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Comment by tachibana | Hacker News Reader

I am a data point for the worst-case example. I don't have a hot application or a popular website, and most of my money is earned the old-fashioned way.

My passive income from my investments in government bonds is enough to cover mortgage, basic living expenses for my family, and two family trips a year.

Source of money for investments:

- savings from many years of working and diligently saving

- some real estate investments

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To be honest though, since we're all inundated with startup and marketing information all the time, it's refreshing to know the old fashioned investing still works :)

I'd like to put some math with this because this is the path I took too. 4 years ago I was offered a job with a startup and a job with a government contractor at the same time. The contractor was offering 15k/year more and I took that offer and saved all 15k of it every year (index fund investing). 4 years in, with reinvesting dividends, my passive income from the money is around 400/month. Very happy I made the choice I did.

Kudos on the great rate of return!

I tell everybody around me it's surprisingly easy to become financially independent. By saving s% of my income investing with a rate of return is i%, then the worst case is that I should be able to completely replace my income in i%/s% years. I was saving 30% (actually more) and investing at around 5%, which resulted in complete income replacement in around 10 years.

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