Living the passive income dream

Ubbquittious

How many people in Ireland earn a living from doing almost nothing?



I'm not talking about people on the dole, PuP or retired but those who have managed to get into a situation where they don't need to go to work anymore


Perhaps they wrote some sordid tales of lust and love years ago that are still selling on Amazon Kindle. Or they bought a big house in Dublin after the crash and packed it to the brim with students (including 2 sleeping under the stairs).



I'm sure a lot of people like this spend most of the year in Land's Rotty or Barbados watching their bank balance increase by repeatedly pressing F5 but there must be some who stay in Ireland as well

Jerry Attrick

Ubbquittious wrote: »

How many people in Ireland earn a living from doing almost nothing?



I'm not talking about people on the dole, PuP or retired but those who have managed to get into a situation where they don't need to go to work anymore


Perhaps they wrote some sordid tales of lust and love years ago that are still selling on Amazon Kindle. Or they bought a big house in Dublin after the crash and packed it to the brim with students (including 2 sleeping under the stairs).



I'm sure a lot of people like this spend most of the year in Land's Rotty or Barbados watching their bank balance increase by repeatedly pressing F5 but there must be some who stay in Ireland as well

There's a chap called Micky Dee Higginz who fits the bill.

Lives in a huge mansion and, when not counting his money he spends most of his time writing poetry and prose that no one ever reads and playing with his two big dogs.

Cal4567

Apart from some examples I can think of in HSE and local authority roles, although I also know some others in similar positions who do put in a fair day's labour, I did come across someone who when they were well on the way to paying off their own mortgage, inherited 2 houses in quick succession. The tax kicked in but the leftover was more than enough to change his life. He never had to 'work' again.

lalababa

The big problem with passive income can be lack of motivation or get up and go. Like being on de dole.
Finding positive things to fill your time.

Alot of people inherited land and with certain tax breaks etc can earn e300+ an acre per annum tax free





Lads sitting on 60 - 100+ acre blocks can literally get money for doing nothing,and in many cases better off for doing so

I haven't done a traditional day's work since 2009, and no, I've never once claimed a penny of taxpayer's/public money. Fukc the rat race, I left Ireland and was bit of a "nomad capitalist" around various countries for a few years. It took me and my partner five years to put together a 100% cash payment on a four bedroom house in Wimbledon in London, no rent and no mortgage. Something I could absolutely forget about had we stayed in the 9-to-5 world.

The best month we ever had we made USD$198,000 in a month between us (admittedly a rarity!), at worst we never failed to make under USD$600 in a week each.

Never looked back, but that being said I can't say I'd recommend it for everyone unless you have something fairly solid to fall back on if things don't go your way.

dxhound2005

With the vast number of homes owned mortgage free, and the vast personal savings in the country, there must be tens of thousands who are free of any financial worries.

Ubbquittious

dxhound2005 wrote: »

With the vast number of homes owned mortgage free, and the vast personal savings in the country, there must be tens of thousands who are free of any financial worries.

Even if you own your house mortgage free you're still standing on the conveyor belt being moved backwards so to speak unless you have a few 100 a week coming in.

dxhound2005

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Even if you own your house mortgage free you're still standing on the conveyor belt being moved backwards so to speak unless you have a few 100 a week coming in.

Nothing stopping your landlords and authors owing their houses outright and having a few hundred thousand in savings.

A lot would depend on the age of people, and whether the sources of income would still be there in 10 years or 60 years.

rodge68

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I haven't done a traditional day's work since 2009, and no, I've never once claimed a penny of taxpayer's/public money. Fukc the rat race, I left Ireland and was bit of a "nomad capitalist" around various countries for a few years. It took me and my partner five years to put together a 100% cash payment on a four bedroom house in Wimbledon in London, no rent and no mortgage. Something I could absolutely forget about had we stayed in the 9-to-5 world.

The best month we ever had we made USD$198,000 in a month between us (admittedly a rarity!), at worst we never failed to make under USD$600 in a week each.

Never looked back, but that being said I can't say I'd recommend it for everyone unless you have something fairly solid to fall back on if things don't go your way.

Fair play to you but what did ye do to make that much money ??

KevRossi

I know one woman who does. I mentioned her family here before. They had land outside two large midlands towns and sold the land for big money back in the early noughties to developers. Family decided to go into the construction business themselves, but they didn't know a spade from a cement mixer.

She got just over €1,000,000 for her portion of the land as a buy out, it was well below what she was entitled to, but she wanted out. She sold her house in Sabntry bought a house in the Rathmines/Ranelagh area. It was a load of bedsits, but she converted it back to a 5 bed house, with a 1-bed apartment at the top for herself. She lives off the rent, her apartment is legally a connected 'granny flat', so she has no issues with non-paying tenants. She get's about €600 per month for each room, she could get more, but the tenants are there long term and one looks after the place when she's not there. There's a shared sitting room and a large kitchen/dining room. Nice garden out the back, parking for 4 cars in front. Most of the bedrooms are ensuite, I think 3 people share 2 bathrooms.

She has around €33,000 per annum after LPT, small repairs and other small charges and she pays her full income tax on it. She had about €200K left after buying the house and she used some of it and the rent money for travelling, nothing flash, mostly backpacking. She has a camper van that she payed €15,000 for parked up somewhere in the US and will take it to South America next year or whenever COVID allows.

She's in her late 40's and should be able to see it out to pension age living as she does. Her family blew most of the rest of the cash AFAIK. Most of them are back working in ordinary jobs.

2lazytogetup

“I get give or take, it works out at about with expenses 140,000 a year and I pay 30.3% tax on that, so it’s about a net 100,000 and out of that 100,000 I run a home in Dublin, Castlebar and Brussels. I wanna tell you something, try it sometime

dxhound2005

KevRossi wrote: »

I know one woman who does. I mentioned her family here before. They had land outside two large midlands towns and sold the land for big money back in the early noughties to developers. Family decided to go into the construction business themselves, but they didn't know a spade from a cement mixer.

She got just over €1,000,000 for her portion of the land as a buy out, it was well below what she was entitled to, but she wanted out. She sold her house in Sabntry bought a house in the Rathmines/Ranelagh area. It was a load of bedsits, but she converted it back to a 5 bed house, with a 1-bed apartment at the top for herself. She lives off the rent, her apartment is legally a connected 'granny flat', so she has no issues with non-paying tenants. She get's about €600 per month for each room, she could get more, but the tenants are there long term and one looks after the place when she's not there. There's a shared sitting room and a large kitchen/dining room. Nice garden out the back, parking for 4 cars in front. Most of the bedrooms are ensuite, I think 3 people share 2 bathrooms.

She has around €33,000 per annum after LPT, small repairs and other small charges and she pays her full income tax on it. She had about €200K left after buying the house and she used some of it and the rent money for travelling, nothing flash, mostly backpacking. She has a camper van that she payed €15,000 for parked up somewhere in the US and will take it to South America next year or whenever COVID allows.

She's in her late 40's and should be able to see it out to pension age living as she does. Her family blew most of the rest of the cash AFAIK. Most of them are back working in ordinary jobs.

I wouldn't know half as much as that about anyone.

Hamachi

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I wouldn't know half as much as that about anyone.

Was just thinking this myself. I wouldn’t know that much detail about lives of my brother or sisters!

Edgware

There's a lad I see walking around Drumcondra. He wears an anorak and does a few bob on "de horses" Likes to call into the pub for a Bass or two

touts

Unless you inherit wealth there isn't much of a passive income. Lots of lads online telling you that it's possible to make a living selling ebooks and stuff and all you have to do to know the secret is buy their ebook. They are the modern day snake oil salesmen. Sure if you have a book or a song or something in you great and of you get lucky you can make enough to pay for a little holiday etc. But you are unlikely to make a living off one book/song and you'll have to work your ass off creating more books and songs etc to build up enough income to live on. That doesn't sound very "passive" to me. That's just working.

KevRossi

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I wouldn't know half as much as that about anyone.

I've known her very well for 30 years at least. She asked a couple of us about the house before she bought it, we had a good look at it, gave her advice on what builders and engineers said and costed the reconstruction for her.

There have been a couple of medium-major jobs over the past 15 years and we helped her out with advice on that too, as well as dealing with engineers and builders. She's often asked me about some of the travels that I did years ago, as well as asking others and she's fairly open about her inheritance to those who know her.

She's also quite open about her rental income and pro's and con's about living as a landlord.

Oranage2

Like the previous poster said there's not many 'real' passive income jobs. That's not to say you can't make good money doing things but if you want to keep making money then you need to work to make it work. Classic example is a vending machine, you need to scout the place, fill the machine, repair and upgrade the machine etc. Another is affiliated marketing, you've to pay for your site, keep it relevant, build a brand or following and then it works. Or even a YouTuber, the video might be 10-15 minutes long but it could take 8 hours to edit it and you'll need to buy a powerful computer, good cameras etc

So yes it might seem like passive income but you'll need a certain degree of work to make money from it

y0ssar1an22

it depends what you mean by nothing.

royalties and licencing a product are a good way to make money doing nothing (after the fact of course). sit down and write a book/song.

dividends and rent as passive income require capital in the 1st place.

youtube? that does creators a disservice i reckon.

and that is passive income which must be disguinguised from having a pile of cash from an inheritance, a good property sale. that's not really income.

but most bang for your buck...time/effort/intellect put in vs output, and considering how common one of these evets are...must be state benefits hands down

Cilldara_2000

touts wrote: »

Unless you inherit wealth there isn't much of a passive income. Lots of lads online telling you that it's possible to make a living selling ebooks and stuff and all you have to do to know the secret is buy their ebook. They are the modern day snake oil salesmen. Sure if you have a book or a song or something in you great and of you get lucky you can make enough to pay for a little holiday etc. But you are unlikely to make a living off one book/song and you'll have to work your ass off creating more books and songs etc to build up enough income to live on. That doesn't sound very "passive" to me. That's just working.

The current funniest thing doing the rounds* is this almost universal three step method to financial independence:

1- start a youtube channel
2- start a dropshipping business
3- cut back your living expenses so far that you live like the meanest miser there ever was.

* And there's loads of them - I try to follow reasonable investment advice on YouTube etc - unfortunately ~90% of them are charlatans so you really need you bs detector to be working if you were going to invest/spend/waste according to their ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all pump and dump merchantes.

B.A._Baracus

I have looked into passive income myself. To be honest, I wouldn't mind a future in it (who wouldn't) Let's be realistic, the chances of earning big money are against you but if you don't try to certainly won't ever get it.

I found half the battle is finding out what to do. Other half if getting off your back side and actually doing it.

Montage of Feck

Passive income sounds a lot like snake oil.

Stovepipe

I know a guy who is an agent for a well known brand of tape and he makes a tidy sum from it,not enough to retire on but it's enough. He does a few hrs a week dealing with orders and the rest is his "day" job. I also know several lads who got into property in the 80s and have a couple of dozen houses each yet they still do the "day" job. they must be making a killing these days from the houses.

Pac1Man

Passive would be tough. Part-time work would be more realistic and reachable for those who don't care too much about getting married and having kids.

Keep your head screwed on and don't get sucked into debt by buying an expensive car you don't need purely to impress others. You don't need that 2k watch either.

Get a career in STEM. Make some money. Aggressively pay off the mortgage (you don't have a spouse & kids remember).

Your 8 year old Toyota is still fine. Relax.

Wind down the weekly hours a bit allowing you to still live comfortably and do a bit of travel and hobbies without the burden of needing to work to survive.

Take the morning off one day and go sit on a bench somewhere. Watch the rat race bustle around you while you sip a coffee and finish off that Danish pastry.

I hear next Thursday will be a scorcher. Take a drive out to the strand while listening to The Eagles and buy a Calippo ice pop. Don't worry about the embarrassment of having it dribble down your chin, you'll have the beach to yourself.

2lazytogetup

there is a film with Hugh Grant called About a Boy. basically about a middle aged guy who lives off song royalties.

i found it really depressing. he had no purpose in life so just tried to chat up middle aged women all the time. i know its not real but would make me wonder how bad life would be

i knew a couple of people around rathgar area of dublin that simularly were crazy wealthy and had no jobs. im very lazy but based on my experience of them id need something to give myself purpose. volunteer at least.

silliussoddius

Edgware wrote: »

There's a lad I see walking around Drumcondra. He wears an anorak and does a few bob on "de horses" Likes to call into the pub for a Bass or two

Always deals in cash, I heard. Doesn’t have a bank account.

Real Donald Trump

Pac1Man wrote: »

Passive would be tough. Part-time work would be more realistic and reachable for those who don't care too much about getting married and having kids.

Keep your head screwed on and don't get sucked into debt by buying an expensive car you don't need purely to impress others. You don't need that 2k watch either.

Get a career in STEM. Make some money. Aggressively pay off the mortgage (you don't have a spouse & kids remember).

Your 8 year old Toyota is still fine. Relax.

Wind down the weekly hours a bit allowing you to still live comfortably and do a bit of travel and hobbies without the burden of needing to work to survive.

Take the morning off one day and go sit on a bench somewhere. Watch the rat race bustle around you while you sip a coffee and finish off that Danish pastry.

I hear next Thursday will be a scorcher. Take a drive out to the strand while listening to The Eagles and buy a Calippo ice pop. Don't worry about the embarrassment of having it dribble down your chin, you'll have the beach to yourself.

I like your outlook :cool:

B.A._Baracus

Montage of Feck wrote: »

Passive income sounds a lot like snake oil.

Passive income itself isn't, but most are snake oil salesmen. You have to really go through ALOT of garbage to get actual info.
About 99% of people online (youtube, blogs etc) sell you on the idea that you too can earn passive income, blah blah, but in reality are selling their ebooks or courses or some guff. That's their real business.

But there has been a lot of people out there who have made their money by genuinely earning passive income.

ILoveYourVibes

Trustafarians used to be the name for them.

Their real jobs are dodging tax on their inheritance.

And every irish person with a wealthy parent who says they don't have a trust fund has a trust fund.

rodge68

rodge68 wrote: »

Fair play to you but what did ye do to make that much money ??

I don't want to go into exact details, it wasn't totally legal in the strictest sense but don't worry, it wasn't totally immoral either.

Not legal in the sense that we never paid income tax, we were moving from country to country on a rotational basis anyway because of our respective nationalities and visa regulations.

Also not immoral because it was basically internet marketing, advertising, affiliate commissions, etc.

arctictree

I have a few 'gigs with a kind of passive income. But you really need to put the work in to keep yourself relevant. The day of just having a massive lump sum and living off the interest is gone. Even renting out properties requires regular upgrades and maintenance and keeping up to date with regulations etc..

Ubbquittious

arctictree wrote: »

I have a few 'gigs with a kind of passive income. But you really need to put the work in to keep yourself relevant. The day of just having a massive lump sum and living off the interest is gone. Even renting out properties requires regular upgrades and maintenance and keeping up to date with regulations etc..

If you have enough property you can let other people do the maintenance without it denting your income. Or pay an estate agent a few % and spend all your days sunning yourself in Barbados in a hammock on the beach tied between two palm trees sipping a Caipirinha.

Ubbquittious

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If you have enough property you can let other people do the maintenance without it denting your income. Or pay an estate agent a few % and spend all your days sunning yourself in Barbados in a hammock on the beach tied between two palm trees sipping a Caipirinha.

Caipirinha is more of a Brazilian thing, everyone knows Barbados is Rum Country, baby!

Ubbquittious

Deleted User wrote: »

Caipirinha is more of a Brazilian thing, everyone knows Barbados is Rum Country, baby!

Ah but he'll tire of drinking the national drink the whole time at some point and switch to Caipirinha. Variety is the spice of life.

massdebater

Not fully but I have investments that pay out about 60% of my living expenses passively through dividends and interest. Hoping to get this to 100% and above over the next couple of years.
I'm working part time at the minute, which covers my costs for now so I haven't had to dig into the passive income yet so I've been letting it accumulate in the background

Kevhog1988

massdebater wrote: »

Not fully but I have investments that pay out about 60% of my living expenses passively through dividends and interest. Hoping to get this to 100% and above over the next couple of years.
I'm working part time at the minute, which covers my costs for now so I haven't had to dig into the passive income yet so I've been letting it accumulate in the background

fair play. Out of interest was it a case you got lucky initially or did you just build up your portfolio over time?.

I see sheep

2lazytogetup wrote: »

there is a film with Hugh Grant called About a Boy. basically about a middle aged guy who lives off song royalties.

i found it really depressing. he had no purpose in life so just tried to chat up middle aged women all the time. i know its not real but would make me wonder how bad life would be

i knew a couple of people around rathgar area of dublin that simularly were crazy wealthy and had no jobs. im very lazy but based on my experience of them id need something to give myself purpose. volunteer at least.

Hugh Grant in AAB has hit the jackpot financially.
His life is empty because he doesn't seem to have good friends or family or a partner, it's nothing to do with him being rich for doing nothing.

Pac1Man

Pac1Man wrote: »

Passive would be tough. Part-time work would be more realistic and reachable for those who don't care too much about getting married and having kids.

Keep your head screwed on and don't get sucked into debt by buying an expensive car you don't need purely to impress others. You don't need that 2k watch either.

Get a career in STEM. Make some money. Aggressively pay off the mortgage (you don't have a spouse & kids remember).

Your 8 year old Toyota is still fine. Relax.

Wind down the weekly hours a bit allowing you to still live comfortably and do a bit of travel and hobbies without the burden of needing to work to survive.

Take the morning off one day and go sit on a bench somewhere. Watch the rat race bustle around you while you sip a coffee and finish off that Danish pastry.

I hear next Thursday will be a scorcher. Take a drive out to the strand while listening to The Eagles and buy a Calippo ice pop. Don't worry about the embarrassment of having it dribble down your chin, you'll have the beach to yourself.

Cars are the biggest pit of money. A pure status symbol. There is a good chance the lad driving the 98 corolla is far wealthier than Flash Harry in his 5 series BMW.

massdebater

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

fair play. Out of interest was it a case you got lucky initially or did you just build up your portfolio over time?.

I had been saving slowly over a few years but I only started investing properly in 2019 after my first attempt scared me off in 2015. Got lucky with timing and was investing heavily in March/April 2020 when the pandemic crash happened and, again, with some crypto later in the year.

I've been following the financial independence movement for the past few years too so that helped with keeping unnecessary expenses in check. Overall a bit of putting the effort in and a bit of lucky timing.

The DayDream

lalababa wrote: »

The big problem with passive income can be lack of motivation or get up and go. Like being on de dole.
Finding positive things to fill your time.

How is that a problem - you don't need to get up and go anywhere if you don't feel like it, if you have plenty of money.

Having a job doesn't mean you have motivation. It means you are a wage slave who is probably too tired in his free time to do the things he would be motivated to do if he didn't have to work.

The DayDream

All my income is passive. I mean I'm still poor so it must be doing fk all.

Jellybaby_1

Interesting subject. It turns out it just might be possible. All you need to do is write 224 words. But they must be the right words, and in the right order, and you must target the right people with these 224 words. I was fascinated with the story of the late Eric Carle. He wrote a childrens' book, just 224 words, the sales of which made 55million! He must have received a nice slice of that. I doubt he did nothing after that but he could have.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eric-carle-author-of-the-very-hungry-caterpillar-dies-at-91-1.4576729

bb1234567

KevRossi wrote: »

I know one woman who does. I mentioned her family here before. They had land outside two large midlands towns and sold the land for big money back in the early noughties to developers. Family decided to go into the construction business themselves, but they didn't know a spade from a cement mixer.

She got just over €1,000,000 for her portion of the land as a buy out, it was well below what she was entitled to, but she wanted out. She sold her house in Sabntry bought a house in the Rathmines/Ranelagh area. It was a load of bedsits, but she converted it back to a 5 bed house, with a 1-bed apartment at the top for herself. She lives off the rent, her apartment is legally a connected 'granny flat', so she has no issues with non-paying tenants. She get's about €600 per month for each room, she could get more, but the tenants are there long term and one looks after the place when she's not there. There's a shared sitting room and a large kitchen/dining room. Nice garden out the back, parking for 4 cars in front. Most of the bedrooms are ensuite, I think 3 people share 2 bathrooms.

She has around €33,000 per annum after LPT, small repairs and other small charges and she pays her full income tax on it. She had about €200K left after buying the house and she used some of it and the rent money for travelling, nothing flash, mostly backpacking. She has a camper van that she payed €15,000 for parked up somewhere in the US and will take it to South America next year or whenever COVID allows.

She's in her late 40's and should be able to see it out to pension age living as she does. Her family blew most of the rest of the cash AFAIK. Most of them are back working in ordinary jobs.

Did she send your her memoirs?

I see sheep

Leroy Millions Cowhide wrote: »

Cars are the biggest pit of money. A pure status symbol. There is a good chance the lad driving the 98 corolla is far wealthier than Flash Harry in his 5 series BMW.

That's more Avocado on toast nonsense.

If you're 100k outpriced on buying a house then saving 1/2k on a car makes no difference.

Earthhorse

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't want to go into exact details, it wasn't totally legal in the strictest sense but don't worry, it wasn't totally immoral either.

Not legal in the sense that we never paid income tax, we were moving from country to country on a rotational basis anyway because of our respective nationalities and visa regulations.

Also not immoral because it was basically internet marketing, advertising, affiliate commissions, etc.

Dunno. It's kind of immoral to avoid paying your fair share of income tax, IMO.

air

I see sheep wrote: »

That's more Avocado on toast nonsense.

If you're 100k outpriced on buying a house then saving 1/2k on a car makes no difference.

A 1-2k dearer car isn't a big deal, but the poster is correct that cars are a major source of lifestyle inflation for most people.

Feisar

I see sheep wrote: »

That's more Avocado on toast nonsense.

If you're 100k outpriced on buying a house then saving 1/2k on a car makes no difference.

Not really. The €600 a month payments on the Beemer would be better in an investment/pension fund and in actual fact one would be putting in circa €900 and only getting hit for €600.
Yer growing wealth instead of spending it on a nice car, which is only depreciating in value.

It's much harder to do so today in Irish society, thee are not insignificant amount of individuals in Irish society who did well in the 1970s and 1980s generally related to property, managing various entertainment acts, night clubs, pubs, own a few carpet shops that sort of thing, now elderly well off.

Today's society is too regulated to make a lot of money like that, it was a cash-based society so much easier to hide the money.

Met one on Sunday a quintessential Dub still wearing a gold chain, now elderly and wealthy living in a house worth a million.

Flinty997

mariaalice wrote: »

It's much harder to do so today in Irish society, thee are not insignificant amount of individuals in Irish society who did well in the 1970s and 1980s generally related to property, managing various entertainment acts, night clubs, pubs, own a few carpet shops that sort of thing, now elderly well off.

Today's society is too regulated to make a lot of money like that, it was a cash-based society so much easier to hide the money.

Met one on Sunday a quintessential Dub still wearing a gold chain, now elderly and wealthy living in a house worth a million.

People still do it. But the people who can generate multiple income streams tend to like doing it and never actually retire.

Irish_rat

Feisar wrote: »

Not really. The €600 a month payments on the Beemer would be better in an investment/pension fund and in actual fact one would be putting in circa €900 and only getting hit for €600.
Yer growing wealth instead of spending it on a nice car, which is only depreciating in value.

My lexus is about the same price as when I bought it. Second hand market for cars is gone expensive

suicide_circus

I will never understand getting finance on a car.