How To Better Maintain And Grow Your Multiple Income Streams

Anybody who is currently trying to build multiple income streams knows that it's hard work to maintain them all. Whether the reason is due to a low interest rate environment, mental fatigue, or a tremendous amount of extra hustle during undesirable hours, when it comes to creating your own safety net, patience is a virtue. This post looks to help you grow and better maintain your multiple income streams.

One thing I've realized over the past 25 years of trying to build wealth is that if you can give your income a purpose, then you tremendously raise your chances of holding on and growing that particular income stream.

For example, at age 25, I wanted to quit finance and become a mango farmer / beach bum in Hawaii. I was sick of work after only three years. 

However, at age 26, I bought a condominium and because of the mortgage, making money suddenly became more meaningful. For the next 10 years, I focused full effort on maximizing wealth so I could ironically have the option to be a beach bum!

Growing Your Multiple Income Streams

Back in 2015, I drove for Uber to generate more income. Whenever I go to play tennis or to meet people downtown I'll switch on the app because 80% of the time I'll get a fare that's within 10 minutes of my destination.

Given I no longer have a full-time job, every day can be considered a Saturday, or any other day. As a result, if I am to drive, I might as well drive during the most popular times for surge pricing.

Given my existing passive income streams and online income, most people are somewhat incredulous that I would bother earning ~$30/hour gross driving. One time, I picked up a new waitress at my tennis club from her apartment.

When I told her I was coincidentally going to the club as well, she asked what job I did there. She never considered I was a regular member, which was awesome! Every time I order a juicy reuben sandwich after a morning hit, she hooks me up with some extra fries.

I've questioned whether driving is the best use of my time, especially when I'm faced with rowdy passengers. The short answer is that if I want to make max money, driving is not the way.

But, it's nice to change up my routine for an hour or two after writing or exercising. Besides, there's lots of other powerful non-monetary benefits I've written about, which particular helps put things in perspective when I'm having a bad day.

What has helped me continue driving long after my initial one month or 100 fare commitment was over is that I've earmarked all driving money towards food, and wants. If I want to eat, I must drive! Otherwise, it's back to ramen noodles baby!

Boosting This On Income Stream

I'm currently on a $250 – $300 a week pace after expenses, driving a leisurely 8 – 10 hours a week. That means I can eat about $33 – $35 worth of food a day, which is way more than enough for someone like me. But if I want to buy the latest pair of fancy tennis shoes for $140, or take someone on a special dinner to celebrate, then I've got to start hustling!

Yes, I could just take money that's already in my savings account to pay for stuff. But, there's no sense of accomplishment in that since that money has already been earmarked for other purposes. Actively working for money helps filter what I really want. Pity the person who's never had to work for money at all!

Related: Confession: Active Income Is Much More Enjoyable Than Passive Income

Income Tethering As A Way To Grow And Maintain Multiple Income Streams

The benefits of tethering your income include: not running out of money, removing any feelings of entitlement, being more cognizant of your spending habits, improved financial security, and creating more purpose for the work you do.

Below are some of my income streams and what they are tethered to:

* Uber driving income: Food, material wants

* Tennis teaching income: Entertainment (movies, shows, drinks)

* Rental income: Retirement, real estate fund

* Dividend income: Retirement, other investment opportunities

* Dividend income from a digital wealth advisor like Personal Capital: Fulfilling my childhood collection of toys I could never afford

* CD income: Retirement, peace of mind fund

* Corporate consulting income: Home improvement, like remodeling a bathroom

* Personal finance consulting income: Travel, entertainment

* Online income: Health care expenses and charity for the disabled

* Real estate crowdsourcing income: private school tuition $35,000/year

Each income stream has a purpose in order to maintain a nurturing focus. If I want to build an extension off my house, then I best find more corporate consulting clients. If I want to spend $200 to buy a single ticket to watch The Book Of Mormon musical, then I'll need to teach four hours of tennis and so forth.

You'll notice that Retirement comes up multiple times as a tether. This is because despite experiencing early retirement for two years without a hitch, I'm so accustomed to building my own financial safety net that I can't stop saving.

Saving money is almost like a disease!

Tether Your Desires To Your Income

If you are having difficulty maintaining your multiple income streams for financial freedom, then absolutely find a specific purpose for each income. It's important that once you start a new endeavor, that you stick with it long enough to begin capturing significant economic gains.

How To Better Maintain And Grow Your Multiple Income Streams
Tether your income!

For example, a friend of mine is a talented musician who strongly loves to travel overseas. After all expenses and 401k contributions, she couldn't comfortably afford the minimum $2,000 per week for journeys abroad. As a result, her vacations were mainly domestic. Given she has four weeks off a year, she decided to earn an extra $8,000 in side hustle money.

She knows how to read music and play the piano and violin thanks to her parents pushing her to learn as a kid. After gaining a strong reputation over the past year of teaching violin to adults who wanted to rekindle their musical skills, she now has a recurring referral base of new students at a much higher hourly rate.

Even parents are now asking her to provide lessons for their children. What began as a $30/hour side hustle, is now providing her an extra $20,000 a year teaching just six hours a week on average.

If she ever wanted to quit her full-time job, she probably could make $60,000 a year working just 20 hours a week! Now that's the power of sticking things through!

Tethering makes earning money more meaningful. And the more purpose you find in making money, the more likely it is you'll be able to build greater wealth in the long run.

Living in America has a way of making us give up way too soon because things are so comfy here. Fight the malaise so you can fight for your freedom!

Other Reasons To Tether Your Multiple Income Streams

  • For charity
  • To pay off student loans
  • To fund an amazing vacation for your parents
  • To pay for lessons
  • To join and pay for a club membership

Having multiple income streams is great. It helps ensure you never face too much financial difficulty. If one income stream goes down, another income stream picks up the slack.

By building a great passive income portfolio, you will also achieve financial independence. And financial independence is the holy grail of personal finance!

Building Passive Income With Real Estate

Real estate is my favorite way to achieving financial freedom. It is a tangible asset that is less volatile, provides utility, and generates income. By the time I was 30, I had bought two properties in San Francisco and one property in Lake Tahoe. These properties now generate over $150,000 a year in passive income.

In 2016, I started diversifying into heartland real estate to take advantage of lower valuations and higher cap rates. I did so by investing $810,000 with real estate crowdfunding platforms. The spreading out of America is real. As a result, rents and capital values are rising.

Take a look at my two favorite real estate crowdfunding platforms. Both are free to sign up and explore.

Fundrise: A way for accredited and non-accredited investors to diversify into real estate through private eFunds. Fundrise has been around since 2012 and has consistently generated steady returns, no matter what the stock market is doing. For most people, investing in a diversified eREIT is the way to go. 

CrowdStreet: A way for accredited investors to invest in individual real estate opportunities mostly in 18-hour cities. 18-hour cities are secondary cities with lower valuations, higher rental yields, and potentially higher growth due to job growth and demographic trends. If you have a lot more capital, you can build you own diversified real estate portfolio. 

Best Tool to Track Your Multiple Income Streams

Multiple income streams become harder to track and manage over time. Therefore, it's good to keep track of all your multiple income streams in oe place with Personal Capital.

Personal Capital is a free online platform which aggregates all your financial accounts in one place. This way, you can see where you can optimize your money.

A great feature is their Portfolio Fee Analyzer, which runs your investment portfolio(s) through its software in a click of a button to see what you are paying. I found out I was paying $1,700 a year in portfolio fees I had no idea I was hemorrhaging!

Finally, they launched their amazing Retirement Planning Calculator. It pulls in your real data and runs a Monte Carlo simulation to give you deep insights into your financial future.

Personal Capital is free, and less than one minute to sign up. It’s one of the most valuable tools I’ve found to help achieve financial freedom.

54 thoughts on “How To Better Maintain And Grow Your Multiple Income Streams”

  1. That’s actually a great strategy! It helps keep you focused and forces you to keep managing that income stream.

    I think having a very specific goal is the most important thing of all. Everything I do is geared towards one thing: financial freedom in five years. Boy does that give me the motivation to save and invest. It’s giving me the motivation to really take my blog seriously as well.

    I have a slightly different approach than you, though. I am looking to use my taxable dividend stock portfolio to retire off of. My job and online income are the “fuel” that fills up my dividend growth stock retirement “vehicle”. My aim is to slowly (well, quickly if possible, but I don’t expect things to go so quick) move from injecting fresh capital from my job income primarily to my blogging income. Sort of like switching from regular fuel to premium, with my job income being the former and my blogging income being the latter.

    But ultimately, the important thing is to have a very specific goal in mind. I’ve never felt the need to “tether” each income stream to certain expenses, but having specific goals motivates me to save in a manner that simply “wanting to make more money” would have never allowed. Either way, great article, Sam!

    Sincerely,
    ARB–Angry Retail Banker

  2. Great idea. I like to tie some dividend paying stocks to my expenses similar how you’re tying side income to them. Telecom stocks pay for my cell phone and internet, utilities are paid for by oil and gas or utility companies and things like that. Eventually I’d love to expand my real estate holdings to pay for my mortgage, but it’ll be a loooong time before I get there!

  3. Sam, I’m a relatively new reader to your site, but becoming a huge fan quickly! You have excellent content that is thought provoking and inspirational (but, you probably already knew that).

    Anyhow, I love the concept of tethering and finding ways to drive meaning into income. I will admit though, in my 20’s I would motivate myself to make more money just so I could buy more “toys” and justify the shiny new BMW. It worked, but in hindsight, sometimes you can become motivated for the wrong reasons (Keeping up with the Joneses) which can cloud judgement.

    I’ve wised up since then (a bit). I have a couple investment homes in Las Vegas that I tether to my two kid’s future college tuition, but I guess I’ve only been scratching the surface. Your detail here takes it to a whole other level.

    To take it a step further, I think I’ll tether my wife’s income to our daily expenses, SFR rental income to kids’ future college tuition, multifamily rental income to parent’s retirement fund, dividends for re-investment, and P2P income for kid’s lessons and charity.

    Do you actually track these tethers in a spreadsheet? How often do you re-evaluate your allocations?

    1. Howdy Michael,

      Nice to hear from you. I’ve been around since 2009. What took you so long?! :)

      Regarding the car, have you read The 1/10th Rule For Car Buying? I go by this rule to help motivate me to make more money if I want a fancy car, or protect myself if I get too greedy or start feeling entitled.

      I track everything in on my Personal Capital dashboard. I’ve got 35 accounts there that update as interest and income is paid, and as expenses go out in my other accounts since they are all linked. Easy peasy! Like no longer needing a to do list when grocery shopping. You should check it out.

      1. Great to meet you Sam! I should have found you sooner, maybe I could have cut out an extra year or two before exiting the rat race. :)

        Thanks for the excellent read on car buying! I’m not quite at the 1/10 rule yet, but at least I’m headed in the right direction.

        Oh, and I’m familiar with Personal Capital’s dashboard, great tool. What I was more curious of is if you’re tracking your specific tethering goals somewhere else (I’m not aware of the ability to make notes on different income accounts in PC), or is it more of a mental note you keep tabs on?

  4. My side income is almost entirely from real estate and a note secured by a first position deed of trust (so basically, also real estate) – I am saving all rent and interest earned in a separate account owned by an LLC until the next recession, at which point I will buy more real estate and consider retiring from my day job (although I like my job, so who knows). Not sure if you saw Book of Mormon yet, but if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. I’ve never laughed harder in my life!

  5. Hi Sam, this is off-topic but didn’t want to fill your probably already jacked-up mail box more than needed. Hopefully I get an answer here.

    As anyone with the slightest interest in personal finance, I’m of course looking at building multiple stream of income… However, as a student with no job (I’m at university), all I could figure out so far was to reduce my expenses / find ways to avoid them (ex: I’m the social secretary for a uni sports team in the UK, so I get free entry in the club we go to + bar tab).
    Ultimately, I am writing to you to see if you had any recommendations on building new streams of income from scratch: how to go about it – particularly as a student – ? (what are some examples of things I could do, ex. I’m looking at getting a part time job, maybe start my own website (have a lot of ideas to blog about)).
    Of course, I do not mind investing and taking some risk to get started. I actually plan on building my own brokerage account soon (and hopefully the new stream of incomes I plan on setting up could flow into that one!).

    Thank you for your insights and advice,
    Louis

    1. Hi Louis,

      To generate income, you need income. So as a student, I would look into not only learning about things you like, but learning about things that will make you the most employable person after graduation.

      That one major that is currently insatiable now is computer programming. Starting salaries are now $100,000+ from the big companies out here in Silicon Valley, for example. At least take some classes related to programming, the internet, etc. The trend is obvious here.

      Try to exit uni with as little debt as possible, and as much work experience as possible through internships. If you can experience while others are playing, you’ll have a much better time upon exit. It’s TOUGH out here compared to school.

      1. Hi Sam,

        Thank you for the quick and precious reply! I have some (read not a lot) computer skills so I will definitely try to improve on those.

        I have already had a few internships in my field of interest (set on finance so far, spent June and July at a hedge fund and learned an awful lot, think that’s what I’m going to go for – if I break in). So the obvious question here is, if I make it to high finance, would you recommend paying my student debt as soon as possible (student debt in the UK is much lower than the US, so I’ll finish uni with circa $40k) or rather paying it back year after year, following the usual schedule and using the money “left-over” to build other streams? I guess it’s all stuff I’ll have to think about later ;)

        I’m set on getting as many internships as possible yes. I think I have a pretty good CV (vs peers) but I can always improve.
        I’ll see if I can manage it next year (entering 2nd year of uni, much tougher than 1st) but I’ll try to get a part-time job in some direct sales position or maybe tele sales… Would definitely improve my skillset. This combined with the computer science research / study could make for an interesting combination!
        Will keep the tough advice in mind, definitely. Think I don’t realise it yet (student on my little happy cloud) but it’s important to make sure everything turns out right.

        Thank you again for your time, and please keep your articles coming, it’s always a pleasure to read them.

        Best,
        Louis

  6. Sylvia @ Miss PF

    This is a great way to look at your other streams of income. If it is not tethered to something, then it may get lost in the shuffle and spent unwisely.

  7. Hi Sam,

    Great article – and one that is quite timely for me as we are looking at International schools for our daughter for next year, as she will be 3 years old and starting the early years program. I was gobsmacked to learn the costs are $6K upfront “donation” to the foundation and about $13K a year on top of that for the first two years, and this goes up each year up until the last year of high school, which is currently about $25K USD a year. All of these fees go up by 2-6% each year so by the time our daughter is in high school it will be double this amount.

    We’ve built up a good passive income stream but would like to get another passive income stream to match this rising tuition costs- we will look at a cheaper school option for the first two years and that will give me 3 years to build up this revenue stream from passive investment income. It will be a challenge but it’s doable.

    One question- on your poll if I have an individual stock portfolio of 25 very different companies and they all pay dividends, is it safe to say that I have 25 sources of income or is this counted as only one category?

    -Mike

    1. Wow, three already! Amazing how time flies yeah?

      Love that upfront donation for international schools. I attended for 10+ years growing up. It was an amazing time, learning from so many different types of people around the world.

      I would personally categorize a portfolio of 25 dividend paying stocks as one source of income. However, I guess it depends on whether each dividend payment can be big enough to be made meaningful to tether to something!

  8. theofficialjohnandre

    I am currently at 4: lending club, dividends, CD interest, book sales. It is really starting to add up and I should be over $700 a month soon : )

  9. I agree tethering can make earning money more rewarding, but it can lead to wasteful spending as well. I used to tether my affiliate marketing income to discretionary spending on fancy restaurants and new clothes. It was addictive because I could monitor my affiliate revenue on an app throughout the day so if I was having a good revenue day, I’d be happy and go blow most of it after work on a nice dinner or new clothes. I should’ve just been smarter about it. Nowadays, I’m a complete tightwad and just save everything.

  10. I really should tether my internet side hustle income to something. I always just randomly dwindle it away. A PayPal debit card purchase here. A business checking account debit card purchase there…. Just because I can. Not having a plan for my side hustle money is turning out to bite me in the ass. Thanks for the reminder!

  11. I’ve never tried to chase after an additional income other than growing my retirement with dividends. I have been consistently averaging over 50 hours a week for years now and using the extra to grow my savings, but when I read about guys and gals working all these side jobs I really feel lazy.

    1. It depends on how much you want it.

      50 hours a week is a lot, but I remember easily working 80 hours a week between online and day job work. 30 extra hours a week is 120 extra hours a month, or 1,560 hours extra a year to do something. You can do A LOT with that much more time!

  12. Adam @ AdamChudy.com

    I’ve always thought that paying for your vacations each year is a solid, first goal for your initial side hustles. It’s not too much money and it’s a very tangible thing to pay for with your side money.

  13. BTW, I like your tethering idea. I currently lump all sources into a single “bill paying” account (after 401k and auto reinvestment) but I like your concept. So can I assume you have set up multiple segregated accounts to receive the directed (tethered) proceeds? or do you just keep track and know what portion of your small number of disbursement accounts contain for each tether.

    1. You will grow your income streams further by NOT lumping them in to a single “bill paying” account.

      I have multiple savings accounts I’ve set up where money flows in. I also have a spreadsheet and know about how much I make every month with every single income stream. For Uber, the partner dashboard has everything for you for example.

  14. Hi Sam, Off topic but…
    As another poster mentioned previously. I can’t seem to make heads or tails RE: your new post sorting logic. When there is a particular post I am interested in I will often check back to see fresh comments and/or your responses to comments. Yet lately it seems the posts either disappear or are sorted out of sight. Your new logic seems particularly fond of the “retirement planning by personal capital” as it consistently stays near the top of the order even though it is several weeks old… it seems analogous to YELP where those that “pay” YELP stay at the top of the search screen… is that the new logic?

    1. I’m doing a site redesign by end of this year and am testing for: 1) load speed, 2) popularity of posts, 3) mixing personal and business, 4) responses from people who are annoyed they have to scroll a little more than normal.

      When you run a website, it’s important to test using data. The data this summer is showing a strong interesting in the retirement planning calculator post and other retirement posts right now, so that is what I’ll sticky. Lots of inside baseball stuff if you ever start your own site! Feel free to subscribe to the comments section to get to each post’s comments most efficiently.

      There is a hot new startup called Optimizely, whose sole purpose is doing A/B testing.

      If you would like me to help teach you about optimizing/building a website, let me know! What do you currently do?

      1. I accept that answer (as opposed to the snarky one I posed). Thanks for the response (wasn’t sure I would get one). So I assume you are using Optimizely to assist your analysis.

        Also, I for one AM VERY interested in any retirement related posts… so count me in that camp!

        1. No worries! I get snarky comments and emails all the time from people who don’t pay me anything and think I owe them something. It’s a trip! And, good feedback on how to manage the site.

          What is your current situation? Occupation, age, net worth, income streams, etc so we can stay on topic?

          1. Married, 2 kids (1 on own, 1 trying to be, both college grads) Employed (defense contractor) – metrics analysis/project management, BSCS from UC school (so long ago that computer science reported to Engineering Chair), 54 (yes I know, old by your readership standards), > 2M, employment, rental house, small trust, Dividends. Planning to retire end of next year (commute killing me), thinking about part time retirement hustle to earn extra dollars – thinking maybe Uber (love those posts), selling Xmas trees, ??. Looking for low stress but keep busy and earn a few bucks.

            Can be snarky because my father taught me to look where the financial incentive is to understand why people do what they do when its not obvious, you will often find the answer.

  15. Interesting concept as I did something similar a few years back with my eBay/Paypal account. I rotated it’s uses though, including discretionary income for dry cleaning, comedy shows, etc and then used it to pay for the appliances in our Multi-Unit and after that it has switched to student loan repayment. Today it is paying off a personal loan and will soon be an investment account.

    I guess my tether is rotating.

  16. I’ve come to the same conclusion and have been doing this naturally for 2 years now. I played soccer at the college level and now that I’m a bit older, referee in my spare time at ~$60/game.

    I enjoy getting paid to exercise, be outside, and stay in the game; but the criticism that parents and coaches dish out can easily get you down. For motivation and to keep from getting fed up, I put all my earnings into a fund with the goal of paying for my kids’ college using solely ref money. The nice part: they’re not born yet and I’m already at $8.5k. I have that saving money disease and love to watch it grow.

    1. Wow! Fantastic. WTG on the kid’s college savings. You are way ahead of most people.

      I like the idea of reffing, exercising, and interacting. Any time you can combine physical exercise with making money is a win!

  17. I’ve been following the blog for a few months and I love your posts. I’m a 28 year old graduate student (in the humanities) who is trying to get out of academia. I’ve become disillusioned by watching friends graduate and spend years unemployed or having to move out to the middle of nowhere for a decent position. I want to apply to MBA programs but have virtually no work resume apart from academic stuff and my BA was in the humanities. The school I’m in now is prestigious (a top 3), but that’s pretty much all I have going for me. Do you have any advice? Should I go back and try getting a second bachelor’s or is that a waste of time? I don’t want to waste any more time. Thanks!

    1. I don’t know what you would like to do career-wise, but you seem pretty down on your humanities degree, and I don’t think you should necessarily be so hard on yourself. There are a lot of things you can do with a humanities degree. I have a BA in English, and I became a lawyer. My English degree was enormously helpful in teaching me to communicate clearly and to write like a professional, and undoubtedly it helped me ace my law school exams and the bar exam. I know a History major who went on to become a stock broker, and he’s probably making more than I am now. And get this–the top performing student in my law school class got his bachelor’s degree in theater. You can bet most people were thinking he was going to have a super low-earning career in off-off-off-broadway productions, or waiting tables.

      If you’re not all that interested in teaching, there are plenty of other paths that could turn your degree into something that earns good money. Instead of thinking something like “What do people with my degree do?” think about “what sorts of careers would I like to do” and then work backwards. Figure out if you’re lacking any requirements to do that job. There are a lot of jobs out there that might require a degree–any degree–that you would be good at.

      1. Hey, thanks. I kinda needed that boost today. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about law school lately. What kind of work do you do? Do you enjoy it/recommend it? Where I am, a lot of kids end up at BigLaw – it pays, but I hear it’s pretty much goodbye to any outside life (I have a wife and two kids). And from what people tell me, it doesn’t necessarily get better – I’ve heard of senior partners working 60-70 hour weeks. Anyways, thanks for the reply.

    2. Hola Joel,

      Thanks for reading.

      I definitely would NOT go back to school for a second bachelor’s degree. That will be a big waste of time and money.

      I would look at part-time MBA programs so you can work while you study. It may be an ass-kicking for three years, but your finances, and your actual overall financial stress will be much less. I did it at Cal while working 60 hours a week, and it was well worth it. See: Is An MBA A Big Waste Of Time And Money?

      But before you go commit to more school, I’d commit to finding a profession, and three SPECIFIC jobs you think you’d really like to do. Research online, talk to people, maybe shadow, find intern/externships, and go from there. This is a more efficient way to go about finding what will inspire you.

      Best,

      S

      1. This is really good advice for him. My advice is to start with what job you want. I would also look at bls.gov and see their forecast for industry needs and employment demand. Do not go into an industry that you are A. Uncertain there will be jobs available for you in and B. That you are not interested in. Find something you can find interesting that you can foresee yourself doing for 10 years, that pays well, and has a good job to job seeker ratio. Many jobs that are popular are actually either low paying or low in demand. Some jobs actually are popular and can pay well but have an over supply to demand: see personal trainers. I like my chosen field (but I hate my current job but it’s not because of the subject matter or job duties, it’s because the office environment is toxic… I’m working on figuring out what to do next) and my job pays well. I attribute this partly to luck, but since I knew the salary range and job availability before starting grad school, I can’t say it’s completely luck. It was an educated gamble that ended up working basically.

    3. ChopsBuster

      I’m 24 and I have a Liberal Arts degree from a public University but, I’ve been able to do OK. In my last year and a half of school I sort of panicked because I realized my degree wasn’t very marketable and I was hearing horror stories of people unable to find jobs with degrees similar to mine. I decided to major in business administration/managing information systems and taught myself how to code. I also began networking more than I had. The networking helped me to land an internship at a Fortune 50 company. From there I worked hard at my internship and my manager helped me find a consulting job. Now, I’m about two years into my career and I’ll make a little over $100k this year.

      So, long story short, I don’t think an individual’s major/degree is a deciding factor in what he or she will become. I think a lot of it has to do with the individual’s drive and work ethic… Networking helps, too.

      1. Hey, thanks. Six figures at 24 – that’s awesome. I have tons of debt and live on 30k with a family. FML. Yeah, something’s gotta change. As a socially awkward introverted academic-type, it would definitely be a worthwhile effort to get out of my shell and do some networking. I don’t even know how to network. Anyway, thanks again and kudos on your success.

        1. I went to a graduate program that was clearly about developing specific job skills and networking (I.e. Working together to help each other find employment). You don’t have to do it that way but it’s what I did. Like I said in a reply to the author though I suggest finding the job you want first before embarking on your quest. Otherwise you’ll be as a ship without a captain.

  18. This is a really clever idea. I use my main consulting income streams to pay for my various living expenses. I reinvest my dividend income and so far use my misc side income for savings and investing. I still have this feeling of guilt spending money on myself and prefer to save/invest. I want to continue adding new income streams and that should probably help me enjoy treating myself on small things more often.

  19. That’s an interesting way to look at it. This will keep you motivated even especially when you’re retired with multiple streams of income. We just pool everything. That’s much easier, but not very motivating. I’ll check my spreadsheet and see how I can tether each income.

  20. Bryan @ Just One More Year

    I like your concept of tying income streams to specific goals. We have been treating our finances as one big bucket, income drops into the top and the expenses leak out the holes.

    Our passive real estate income is reserved to support our everyday lifestyle and some travel. To do more exotic trips and purchase additional items, we will need to use either dividend or retirement savings for those areas. I do plan to invest in Peer-to-Peer lending early next year as another income stream. Perhaps we can use that investment to earmark to specific spending goals.

  21. Love the post, I am trying to build income streams so that I will have more options in the future. I’m very forward looking, if I could be generating 50k in passive income in 5-10 years, I would doing great work.

    This would be great for my family and the things I could do with life.

  22. Agreed. Tethering or having a purpose behind multiple income stream efforts is a wise idea especially if/when the going gets rough.

    Oh, and glad you didn’t quit work after 3 years for Hawaii. Somehow a blog called Beach Bum Mango Samurai doesn’t have the same ring to it!

  23. I currently have only my job for income, but since it’s in nursing, I work overtime as sort of aside hustle to pay for items that crop up suddenly, and to save for anticipated expenses, as well as paying off the mortgage sooner. Now I just need a legitimate passive income stream as well!

      1. Me too! Call me crazy. I actually miss hourly contracting for this reason. I believe I averaged 3 hours of OT a week at 1.5x $80/hr rate…. You can see why I liked doing it! Now that I work FT I miss this “perk”.

  24. Thias @It Pays Dividends

    I love this idea of using different income streams for specific purposes. I currently only have one strong income stream and 1-2 smaller ones that I need to try and grow. This is a great idea to help motivate the growth of them since if I don’t grow them, I can complete the activities that I enjoy.

    When I was paying off my student loans, I did use any extra side money that I brought in to make extra payments. The money was never substantial but I saw it as a way to at least speed up the process.

  25. Definitely an interesting way to put some meaning behind the various income streams I am trying to develop. Though, it still would require a decent amount of discipline to make it work. I have a bad feeling that whatever income stream I tie my trips to the craft breweries to is going to get an outsize amount of attention….

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