Taking on overtime work for extra pay, doing side hustles, and breaking your back to earn a decent living should not be wasted efforts. The income you bring home should do something for you in return.
While a night of partying, luxury items, and branded clothes can momentarily give you happiness, in the long run, you’re just spending your hard-earned money on fleeting gratifications. Make your money work for you, too.
Having a smart home
When we are tired from a full day of work, we want to drive straight into our garage doors, remotely controlling it, and get into a warm home with the lights already turned on.
These are the comforts that your money should bring you. You lost sleep, squeezed your brains dry, incurred back pains to earn it. So you deserve to relax in comfort and safety when you are at home.
Don’t scrimp on your security system. Sometimes people think that all they need is a surveillance camera. But it’s just a passive component. You have to be monitoring your screens the entire time so that you can act on it. You’d want something that at the click of a button, you can check if everything is in order. Get an alarm that connects to the police. Get a general system so that you don’t have to go around to see if all your appliances have been turned off and nothing is in danger of setting your house on fire.
Passive income by investing in real estate
People say they want to become their own boss. But that doesn’t mean that once they are boss, the money starts working for them. They might be earning more, but the added responsibility also needs them to work harder. All the more it is going to be busy if you own a business. You will be on edge all the time with the competition and all the needs of your operations.
There are some ways to make your money grow for you. Invest in bonds. Bonds are like promissory notes where the one selling the bonds promise to return you your money plus some interest. Earnings will not be fast, but you are not making your money sleep in a savings account. You can also hire a broker or a financial adviser if you want quick returns.
Another investment is real estate. Prime properties appreciate over time. See where development is heading and buy properties at a low price. Once the developments are done, these areas will become prime land. You can also purchase condo units or apartments to rent out. You will need some occasional maintenance and cleaning, but if you have this arranged early on, you won’t even notice these extra efforts.
Buying time
Yes, you can buy time. When you have your lunch delivered instead of cooking it, you buy time. When you choose to take a cab instead of connecting through different trains, you also buy time. There are a lot of other instances when you can ; buy time. Don’t waste the time you get by paying more. Hopefully, when you decide to buy time, you do this to let your body rest and not to overwork yourself further.
Another way we buy time is by letting expert people handle some of our worries. For example, don’t overthink when you hire a cleaner for your home. You can also call a carpenter, a roofer, a mason to do the fixing-ups needed. The time you spend recuperating your strength rather than doing household chores is an investment to focus more on your work and provide a decent output.
Investing in our well-being
Work can get overbearing. Many times, even your weekends are spent toiling in your offices. You have to detoxify from time to time to continue your pace without burning out. Detoxification is not just for the body but also for the mind. You can enroll in mindfulness sessions or do meditation exercises. It will even be a great break to have a vacation retreat. It doesn’t have to be religious, although religious orders run the best sanctuaries for a retreat. Think of doing Zen meditation with the monks in Japan or a self-reflection retreat with nuns. These retreats are often not very costly and will help you ground within yourself.
We seem to be trapped in an existence that is material-driven. If we can’t break away from the concept that we need to earn more to be valued more, to be more significant in society, so be it. It’s incredibly challenging to break free from a society driven by the market and consumerist lifestyle. But we can be wise in our use of our hard-earned money. If we are not smart about it, we unconsciously allow money to control our lives.
