Work Income vs. Passive Investment Income

Why Passive Investment Income rocks!

I want to be all about passive investment income!

One thing I’m always curious about is how people live. A bit nosey, but it became a habit shortly after moving to Canada from Russia as I tried to become more social and more familiar with Canadian people.

After looking at how people around me live, I’ve come to conclusion that there are two types of people. One group of people (group A) goes to work every day and works to get a paycheck every two weeks: store employees, nurses, police officers, business managers, truck drivers, and many others.

And group B lives off passive investment income without going to work. They enjoy income earned in forms of dividends, business distributions, royalties, and even blogging. Of course, there are people who happily enjoy both of these worlds and use passive investment income to increase their earning capacity.

 

Passive Investment Income

Passive Investment Income

 

 

Personally, I’d like to see us slowly transition from Group A into Group B. And I been thinking about this for quite some time and discussed possibilities with my wife.

What would this transition look like? Well, currently we’re making decent income for our age group. Money we earn comes in every other week and leaves in form of bills and expenses. What if we could replace work income with passive investment income, and pay our bills and expenses with it? That would put us into strange world where we can choose to work, but are not forced to do so. We can spend more time enjoying doing things we are passionate about. We can probably do more travelling and connect better with our family members living overseas. Oh boy, do I like the sound of that!

 

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Automating finances - How and Why!?

Automating finances and why I love it!

Let’s be honest, running the financial side of your family affairs takes time, it takes effort, and takes discipline. Mundane tasks such as bill payments and shuffling money between accounts require your attention. Even small things take time that is a precious commodity these days especially if you have kids. Somehow you need to remember due dates, amounts, different bill types, save for retirement, invest your money, send checks, and prepare for large expenses coming up … This almost sounds like a full time job sometimes.

Would it not be wonderful if all of these things were happening automatically? This is what I call automating finances - making sure all these tasks happen independently of your actions. You can be busy doing something else or even be traveling in South America yet your financial affairs would require very little of your attention, and can run themselves automatically.

 

Automating Finances

Automating Finances

 

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Interesting Banknotes Around the World

Let’s take a look at some of the world’s most interesting banknotes

 

Last week I looked at Canadian banknotes and how interesting they can be. But other nations’ money can provide some entertainment too!

 

Israel

 

Israeli lira from 1968 featured a portrait of Albert Einstein. You can still buy it on eBay for roughly $10 if you happen to be a big fan of his. Not many people know it, but Albert Einstein was offered Israeli presidency back in 1952 but turned it down.

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

Serbia

 

Serbian dinar also features a man of science - Nicola Tesla himself. The back side features a picture of electro-magnetic induction engine.

 

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

 

 Turkey

 

Turkey went all math instead of physics. Their banknotes have a portrait of Cahit Arf - Turkish mathematician. While I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in math, I couldn’t even being to understand which part of mathematics he’s famous for.

 

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

Canada

 

Did you know that Canada used to have a 4-dollar banknote? They date back to early 1900, and were withdrawn from circulation shortly after.

 

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

 

Zimbabwe

 

Zimbabwe went through a brutal cycle of hyperinflation - money was being printed with no regard to state of economy. More money flooded the market, and prices kept rising to no end. The banknotes issued risen in denomination. Below is a banknote for one hundred trillion dollars - probably just enough to fill up your car with gas!

 

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

Congo

 

Democratic Republic of Congo used to be known as Zaire. Joseph Mobutu ruled the country until he was overthrown in 1997. Instead of producing brand new money, new govt decided to punch holes in old money to get rid of his face - that resulted in producing banknotes with holes in them. I guess he wasn’t very popular, and everybody was sick of his face.

 

Interesting Banknotes

Interesting Banknotes

 

 

Happy Friday! And a little bit of First World Problems

Financial Underdog 3

First World problems

 

I was sitting at my desk and swearing (quietly) at my iPhone for taking forever to update to iOS 7. My phone isn’t the newest - I bought it used for cheap - so it certainly was taking its sweet time. Clearly, it was a pretty bad case of firstworldproblemitis.

 

First World Problem, noun

 

Problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at.

Example: My 7 dollar starbucks latte came with ONE espresso shot instead of the TWO I asked for!

We all run into small problems that irritate us to no end - but it’s important to put things into perspective. Anyone who lives in North America and is relatively healthy should be dancing in the streets - we live long lives surrounded by wealth and can change our destiny with relative easy by going to school. Most people in the world would be happy to have our everyday problems. Canada is ranked very highly in terms of income mobility. And we have universal health care to boot.

Enjoy your weekend and enjoy life in general!

 

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

First World Problems

 

Long weekend

My wife and I spent a long weekend in Kootenays. It’s rather beautiful and remote area in British Columbia that gets crazy busy in the summer - it’s utterly picturesque, quiet, and secluded.

It’s great to get away once in a while - we haven’t had a weekend like this for quite some time. Always busy with work, always something is happening. But when you get away, it’s great to turn off your cell phone, forget about news, Internet, problems, daily hustle, and other issues. Just enjoying each others’ company, discussing things on our minds, and so on.

We did talk about our future - how we see it. I guess, we always do. Set some goals for ourselves - how much we’d like to see invested this year, this sorta thing. It’s great to be on the same page with your partner.

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