Alternative Income: January 2008($415.42)
Since working for your money has become quite passe, I figured this would be an interesting metric for our family to begin to follow.
I cannot take credit for the idea. There are many individuals that have spent the time and energy to develop a well diversified source of income for themselves outside of their day job through activities such as:
- Peer to Peer loans in the form of Prosper and Lending Club.
- Personal Retailing through their Ebay accounts
- Landlording through the development of their own personal real estate empires.
- Blogging!! with the help of Google Adsense.
Looking at that list I find all those options to be very reasonable sources alternative income to consider for just about anyone. There are some pretty amazing success stories of individuals being able to quit their day jobs and making a living with these alternative sources of income.
The catch is that their success was not instantaneous, but was transformed from hours of work by these individuals in developing, researching and refining their alternative income streams.
Most people pursuing these income streams don’t consider these endeavors work for 2 main reasons:
- It is something that they were doing before as a hobby and would continue to do anyway even if it did not provide them with an income.
- They are able to do it on their own terms, hours, etc… with no-one to answer to except themselves.
With that as inspiration, here is our start: (Note, all amounts are Pre-tax dollars)
As you can see we don’t have a very diversified source of income and some of the items I listed are very difficult to expand upon or grow in the future without drastic lifestyle changes. I included them more for reasons of personal accounting rather than listing them as something I can build upon.
Currently our only sources of income other than my job as a resident are:
The interest we earn on our savings and 0% balance transfers: My wife and I hope to continue to grow our cash savings even in the mist of falling interest rates.
The occasional dividend check from my wife’s family’s farm: We have absolutely no real control over this unless I were to decide to abandon the practice of medicine and join the agricultural community full time.
The money generated by the advertisements on various websites in various stages of development. Not something I am pursing as actively as others. I do have quite a few interests outside of medicine and I will continue develop them more out of personal satisfaction rather than monetary reward.
Gift money and other forms of windfall income: Something many people don’t consider but something I wanted to follow. Basically I am including things such as the stipend I get for meals on call, book fund money from my department and the $20 my parents still send on my birthday. Also when I win the Lottery, I want somewhere to make a note of this 
In my defense, over the past 12 years I chose to focus those hours on learning a highly specialized skill that I hope will one day provide a financial reward to balance the emotional reward it already provides.
To protect myself and my future potential earnings I have disability insurance!!
In 2008 I hope to be able to slowly refine this metric. Over the long term, I will look to expand my sources of alternative income so they can make a more meaningful contribution to our net worth. I am very realistic however that these endeavors will never come close to replacing my day job.
