Friday, December 30, 2016

Passive Income Report: December 2016 ($2,658!)

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review, the last of the year, and a PERSONAL RECORD!

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.

This monthly report covers December 2016.  

I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 

I am happy to report that December saw the highest Passive Income amount I've ever achieved in a single month, which I'll analyze in depth in this report.


Read More to see how I earned $2,658 this month in passive income,

Monday, December 26, 2016

Updates to Site, Side gig over, Upcoming Posts

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  A Savior is born unto us.

This is just a quick post to let you know that I have made some much needed updates to many pages on Passive Income Dude.  Now that my 'side gig' is over, I should have more time to commit to my site. Here are all of the updates:


Look out for the following posts coming up over the next two weeks:
  • December Passive Income Report 
  • December Income/Expenses 
  • A thorough 2016 review on each of my 3 rental properties:
    • Missouri Rental Property Review
    • Colorado Rental Property Review
    • North Carolina Rental Property Review
  • 2017 goals 
Thanks for reading!

Passive Income Dude


Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Thoughts on Interest Rates

Hello all,

I recently completed two finance courses here at business school: Applied Fixed Income and Speculative Investments, and Global Asset Allocation and Advanced Investments.  Both of these courses were very well taught (and very challenging if I'm honest), but I'm glad I took them because I learned a lot and because a good amount of the course material was about interest rates and hedging interest rate moves, etc. which seems pretty applicable in today's investing environment.  So as a result I thought I would briefly comment on interest rates, since the Federal Reserve finally completed another (albeit small) interest rate increase.

To start, I read this from Vanguard's website yesterday (copied directly):

Monday, December 19, 2016

Happiness

I recently heard an incredible message that talks all about happiness, and I wanted to share it with you.

Happiness is such a interesting concept in today's society, isn't it? For some reason it seems like one's happiness is apparently THE ULTIMATE PURSUIT in life. We find that happiness is placed above morality, or truth, or intellectual growth, or peace, or sacrifice, or courage, or any other virtue or feeling there is out there.  Think about that.  Why? Why is it that happiness is above everything else, and what is going on?

This post also seems pertinent during the Holidays; where happiness is so intensely desired, but not often achieved.  How many holidays bring intense feelings (and expectations) of happiness, but are oftentimes left with something else and not happiness at all?

Anyway, here are some quotes from the message that resonated with me.  This small sampling does not do it justice, but I hope it encourages you to listen.  You won't be disappointed.

"When you're proud, your life becomes an endless cycle of comparison and competition."  

Can anyone relate to the power in this statement?   It is very relevant to me personally, and as a member in our blogging community, it is especially relevant where we routinely share each others' progress and successes for our readers to see on a monthly basis.  How dangerous it is to see each other's monthly dividend reports and net worth updates, etc.  when our thoughts and pursuits are not checked against a large amount of humility and a proper focus on what is actually important!

"We are all hungry. Our souls are hungry.  And the reason for that, King Solomon explained, is because God put eternity in our hearts.  Blaise Pascal and other philosophers have said this as well; God has created the human heart with a gigantic hole in it. And we spend all our lives trying to figure out what goes in that hole.  And so we try money. We try the approval of others. We try romantic love.  None of it works. Because that hole is in the shape of God himself and it's the size of eternity!".....The reason that these items don't make you happy is because they were never intended to make us happy in the first place!

And my absolute favorite:

"Most of us are in a culture where we THINK that our happiness is directly proportionate to our circumstances.  And if you want to be happy your circumstances have to change. In fact, our word "happiness" in English comes from the word 'happening' - you are happy when what you want to happen happens. When your happenings are happening correctly, then you are HAPPY. And when things are not happening correctly, you are UNHAPPY. But Jesus says your happiness, if you're ever going to find it, is not going to be contingent on your happiness or your happenings.  Your happiness is going to be contingent upon your relationship with God."

"It is when you hunger and thirst for righteousness that not only will you be filled, you will overflow with happiness!"

In closing, the message is definitely worth listening to.  Here is the link to it below:

Eight Ways to Be Happy According to Jesus

Thanks for reading, and be happy...!

Passive Income Dude


Saturday, December 10, 2016

Income/Expenses: November 2016

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.

General Thoughts on this Month: Progress is happening, albeit slower than I would like. Fortunately I think I will reach another of my goals for this year JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME! Thanks to diligent saving and spending I believe I will have my family debt reduced to my goal amount of only $5000 left (I know, still high!...agh) by the end of the year, but I started the year at $29,000, so I am not too disappointed, with this goal actually being achieved on December 15th. Very thankful for this!  It may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is!

All of that said, listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of November 2016.  

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Passive Income Report: November 2016

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review.

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.


This monthly report covers November 2016.  


I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 


Read More to see how I earned $581 this month in passive income,



Saturday, November 12, 2016

Income/Expenses: October 2016

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.

General Thoughts on this Month: The slow grind continues. I'm reminded of the wisdom and importance of not comparing yourself to others, of being patient, and of sticking to the plan. Otherwise, it'd be pretty easy to be depressed! I continue to pay down debt AND TO BE HONEST THAT IS ABOUT IT.  Despite achieving a relatively high savings rate, there still is "no money left over" for any extraordinary items.

All of that said, listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of October 2016.  

Friday, November 4, 2016

Passive Income Report: October 2016

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review.

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.

This monthly report covers October 2016.  

I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 

Read More to see how I earned $470 this month in passive income,

Friday, October 21, 2016

Q3 Review! Dividends, Rental Cash Flow, Babies, and Basketball

Wow, time flies. This blog was created in the beginning of July and though it feels like yesterday, almost four months have already gone by. I guess a 3 month old and a 2 year old will do that to you!

This post will highlight my 3rd Quarter Review, covering my passive income earned during the months of July, August, and September, my savings rates. my goals progress, and other key highlights in my life.

I like quarterly reviews because they allow you to pause and perform a serious analysis on your progress.  How often we fail to do this in life, and so a built-in reminder (as a quarterly review) makes it much easier to stay consistent!

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Income/Expenses: September 2016

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.

Listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of September 2016. Let me know what you think!

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Passive Income Report: September 2016

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review.

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.

This monthly report covers September 2016.  

I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 

This was a CRAZY month for passive income, both positively and negatively, which I will explain in my article. 


With only three months remaining to reach my goal of $10,000 in passive income this year, it is going to be extremely close. I'm not sure what will happen to be honest and it's frustrating when rental property expenses throw a wrench in your plans! :) There were some definite highs and lows in this month for sure!  Read more to see specifically what happened and how I would have earned $904, but instead earned $369 this month in passive income,

Monday, September 26, 2016

Side Gig and Thoughts on Wells Fargo

Hi everyone,

I wanted to apologize for taking some time off from writing.  Things are very crazy in my life right now, and unfortunately the blog has been the lower hanging fruit that had to be put on pause for a bit. That said, I wanted to put out a few quick notes:

First, I took on a second job (a side gig, if you will), which should help boost income (at least a little), and to be honest, it is much more profitable than blogging, which was really only a few dollars per month!...Hence the lack of articles lately.  We'll see how things go over these next few months, but I anticipate that writing will be lighter up until the new year, when I will once again have more free time and can return to bi-weekly articles.  Until then, I still will publish the following:

* Monthly Passive Income Reports (September will be published in a few days. Very interesting, and frustrating month!)

*Monthly Income/Expenses Reports

*Q3 Review

* Yearly Review

*2017 Goals

*Perhaps one or two additional articles

Please stay with me through this brief transition!


Secondly, I wanted to offer my thoughts on what has happened with Wells Fargo recently.  As many of you know, I initiated a position in the stock at $48.50, watched it go up to 50, only to have some very negative news about opening fake customer accounts to boost their cross-selling of products hit the headlines and greatly hurt the stock. Then, a few days later there was even some Congressional pressure for the CEO to step down.  The stock is now trading around $45.  Here's my take:

Though I like Wells Fargo, I like it less now, but I still think the valuation is attractive.  Here me out for how that can make sense.  "Clearly recent headlines surrounding retail banking sales practices at WFC are a black eye for a company with a great long-term fundamental track record; however, we think the market's extraction of ~$25B in WFC market value related to a $2.6M revenue loss to be excessive," said one analyst at Baird.  I agree.  It is a complete overreaction; as the numbers themselves prove it.  You have to multiply 2.6M times almost 10,000 to get 25B.  That seems harsh.

Still, I find it frustrating that as an investor with no knowledge of these practices going on, that I now have to wait for the stock to recover at least to $48.50 for me to exit without a loss.  That is frustrating, and to be honest, a bit unfair.

Or is it?

I decided to enter into a sole position (i.e. a single stock) and therefore I assume all "specific risk", or diversifiable risk, in the company that I choose.  I happened to choose WFC slightly before somewhat of a scandal.

And herein lies the point of why I prefer mutual funds for the majority of my holdings.  With a market index fund, I can diversify away all risk (such as a Wells Fargo retail banking scandal) and only have systematic risk remaining.

Sure I like WFC and think it offers a healthy return at current prices.

But is there another scandal going on that hasn't been found out yet?  Could this happen to ANY company and eventually cause the dividend to be cut or decreased?

The answer is yes.

Diversify your income streams is my takeaway lesson thus far in this trade.  Sometimes firm-specific risk is greater than what it seems.

Thanks for reading,

Passive Income Dude


Thursday, September 15, 2016

YouTube Intelligence: Rise and Shine

"For what is each day but a series of conflicts between the right way.....and the easy way.  ...Welcome to the Grind."

"You are a lion in a field of lions!! All hunting the same elusive prey with a desperate starvation that says VICTORY is the only thing that can keep you alive."

If you need some motivation to get up and get to work, this "Rise and Shine" video is definitely for you.  I've listened to it hundreds of times now, but believe it or not, I've never actually watched the video, as I think it distracts me from listening to the audio and internalizing the actual words.

Check out this video heed its wisdom! No doubt you walk away motivated and ready to ACHIEVE more! 

Bottom Line: 3 minutes 24 seconds of amazing wisdom motivation, definitely worth listening to.

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuPLxQD4akQ 



WELCOME TO THE GRIND.

What do you think?  Thanks for reading,

Passive Income Dude

Monday, September 12, 2016

Must Read Series: The Richest Man In Babylon

Hello all! This is the second of my "Must Read" category, and I am excited to share this content with you.
What I would like to do with my "Must Read" page is two things:

1) Provide you a list of investing books that I personally have read and think ARE VERY VALUABLE for you to read as well.  I want this list only to be on books that are definitely worth your time reading.


2) Give you an overview of KEY TAKEAWAYS so that if you don't have time to read it, you will be much smarter after reading this post.


To continue this series, my second recommendation is The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason.  I have read this book from cover to cover at least three times (lost count!) and think it is a must read if you want to get serious about building wealth.  Difficulty score: 2/10.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Income/Expenses: August 2016

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar post every month.

Listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of August 2016. Still some things to work on, but great progress despite some obstacles.  See what you think!

Monday, September 5, 2016

Why I Went $34,000 Into Debt With My Family

This picture is pretty accurate.  Debt is such a burden and literally sometimes feels like a weight being carried on your back.

(At least, certain kinds of debt can feel that way!)

In this post I will describe why in 2015 I borrowed $20,000 from my Father-in-law, and then in 2016 I borrowed $14,000 from my own Father.

Now, I am thankful to have had the option to borrow from them and the family support that they provided to help me when I was in need, but I don't like that I had to borrow from them in the first place, and I am greatly looking forward to paying them back.  Paying them back is one of my primary goals, listed here.  Read on,

Friday, September 2, 2016

Passive Income Report: August 2016

It is time again for my Monthly Progress Review.

In each progress review I will list a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.


This monthly report covers August 2016.  


I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 


This really was a great month for me, for which I am very thankful again for multiple income streams.  Read More to see how I earned $658.05 this month in passive income,



Thursday, September 1, 2016

Recent Buy: WFC

For those that follow my Portfolio, you may have noticed that after last month's update my cash position actually became my 9th largest holding (out of 17) due to my sale of American Electric Power for a total return of 24% and my strong belief that the stock market is overvalued mostly.

9th out of 17 is relatively high for a cash holding, and so I recently wrote towards the end of July about considering Wells Fargo as one of the few remaining high quality, value purchases out there.  I still believe this to be the case and consequently acted.

Over the last week or so I had watched the stock move sideways in a tight 48.5 range (shown below) for about five trading days or so, and I knew that I had to pull the trigger if I was going to do it.

I thought the stock was definitely going to move one way or the other (to be honest I wasn't certain it'd be up!), and I missed my opportunity to get it in the high 47s earlier in August, (though I did mention in my article that it might drop into the 47s).  Anyway, in the end, I purchased it right before its most recent jump into the 50s. Here are the details of my trade:

# of Shares Purchased: 87
Purchase Price: $48.60
Yesterday's close price: $50.80

Thankfully I got in before this recent pop in share price as shown below, though I don't think it will stay as high as it is now nor do I intend to sell anytime soon, so it is basically a mute point. Nonetheless, I still think WFC is valued in the Low 60s, high 50s, giving me sufficient cushion at the stated entry price.  Add to that a 3% yield, and increasing rate probabilities and you've got a pretty good total return I think.


What do you think? Often I stay away from financials. I know many have recommended Canadian banks, which I have not acted upon yet but am definitely interested.

Thanks for reading!

Passive Income Dude

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Two More Powerful Examples of Low Expected Stock Returns: LOOK OUT.

This will be a short post but I cannot help but share this with you:

1) Chris Brigthman, Chief Investment Officer of Research Affiliates (no small feat to achieve that particular position at that company), stated recently that over the next decade a 60% large US stock/40% US bond portfolio is expect to return just 4.3% annually, and only 1.3% after inflation! That is crazy low returns.  Investor, take heed.

2) From the WSJ recently, Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio (known as the CAPE ratio) stands at 27.1.  It's long term average is 16.  SIXTEEN.  Crazy high currently. Note the following, and definitely take heed: "today's valuation falls into the top tenth of historical observations, since data from the 1880s. When CAPE is in the top decile, as it is now, the S&P 500 subsequently averages about 4% annually for the next 10 years."


What do you think will happen? I personally only believe there are small pockets of value left.  Otherwise, the only solution is to hold cash, or switch to real estate!

Passive Income Dude

Friday, August 26, 2016

Why Cash Flow is Better Than Big Salaries: An Example from the NFL


I don't have millions of dollars of cash.  In fact, I've probably never seen more than a few hundred dollars of cash together at one time.

But I imagine this picture to the left is close to what MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CASH looks like.

Pretty cool.  I'd love to somehow receive a giant lump sum of cash all at one point one day and turn it into wads of bills like this.  I'm sure we all would.  But consider what I just read the other day:



Did anyone miss that? 

78% of NFL players go broke within three years of retirement?  That seems ridiculously high.  And almost 16% file for bankruptcy at some point in the future?  How can that be? Again I ask, how can that be?  And here is specifically why I ask the question "how can that be":

The LOWEST annual salary allowed by the league in the NFL in 2016 is $435,000.  Divide that by twelve, and you get $36,250 PER MONTH!!!!!  How is it possible to go broke within three years of NFL retirement, if you were making close to $36K per month for over three years(!) as an NFL player?

Monday, August 22, 2016

New Page: PID's Mortgages!

Hi all,

I'm excited to share a new page with you titled, "PID's Mortgages".

First, I love the picture to the left because I think it can be interpreted two ways:

1) Your mortgage is literally about to crush you, like an ant.

Or, 2) You are using mortgage debt to make a lot of money and are now Superman proudly showing it off by lifting an entire house, made out of money, over your head.

On this page I will show you why I believe having rental properties helps you achieve the second interpretation. Specifically, I will highlight the major benefits of buy-and-hold rental property real estate, the current market value of Passive Income Dude's rental properties, as well as the current mortgage values against them.

To start, one of the biggest benefits of real estate is being able to lock in fixed rate debt for a very long period of time. Primarily because of the following four key reasons:

1) Inflation slowly erodes your mortgage debt for you. Without you doing anything.  This is the hidden wealth creator of real estate - borrowing whole, real dollars TODAY that become very cheap to repay 20 or 30 years from now. Do not miss this powerful wealth creator.

2) You can highly lever your initial investment, resulting in massive gains over time.

3) Mortgage debt, or as I like to call it, cheap capital for you, is very, very inexpensive to obtain and to lock for decades.

4) Finally, once you 'outsource' your mortgage payment to your tenants, you receive the three benefits listed above and literally have a gold mine investment on your hands that gets stronger and stronger each month.

Let me give you an example of its strength increasing, passively each month:  my 'equity paydown' total, just to show one of the benefits of real estate, has now increased more than $20 per month since the start of this year, 2016.  Without doing anything. To be clear: what I am saying is that every month, literally forever, my equity paydown will be $20 more than it was at the start of this year, without me doing anything, and it will only get bigger and better, each month. Forever. Without doing anything.  Very exciting, and you can follow the same strategy and benefit from it as well!

All of that said, listed below is the current status of my mortgages and home values, etc., in detail:


Note that the 'monthly equity paydown' and 'debt reduced' columns listed above are PER MONTH. EVERY MONTH my mortgage debt is lowered by over $1200, with zero dollars paid for by me - all paid for by my tenants.  What a benefit!

Check out the full page here to see PID's Mortgages in even greater detail.  I'm interested to know what you, as fellow smart investors think?  Please comment below!

Thanks for reading,

Passive Income Dude

Friday, August 19, 2016

YouTube Intelligence: The Strangest Secret, best 31 minutes on YouTube

I just listened again to one of my all-time favorite videos on YouTube.

This one is an audio recording called "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale, recorded way back in 1950.  If you have not listened to this, you need to NOW. Trust me when I say, stop what you're doing or ensure you carve out some time to listen to this today. It is going to change your life for the better.  There is so much wisdom and knowledge in this short video about becoming wealthy, about goals, and about success that it's almost crazy.  But it is DIFFERENT from all of the other 'get rich' ideas that are out there that are not worth your time.  This is a timeless, foundational classic, video on success that you can't pass up.

Definitely worth your time.



Video Length: 31 minutes of audio.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU_PExRRb38

My review: the best 30 minutes you'll spend (apart obviously from reading the Bible).  But do not think you don't need this information.  Throw some headphones in and listen to it while you work or do some other activity.  Just ensure you do it.  I don't benefit from it at all personally if you do, but I think it will help you if you listen.

You won't be disappointed.



What do you think of Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret?

Thanks for reading,

Passive Income Dude

Monday, August 15, 2016

New Page: YouTube Intelligence

Hi all,

I'm very excited to announce that I'm adding a new page titled, "YouTube Intelligence."

Intelligence: The ability to acquire knowledge and skills.
YouTube: Let's be honest, we all know what YouTube is.

Ok, ok, bad joke. Sorry!


So, here's why I just added my YouTube Intelligence page: One of the incredible things about living in today's society is our readily available access to information.  Those of us in the blogging community recognize this fact perhaps, but I would venture to say that many people around the world still take for granted the awesome power that today we can literally learn almost anything via the internet.  And that's partly why I love the definition of intelligence found above.  We can ALL acquire knowledge and skills.

I believe the challenge now, however, comes in finding the critical, useful information amidst all of the time wasting, distracting, and dare I say pointless, material that is also readily available.

As such, I decided to create a consolidated location of YouTube videos that I think are very valuable to your life.  I love using YouTube for learning and growing intelligence, so the videos I chose will be centered around specifically what we care about: investing, dividends, success, motivation, real estate, goals, Financial Independence, etc. 

One thing I will guarantee you is that each video that makes the page will be worth your time. I'll continue to build out this page over the next month or so and into the future.

Check it out HERE.

Passive Income Dude

Friday, August 12, 2016

Income/Expenses: July 2016

One of my favorite posts of the month! It's very personal and helps keep me extremely accountable!

I think it takes a little bit of guts to share your income and expenses openly with the world. But that said, I think there is value for both of us in reading this post. I will do a similar article every month.

Listed below is a detailed display of all income and expenses for the month of July 2016. Much more normal than June, but still great progress.  See what you think!

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Me in a Lamborghini!

If you haven't seen Dave Ramsey's "Free Cars for Life" video, also titled "Drive Free Retire Rich", it is definitely worth watching.

I have a few small issues with his video in today's investing environment, which I'll detail below, but overall there are some very sound principles in this video to be successful with how you manage your personal car buying system.

But first, to give some motivation for this post, I wanted to share a picture of me in my favorite of all cars, the Lamborghini Huracan. Yep, that's right, that is me. For my 30th birthday this year my wife got me the best birthday present a man can get (other than getting the actual car) - 3 laps on the track in this sweet, oh so sweet, ride: the V-10 602 horsepower Lamborghini Huracan.


Needless to say, this was a very fast and very cool experience.  So with that experience in mind, here's what I think about the Drive Free Retire Rich video and why you should watch it:

Monday, August 8, 2016

Why Amazon (AMZN) Isn't Always The Best

In this post I am going to explain why Amazon (AMZN) is not always the best.

Pictured to the left is my one and a half year old son with his lawn mower.

Now please understand, his lawn mower is by far his favorite toy.  He loves mowing the grass with dad, and is always asking "go outside, go mow grass?".

So, as a result, I. mow. my. grass. Often.   Read on!

Thursday, August 4, 2016

"GATES-LIKE" MONEY. What If You Gained The Whole World?

Over the last few weeks I've really been spending a lot of time looking at other dividend investors' websites, learning from them, trying to rejoin the community after a 4 year break from blogging, and also trying to promote some awareness of my website a little. Let's be honest - it's great to be back in the community of investor/dividend bloggers, and as a result I'm trying not to just sit back in my shell and keep to myself - I'm trying to re-assimilate with some very incredible, motivated people.

Well, this morning I again found myself surfing around many people's websites, just reviewing everyone's July Income Reports (these dividend reports seem to be a standard monthly post for us bloggers, huh?) and after awhile I really started to get discouraged. Some people I saw were making $1K (or even more, in varying currencies) per month while others were just starting out with only a few dollars, or even $100 each month.  Frankly, the specific amounts don't matter because the spectrum of results is pretty wide. Even in the little dividend bloggers community.  

Well, as I was going through this exercise I also found myself starting to compare my results ($587 last month) to all of these other people's results.  Here is where the discouragement started to set in. Thankfully I noticed what was going on with my attitude while I was comparing myself to other people, and that got me thinking about the richest men in the world, and what it would be like to be at that level. Let's be honest, there are times when thoughts like that suggest it WOULD BE REALLY COOL.  These individuals make BILLIONS per month some times.

Here is the Forbes list of the Top 5 richest people in the World currently:


And don't get me wrong, I aspire to be very wealthy myself.  But this morning it hit me: Matthew 16:26.  Man. I had to go back and look at it again to read it word-for-word.  It states:

"What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"

A different translation states:

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul.  Is anything worth more than your soul?

This was pretty convicting for me personally. Don't miss its power.  The men pictured above can easily have "the whole world." But what if they've been so busy building their own kingdoms here on earth that they lose their souls. Yikes.

Readers, please hear me, riches, dividend income, passive income, Lamborghinis (my personal favorite of the super cars), net worth, rental income, millions, financial independence, mansions, early retirement, billions, all of it is great to have, but what if we miss the point of being here on earth because of our pursuit?

I've never seen this particular Latin phrase in my life, until of course, at another website this same morning (funny how that works out as I'm about to write this post): Memento Mori. It's worth looking up its meaning. Memento Mori. 

Thanks for reading,

Passive Income Dude

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Updates to Portfolio Page

Hi all.  Just wanted to let you know in a very quick post that I updated my Portfolio holdings to reflect this month's current data, and to also let you know that I made a decent number of improvements to the Portfolio page itself.  Now it does a better job clearly displaying my portfolio than what I had shown previously.

Feel free to check it out here!

Onwards!

Passive Income Dude

Monday, August 1, 2016

Passive Income Report: July 2016

It is time again for my monthly Passive Income Report.

In these posts I review a summary of all dividends I received, the rental income I received, and any purchases I made from that particular month.

This monthly report covers July 2016.  

I hope you enjoy these posts and that we can learn how to grow our passive income streams and build real long-term wealth together! 

Read More to see how I earned $587 this month in passive income...



Saturday, July 30, 2016

Must Read Series: The Four Pillars of Investing

Hello all! This is the first of my "Must Read" category, and I am excited to share this content with you. What I would like to do with the "Must Read" page is two things:

1) Provide you a list of investing books that I personally have read and think are very valuable for you to read as well.  I want this list only to be on books that are definitely worth your time reading.

2) Give you an overview of key takeaways so that if you don't have time to read it, you will be much smarter after reading this post.

To start this series, there is almost no better book than William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing.  I have read this book from cover to cover twice and think it is a must read if you want to get serious about understanding finance. 

Difficulty score: 7/10

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

$17,500 Richer? The Power of Leverage...

Ah, the power of leverage.

Without it, I would argue you are in the SLOW lane of wealth creation. With it, you've got the power to literally move financial mountains! But if you aren't using leverage yet, that's OK. Read on!

Leverage is an incredible concept when you think about it, isn't it?

Webster and Investopedia define leverage differently, but I want you to notice the similarity:

Webster: the mechanical advantage or power gained by using a lever.

Investopedia: the use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital, to increase the potential return of an investment.

Notice the two action words that unite these definitions together: gain and increase.  More on this later, but remember gain and increase for now.

I wanted the picture of this article to clearly explain exactly how leverage works in an easily understandable and memorable image, and I think this one works best. So what do we see?  We see that with a little ball, when using leverage, it equates to a very large ball.  The two balls become in balance, and as a result, the little ball's mass essentially equals the big ball's mass.

Do not miss the power in this concept:  If I only have a little ball, with leverage, I can achieve the outcome EQUAL to having a very large ball. 

So let us tie that back to what we care about: investing, investment returns, growing wealth, big bucks, LARGE SUMS OF MONEY, etc!  So - how did I use leverage to earn a 100% return in one year and become $17,500 richer? Let me tell you: