How Can I Create Multiple Sources Of Income In India?

The legendary investor, Warren Buffett rightly said that if you cannot create a second source of income by the age of 45, then you have really done injustice to yourself. If you are in business or if you are an independent consultant there are multiple streams that you can consider. But what if you are employed and your existing contract does not allow you to take up other work? Also, your pressures at your workplace may be tight enough to leave you with little spare time to worry about how to create a second stream of income. That is when you have to make money work hard for you. Let us look at two such approaches.

Let us start by creating a corpus to invest your money. Let us say you are 25 years of age and earning Rs.75,000 per month after completing your MBA. You can save Rs.10,000 per month in an equity fund as you have other commitments with the rest of the money. But starting off with Rs.10,000 per month in an equity fund SIP is not bad enough. Here is why.

As the table above suggests, you have created wealth to the tune of 5.88 times your original principal invested. But more importantly, you have a ready corpus of Rs.1.41 crore available with you at the age of 45. What happens if you invest this money in high dividend yield stocks? Let us look at some possibilities…

As can be seen from the above table, from the age of 45 onwards you are able to create a big source of additional income by just planning and investing Rs10,000 per month in equity SIP today. That is how simple it is to create a regular stream income by planning early. Of course, we do not know which stocks will give high dividend yields at that point in time so we have considered the quality high dividend stocks at this point in time. Above all, this approach is also tax efficient as you only have to pay 10% tax on dividends above Rs.1 million in a fiscal year.

This is another way of ensuring regular income for a period of time. Let us say, you are uncomfortable with the idea of investing in high dividend yield stocks as they generally do not give price appreciation. Also, there is no assurance on dividend yields as dividends may fall if the profits of the company fall. Another way out is to invest the money into a debt fund and pay yourself through an SWP. Let us assume that you did the same SIP and ended up with Rs.1.41 crore at the age of 45. Now you want to pay yourself a regular income for a period of 15 years till your retirement. Here is how it will work.

As can be seen from the above table, the corpus of Rs1.41 crore has been invested in a debt fund that conservatively yields around 9.75% per annum. So the idle money earns debt fund yields while a portion of the corpus is withdrawn each month for a period of 15 years till the age of 60. For simplicity, we have considered annual periods but the annual SWP of Rs.18,27,000 will translate into monthly income of around Rs1,52,250. Additionally, since the withdrawal is structured as an SWP, the capital gains tax will only apply on the return portion and not on the principal portion which makes this method a lot more popular and tax efficient.

The moral of the story is that to create regular income, you do not need to look too far. Your own monthly SIP can be used to create multiple streams of income for yourself. Of course, the earlier you start, the better off you will be.