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Creating passive income is always a good thing, but it can become very expensive. It costs money to keep your house, land, cars, and other assets you have to invest in to make this goal possible.
In fact, most people don’t achieve their dream of living off of minimal earnings even after investing heavily in these things.
So how much money do you need to earn to live a comfortable life?
We calculated the average monthly income needed to satisfy your financial goals for both rich and poor. This includes what you want to buy now and what you want to be able to afford later. We also included some significant cost of living differences between cities in America so that you know just how close or far away your dreams are.
We broke down our results by income level: wealthy, middle class, and impoverished. These terms may sound funny, but they really mean something so stick with us as we dive into more details!
Take home message: Most people struggle to fulfill their dreams due to the high price of entry when it comes to creating an enduring source of wealth.
To reap the benefits of having a well-paying job, you’ll have to spend lots of money on education, training, and tools (such as Microsoft Office) to start. Plus, you’ll need to maintain a strong work ethic to ensure your success.
There is no hard and fast rule for what it takes to be rich, but most experts agree that you need an annual income at least equal to your monthly living expenses!
This includes rent or mortgage and utilities, groceries, transportation, health care costs, etc. Add to that all of the other expenditures (cellphone plan, Netflix, cable TV, entertainment such as movies and sports events) and you have a total cost of living.
Most people are spending more than that each month! If you can’t make ends meet on one income, how will you do so with two?
It sounds ridiculous, I know, but this principle holds true even in the era of online shopping and easy access to credit. It was once considered unacceptable to spend money unless you had a job offering adequate pay, now we show our lack of self-control.
The monthly income requirement is very different for every person. What’s important to note about this criterion is that it depends not only on your current living expenses, but also what you want to achieve with your life.
If you really need a high paying job to feel happy and confident in the future, then perhaps investing in higher education or seeking out more lucrative careers is the better option than trying to make passive incomes while still putting food on the table.
On the other hand, if you believe you can live a good quality of life by spending less money, investing in a low cost, easy to operate businesses may be the way to go.
Either way, the key here is to be comfortable with how much money you are wasting and determine whether or not that makes you happy.
Now that you have an idea of what it takes to earn more than $1,000 per month, you can add up all those numbers to find how much money you need to make annually to achieve this goal.
The average person who makes over $1,000 monthly is either very rich or working in high-paying field. This doesn’t apply to everyone, but if it does — go out and try to be like them! (We mean that as a compliment.)
If you want to live beyond your means, you will have to do so without any help from us. It takes work to build wealth, and most people don’t take the necessary steps to improve their financial situation.
Don’t fall into that trap.
Instead, strive to put away some of your hard-earned cash every day by investing in productive assets such as stocks, real estate, and business loans. Not only will this give you greater longterm returns, it will also reduce spending since you’ll have extra money.
There are two main components that make up how much money you need to generate passive income. They are savings and living costs.
The first component is what I like to call savings required. This comes down to how much money you must have in the bank before you can start investing. Most people do not have enough savings, which is why they cannot achieve their goal of having more than $1,000 per month coming in passively.
To be able to keep spending less money every month, you will need to find ways to save some money. This can be done through giving up unnecessary expenses or finding new ways to pay for things yourself (like doing your own laundry).
A good starting point is to determine how many months’ worth of bills you spend each week. If you know this, you can multiply this by 12 to get an estimate of how much money you should have saved at the end of the year.
This way, you don’t need to exactly know your monthly budget, but it gives you a general idea. It also helps you compare whether or not your current budget is reasonable.
There are two main components when it comes to deciding how much money you need to make passive income. The first is Location. Are there good opportunities in your area for you to exist as an entrepreneur?
The second component is Revenue. What types of revenue can you create or expand in your current field? If no one else offers what you want, then you’re space to start!
Both of these things are important because they determine how successful you will be at making money passively.
If there aren’t too many people who are doing what you want to do, then chances are low that others have success done wrong. You may not get very many tips and tricks from them if they don’t have enough profits.
On the other hand, if everyone around you is trying to make lots of money fast through expensive marketing strategies, then you won’t stand out very well.
You see, most people my talk about their journey to financial freedom, but none ever mention how they made it happen. They never tell you what steps they took nor why those steps worked for them.
I’ve gathered some information here for you so you know what I did to earn more than I was spending.
The first way to determine how much money you need to make is by considering your current audience, what they like, and what will motivate them to spend money to see your product or service.
If you are trying to create an online course that focuses on personal development, then making your content more motivational and educational will help your income.
You can also add additional features such as forums and chat rooms so people can interact with each other and you for social proof.
Or if you are creating a mobile app, adding in-app purchases and reward programs could be used to boost your revenue.
By having these extra features, people will feel compelled to purchase because it seems worthwhile.
General tips
Your passive income will vary per person depending on their needs and things they want.
Some may not care about rewards programs or social media influencers and instead focus on educational material or software that costs less to buy.
There are two things that most people get wrong when trying to achieve their passive income goal. One is deciding what kind of income they want, and the other is choosing a strategy for achieving it.
If you make money doing something you’re not passionate about, then how many hours do you think you will invest into it? None!
That’s why our first tip is to consider your niche.
What I mean by that is – figure out the thing that you love and that makes you enough money now, and create a side business or career around that.
You can easily expand from there by offering related services and products. But making extra money without investing much time in it may not work for some people.
Generalist lifestyle bloggers may make a good example of this. They may have started off making money online through advertising or affiliate marketing, but as they grow their blogs more targeted ways to earn revenue emerge.
This article has discussed several examples of this. So, instead of specializing in one area, you could choose multiple areas and lead a balanced life.
I know a lot of people who fit this description very well and they seem to be having success with it. They enjoy what they do and learned different strategies along the way so they don’t feel like they're running out of ideas.
A website is one of the most important ways to generate passive income. By having your own domain name, you can create an online store or business that you can access anywhere!
Most people start their internet marketing journey by creating a free web page using a service like Google Sites or WordPress.
But before you invest in more expensive products and services, try writing a few paragraphs and seeing what response you get. If there are lots of comments and likes, then you have sparked some interest and it’s time to move onto the next step.
By adding social media links and e-commerce tools to your site, you will be giving people additional ways to interact with you and buy from you.
There are many ways to make money online through cashing in on advertisements, starting a blogging business, or even selling digital content such as books and courses.
