Is this investment strategy bullshyt?

[Secure Da Bag]

Retiring early doesn't mean you'll stop making money — here's how one retired millennial made more than $60,000 in passive income last year

You can take the woman out of work, but you can't take the work out of the woman.

At least, that's the case for J.P. Livingston, who retired at age 28 with a nest egg of more than $2 million, which she saved while living in New York City.

With a starting job in finance that paid $100,000 by the end of the first year, Livingston was able to tuck away 70% of her take-home pay. From there, she invested 40% of that and saved 60%. When she received yearly raises, instead of increasing her spending limit, she saved the difference for retirement.

But to her surprise, her corporate years weren't the last time she'd see a flow of income.

"When I was contemplating early retirement while working, I was very burnt out," Livingston previously told Business Insider. "I imagined I would want to sit on the couch and eat bonbons, sleep in late, that kind of thing.

"I did do that, but it gets boring eventually, and I ended up getting active again with different hobbies and projects," she continued. "Eventually, one or more of those projects yielded income. It's hard to be awake for 60-plus hours a week and not find a single enjoyable way to earn some money."

She began writing a personal-finance blog, The Money Habit, because the topic had been of interest to her for years, she said.

"I didn't expect it to make any money at all, because there are a million blogs out there, but it eventually got big enough that between the hosting and email bills I decided I should figure out how to monetize it enough to pay its own bills," she told Business Insider. After its first year, "it made over $62,000 with me spending less than five hours a week writing about things I wanted to write about."

Setting up passive income through blogging
Livingston started writing on the blog in August 2016, she said, covering everything from investing and saving to planning for early retirement. In 2017, after attracting a few readers, she researched how others monetized their blogs.

It turns out that affiliate commissions, in which she refers a product or business on the blog and receives a percentage of a sale or a flat commission from that company if a reader makes a purchase, was a huge opportunity. Through this strategy, she earned $60,162 last year.

Much of this was passive income, meaning she didn't have to put in endless hours to see her work quite literally pay off. The lasting value is a bonus of the side hustle, Livingston said.

"If you build your own blog or side business, you have created an operation that can continue to throw off cash for you in the future," she said.

Near year's end, Livingston began adding advertisements to the site, something that earns her $1,000 to $2,000 a month. Because she started using ads so late in the year, they brought in only an extra $2,164 in 2017.

[pic removed]
Livingston said her blog earned $14,000 over three months while she was caring for her new baby.
Shutterstock
"Earlier this year I had a kid. I was completely offline for three months, but the blog generated over $14,000 in that time," she said. Livingston had posts scheduled to publish once a week during this time, few of which had affiliate links, so most of the revenue came from previous posts and ads.

She added that "it has been amazing getting to talk to thousands of other people who are passionate about the same things as I am."

In fact, if she had known it was still possible to generate income while retired, Livingston thinks she would have retired even earlier than she did.

"I wanted to be absolutely sure I didn't have to work at all once I pulled the trigger," Livingston said. "If I knew then what I know now, I would at least modify my target retirement number to need less buffer, because I knew I could work part time as a fallback to supplement our needs.

"But the reality is that if you have the initiative and discipline to retire early," she said, "you are probably the kind of person who likes to get very engaged in new projects and hobbies, which will eventually yield an income."

 

[AlainLocke]

Blogging is surefire way to make a lot of money doing nothing.

If you gain traction, you can hire ghost writers.

With the way YouTube is going, blogging is gonna make a comeback

And if you are single... and got a good job


You can save a lot of money... especially if you stay at home

 

[Tunez]

@Hiphoplives4eva

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

Blogging is an excellent way to gain readers. Monetizing is always the hard part. Creating a platform people check out regularly is the difficult part.

 

[UWasntThere]

100k after taxes is maybe 75k. She lived off 30% of that which is less than 25k. How can you get by on that in NYC?

Must be one of those extreme cheapskates. No thanks. I'd rather work and live well than be a cheap b*stard and sit on the couch for the rest of my life

 

[4-Rin]

In before a coli breh says something about getting on their grind.

6 figures straight out of college

 

[Hacksaw Jim Thuggin]

100k after taxes is maybe 75k. She lived off 30% of that which is less than 25k. How can you get by on that in NYC?

Must be one of those extreme cheapskates. No thanks. I'd rather work and live well than be a cheap b*stard and sit on the couch for the rest of my life

you wouldnt grind for a while.....to live the way you want for the rest of your life?

 

[mannyrs13]

Y'all over here mentioning these brands and companies on the coli better stop unless they gonna pay you to advertise their business. Tell them I'll rent out some space in my posts and profile for them if they cut the check.

 

[MMA]

Why do people look at all investments like they will have the same possibility or outcome?
You need to ask yourself what will you have to give to start said business and how it'll affect your day to day.

She clearly has a successful blog so yes she is earning money from it but that doesn't mean you will. If you are going to give it a try, actually be passionate about end products or find individuals who can be (I'll suggest college students looking for experience). You should spend more time learning how to acquire deals and get more end users onto your site (learn about SEO).

 

[Contrefaire]

100k after taxes is maybe 75k. She lived off 30% of that which is less than 25k. How can you get by on that in NYC?

Must be one of those extreme cheapskates. No thanks. I'd rather work and live well than be a cheap b*stard and sit on the couch for the rest of my life

I don't even think that can be done if you're an extreme cheapskate. Notice how a lot of crucial info is missing from this article. So she graduated college, went immediately to a 100k job and had no student loans? She was then able to "live" in NYC on just 30% of her take home for a year and by her second year she was investing 40% and saving 60%. That's 100% of her income. So in subsequent years, she spent no money whatsoever? No rent? No bills? Groceries, transpiration, insurance or daily living expenses?

None of this shyt is adding up.

 

[MMA]

I don't even think that can be done if you're an extreme cheapskate. Notice how a lot of crucial info is missing from this article. So she graduated college, went immediately to a 100k job and had no student loans? She was then able to "live" in NYC on just 30% of her take home for a year and by her second year she was investing 40% and saving 60%. That's 100% of her income. So in subsequent years, she spent no money whatsoever? No rent? No bills? Groceries, transpiration, insurance or daily living expenses?

None of this shyt is adding up.

Agreed even though parents could have paid student loans and pay her rent. If she’s a workaholic the situation with a tweak in the math is possible. You’ll be surprised how many people live that way. I’m guilty of that luxury when I was 19

 

[Contrefaire]

Agreed even though parents could have paid student loans and pay her rent. If she’s a workaholic the situation with a tweak in the math is possible. You’ll be surprised how many people live that way. I’m guilty of that luxury when I was 19

My parents paid my rent and bills up till I was like 23....and I'd dropped out of college way before that. That's not the part that gets me. My only thing is, if that's how you were living then SAY THAT. Don't sit on your soapbox on some financial guru type shyt when you know you had the kind of leg up in this world that fewer and fewer people will ever receive. It's disingenuous. And the whole article is bullshyt for leaving that out.

I'm not at all saying she's lying because I'm sure she's not, but leaving out key details like this paints a picture that any layman can do what she did and come out on top by following her simple footsteps when that's just not the case. In reality this sort 'advice' can essentially be boiled down to "how to be born rich and get richer".

 

[jwinfield]

My parents paid my rent and bills up till I was like 23....and I'd dropped out of college way before that. That's not the part that gets me. My only thing is, if that's how you were living then SAY THAT. Don't sit on your soapbox on some financial guru type shyt when you know you had the kind of leg up in this world that fewer and fewer people will ever receive. It's disingenuous. And the whole article is bullshyt for leaving that out.

I'm not at all saying she's lying because I'm sure she's not, but leaving out key details like this paints a picture that any layman can do what she did and come out on top by following her simple footsteps when that's just not the case. In reality this sort 'advice' can essentially be boiled down to "how to be born rich and get richer".

I hate those types of articles.

There was one I read about this couple that saved a shyt ton of money, the big thing was that they lived rent free at one of her mom's houses, then the mom let them rent that house out while they lived with her grandma rent free.

I'm reading it like . A lot of people could save a shyt ton of money if they could live rent free and get rental income from a building they've put no money in whatsoever.

A lot of those articles are just infuriating, where they either start off making a shyt ton of money, live so frugal that it's unrealistic or there's some help they either don't mention or isn't a normal situation for most people in their 20s