You have $200,000 to invest in a passive income stream in 2021. What would YOU do?

Outlaw

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As the thread title states... If $200,000 was dropped in your lap TODAY, what would you do with that money to set yourself up with a passive income source? Long story short, I've been slowly liquidating a lot of my non-essential assets of the course of the year, feeling like I'd become a slave to a collection shit I own for no purpose other than it's "cool". I also had a relative pass away two months ago and was left a small chunk of money that's currently invested in Walgreens stock (not much, but something). And lastly, I've been seriously considering selling my house and moving to the farm with the GF since I'm here 95% of the time anyways. Even if something was to go south in that regard, I have a place to live if need be without having to rely on family or friends (My house in Hayward, which I plan on moving to eventually anyways). Between home equity after estimated closing costs, the small inheritance and what I've got squirreled away from selling off a big chunk of my "collection" of shit, it puts around $200-250k in my pocket. This doesn't have anything to do with my business assets. These are/were all personally owned items that have been liquidated. My business of buying/reselling trucks/equipment will be unaffected by any of this.

Instead of just setting and forgetting it in some sort of investment fund, I would rather start or purchase some sort of a business with it that could eventually become a passive income stream without devoting 10-12 hours/day into it after the initial startup. I'm pretty much looking for a relatively low-stress (key term: relative) stream of around 40-65k/year to start with. I've looked at everything from car washes, laundromats, storage lots and franchises like Little Caesars and such. I considered keeping my house and renting it out, but I don't think I could stomach someone living in my home and potentially trashing it to make very little aside from building equity in the place.

I'd like to have some sort of a preliminary plan in mind before selling my home as I don't want to be sitting on a pile of cash for long given the inflation we've been seeing lately. What have the TCGers who have passive income sources, side businesses, etc done and has it been worth the investment?
 

GLADIATOR

aka STROKE-KING
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My neighbor owns several laundromats and does very well, barely works, and owns a Hellcat Durango.
Me? I am the wrong person to ask about financial advice. I would buy fast cars and big trucks and go nuts….
giphy.gif
 

CMNTMXR57

GM, Holden & Chrysler Mini-Van nut swinger
Sep 12, 2008
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Elgin
The storage business is something I thought about. Granted I would like to cater to car/boat/RV type people making them more vehicle friendly, but not over the top like the place in Warrenville.

With that said, initial outlay (which you'd lay out with what you're speaking of), would be a bit, but from there on, it's just a matter of keeping it full and living on the monthly revenue stream. Your costs would be any mortage left over, property tax, utilities, insurance and paying the wage of a couple people to man the joint. When you're making roughly $150 - $200 mth per unit, that stuff is pretty much covered. It's a pretty low maintenance gig.
 
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Outlaw

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My neighbor owns several laundromats and does very well, barely works, and owns a Hellcat Durango.
Me? I am the wrong person to ask about financial advice. I would buy fast cars and big trucks and go nuts….
giphy.gif

I have no desire for more at this point lol, I sold a handful of pretty cool ones to make this happen. I still have five personal vehicles, two that are company owned and used for work purposes as well as inventory that constantly changes and I drive if I feel like it. If I need more funds, I can start axing the others one by one. What I kept ended up being the most valuable anyways.

If I absolutely had to I could raise another 40-50k selling off a few more. I'd essentially retain El Malo, the Prius and my 3500 Silverado for fun, practicality and work needs. And my 05 Yukon because it's not worth shit with 310k on it.
 

Outlaw

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The storage business is something I thought about. Granted I would like to cater to car/boat/RV type people making them more vehicle friendly, but not over the top like the place in Warrenville.

With that said, initial outlay (which you'd lay out with what you're speaking of), would be a bit, but from there on, it's just a matter of keeping it full and living on the monthly revenue stream. Your costs would be any mortage left over, property tax, utilities, insurance and paying the wage of a couple people to man the joint. When you're making roughly $150 - $200 mth per unit, that stuff is pretty much covered. It's a pretty low maintenance gig.

If I were to get into storage, it would probably be pretty low-budget basic units with outside storage for RV's and boats.

I forgot to put this in the first post, but a secondary goal of doing this if the opportunity presents itself is to end up with the business on a piece of property large enough to rent a small yard to my current business. Essentially fence in a 30x40 area off and rent it to BD Services for storing equipment and trucks.
 

CMNTMXR57

GM, Holden & Chrysler Mini-Van nut swinger
Sep 12, 2008
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Elgin
Then you'll clean up even quicker. These things are cash cows once you get the property/building issues sorted out. Low maintenance, insurance, utilities and one or two people to run the place for when you're not there. Shit in some cases, I see people living in the office like area and it's their business too. Commute is short. :D
 

Outlaw

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The unit that I rented when I first started my business didn't even have staff lol. Owner came at 6am to open the gate and 8pm to close it. Was there from like 4p-8p every Wednesday to deal with contract stuff, pay your bill, etc or you could just put your rent check in a strongbox on the wall anytime. Outside of that he'd just drive through every so often during the day to see if any weird shit was going on.
 

Shawn1112

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I forgot to put this in the first post, but a secondary goal of doing this if the opportunity presents itself is to end up with the business on a piece of property large enough to rent a small yard to my current business. Essentially fence in a 30x40 area off and rent it to BD Services for storing equipment and trucks.
My buddy is doing something similar and says its the way to go. He bought a building and rents that bldg out to his tire shop, then rents out the rear yard to a trucking company who parks like 5 semi's back there.
 

Outlaw

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My buddy is doing something similar and says its the way to go. He bought a building and rents that bldg out to his tire shop, then rents out the rear yard to a trucking company who parks like 5 semi's back there.

Yup. Right now I expense 20% of my home mortgage and utilities to the business. Roughly the sq/ft of the garage and the one bedroom that's my office. 100% of my internet and cell phone is paid by the company. Buying something and being able to rent it would be mutually beneficial.
 
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FirstWorldProblems

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One cheap rental property in a not-shitty area
Spend the rest on high-dividend ETF's, you're basically buying income and it doesn't take any time whatsoever

or I might just spend it all on ETF's

There are A LOT of businesses that struggle to outperform the market. All that risk, all that capital, just to make a similar return as a dude that clicked a button. That's rough.
 

FirstWorldProblems

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So think about this. You can find ETF's with dividend yields of 4-5% rather easily. On $200k you just bought yourself $8-10k/year worth of income, on an asset that will appreciate at a rate of 5-10% per year conservatively (also meaning your income increases at a rate of 5-10% per year). It ends up being big money if you start early. Oh and, again, you don't have to do shit, and you don't have the big startup costs & risks of a new business.

That's my plan in the second half of my 30's through my 40's. Buy income.
 

GLADIATOR

aka STROKE-KING
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Mar 29, 2004
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New Lenox IL
So think about this. You can find ETF's with dividend yields of 4-5% rather easily. On $200k you just bought yourself $8-10k/year worth of income, on an asset that will appreciate at a rate of 5-10% per year conservatively (also meaning your income increases at a rate of 5-10% per year). It ends up being big money if you start early. Oh and, again, you don't have to do shit, and you don't have the big startup costs & risks of a new business.

That's my plan in the second half of my 30's through my 40's. Buy income.
Interesting.
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