Tag: minimalism

Is Investing in Crypto Irresponsible? A Cake and Icing Analogy for Investing

“He is richest who is content with the least” ~ Socrates

Recently I have been thinking about Tesla’s decision to invest $1.5 billion in bitcoin and accept payment for Teslas in bitcoin (although later Tesla stopped accepting payment in bitcoin due to environmental concerns).

This decision by Tesla as well as many other companies to invest in bitcoin made me think about the decision. Bitcoin is considered a very volatile asset and so it made me wonder about the merits of companies buying bitcoin. Many businesses are also considering pricing their goods or services in cryptocurrency, but this presents challenges due to the aforementioned volatility of crypto.

After much research, it seems many companies were buying bitcoin as a replacement for idle cash on their balance sheet. All companies have a bunch of assets on their balance sheet related to the normal operations of their business e.g. Tesla would have factories as well as patents on their balance sheet as assets, but companies also need to hold liquid assets such as cash in order to meet expenses. For example, Tesla needs to pay taxes, and taxes are denominated in currency like USD, and so Tesla needs to have USD on hand to be able to pay for these expenses.

Through research, I found that the $1.5 billion in BTC that Tesla had only represented about 8% of its cash. This means that Tesla had about $19 billion in cash and it has converted a small amount of that into BTC.

How does this relate to individuals and early retirement?

Individuals are similar to organisations. In the same way that Tesla holds cash to be able to meet expenses, so too I hold a small amount of cash as well. In the same way that Tesla keeps most of its assets in its business e.g. factories, so too I keep most of my assets outside of cash. The reason why I don’t want to hold too much cash is because cash does not earn much. In fact, given that savings accounts provide virtually no interest, cash does not really earn anything, especially when you factor in inflation. It makes sense to keep most of your net worth in higher returning assets while only keeping a small amount of your net worth in cash in order to meet expenses.

We need to take on more risk to beat inflation

We don’t keep all our net worth in cash because we need to beat inflation. Everyone has expenses and these expenses are denominated in the local fiat currency. For example, for someone living in Australia, they’d need to pay taxes, which are denominated in Australian dollars (AUD). The necessities of life such as food and shelter are also denominated in AUD. According to Numbeo.com, as at May 2021, the cost of living in Melbourne, Australia for a single person is $1322 per month not including rent. The cost of rent is $1715 for a one-bedroom apartment in the city. This adds up to $3037 per month or $36444 per year. If we round this up to $40k and then apply the 4% rule, this means you will need $1 million in net worth to be able to retire in Melbourne.

The 4% rule assumes a rough mixture of stocks and bonds, approximately 50% in stocks and 50% in bonds, which can be acheived with a balance ETF. An example of a balanced ETF with 50% bonds and 50% stocks is the Vanguard Diversified Balanced Index ETF (VDBA).

Basically if you have $1 million and put it into VDBA, you’d be able to live a comfortable life in Melbourne, Australia.

Icing on the cake

But what if you have more than $1 million? Suppose you have $2 million in net worth and you have $1 million in VDBA from which you are drawing $40k per year to meet basic expenses. Because the other $1 million is not necessary for covering basic expenses, why not invest it in higher risk investments e.g. a high growth ETF such as VDHG or even in a diversified basket of cryptos? You can divide this $2 million wealth into two parts: VDBA, which represents moderately volatile investments needed to meet basic necessities denominated in local fiat currency (i.e. the cake); and crypto (or VDHG), which represents more volatile investments that provide extra income (i.e. the icing on the cake).

Volatility is relative depending on the base asset

No asset is inherently volatile. One of the main criticisms of cryptocurrency is that it is too volatile. Let’s take a crypto such as ether (ETH). ETH is volatile if priced in USD. However, if you price USD in ETH, suddeny USD looks volatile.

When most people thinking about volatility, they think about volatility relative to the local fiat currency, and the reason why they think this is because most good, services, and taxes are denominated in that local fiat currency. If I am living in Australia, I need to pay for rent, food and taxes with AUD, so I need to make sure that the $1 million I hold in my “cake” fund is not too volatile relative to AUD, which is why you would hold it in VDBA or similar. However, if I can meet rent, food and taxes with $1 million in VDBA and I have more, why do I need to worry about volatility priced in AUD? Why not increase volatility to the maximum level once you can cover your basic expenses?

Age-based vs wealth-based bond tent

A very interesting idea proposed by Michael Kitces is the idea of creating a “bond tent” to mitigate sequence of return risk.

Sequence of return risk is basically the risk of a severe market crash occuring right after you retire. So imagine you have 100% in equities and it is 2008. You finally amass $1 million in wealth and decide to retire. Then suddenly the GFC happens and the stock market falls 50% thereby reducing your net worth to only $500k.

Dampening The Volatility Of The Portfolio Size Effect Using A Bond Tent
Figure 1: Michael Kitces’s Bond Tent

The bond tent addresses this risk. Basically, in order to create a bond tent, before you retire, you gradually increase the proportion of your net worth in bonds. Then when you retire, you reduce it. The reason why you reduce your bond allocation after you retire is because, according to the theory, you need equities for long term growth. Bonds provide stability but not growth. The risk with holding too much in bonds when you are retired is that you have stability at the expense of not enough growth, which increases the risk you deplete your wealth before you die.

However, I think there is a problem with the bond tent. If you look at the horizontal axis above in figure 1, you’ll notice it is based on age. You retire at 65. At that age, the bond allocation is at its peak. Why should this be based on age? Why not make it based on wealth?

As I’ve described previously, you need about $1 million in about 50% stocks and 50% bonds to retire and live a modest life. Why not change the bond tent chart above by replacing the horizontal axis with net worth? The peak of the bond tent should instead occur when net worth is $1 million. This means that when you are young, you should take on more risk because, even if the market goes down, you are still young and have time to earn money to replace money lost. However, as you gain more wealth, the risk grows because you have more money exposed to riskier assets and you are close to the net worth required to cover your necessary expenses. Imagine you are 25 and have $100k in net worth and suddenly the GFC occurs. Then you’d lose $50k. However, you would be able to replace this loss with one or two years of work and savings. However, imagine you are 35 and have a net worth of $1 million and a GFC happens. Then you’ve lost $500k. This loss could take about 15 to 20 years to replace, which sets back your early retirement considerably.

The importance of minimalism

The wealth-based bond tent illustrates to us the importance of minimalism and how it can help you build more wealth. The $40k per month expense is based on Numbeo’s estimate of expenses of a typical person. However, suppose someone is able to live on less. Suppose hypothetically someone can live off $20k per year e.g. rather than retire in Melbourne, Australia they are happy to retire in an area with a lower cost of living. Perhaps they are willing to live in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city rather than in the city itself. Regardless of how someone saves money, if you are able to get by on $20k per year, then the bond tent shifts to the left. You only need $500k in VDBA in order to create the “cake” needed to cover your living expenses, and once you hit this $500k net worth, you can quickly put any new money into the “icing” fund, which goes into high risk assets, which provide opportunity for higher returns (and losses).

Imagine two people who earn $100k per year. One is a minimalist who spends only $20k per year vs a normal person who spends $40k per year. The person who spends $20k per year is able to invest $80k per year (assuming no taxes) and is able to accumulate $500k within 6.25 years (for simplicity, assuming no investment growth). However, the normal person spending $40k per year is only able to invest $60k per year which means they will need 16.66 years in order to accumulate $1 million.

By being a minimalist, you are able to overtake the bond tent more quickly and transition your wealth into higher risk assets at no risk to your retirement because you have already built a solid foundation i.e. you have fully developed your “cake” fund and are now simply putting the icing on the cake.

A minimalist who can live off $20k per year is able to provide themselves with financial independence within 6 years and in their seventh years they can invest in higher risk assets such as more speculative tech stocks or ETFs or cryptocurrency. However, a normal person who lives off $40k per year needs to wait 16 years before they can do this.

Lifestyle inflation destroys the icing

A normal person living off $40k needs to invest for 16 years before they can be financially secure or independent, but imagine if that normal person, after 16 years of hard saving, suddenly inflates their lifestyle such that they spend $60k per year. If after you have $1 million you suddenly have $60k worth of spending, then this means $1 million is not enough. According to the 4% rule, you now need $1.5 million, which means you need to save up $500k more, which means you need to work 8 more years in order to build up your “cake” fund.

By inflating your lifestyle, the cake needs to grow, which means you spend more time investing in VDBA or similar assets. Your opportunities for higher growth are impaired because you’re forced to invest in safer assets for longer in order to fund your lifestyle inflation.

Cake spending vs icing spending

What does lifestyle inflation mean? In my opinion, lifestyle inflation occurs only when your necessary ongoing expenses goes up. Suppose you have $1 million in VDBA generating $40k and this goes into food, shelter and taxes. This is the “cake” and your spending on food, shelter and taxes are what I call “cake spending” because these are necessary ongoing expenses. You cannot avoid food, shelter or taxes otherwise you will die or be put in prison.

Let’s suppose you have another $1 million in crypto and you draw out 4% from this for spending. This is the “icing” but you need to spend it on what I call “icing spend” which are unnecessary once-off or reversible expenses.

So a person with $1 million in VDBA and $1 million in crypto draws $80k. $40k goes into food, rent and taxes, but the other $40k can go into a lavish holiday. A holiday is not necessary, once-off and not ongoing. This is important because the icing fund is high risk. Crypto is highly volatile and could drop by 90% within a year. Suppose this did happen and the $1 million in crypto suddenly turns to $100k. Then rather than within $40k in icing expenses you are withdrawing only $4k in icing expenses. This is not a problem because you simply take a cheaper holiday or don’t go on holiday at all. The icing is optional. You don’t have to eat a cake with icing.

An example of ongoing necessary expense beyond food, shelter or taxes is, for example, if you decide to have a family. Paying for a family means added ongoing and necessary expenses e.g. food, shelter, childcare, etc. If crypto prices suddenly fall and you can only draw out $4k per year rather than $40k per year, this is not going to be good if food, shelter and childcare prices are higher than $4k per year. However, a holiday is not necessary and can be scaled back if required.

The Simplicity of Living off Dividends

Some people have made comments that many of my posts on this blog are not finance related, so I will make an effort to post more about ETFs and other financial topics in the future. Perhaps the reason why there are few finance topics on this blog is because living off dividends is such a simple technique that I rarely think too much about finance. The whole point of making money is so you do not need to think about money. You do not need to stress about making ends meet when you have few obligations and multiple streams of dividends flowing into your bank account.

Budgeting, tracking net worth, trading, and rebalancing are not worth it

While most people maintain spreadsheets to track expenses and net worth, living off dividends only requires you to invest all your work salary and spend your dividends. If you end up spending more than dividend income, simply “borrow from yourself” by maintaining a few thousand dollars in cash in a separate savings account that you borrow from but pay back with dividend income. Either use a spreadsheet to keep track of how much you own to yourself or ensure that this savings account has a fixed amount e.g. you have $2000 in it, run out of dividends to spend, so you “borrow” $500 to have a balance of $1500 and then when your next dividend payment comes in, put $500 into this savings account to top it back up to $2000.

I don’t recommend tracking your expenses or tracking your net worth because it is time consuming and because the information you get out of it is not valuable. If you track expenses, you can see where all your spending goes, but what matters is not what you spend your money on but how much you spend. If you spend such that your expenses are equal to dividend income, this ensures you don’t spend too much, and one of the benefits of living off dividends is that dividends increase over time as you invest more and as companies become more profitable, so there is a gradual increase in standard of living, which I think helps overcome the feeling of deprivation many feel when they are frugal. If you only spend e.g. $10,000 per year for the rest of your life, you are stuck on that level and do not feel as if you are growing or making progress, but if you live off dividends and your dividends grow, you feel a sense of personal growth. As for tracking net worth, when you diversify across multiple areas (e.g. retirement accounts, managed funds, ETFs, cryptocurrency, etc) then it becomes a huge burden to log in to each of these accounts to check the balance. What matters to financial independence is not net worth per se but passive income. You live off passive income, not net worth, and if you live off passive income then you’ll be able to assess automatically whether you have enough based on whether you are satisfied or not with your standard of living.

Because living off dividends is simple, there are only two things you need to consider: how to spend your dividends and what to invest your work salary in. Most people have no issue with figuring out how to spend their money (e.g. holidays, books, smartphones, and coffee). What to invest in is more complicated, and generally I recommend buying broad and diversified ETFs with a slightly heavier allocation towards high dividend paying ETFs (or LICs). However, more important than what you invest in, in my opinion, is the “buy and hold” mentality. You should buy with the intention of holding these investments for a long time, if not forever. I also do not bother with rebalancing. For example, in recent years the Australian stock market has underperformed whereas foreign stocks (particularly US stocks) have done very well. There are those who rebalance by selling off US stocks to buy Australia stocks to maintain a certain amount to certain countries. This is far more effort than necessary, adds administrative burden by triggering capital gains tax, and does not add much value because if you feel you have too little Australian stock, rather than sell US stock, you can simply buy more Australian stocks. For example, in recent years, as US equities has gone up, I have purchased more high-dividend paying Australian stocks and ETFs e.g. CBA and IHD.

Age in VDCO

For most people who ask, I recommend Vanguard’s diversified ETFs. You cannot beat the simplicity of these ETFs. Whatever your age is, hold that amount in VDCO and the rest you hold in VDHG. For example, if you’re 30 then hold 30% VDCO and 70% VDHG. These Vanguard diversified ETFs diversify across just about all asset classes (e.g. Australian shares, international shares, emerging markets, small caps, property, bonds, etc) so you don’t need to worry about mixing and matching. The reason why you hold your age in VDCO is to broadly follow the “age in bonds” rule, which is insurance against retiring just after a huge market crash. There are many people who are anti-bond and claim that they are a drag on performance, that stocks always go up on the long run, etc, but this is not true. In fact, this is dangerous advice. There is no guarantee that stocks go up in the long run as the value of stocks merely represent company profits and there is no guarantee that company profits will go up in the long run. Even if stocks do go up in the long run, there are huge market crash (e.g. 50% decline) that emerge, not just normal business cycles but debt supercycles that can take centuries to materialize. You do not want to be in the position of being in 100% equities and then losing 50% just before you retire as this can really set you back and impact on the quality of your retirement. Broadly following “age in bonds” (government bonds, specifically) is insurance against such a scenario. In fact, of all the rules of personal finance, “age in bonds” is, in my opinion, the most important. You can pretty much invest in any exotic high-risk asset class (e.g. emerging markets, tech stocks, robotics ETFs, cryptocurrency, etc) but if you own your age in government bonds, you are safe.

When markets go up, it is very easy to rationalize why defensive asset classes are poor quality. It is when markets go up that people easily covert to the cult of equity, but when there is a market crash or when there is a prolonged economic depression that lasts many decades or centures, many will understand and appreciate the wisdom of “age in bonds.” The reality is that when markets are booming, it’s easy to convince yourself why 100% equities or high leverage is a good idea, and the opposite is true when there is a market crash. It goes back to Warren Buffet’s quote about being fearful when others are greedy but also thinking about Ray Dalio’s idea that you must stress test your ideas because you are never be too sure in yourself  because it is easy to be moved by your emotions as well as other psychological biases.

 

 

How Much Passive Income Do You Need?

Most people I speak to, when they want to measure someone’s wealth, measure wealth by referring to how many houses they have. For example, “John owns 14 houses. He is rich.” However, someone may own 14 houses, but each house may only be worth $200k, which gives total assets of $2.8 million. However, what if he also had $2.7 million worth of debt? His net worth would be $100k whereas someone who owns one house worth $1 million that is fully paid off would be 10 times wealthier even though he owns 14 times fewer houses. This example clearly demonstrates how misleading a count of houses is. A more sensible approach is to calculate net worth.

However, net worth can be misleading as well. For example, suppose you inherited a house from your parents that was worth $500k and you live in this house. Suppose suddenly this house went up in value to $1 million. Are you better off? Your net worth has increased by $500k, but because the extra wealth is within the house, you cannot unlock it unless you sell the house. If you sell the house, you’d still need a place to live, so you’d buy another place. The problem is that if you buy another place, that home will have risen in value as well, so the net effect is that you have paid taxes, real estate agent fees, conveyancing fees, etc but there is no difference in your living standards. You are worse off. If you downsize and buy a cheaper place, you’d be able to unlock your extra wealth, but then your living standards drop (e.g. extra commute time).

This point highlights that net worth, although better than a count of houses, has its flaws. An alternative metric, in my opinion, is passive income. Passive income (e.g. from dividend income but also from rent, interest, etc) is income you receive by not working. Passive income should subtract any debt as debt is negative passive income. Debt is the opposite of passive income because you must work to pay off debt. This applies if you hold debt as a liability. If you hold debt as an asset (e.g. you own bonds) then this is passive income. The bonds generate interest for you that you can live off without any work.

Passive income is more useful because it directly measures your standard of living. If your net worth goes up by $500k, that may have zero impact on your standard of living. However, if your passive income goes up by e.g. $1000 per month, that is actual cash in your hands. It directly impacts how much you spend and directly impacts your standard of living.

So how much passive income is enough? It all depends on the person. Everyone is different. It also depends on the city you live in. Some cities are expensive while others are cheap.

However, using Melbourne, Australia for this example, in my opinion, to cover the basic necessities of life, passive income of about A$2000 per month (US$1500 per month) at a minimum is needed, in my opinion.

Currently I work, and I do like my job at the moment, but loving my job is a recent experience. For a long time I have hated my job mainly because I have had bad managers. Something I have learned is that things change all the time at work, so you need to have an exit plan at all times. Too many people get a job, expect they will always love the job and always make good money, so they go into debt to get a mortage, have children, inflate their lifestyle, etc and then suddenly they find they hate their job, but by then they are trapped. I made this realization early on in my career because, when I started working, I went through a restructure in the organisation. I learned quickly how risky it was to have debt and obligations, and I realised the value of structuring your life so that you have the ability to walk away from anything, not just your job but from any person or any organisation. There is great power in being able to disappear at the drop of a hat, and this is achieved with passive income coupled with minimum or no obligation (including financial obligation i.e. debt).

Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

~ Neil McCauley

Even if there were a restructure at work or a tyrannical manager took over and started legally abusing staff, with passive income of $2000 per month, it is easy to stop work and live an urban hermit lifestyle e.g. renting a one-bedroom unit on the outskirts of the city (e.g. this place in Frankston), living off Aussielent, and surfing the internet all day. The only costs are rent ($1000 per month), Aussielent ($320 per month), wifi ($50 per month), electricity ($100 per month), and water ($100 per month), which comes to a total of $1570 per month. I round that up to $2k per month just to give a little buffer. Nevertheless, this is quite a spartan minimalist lifestyle. Doubling it makes $4k per month passive income, which I feel is enough to really enjoy a comfortable and luxurious lifestyle e.g. travelling, living in the city, eating out, etc. Nevertheless, $2000 to $4000 per month in passive income is a good range to aim for.

You Save 100% of Your Salary? What if You Die Before You Retire?

I probably shouldn’t do this, but I told someone recently that I save 100% of my salary and live off dividends. One of the argument he used against this is that, if you save up a considerable amount of money, you deprive yourself while you save and there is a chance that before you retire, you may die, which means you never had the opportunity to enjoy spending the money that you saved.

This made me think about why I continue to live a minimalist lifestyle and live off dividends.

If you die with lots of money saved up, you could have enjoyed that money. However, for many people, freedom is so important that it’s not the spending of money that makes them happy but the holding of money. This applies to me as well. I love to hoard money not because of what I can buy with it but because of the freedom and autonomy it gives me.

If I had, say, $1 million then according to the 4% rule I can spend $40k per year forever. I never need to work ever again so long as I’m satisfied with a $40k per year lifestyle. There is no need to suck up to some boss, and I can do jobs on my own terms and live according to your own rules. I continue to work, but I do the work that I love. That is freedom, and I care about that more than some shiny Ferrari.

You enjoy your work when you’re not dependent on it

In my opinion, you enjoy working when you don’t care if you’re fired. If something at work bothers you, you simply ask your manager if you can be transferred elsewhere. If for some reason you are fired, just shrug and walk to a job agency or find a new job yourself. Because you live off your investments, it doesn’t matter if you’re unemployed. You don’t work to feed yourself because other people feed you.

However, if you’ve never saved up any money, if rather than living off dividends you have massive debt and spending obligations, you are then dependent on your job, and dependency is slavery.

Slavery has not been abolished. It has evolved.

How to Live Off Dividends

It’s the Christmas season now. My family does not really celebrate Christmas. I remember being really disappointed not receiving any presents when I was a child because my parents were always busy and didn’t really think about Christmas. Over time, I began to accept this as normal, and now that I am an adult, it doesn’t bother me at all. There is definitely something wasteful about Christmas. People suddenly splurge on toys, clothes, and gadgets. They eat large amounts of food. Then when January comes around, they are back at work slaving away. Chances are their bellies are bigger, and when they get their credit card bill, they realize their debt is bigger as well.

For me, Christmas in 2015 has been a spartan and minimalist Christmas. I remember my previous Christmases. I would buy all sorts of presents for family and friends, and I’d usually have a credit card debt in the thousands, but nowadays I usually use a debit card to make purchases. I do have credit cards, but I pretty much only use them for emergencies or online or foreign purchases. Even when I use my credit card, I pay it off maybe within a few days.

During past Christmases, I would always dread going back to work the next year. When everyone winds down at work, it’s a nice feeling. Office Christmas parties, Christmas decorations, and so forth set a nice and relaxed atmosphere, and I look forward to having time off to relax.

However, during the holiday period, and especially during the new year, you think about the year that has ended and naturally you think about your life. You think about your career and whether you’ve done the best you can. It can be stressful.

This year is different for me mainly because my dividend investing has gotten to a point now where I can live off dividends. When I started working, I was saving about 85% of my take-home pay and living off just 15% of it. I invested in shares, managed funds, or ETFs that pay high income. As time goes by, the amount your investments pay you will rise, and when they reach a point where they are equal to your expenses, you are a free man because you are no longer dependent on your job. If you quit, you can live off your investments.

“Although freedom does not guarantee happiness, it is the best assurance we have for obtaining happiness.”

~ Andrew Perlot

Every man should strive for freedom, and the easiest and simplest way I know of obtaining freedom is to build passive income.

I am going to lay down below the steps I took to live off passive income. Most people should be able to do what I have done.

Save 85% and create two separate bank accounts

As I have said earlier, living off dividends starts with saving up about 85% of your income. I recommend setting up two bank accounts. Talk to HR and ask them to send 85% of your income to one bank account. The other 15% will go to a separate bank account.

Having two bank accounts is an excellent system to separate your “spending money” from your “investing money.” Spend only from your spending account. Use your investing account for investing.

Live with others to keep costs down

Living with others can be tough, but it is the easiest way to save significant amounts of money to allow you to hit your 85% savings rate. Accommodation is the biggest expense most people face, so it makes sense to hit it hard. Most people focus on trying to save money on small things like coffee (see David Bach’s latte factor) or discount vouchers for t-shirts!

In my opinion, don’t bother with the little things. If you want to have a soy latte, drink it! So long as you are spending 15% of your income, you’re fine.

Living with parents is the best policy, in my opinion, especially if you get along with them. If this is not possible, then renting with others is also another option. You can even buy a house and then rent out spare rooms to bring in rental income. All these three options should cost approximately the same (although living with parents could be free depending on how generous they are).

Related reading: How to Live with Annoying People

Save money via abstinence, not discounts

When trying to save money, most people make the mistake of trying to look for discounts. For example, when buying jeans, they look for jeans that have 50% off, or when they travel to Thailand they look for airfares that are 30% off.

An even better strategy is to just not buy the jeans in the first place and not travel. Discounts often lure people into spending more than they otherwise would. Often discounts are fake, that is, an apple may be $10 but be 50% off, and so the discounted price is $5, but in reality that apple only cost about $0.50 and the retailer made a $4.50 profit. In other words, forget about the percentage discount and think about the actual price.

Basically the only necessities in life are accommodation, clothes, transport, internet, and food.

Do not conform. Rebel against society

If you’re living with your parents, driving an old car (or taking public transport), watching YouTube rather than cable TV, then many people will think you’re weird. They will put you down and try to persuade you to conform. Try to resist. Don’t conform to society. Do what you want to do. Also remember that this is not permanent. As your savings go up, your dividends will go up, and your standard of living will go up, but this will take time.

If you must, borrow from yourself

Spending only 15% of your income might be difficult, and you may run out of money when you need to spend on something you need.

If this is the case, one option is to borrow from your own savings. This is where setting up two bank accounts is a great idea. You transfer money from your investment bank account into your spending bank account. You then keep track of how much money your spending account owes to your investment account. The aim is to pay yourself back as quickly as possible.

Invest for income

Invest in a variety of assets that pay high income, e.g. ETFs, shares, and managed funds. If you’re unsure where to go, sign up for an online broker and buy shares in banks. Banks typically pay high dividends. As of December 2015, shares in Australia’s ANZ bank provide a dividend yield of 9%. I recommend using Bloomberg to find the indicated dividend yield of an investment.

IMG_20151228_191209

Diversify your investments and always direct dividend payments to your “spending account.” This means that over time, the amount you have to spend increases, which should motivate you to keep saving up.

Invest 100% of your income

Once your passive income from dividends (or other sources) is high enough, talk to HR at work and direct 100% of your salary to your “investing account” so that you are living off passive income. This may be difficult to do, but just remember there is no rush. Once the 15% you get from your salary seems like a small amount compared to your passive income, this is a good time to cut it off completely so that you can actually live off dividends.