Dividends can be incorporated into a long-term plan for yielding wealth, as well as provide regular income. Indeed, there are some investors that invest solely in dividend paying stocks, watching their portfolios grow over time and receiving an income stream when dividends are paid out. There are some who manage this well enough that dividends provide a large portion of their income.

DRIPs

It is possible to compound the earnings you receive from dividends through programs known as dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). DRIPs are set up with some dividend paying companies who take your dividends and automatically reinvest with the company, buying more stock. I have some DRIPs in my Roth IRA. Every time a dividend is paid, it is automatically reinvested, allowing me to buy a couple extra shares of stock. It’s basically like getting free shares. And it’s a good way for me to automatically increase my investment.

For the most part, though, dividend investing isn’t going to result in immediate results. In this economy, you might disappointed (although there are some companies that have actually increased their dividends). Dividend investing — especially when you make use of DRIPs — are part of a long-term strategy. However, the cumulative effect can provide a reasonable passive income for those with the patience to make it work.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Dividend Investing for Passive Income

If you get a chance, head over and browse through the links. Great information, and a reminder that now is a great time to get started in investing — prices are low and you can get more bang for your investment buck.

image credit: RMajouji via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Attribution license.

Post from: EveryJoe

Carnival of Personal Finance: Investing

Finding the perfect job that pays well can be difficult for recent college graduates and even seasoned veterans with 30 years of experience. If you are a writer, you might have a dream of one day writing a New York Times best selling novel. A new lawyer may have a dream of working for a prestigious law firm and one day become a partner. What if you are somewhere in the middle and want to spend more time with your family, while building passive income. Passive income, as the name implies, is income derived from a source where you are not an active participant. It might take some initial capital or time commitment at first, but the future income is passive. If you are a writer, your novel royalties would be considered passive income. It took you time to write the novel and find a distributor, but the future income is passive. You could be earning passive revenue from book sales through Amazon, Costco, or even your own website.

How do you find Passive income opportunities?

1. What’s your dream job? Maybe you want to become a professional golfer, write a novel, trade stocks, or work from home. Start organizing your plan of how you can accomplish your goals. Will you need to go back to school? Can you start working part-time for a magazine or local newspaper to update your writing skills? If you want to become a professional photographer, have you considered an internship? Selling photographs can be a wonderful passive income opportunity. Once you have taken the pictures, the future income is passive. You can host the pictures yourself, or upload them to a site and earn residual income. You’ll find out how you can take your dream job and make some passive income now from it.

2. Make your current job passive. Are you earning passive income with your current job? Think for a moment if you do something in your current job function that you could make some additional income each month. You must have some skill that is unique or that could save time for someone else. If you are an admin, you probably have some shortcuts that have saved you hours while multi-tasking during the day. Do you have a way of stretching your office supplies at work? Have a method for getting everyone to the boardroom quickly? You might be interested to share your ideas with others who search google for similar ideas. A website called ehow could be a great source of passive income for your knowledge base and shortcuts. People scour the internet each day for ways to save time and automate work functions. Now is your chance to stand out.

3. Not enough hours in the day? If you just don’t have enough time to take a break and look for a passive investment idea, consider what you already have. If you have a 401k plan or investment account, you are probably already benefiting from another passive investment opportunity. If you have stocks or mutual funds that pay a quarterly dividend, you already have a source of passive income. You have spent time working hard for your money and now your money is working hard for you through dividends. You also probably had the option to reinvest your dividends or receive cash each quarter. If your dividends are being reinvested, your money may have the opportunity to continue growing through passive income.

Take a few minutes this week and ask yourself if you can find a passive income opportunity at your job. You should be able to find something that you are good at and could also help others doing the same type of work. Write down your thoughts and see if you can document your process and highlight your shortcut or time saving idea. Start writing for eHow or find another online website where you can monetize your ideas. Now is your chance to share your shortcuts with millions of Googlers and make some passive income.

Scott writes about finding ways to set up passive income streams. Of course, it takes a little work initially, but once you get the ball rolling, you can find yourself with a recurring payment without doing further work. This has worked well for me, personally, on some sites. It’s not a lot, since I don’t actively pursue it, I make about $250 a month from stuff I’ve done before that still pays. Leave your own thoughts on passive income in the comments.

Post from: EveryJoe

Passive Income Opportunities In Your Job

Simply: If you want to earn income, you have to work for it; that is, income is active. The IRS may call certain things “passive income,” but the term itself is a lie.

And really, I tend to agree. No matter what you do to set up your revenue stream, you still have to do work. Whether it’s a retirement account, rental property or advertising on your blog. And there is always work to maintain that income through proper management, no matter how easy that work may seen.

Bottom line: if you want to make money, you have to put forth some level of effort. You can’t just hastily set something up and expect someone to magically hand you some money.

That’s called an inheritance.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Can You Really Earn Passive Income?