Welcome to reThinkable – my weekly newsletter where I share actionable insights to build a wealthy healthy life.

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 25 seconds

“Passive income is fake”

I’m sure you’ve heard someone say that before.

Well, {{ name | reThinker }}, I’m going to reveal my very first passive income stream that I set up in 5 minutes for free.

The other day, I made money while sipping an adult beverage at a party, while on vacation. 

Here’s how this magic happened.

I was at a friend’s wedding in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago. Everyone was having a great time dancing, talking, and catching up. 

But one thing happened that made it even better.

While I was enjoying my passion fruit margarita and munching on some sliders, I received a notification on my phone… from my bank. 

Normally, when this happens, I think, “Damn, what did I just get charged for?” But this time, it was different.

Interest Paid: $712.74

And then it hit me — I just earned $712.74 while on vacation.

As some of you know, my very first passive income stream is with a High Yield Savings Account (HYSA).

Keeping your money in a HYSA is the EASIEST way to generate consistent passive income and increase your savings… especially when you do it strategically.

The good news is: it’s free to set up, it only takes 5 minutes, and you don’t have to do anything differently.

⚙️ How Does It Work?

Most people mistakenly park their cash in traditional savings accounts at big banks like Chase, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo because it’s what they grew up with. 

The problem is, you hardly earn any interest on your money. Big banks like Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo offer a 0.01% rate, meaning if you deposit $10,000, you’ll receive $1 in interest by the end of the year. 

And I’m guessing you’re probably not jumping up and down for $1 of interest when you could earn over 515x more.

One of my favorite HYSAs, Laurel Road, offers one of the highest interest rates available today, 5.15%. This means if you keep $10,000 in a Laurel Road HYSA, you’d earn $515 by the end of the year.

Here’s the strategy you can use to build your first passive income stream in less than 5 minutes.

I’m a huge supporter of having a 3-6-month emergency fund. Depending on your expenses, your emergency fund could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars. 

Here’s the thing: when you keep that money in a HYSA, you can generate consistent passive income every month — no matter what you’re doing. 

You could be in your cubicle hustling away, or enjoying a passion fruit margarita on vacation. 

A HYSA is the EASIEST and BEST passive income stream because it only takes 5 minutes to set it up, and you can access your money whenever you want.

And don’t worry if you don’t have a 3-6-month emergency fund yet. You could put your savings for a down payment on a house, your vacation fund, or the $257 tucked under your mattress in there. Heck, you can earn interest with just $1.

I was so happy when I saw the notification on my phone while I was on vacation because I realized that this is what freedom is.

That’s why I want to share the first step I took on my path to financial freedom so you can do the same.

👣Taking Your First Step…

Before I share step-by-step how you can open a HYSA, here are 3 important things that you should watch out for when choosing an account:

Interest rate matters. You want to know how much interest these accounts are paying you because you’re trying to get the most out of your money.

Fees. Make sure there are zero fees, otherwise those fees are just going to eat into any interest you earn, and we don’t want that happening.

FDIC insured. You want to make sure that the online bank is FDIC insured because this will protect your money up to $250,000 if there’s a bank failure.

To save you time from over-thinking and over-analyzing all the available HYSAs, I put together a list of the HYSAs that I personally use and recommend. 

The HYSAs on this list have some of the highest interest rates available today, have no fees, and are FDIC insured.

And yes, you can have multiple accounts — there’s no harm or penalty in having more than one HYSA. I personally have 5 HYSAs at different banks because I have them all set up for different goals.

With that being said, here’s to your first step to financial freedom.

>> Click here for my list of favorite HYSAs to park my cash <<

>> Click here for a step-by-step video tutorial on how to open a HYSA <<

🔎 reThink More

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🏠 Will this new proposal finally put a stop to the rising housing costs?

🪙 Apparently Gen Z might overtake Boomers as the largest and wealthiest generation

❤️ Community Space

In last week’s newsletter, I asked “Why is it important to outperform the median net worth to build wealth?” 87.76% of you got the right answer.

The answer: To accumulate more assets and financial security than the typical person, allowing you to achieve your long-term financial goals and possibly retire early to a life of luxury dog-walking.

Here are some of my favorite responses from y’all:

“Nobody takes me seriously about wanting to stay home and be a full time dog mom.”

“Median net worth = broke. Aim higher. I quit working at 41 and median net worth 2x your list and still it only affords a median home with 2 median cars, a truly”

Answer the bonus question in the quiz below for a chance to be featured in our next newsletter 😀.

📝reThinkable Quiz

PS: here’s a robot escaping

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