It’s time again to learn about you, the readers. 
Are you a breadwinner? Last year Freedom 35 Blog visitors were asked who the primary income earner is in their households. Here are the results. Thanks to everyone who voted (^_^)
I think what the poll results show is that people who read personal finance blogs tend to make more money than his or her spouse. 🙂 Out of the 67 voters who live with other people, 42 (63% of them) claim to be the main person to bring home the bacon. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Those who have a higher affinity for making money will probably be drawn to reading blogs about how to make more money. Even people who don’t have high paying jobs can still become the breadwinner of a family through other means. For example, with my recent acquisitions that I wrote about earlier this week, I’m now making about $17,000 a year from investment income alone.
The nice thing about investment income is it gives us a lot of control over our household finances. For example I could sustainably increase my investment income to $30,000 per year if necessary. But doing that would slow down my portfolio’s long term growth so I’m choosing not to do that since I don’t need the extra money right now.
Investment income is less risky than a salary or wage as long as our investments are properly diversified. A well balanced portfolio should continue working for us even while we sleep. Furthermore, capital gains and dividend income is tax less than earned income so even the tax agency wants to reward investors. 🙂
——————————————————————–
Random Useless Fact
We tend to be very good lawyers for our own mistakes, but very good judges for the mistakes of others.
Hi F35;
Interesting to see that 45% of your readers classed as single, either single single(never married or SO) or divorced single (as in my case)
Congrats on the $17K in outside income. Well on your way to financial freedom. Unless you get caught up in the “just need a little more” mentality/lifestyle. I am wondering if that is not what I am caught in myself – just need a little more to do what I want when I want. And then when you finally reach that goal you crook. LOL
Keep up the good work
RICARDO
Thanks dude. Succumbing to lifestyle inflation is a natural thing for people to do, especially when we try to grow a family which I’ll probably do some day.
Awe, I missed the poll 🙁
I am not the primary breadwinner… I need my internet income to increase so that I can steal that title! It’s a work in progress *sigh*
At least your making more internet income than me lol. Later this month I plan to reveal how much money I make from blogging. The results may surprise some readers I think.
I’m intrigued.
Stay tuned. 🙂
We’re in a similar situation with investment income. We make some from it now, but will swap things around when we leave our jobs so then we get more investment/dividend income coming in. We’ve looked at switching it around earlier, but feel it could slow our growth, and since we’re in a “grow” phase, we haven’t gone full bore down that route yet.
I missed the poll, but we fit in the primary breadwinner category. My wife for the first 6 years of marriage and me this past year overtook that title when I switched jobs. She definitely brought me into the financial blog’dom though as it wasn’t anything I was interested in for the longest time. Now we have our own blog, a FIRE date in less than 3 years, I read numerous financial blogs, and we’re raising two kids. Life changes fast!
Good luck with your FIRE plans. 🙂 Teach your kids the importance of financial responsibility so they can continue your legacy.
I am our primary bread winner and do read a fair number of blogs. I’ve liked yours and seeing how you leverage, but for me that would probably spell disaster. Just not disciplined enough. But I am glad that I know my limits. Congrats on the investment income. So far we have a small Simple type IRA here in the US. I primarily invest in ETFs but do have some individual stock holdings in companies that have historically paid good dividends. I do have about 55 to 60% of my portfolio in CDs.
Perhaps the FED will raise rates later this year like they’re hinting at, and newly issued CDs will pay out higher interest rates to investors. 🙂 Would be a start to going back to normal economic times. I think I’ll pick up some safe investments like CDs as well in the future.
I’m not too surprised. It would seem the one making the money would be primarily concerned with either: A) saving the money, or B) figuring out how to stop having to make money.
I’m more surprised at just the number of single people. That tells me that your readership is probably pretty young, maybe 25-30 average.
Thanks for doing the poll. Fun to see.
Eric
Reasonable deduction. I think you’re right about my reader’s demographic. I don’t really do it on purpose but I suppose a lot of my posts are relevant towards young people.
I missed your poll. I would be in the non bread winner category. For me, I always felt I never make enough so I read PF blogs to peak into other’s finances. I think I’m doing quite well for someone who never made over $40k till recently.
It’s hard to make more than your partner given his field of work. I’m going out with someone next week who’s an engineer and makes like $75K a year, which is more than both my jobs combined, #sugarmommy lol.
Interesting poll. I am now a stay-at-home mom (new roll for me), and before that I had a good income but my husband still earned more than me. We are both super interested in finances, and I wondered if I would remain as interested once I lost my own income. In a way, I am more into it. Because I feel like part of my roll now is trying to find ways to save and keep us on budget. I still really enjoy it!
Congrats on your new roll. 🙂 Being a stay at home parent and planning the family budget is a full time job.