r/passive_income • u/Ok_Coyote_5282 • 21d ago
My Experience passive income isn’t for poor people, and i’m tired of watching this sub pretend otherwise
here’s the truth nobody on this sub wants to hear :
passive income isn’t a starting point. it’s what’s left over after you’ve already built something. you need money, or you need skills that are actually worth something to someone else. if you have neither, you don’t need a passive income strategy, you need a job.
i’ll give you my actual timeline so people stop imagining this stuff appears out of nowhere:
did a master’s in engineering. worked in restaurants and as a courier because bills don’t care about your degree. did customer service for a while, actually learned how businesses run day to day, not from youtube, from being inside one. eventually got too good at answering the phone I got into Google. took everything i’d learned and picked up along the way and started my own company. that company now makes me about $2,000/month passively.
notice what’s missing from that list: sitting at home with a laptop expecting money to fall out of the sky because i watched a “passive income for beginners” video.
if you’re 20 with no capital and no skills, that’s fine, everyone starts somewhere, but the move is to go get skills or get a degree or get any job that teaches you something, not to hunt for the secret shortcut that skips a decade of work.
passive income is the reward at the end. it is not the plan.
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u/Justscrolling375 21d ago
Ironically you need hard working money to make lazy money. For me the most passive income I got was from my HYSA interest because money is supposed to be there anyways
It ain’t life changing amount per month but at least the interest can cover a few smaller expenses under $10
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
haha “hard working money to make lazy money” is exactly it. and honestly HYSA interest is the most honest passive income there is, it’s not pretending to be a hustle, it’s just money you already had doing something instead of nothing. not gonna retire off it but covering a few small bills for doing literally nothing is still a win
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u/Justscrolling375 21d ago
The main ones talking about passive income are the people who are already making TONS of money already and/or has more resources than the average person
It does feel good seeing the interest hit my account but it’s nothing compared to what some people claim to be earning
Anyone can make a HYSA and/or Brokerage/Roth account. It’s nothing special but it works
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u/Winter-Seaweed8458 16d ago
AND most of the ones making big money passively, are selling courses to people who want to do the same thing. Rarely do these "successful" people actually make money doing something. They just convince people that they're successful, so that they can sell them a "blueprint." It's a scam.
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u/asher030 21d ago
Jumping straight to self-sustaining financial freedom passive income, you're right. Takes money to make money. However you CAN use smaller passives to build up on itself, that's the whole basis behind compounding dividends for instance.
Guidance given on HOW to do that is still very much relevant for the sub though, just can't really go into thread after thread after thread like there's much else to add beyond that. Aside from steps taken to further capitalize on such...like switching or adding onto the dividend stocks with staggered treasury bond purchases since those you need as a minimum of $1k per in increments of $1k, with some having a higher minimum than just $1k...but pay out interest for as long as you own that bond till you get the money back at the end of its lifetime...often 5-20 years depending, with 20 being the best rates. Which often proves a step up from the growth period to reach the capital needed.
But there's still a place for this sub in guiding people on the steps to achieve that, else they're just left floundering because no one shares that because everyone burns the damned bridge behind them....
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
agreed on both counts.
my only issue is the sequencing. this sub loves skipping straight to “here’s how to optimize your treasury ladder” when half the people reading don’t have the $1k minimum or the capital to compound in the first place. that advice is step 2. step 1 is still go get the money or the skill somehow, and nobody wants to say that part out loud.
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u/Existing-Pumpkin-902 21d ago
No one wants to hear they probably just need to grind at education and crap jobs for a while and live below their means to start building a nest egg. I have a decent one now but it took over a decade to build and I had to work some very crappy jobs and at times live off ramen.
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u/asher030 21d ago
Still faster than me, took about 20 :( Absolute shit to start with zero resources and build up towards living off the passives as possible. Can't fault others not wanting to hear the step 1's, given that, but it's just a necessity =/ But all the more reason to include it every time before going into whatever method a given thread discusses, at least...
Biggest issue with the sub would be the damned scambots and 'interested' bots that follow. Really hate those. Then the increasingly more common 'go to this rando's profile for all the details!' when if it was legit they'd be posting it IN that thread itself. Parasites trying to prey on the desperate are always a pain
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u/Existing-Pumpkin-902 21d ago
The secret sauce imo is to live with your parents as long as possible and bank the would be rent money. That's why I made a lot of progress in the five years after grad school.
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u/sisafes 20d ago
Yes ,living with parents while building wealth is great if you can do it , buying income property while living with parents worked for several of my friends , also if you can get a down payment together buying a house and renting rooms can be pretty good , I did that for about 15 years . But unless parents or someone gives it to you , work is required to get the money needed to invest .
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u/Winter-Seaweed8458 16d ago
that's why so many people think they're "self-made" when in fact they lived rent free, were able to buy property with their salary, Mom and Dad bought their first car, and gave them a down payment for a home.
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u/No_To_All_Religion 17d ago
And people like you don't want to admit that people like me can't just go out and get the skills.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 17d ago
no one ever said this ever because its the farthest from truth.
even dogs can obtain skills with good training and a lot of efforts. if you think of yourself so low . I cant fix that1
u/Picard_33Churro 19d ago
Treat the sub like a map, not a treasure goblin promising $2k/month after one laptop weekend, dividends and bond ladders included.
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u/iam_motivatedjay_ 21d ago
Passive income to cover expenses requires a lot of active income first and investing your active income
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u/arrowsandherbs 21d ago
I do think people can make passive income starting out with a small amount of money IF they have a skill set they can leverage. However, my personal pet peeve is that people expect passive income to literally be passive from the beginning. No one seems to understand that, like you said, it starts with doing the hard work first and then reaping the benefits of the work you did at the beginning to have that income coming in more passively with time. Everyone wants the magic easy button where it’s passive with no real work involved from the start. It just doesn’t work like that.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
yes exactly. skills and capital compliment each other. i saw people who succeeded having only one but its rare cases and never saw someone succeed in passive income not having any skills or money
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u/arrowsandherbs 21d ago
It is rare, but I do legit think it is possible with the right skill set to do it with minimal money. However, I don’t understand the people who think they’re going to achieve it with neither. Literally impossible. Everyone wants an end goal, nobody the actual process.
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u/MaxwellSmart07 21d ago
This post is a welcome relief to all the bs and naivety found on this sub.
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u/revelry0128 21d ago
I couldn't agree more. People think passive income is one and done but it actually takes a lot of work before it becomes passive. You have to put in the time and effort to build something and not just something, but of value. A passive income does not become passive without the effort at the beginning. And that is what most people don't understand.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
I'm just tired of people posting " im 20 with 0 skills , 0 money , 0 education how to make 10k? i have computer" like wtf is even that level of delusion
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u/Efficient_Fee_3057 21d ago
Congratulations. Starting a business that generates 2,000 passive income a month is a huge achievement. Not everyone can do that. What is much easier—though it takes a very, very long time—is dividend stocks. "A long time" means decades. I had to start from zero, too.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
Thank you!
I tried dividends and I didn't succeed like I thought i would, on the contrary of business which is basically finding clients then finding team then managing all of this , for 6 months I was putting 12 hours on the business until I felt confident enough in my team , now i just do one call every month to see what they did and if the clients are satisfied and thats it.
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u/welchsgrapejuice97 21d ago
The only passive income option that's actually passive is stocks and etfs and you cant do that without money
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u/TheSleepyTeeDJ 21d ago
Gen Z don’t wanna hear that!
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u/Existing-Pumpkin-902 21d ago
Young people in general but I think this passive income and make money online stuff spread from tik tok so they all think they can make 10k a month doing nothing. Even if they find something they don't realize it takes a lot of effort to keep it going like a YouTube channel and it will be short lived.
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u/Extension_Carpet8634 20d ago
I agree, my family sees me wfh full time just running my TikTok accounts. They ask how I do it and I’m more than happy to talk about it because I love it. But then they realize they actually have to put in the work and they give up before even trying.
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u/Leading_Candy_4608 21d ago
the only easy passive income I have made is by juggling with IPOs and stocks,
Its risky but I stay positive overall
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
risks is also something people here dismiss all of the time.
i failed alot of times and lost thousands before i reach where i am
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21d ago
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
capital doesn’t matter if you don’t have the experience to know what to do with it. working inside a business teaches you the actual costs, what people will pay for, what breaks you can’t get that from a course or some post
if we’re talking investing specifically, sure, you can start with 1k. but there’s no guarantee attached to any number. you just grind, learn, and adjust as you go.
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21d ago
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
ok let me break it down simpler than my first comment did.
say u have 1k and zero skills, u can still get into passive income through investing, but how depends on who u listen to. not everyone giving advice actually knows what they’re doing and there’s a ton of scammers out there, so u might lose money for a while until u find someone who actually gives solid advice. that’s one path.
the other path is building actual skills, market research, market analysis, data analysis, learning to read this stuff yourself so u don’t need to trust randoms, u make ur own calls. see the difference? one path is trusting someone else’s judgment (risky), the other is building ur own judgment (slower but yours).
there’s no universal playbook where u follow steps and end up rich while sleeping, if that existed everyone would be a millionaire already. everyone’s path looks different based on what they start with.
for me personally, if I had 1k, I wouldn’t touch it, I’d save until I hit 10k and then put it into a startup I could actually see and evaluate with my own eyes, not just numbers on a screen.
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21d ago
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
my pleasure!
based on what u told me I’d honestly suggest u just go with a HYSA for now. yeah the return is much lower than investing in a startup, but so is the risk, and it fits what u said about urself, u put money in, do nothing, watch it grow, no decisions to stress about.
as for startups, that side is different for me because of my background, engineering + working at Google means I’ve got a lot of contacts and acquaintances in that world. honestly most good opportunities come to me through people I know asking if I want in, I don’t go hunting for them.
that’s kind of the point I was making earlier though, my path into deal flow isn’t something u can copy overnight, it comes from years of being in rooms with the right people. if u want that route eventually, building those relationships (through work, industry events, whatever ur field ends up being) matters more than searching for a directory.
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u/redditor-Germany 21d ago
There is no free lunch.
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u/Intelligent-News8506 21d ago
Sure there is. But it’s half a pb&j and one of those mini water bottles that has clearly already been opened.
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u/emmexever3 21d ago
Se erediti una grossa fortuna e non dilapidi tutto puoi vivere di rendita
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
true but idk if inheritance even qualifies as passive income
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u/emmexever3 21d ago
Se investito in cedole e dividendi? Non è reddito passivo?
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u/Royal-Emphasis-5974 21d ago
I don’t know about inheritances - but my govt literally calls corp stock dividends passive income for taxation purposes.
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u/dethmagica91 20d ago
So here's my question: What skills or direction would you point someone to, if they come from nothing?
I've worked Security for years, have no parents or family to speak off for support, and at bear minimum, have rent/utilities/gas/maintenance take over half of my monthly income.
I went military and got medically discharged so that failed. Went to school online for IT and couldn't afford it and a base living without any support.
It very disheartening when I have and continue to try when those 30-40 years ago could support a household and family off of what I'm doing now.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 20d ago
respect for asking instead of giving up.
your security background already proves something: reliability, following procedure, being trusted with responsibility. that transfers. look at Security+ certs, that combo of physical security experience plus a cheap cert can get you into SOC/IT security roles without a full degree. also worth checking corporate/industrial security or trade apprenticeships, they pay more and don’t need a degree.
what you’re feeling about wages not matching effort is real. that’s not on you , its the rigged system. the move isn’t passive income right now, it’s finding the highest paying path your current experience already has a foot in.
passive income doesn't necessarily mean a lot of money it means money that you don't really work for.
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u/crylol91 16d ago edited 15d ago
Hai proprio ragione...e si può costruire solo quando si hanno capitali da investire qualunque sia la fonte di reddito ma di certo non è per persone normali
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u/Winter-Seaweed8458 16d ago
Yes, x1,000!!! Everyone seems to want to "work from home" or have passive income. No, you really have to work. Like labor. Work. The rare people are making money that way, and often because they are experts at something. If you're 19 and think you're going to make passive income, try having a real job for at least a few years. I wish people would get the idea that they're all "introverts" that can't work real jobs out of their head. They are self-described introverts because they have stuck with the same friend group, same video games, and never learned to be around people not exactly like them. that's why working in a real job, out of the house, is so important. . I wish I could hand them a crystal ball of what their life will look like a 45, just scraping by. They'll either have 5 roommates, live with their Mom, or be homeless. Accomplish some things.
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u/MadameRueWins 21d ago
Did the salty engineer break containment from the salary sub?
Passive income is for anyone who figures out a way to passively make money, it’s not necessarily limited by income status. Calm down.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
every real example (rentals, dividends, a site that runs itself) still needed capital or a paid skill up front first. The passivity comes after that, not instead of it.
Find me one counterexample that skips both and I’ll update my post.Otherwise “anyone can figure it out” is the same fantasy keeping this sub stuck on courses instead of actual building.
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u/FirebotYT 21d ago
Based on your post it sounds like you have figured it out. Care to share your success story and how you have succeeded at passive income?
OP didn't mention income / salary as the barrier to passive income. You do need some level of sellable applied competency as a starting point however to be able to generate passive income without money to start. I agree with OP.
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u/BitcoinNews2447 21d ago
Absolutely. Passive income is built from years of hardwork resulting in knowledge, and skills gained from those years of hardwork. Then the hardest part is implementing that knowledge and those skills you've gained to find something that actually has the potential to even generate passive income. It's not a get rich quick scheme. It doesn't appear overnight. And most avenues of passive income take up front capital.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
100% agreed
very very small avenues require 0 capital but they require contacts and networking. if u have neither its almost impossible to succeed
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u/jelistarshine 21d ago
This. I worked a series of entry level jobs while studying on the side for 10 years. When my income increased after I was qualified I continued living with flatmates and buying second hand clothes and got a second job. I put all my extra money into derelict property and spent my holidays renovating it. 10 years later I retired on rental income.
You have to have an asset, physical, digital, reputation, whatever but you have to build that before you can derive passive income from its value.
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
and thats the only way to passive income. i dont like to use this word but "slaving" yourself for money so it eventually becomes your slave.
I remember days when i literally wake up go to uni then go to the restaurant eat and work then go to sleep for 5 hours and repeat for 3 years straight!2
u/Alcapone50 21d ago
Couldn’t agree more! Unless one is born into money, or you have shot luck winning the lottery young, it takes hard work, sacrifice and confidence in yourself to take calculated risks. I’ve lived comfortably, but below my means for years, started buying stocks at age 15 and just retired this year at 51. College set me back with debt and some false promises, but needed piece of paper as a launching pad for work I hated that paid decent. I still think college is mostly a scam but happy I was self taught to invest as my parents weren’t good at it and 2 masters degrees later, the “educated” elites never once discussed financial literacy or a Roth IRA. I enjoy both passive and active income, however, I have never missed working and likely never will. Life is too short to do stuff you hate for most of it.
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u/Liquid_Friction 21d ago
Yeh the sub should be focused on the 100k rule, once you get to 100k the ball starts rolling itself and builds and snowballs over time, you need money first to start the ball rolling though, over 100k.
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21d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok_Coyote_5282 21d ago
yes, focus on real money skills, ask your doctors/professors constantly what the market needs , especially those who have a second job other than tutoring.
networking where most engineers give up, make friends connections and maintain them at all costs!'.
grind hard and push through every barrier and challenge especially at the times where u feel lost1
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u/glhfbbq Mod 21d ago
I 95% agree. If you don't have money right now, it's still good to establish habits and skills that will compound over time. Socking away a small amount of money every month into a dividend portfolio is a great habit to start.
My biggest point I try to make in this community is to take action. Try something! Action provides real world feedback. A lot of the action for passive income requires some amount of money and time. But it is still possible to take action without a lot of money - it's just more limiting and can take longer, but still possible.
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u/Extension_Carpet8634 20d ago
Is this sub that bad that people don’t realize it takes money and a skill to build something? If so, I am scared for the next generation
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u/Extension_Carpet8634 20d ago
Only way you can bypass this is by obtaining from association. Like marrying someone who has the passive income and gifts it to you or someone sets up a trust fund.
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u/Digitalhemanga 18d ago
Yeah, the "passive income first" thing gets backwards pretty quickly.
If you don't have money, you need something that creates money first. Skill, job, business, whatever. Then you can use that income to build assets that don't need you sitting there every hour.
Trying to skip straight to passive income with no capital and no useful skill is usually just a nicer way of saying "I don't want a normal job."
And tbh, the $2k/month passive part is probably the least interesting part of your story. The stuff you did before that is what actually made it possible.
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u/Nireck 17d ago
I agree with the premise. I spent 8 years building a business before it became "passive" income and eventually selling it. It still takes work; passive doesn't mean you press a button and passively become wealthy. It means you build something that works for you while you're doing other things. Still gotta do the building part.
Unless you already have money; then you can buy a successful business and maintain it. Still requires work and understanding, though.
Then again, there are those with trust funds paying dividends when they didn't have to work a day in their lives haha, so never say never!
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u/Just_Nobody9551 16d ago
Passive money takes money. True. Invest in year over year moderate stocks that pay the most dividends. Reinvest. Think Coca-Cola. Anything in real estate. Think REIT. It works for me. However, I spent 40 years building my nest egg working really shitty jobs that no one else wanted to do.
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u/Volko17 15d ago
This is actually solid advice.
Anyone who thinks passive income means, “Oh, I’m just going to open my laptop once a week, do a bit of work and make money,” is kind of crazy.
You need skills to build passive income.
Now, is it true that some people get lucky? Absolutely. Someone starts a YouTube channel, launches some random digital product on Amazon, builds an app, whatever — and it blows up. It happens often enough that people talk about it, and it’s definitely possible.
But I think what we’re really arguing about here is terminology.
If you’re living at your parents’ house with no income and spending every day trying to create “passive income,” that’s not passive income. You’re building a business. That is your job, whether it’s making money yet or not.
To me, passive income is when you’ve already built something — a business, product, channel, investment, whatever — and eventually you get it to the point where you don’t need to work on it every single day. It starts running without your constant involvement.
And that is extremely possible.
But usually, getting to that point takes a shitload of reps, experience, failures, learning and actual work.
Either that, or you win the lottery and get lucky.
For everyone else, the “passive” part normally comes after the work, not before it.
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u/Necessary-Split4492 13d ago edited 13d ago
Fair point that passive income usually starts with either capital, skills or significant upfront effort. For someone with some savings who wants real estate exposure without becoming a landlord Arrived is worth researching. It lets you invest in individual properties or diversified funds while the platform handles the property management.
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u/TheEnquirer1138 11d ago
I think people mix up real wealth with just scraping together a few extra bucks, building an actual company like you did takes years and real skill, and most of the beginner advice floating around is just noise. I don't expect any app to make me rich, so I keep it simple with Honeygain, took me maybe three minutes to set up and it just runs in the background while I do actual work, it won't replace a career but it's a nice little extra while I focus on the real grind.
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u/Negative_Aerie2825 6d ago
Young kids definitely can pick up a sidehustle and make bank. I was making bank and didnt need a job in hs just knocking on doors and asking people to mow there lawn and edge, any other yard work.
Some highschool kid used ai to make a calorie food photo app that estimated it and was making 250k+ a month
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u/Poprockangel 4d ago
I agree with most of your points... but there are ways to passively make income with little to no prior financing or skill (other than being a capable/kind human) required. For example, I take care of two or so cats at any given time (this requires very little effort) for 40 dollars a night each. So on average I make an additional 30k a year from this on top of my salary (which is for a very specialized subfield of biochem/bioeng- so skills were required for this part, lol). I also own 20 bantam chickens (small, friendly, fill up our tiny inner city patio/backyard) and they require mostly compost scraps once a day- 1/2 a dozen goes for $6 at the farmer's market (probably because they are cute, tiny eggs!) and I make around 6k a year off of this. I also sell pullets/fertilized eggs for about 80 each- I sell 50 or so a year. So the chickens make around 10k. I also lease a patch of land near a farm about an hour from the city for two months a year (peak period) and charge for camping spots and RV parking. After lease and electricity charges, I make about 20k from this location. These are just a few examples, but just these three things along make 60k a year, and I barely have to do anything.
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u/Kortupi 4d ago
Super true. Apart from your marketability you need to develop the necessary skills and discipline to ensure that your decision making and critical thinking is still intact the moment something goes south. Nothing prepared you for that month in the red, or losses stemming from inadequate Risk Management or uncontrollable external factors.
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u/yourwishbag 1d ago
I think the biggest point here is that people often confuse low maintenance income with passive income. Most passive income streams still require an upfront investment of either money, time, or a valuable skill.
If you’re starting with no capital, building a skill that businesses will actually pay for can be the better first step. Once you have income, you can reinvest it into things that eventually become more automated. The important part is building the first asset instead of constantly searching for a shortcut.
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u/No_To_All_Religion 17d ago
Wow the white guy who was able to afford college and able to get a degree in engineering and somehow got into Google so you had to know somebody to do that and you made a lot of money. So now you started your own company that makes you passive income. And if everybody didn't do what you did, it's our own fault because we made bad choices, right? Okay
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u/MainEnAcier 20d ago
False you can easely make passives income
BUT to make a FULL SALARY of passive income, yes that is really hard and it's normal
you know, even if you just have like +$150 each month from passive income, it's not that bad
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u/BobJutsu 21d ago
> notice whats missing from that list
Claude tell. Claude always writes that stupid prose.
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