Photographer: micheile dot com | Source: Unsplash

 

 

While trying to find side hustles that resonate with me (fulfilling and joyful), the important aspect of money looms around me.

How can I work less and earn more? Or more accurately put: how can I do something I enjoy without having to worry about money?

Ideas like starting a business require huge capital and have negative cash flow for the first few years. Working on a purposeful project can be meaningful enough that you disregard whether it’s revenue generating.

The big question is: How can you sustain yourself with the lack of income?

Answer: Make your money work for you.

Schools don’t teach us how to be smart with our money. Even if you study finance, the curriculum doesn’t teach you how to be smart with your money. They are designed to teach us skills to become gainfully employed.

So i embarked on a journey to learn how to make my money work for me. Albeit starting a little older than I’d have liked, it is still better than not starting.

If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die. – Warren Buffett

In my financial literacy discovery, I’ve learnt these three simple financial tools that could do just that – make money while I sleep.
*Note: this is not financial advice, please do your due diligence when investing in any financial instrument.

  1. Regular Savings Plan (RSP) – is a plan where you save a fixed sum of money monthly with the platform. Your money will then be invested into baskets of stocks. You need not be proficient in the stock market. This is fuss-free and low cost of entry.
  2. Roboadvisors – is an automated investment platform run by algorithms that optimises your portfolio where necessary. Similar to RSP, roboadvisors invests in a portfolio of stocks and you need not be adept in investment. It’s a lower cost alternative compared to RSP thus giving better returns in the long term.
  3. Invest in shares – the most customisable option of the three. You need to be well-versed in stock picking and know how to allocate your funds for investment. This is high risk if you don’t have the knowledge for stock investment.

I’m sure there are other avenues that can bring us closer to achieve financial freedom. Let me know what those may be so that I may dabble into it before I share the findings.