just like you earning over a $1,000 each month on a recurring basis just by writing “How To” articles. If you are new to eHow, one place to start is by checking out a great resource called – How to Earn Passive Income on eHow.com: Maximize Your Online Earnings. I purchased this resource several months ago and have made my money back within the first month using the guidelines laid out.

100 Article eHow Challenge – October Results

Back in August I conducted the 100 Article eHow Challenge, where I had a goal to accelerate my earnings to the next level. I didn’t end up finishing 100 articles, but published a respectable 72 instead. To show how successful this challenge has been and what it has meant to my eHow earnings, I have decided to track the results each month.

Here are my earnings from the 100 Article eHow Challenge -

August – $119.48
September – $113.95
October – $75.47

Total Earnings – $308.90

As you can tell, my earnings from these articles are trending downward. Once these articles get a bit older I fully expect to see the earnings shoot back up very soon.

How are your eHow earnings coming along? Are you seeing increased earnings each month?

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5 Ways Passive Income can Improve your Marriage

John S. — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:48:54 +0000

One of the most common arguments that married couples tend to have is over financial matters. Let’s face it, a marriage should not be dictated by money, but that isn’t always the case. Whether it be lack of communication over the family finances, struggling to pay the monthly bills, or over spending and going into debt – a couples finances can be a huge factor in the success or failure of a marriage.

There are some opportunities however that couples can take to help improve their marriage when it comes to money. One way to help improve your marriage is to create passive income. You may be thinking to yourself – How can passive income help improve my marriage? It doesn’t seem like the logical solution, but it really can help.

If you are interested in learning more, check out a few of the ways that passive income can improve your marriage listed below.

1. Spend More Time with Each Other

One of the most common reasons a marriage fails is a result of not spending enough time together with your spouse. This can be caused by many factors including work. In order to survive and pay the monthly bills, at least one of the partners in a relationship is usually spending a lot of time at their job. In many cases, both partners are working, sometimes different shifts!

Establishing solid passive income streams takes some of the pressure off of working so much. While this type of income may not allow married couples to completely quit working, it can allow one or both to reduce hours at work. It may also allow one or both members in a relationship to take a less demanding job. All of this extra time can really go a long way to improving your relationship with your spouse.

2. Raising Children

Anyone who has children can tell you the raising kids can get very expensive. Buying diapers, saving for college, and paying for day care are just a few extra costs involved with having children. These extra expenses can really put a strain on a couples marriage, as financial matters tend to cause many couples to split up.

Earning additional income through recurring passive income streams can help offset expenses associated with raising children. Even setting up an income source that can be put into a 529 College Savings Plan or help pay for day care can make a huge difference in your personal finances. Alleviating any concerns around paying for these costs can go a long way in improving your marriage.

3. Gifts, Surprises, and More!

Do you ever surprise your spouse with gifts or special weekend getaways? Sometimes a nice long weekend getaway is just what a marriage needs. Unfortunately it isn’t always in the budget to account for these special gifts or occasions.

Earning passive income is one way to help supplement your income that can be used for these special times. While money should not dictate any marriage, giving small little gifts and surprising your spouse can improve your marriage.

4. Simplify Your Life Together

Bills, bills, and more bills. Does it seem like every time you get finished paying off your monthly bills, the next ones start coming in? Earning passive income can actually help you and your spouse simplify your finances and daily life.

As a test, identify a monthly bill that you receive every month. This could be a car payment, cable or cell phone bill, credit card statement, etc. Just think how much simpler your life could be if you had enough passive earnings coming in each month that could make your monthly car payment. Making your personal finances simpler will no doubt have a positive impact on your marriage!

5. Retire Early and Enjoy Life

Planning for your retirement may not always be the first thing that comes to mind in a marriage that is in jeopardy. However, if both you and your spouse can set some realistic financial goals that involve the planning of your future (including retirement), you will both be on the same page. Communication is one of the most important parts of marriage and can make or break its success.

Passive income can play a huge role in any retirement or financial planning between you and your spouse. Sit down with your spouse and create a financial plan that includes the building of passive income streams. Communicating and planning with your spouse can go a long way in improving your marriage and help with your personal finances.

Can Passive Income Save Your Marriage?

Telling someone that passive income can save their marriage probably seems like a strange statement. A marriage should not be dictated by financial matters at all. If two people truly care about each other, then money should never cause any conflict. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, as financial issues can cause stress and problems in a marriage.

Since money matters tend to cause conflicts in a marriage, taking actions to avoid these concerns can really help the relationship between you and your spouse. Generating consistent passive income is just one opportunity couples can take to improve their relationship and marriage by taking money issues out of the picture!

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