The Passive Income Scam

The best way to earn a passive income is to choose your parents wisely.

Another simple rule: if something really makes a lot of money, people won't share it so openly.

There's a saying that "If you see a gold rush, don't start digging. Instead start selling the shovels, you'll gain way more profit this way"

I ran a drop shipping store for about 2 years. There is absolutely nothing passive about it. You either end up doing 10 different jobs yourself (graphic design, advertising, programming, customer support, procurement, product upload, copy writing, etc), or you have to hire others to do the work for you. Even though your suppliers ship the items, you still have to place the correct PO with them, track it, and deal with any delivery issues. The margins are tiny, so if you run any aggressive promos you end up selling at a loss. You also have real monthly overhead to worry about. By the time I'd pay all my bills (hosting, advertising, CMS, payment processor, etc) I'd be left with $200 on a good month. The payoff was not at all worth the effort. Apparently my store was one of the 'successful' ones since it at least covered operating costs with occasional profits. I ended up selling the business for basically the cost of the course, and walked away breaking even. I now make 40x more working 9-5 and only doing 1 of the 10+ jobs I used to do. Good employment is underrated.

Fake financial guru: Working 9-5 is such a horrible way to live. Also financial guru: You gotta grind and work 24/7.

Back in the 1980s there was a guy who advertised in the back magazines about how to get rich quick by buying his book. His book described how you should write a book and put ads in magazines telling other people how to get rich quick. Nothing ever changes.

Getting all the gurus during the ads for this video is really the cherry on top

When I got into adult life, I realized, maybe too late, that what brings money in a more reliable way is having real life skills, like welding, machining, electrical repairs, etc, stuff that the industry needs. It's much better investing in that sort of stuff instead of getting money by just sitting doing nothing.

I designed a 3D printing stl file that's sold online. After taxes and fees I get about $10 a year, and all it took was 20-30 hours designing the file. Passive income achieved!

"Passive income is frontloading your work, not eliminating it." Well said

My husband sells prints and designs on Etsy, he makes an additional 1k-ish BUT it is NOT passive. It takes work, consistency and creativity and honestly, it’s not that easy to keep up with. You can’t just sit there and allow money to roll in passively. No such thing as passive, its work.

My wife is a notary through her job, but does not do it as a job. Everyone who learns about notaries finds out how easy it is to become one and how much you can charge people and thinks it's an amazing idea. What people don't get is that the "business" part of running a business is the hard part, not the specifics of the product or service. Sure, become a notary, it is actually easy. Now, how do you get people to hear about you, let alone choose you? Can you afford a billboard? Office space? Can you build and run your website? Are you ever going to outcompete professionals with established practices? The expertise needed is not notary skills; it's business skills and connections most of us lack.

That's why I actively manage my passive income and passively manage my active income.

Financial influencers telling people "just generate some passive income sources" is like a fitness influencer telling people "just stop being fat." Yet somehow it crops up everywhere.

Was in MLM for years because someone I was seeing thought it was a great strategy to retire early, and "earn passive income". After buying products, paying for meetings, conventions, air fair, hotels hotels, losing income from my main job to facilitate the entrepreneurship and seeing people as objects and opportunity, I realized, I was part of someone else's "passive income"... After I cut ties, I traded all of that for something you can't buy, peace.

Renting out houses is a good way to earn passive income. Just as long as none of your tenants, never trash your house, have to be evicted, house never needs repairs, or there's severe weather.

Here are my multiple sources of income: 9 to 5 job Commission from job above Stock appreciation Stock dividends Credit card cashback Couponing Paying off bills so avoid crazy interest rates Asking family for money Picking up change from the street Finding $10 in my jacket pocket

I'll never forget my coworker telling me his plan to live off passive income once he can life off dividends. In our area you'd need approximately a $2,000,000 portfolio to be comfortable. At the time of him saying this we were getting paid $16/hr. He acted like it was such a simple thing to do.

I like how whenever I click on videos exposing scams, I get an ad for those exact scams. In this case I got one for a side-hustle where you "spend 10 minutes a day working online and get a 6-figure salary from it"

Love how honest this all was. I've found that most of, if not all of, the financial advice YouTube videos I've personally seen have had something to sell me. This was a nice change of pace.