In this video I’m going to talk about 6 income streams that I am developing right now. I am going to tell you why I’m doing it, if I think it’s a waste of time and if it’s really too late to start doing this.
Okay guys, I’m doing this video mostly because I think a lot of people are wondering if they should do something similar as well. Most people today still have just one stream of income and that’s their job. They may likely be at risk of losing that job source of income at any time. They are constantly under the pressure of wondering about what they will do to pay the bills if and when the shoe drops and they lose the job.
The unfortunate thing is most people don’t take the time to even explore other sources of income. Instead, they just trek along comfortably in their lives being at the mercy of their employers. They even know and are aware that their employers, who they also pretend to really like, will fire them just as soon as they can find someone to do the same job for less money or some other unknown reason.
When something like that finally does happen, that’s the time that people typically start taking the time to explore and look into focusing some of their time on developing a side gig. A business that will creates another source of income in case something does happen with their main job.
Traditional model of having just one job
Now I really don’t like the traditional model of having just one job. Up until fairly recently I had only 3 sources of income. My job, my home and investment accounts. Now my home and investments are appreciating and will provide income at some point in the future. However, they aren’t liquid so my job is really the sole source of income paying the bills now just like it is for most people.
I finally said to myself that I don’t like this old model for a number of different reasons. So I switched and started investing some time and effort in a new model and building a business on the side. So I want to share with you guys exactly what my current sources of income are now. I also want to share what I am doing now to become someone with 6 different sources of income which I will have soon. So be sure and get to the end to get all of the sources as the last one may be the best.
Okay, so starting back when I graduated college. I received my BSEE from Cal State Fullerton and started working as a Sales Engineer for a company earning my first real paycheck. Soon after, I bought a condo in Aliso Viejo CA. I do recommend buying a property in order to take advantage of the mortgage interest deduction. You need to live somewhere and rent is typically just almost as expensive after the tax write off so why not buy and own? The appreciation from the Real Estate is another source of passive income. Although not liquid, it will increase over time typically about 7% per year and some day hopefully be a healthy chunk of change.
I later sold my initial first condo and moved into a bigger place and then another after that. Each time taking the equity and rolling it into bigger homes.
So the first source of income was my job and I have continued working over the years with several different companies. Always in technical sales and even now I am still working for a company and maintaining a job today.
My second source of income is the home that will continue to appreciate over time.
My third source of income is investment in the stock market. I love finances and following the financial news and picking stocks and I even trade options in separate accounts as it is kind of a hobby or you could even say a passion of mine. Now I do recommend that when you work for a company, you automatically take 10% or the max you can afford out of your income before taxes and enroll in the 401K. If your company does not offer a 401K, then you will need to take the extra step of opening an IRA account.
You can do this at any brokerage and then put money into that account. Just assume that you don’t even receive that 10% of your income and let it accumulate on its own in something that tracks the broad market like the S&P 500.
You typically won’t draw any income from this retirement account until you retire. However, you will have the security of knowing that you will have something when that day does come. At some point for most of us, our skills will decline and we will just need to slow down and live off of what we have.
So most people have these typical sources of income. A job and they start to put some money away in a retirement savings account. If they are lucky and work hard they can buy a home and start accumulating some appreciation. That is 3 sources right there!
New model with multiple streams of income
Now is the part where I always started wondering, what can I do to create another source of income. One that is liquid and can help me right now with extra income. One where I don’t have to be at the mercy of my employer? I wanted to be able to create some extra income to use to enjoy life and really create security for the future.
This is where the traditional model breaks down and most people never do anything about it.
Great books about multiple income streams and making money online
I’ve read many books over the years on this. One book called Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen is a very popular book. Guys if you have not heard of this book before, get a copy, look at your library, look online. It’s a great book and makes a ton of sense! I’m going to link it up down in the description below if you guys want to grab a copy.
This book really clarified working for your money versus letting your money work for you. So that is when I decided to have another source of income. I started looking online and learning about what my next income stream would be.
Now what I found online, surprisingly enough that really interested me since there were so many ways to do it was “how to make money online”! Now there were lots of scams out there on how to make money online. However there was also a lot of great information as well. I also knew that since I loved stocks and trading options and finance, I could do that all online and that was going to be my niche as well.
Another book that I found online that I’m also going to link up down in the description below is called “Click Millionaires” by Scott Fox.
This book is all about how people that have made lots of money online. All of these people that became multi-millionaires with a laptop computer. I just became totally fixated on this idea. I said, you know what? If all of these people have done it. I’m going to do the same thing!
Commitment to the new multiple income stream model
Now this is when I really decided to commit and start my side hustle. My side hustle was a YouTube Channel where I was teaching other people about finance and investing using options. Another focus was entrepreneurship using online business which coincides with the options and finance since it is an online business.
So I’m being very aggressive with this side hustle. Researching everything I can on the internet mainly through YouTube videos. Nowadays you can google just about anything and there is a YouTube video on just about any subject as well.
So at this point in time, I now have 4 sources of income. On top of my 40 hour per week job, I have my investment income, my home and now a YouTube channel. Is this 4th source of income huge money? No, absolutely not at this stage! Almost nothing! My job is still paying the bills but I know someday it could come to an end. So I need to have another source and it will just take a little time and commitment to develop.
All of my investment returns I am making are reinvested back into my investment accounts and I’m not pulling money out of my home anytime soon either.
So my side hustle is making very little at this point. But most importantly all of these sources of income have the potential and will grow.
Now eventually at some point in the future, the plan will be to drop my regular job and focus completely on my YouTube channel, blog and other sources of income.
With all of the research that I was doing online and videos that I was watching, I realized that there was another easy way to make money. I could take that source without doing too much more work and add a couple of additional sources of income.
Now with YouTube and churning out videos weekly, I realized there would be a ceiling with how much money could be made by doing that. Additionally the time involved was significant researching what I wanted to make the videos about.
Additional sources of income
So I asked myself, how can I take this content and turn it into other streams of income? That is when I started my website blog and discovered digital products and online courses.
So the first thing that I have done after the Youtube channel was to add a website or blog. Of course I YouTubed it and found out it is not rocket science and it is very easy to do. There are sites like Wix where they walk you through exactly how to get your domain name. Wix also shows you exactly how to start the website and they really have the tools to help you do this pretty easily.
Bluehost is another great hosting website that cost even less and requires a little more effort for the “DIY” types. It is great for blogs and it’s the one that I use for my site. I’ll put a link down below in the description to both of these.
So basically with the website, mine is optionsfinanceprofits.com, I take my script that I write for my weekly video, which is already done, and just copy and paste it into my blog. That’s it and it’s done. This takes virtually no time.
You may be asking, how does the YouTube channel and Website Blog make money? Well at this point they don’t! But they will! Come on it’s an investment. It’s gonna take some time. You make money on YouTube and the blog through ads once you have a certain number of subscribers.
So the goal now is to churn out content weekly and grow the number of subscribers. We must have faith and trust the process. When the analytics and consistent volume of content increases, both Google and YouTube will push the videos and articles out to more people. The ads will come later! My commitment to myself is to put out one video and article per week.
2 more sources of income
Now the last 2 sources of income are natural off shoots from the Youtube channel and website blog as well. Again, they do not require too much more work. Because in reality we have a limited amount of hours in the day, we need to leverage time to use the same content and generate multiple sources of income.
During this process I of course needed to ask myself “what was I going to write about weekly”? What was my niche? We all need to pick a niche that we are passionate about and love so that we will be driven enough to create the content weekly. It can literally be anything.
So I thought about it and researched what would make the most sense for me. Since I liked investing and option trading I thought I would make it about that. I also have mixed in online marketing / entrepreneurship since I planned to do my finance stuff online and needed to learn it anyway.
5th source of income – online course
In researching through reading articles, watching videos and then writing my video scripts I started to become more of an expert in my niche. I have started to create a catalog of material which, over time, I will assimilate and organize into a course. The course will then be shared with others that may be interested in the same niche that I am. Originally, I will offer it free in order to receive feedback. Then once it is fine tuned, I will sell it online through a site like teachable.
So my online course is in development. I don’t have a launch date scheduled yet but I will keep you informed and let you know when that will come.
Now I will touch on my last source of income which I mentioned was also an offshoot from the videos and blog. It requires a little work to set up initially but then it is pretty automatic and does not require much more work. This next source of income is affiliate commissions.
6th source of income – affiliate commissions
Affiliate commission from both my blog and also the YouTube channel.
So that is my 6th source of income. I decided to explore the avenue of making income through affiliate links and affiliate marketing.
So all of these income streams just like investing is a long term strategy that will continue to reap rewards as we move along down the road. They all are able to be done with just a laptop computer. They can also be done from anywhere in the world. I have two girls in college and a son in high school so I am not sure which location I’ll end up living at in the future and it may change. The state taxes and government in California are getting pretty crazy. So its nice to have flexibility.
I will continue to create more content and become more of an expert in my niche. The nice thing about it is that it is fun, I really enjoy it and it is challenging. I think we need to always challenge ourselves to learn more and it is nice to be able to contribute and interact with a community of like minded people.
Down the road this is going to be the money that I live off of. Eventually earning enough passive income that I really don’t have to do too much every day. Just make a couple video and create content that I love once per week. We have to do something to stay busy, right! That is kind of the goal of all of this.
3 key takeaways
So there are 3 key lessons that I want you guys to take away from this. Sure it’s cool to have different sources of income. However, at the end of the day who really gives a crap about me and what I’m doing.
What are you going to do?
All that matters is what you are doing! Are you still relying on one source of income? 2 sources of income? You really have to start looking at this and decide if this is something that you want to do for yourself. It may not be and that is okay. However if you are working for someone else and not financially independent I would consider starting to begin looking at something that will generate a different stream of income that you can do on the side for a long period of time. Your job may not be there forever.
I want to emphasize again that most wealthy individuals are relying on multiple sources of income. They have their own business in some sort of way and they are not so dependent upon a company. So if you are still relying on one source of income and it’s your job, you should ask yourself “ what will I do if I lose my job tomorrow?” Will I all of a sudden be making no money?
I would not recommend relying on one source of income. It’s not like it used to be where you would get a job and work at it for 20 or 30 years. Nowadays people are changing jobs and careers all of the time in order to move with trends and the business world that is in constant motion.
People are getting laid off so there are not as many jobs that are secure. When you look at these people out there that are relying on one source of income from their job. That is just more risk that I would be willing to take. So just remember the average wealthy person has many streams of income and not just one.
Get started and be consistent
Now you also don’t have to build these income sources all at once. You need to build them over time and be consistent. They are quality sources of income and will take some time. Nothing worth doing is ever going to be super easy and it will take some effort. However, these ideas are all leveraged and really come from the same content.
Be flexible as income sources will change
Lastly, income sources will dry up. They are not just a spigot that is turned on and goes on forever. The nice thing is that as you are researching your content, you will naturally become an expert. You will be able to easily transition with trends within your niche.
You will also be up to date with your daily research and honing of your craft and really become an expert in your niche by forcing yourself to come out with a video at least once per week. This is what I am doing and recommend. The YouTube and Google analytics engines like this and reward for it by sending your content out to more people.
There will always be failures that we try that we will need to discard and move on. This is fine. We first must trust and then commit to the discipline of following through and creating and the work. We can then make adjustments, course correct and persist until we are successful.
Final thoughts
Okay guys, I am going to leave you with the following to come full circle. What is our purpose in life? I personally think it is happiness or to be happy and enjoy life and work well with others. What else is there? We have to earn a living to pay for shelter, food, entertainment and our bills. So we have to have a job and earn income in some way.
Why not do something we love and find our own niche and share it with others in this world. It should be something we love that we would do just as a hobby for the fun of it even if we weren’t getting paid. So as long as we are doing it, why not share our passion with others and create some income at the same time?
Anyways guys, those are my 6 sources of income and what I’m doing right now to build my financial future. I am not special and literally anybody in the world can do this. So I encourage you guys to try it out.
Please click the button below to “like” this video if you did and let me know what your niche and passion is that you would like to share with others.
Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you thought in the comment section down below and I will see you in the next one!
This article was one of if the most enjoyable article that I have written to date. I am early in my journey but excited to share. Please let me know your thoughts!
Comments are closed.