How an ATM Business Creates Residual Income

Here’s a four-second finance tip: if you want more spending money, you need to create residual income.

If you’re not sure exactly what that means, we’ll help you out. But—spoiler alert—an ATM business will help you create residual income if you build it right. This is how it works.

Residual income vs passive income: What’s the difference?

We’ve talked about using an ATM business to create passive income before. But, passive income and residual income aren’t quite the same thing. Though, they are related.

Passive income

Passive income is money that you earn through an asset or a business that requires very little ongoing effort.

Income from an ATM business is an excellent example of passive income because it takes very little time, effort, and energy to keep the ATM up and running once you get it setup. Your ATM machine just sits there and makes you money, while you do other things.

That’s a textbook example of passive income.

Residual income

Residual income is different. The term “residual income” is a bit misleading, because it’s technically not income.

Residual income is money that you have left after subtracting all of your debts and expenses. It doesn’t matter if that money is from a passive income stream or from a full-time job. But, passive income is the best way to create residual income.

Creating residual income

In personal finance, there are two ways to create more residual income:

1. Get paid more for what you do.
2. Add additional sources of income.

If you only earn money by doing work as an employee, there’s a cap on both of these methods. There’s probably a top end of how much you can get paid for doing your job. And, because you have to spend a certain number of hours every day at work, you can also only take on so many jobs.

So, traditional labor isn’t an ideal way to build residual income.

Adding passive income streams is a much better way to build residual income. A passive income source, like an ATM business, won’t interfere with your full-time employment. But, it adds income on top of your full-time salary.

Ideally, income from just one source should cover all of your debts and expenses. It’s best if your passive income pays all your bills. That way, any time you invest in making money is pure spending money.

But, when you first start building passive income streams, it’s most likely that your full-time salary will be the breadwinner.

Building residual income with an ATM business

Building residual income with an ATM business has a lot in common with using other passive income streams to build residual income. But, operating ATM machines has a few advantages of other passive income sources:

• You invest money, rather than time.

The smartest financial experts—from Benjamin Graham to Robert Kiyosaki—advocate spending money to make money rather than spending time to make money. And, it makes sense.

Think about it. You have a limited amount of time. And you don’t know exactly how much time you have in your life. AND you can’t get more time. It’s a fixed resource.

But, you can make more money.

Also, buying a money-making asset, rather than building one, enables you to start making money from that asset faster.

Now, your ATM business as a whole is an asset that you have to build. But, you can simply buy the thing that makes the money—ATMs. For a few thousand dollars, you can have an ATM that’s generating income. And, it takes very little time to get an ATM machine going.

• You truly own your money-making asset.

Many passive income sources rely on platforms and services that are owned by other people and companies.

YouTube channels have been completely shut down by YouTube. Blogs have been ripped from the internet by the website hosting provider. That’s a really quick way for a passive income stream to disappear.

But, when you own an ATM machine, it’s yours. No one can legally take it from you (unless you do something crazy illegal. But, we’re sure you can avoid that). Even if the business where your ATM is located shuts down or gets sold to a new owner, the ATM is still yours. You can simply move your ATM to a new location and start making money again.

Your ATM business is dependent on you. So, it’s much more stable than many other passive income methods.

• An ATM business scales easily.

One of the best things about owning ATMs is that adding more ATM machines doesn’t significantly increase your time investment, if you build a good route. You can easily manage several machines with just one day a week.

And, if you want your ATM business income to replace your full-time job, it can easily do that. It’s totally up to you how big your ATM business gets. You can build it around your lifestyle.

That’s why an ATM business is the perfect passive income idea for building residual income.

How an ATM business generates residual income is even simpler, and you’ve probably already figured it out.

Since it takes very little time to operate ATM machines, you can easily run an ATM business and hold down a full-time job.

If your full-time salary covers all of your expenses, the income from your ATM machines is entirely residual income. Or, if your ATM business generates enough revenue to cover all your expenses, all the money you earn at work is residual income.

Then there’s a third option: if you build your ATM business to the point that it pays all your business and personal expenses, every additional ATM that you buy brings in more residual income.

With some careful planning, your ATM business could be a self-perpetuating cycle of income expansion. Every machine you add brings in more money. Then you have more money to invest in new machines, which bring in even more money, and on and on… Imagine how cool it would be to simply pay a few thousand dollars every month to give yourself a raise.

But, the point is that an ATM business is a steady, reliable income stream that empowers you to generate income that greatly exceeds your expenses, which is—by definition—residual income.

That’s how an ATM business creates residual income.

What to do now

Ready to start your ATM business? Learn everything you need to know about building an ATM business.

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