Active vs. Passive Income: Striking a Balance

Florence Bett’s story reminds us that active income depends on showing up and working, while passive income builds wealth over time with less day-to-day effort. Professionals can use this as a cue to explore passive income streams like investing, writing books, or creating online courses. For parents, it’s an opportunity to model financial responsibility by discussing saving, investing, and diversifying income sources with your family.

Active versus passive income

BY FLORENCE BETT-KINYATTI

@_craftit

fbett@ke.nationmedia.com

I’m writing this
on a Sunday afternoon, at those hours when time takes on a sluggish stubborn
quality. I am home alone with our new-born baby – she’s sleeping in the next
room. The rest of the family – my husband, GB, and our other two children – are
out somewhere burning the day away.

I had hurried
them out the door with a continuous announcement that I needed to nap. I said
it so many times that it turned into a rap song.

But I’m not
napping, as you can tell. I’m writing this story that will run in the newspaper
perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the Monday after, I’m not sure. I’m hoping to
complete it and file it with the editor before the deadline. (Marion, the
editor, is also a mum, so she gets where I’m coming from. Don’t you, Marion?)

It’s absurd – and
a little unfair – that I’m working instead of resting but the truth is, I need
the money from this column: I have a loan with our Nation Sacco that must be
paid off every month. Plus I need to carry on with my savings. The money for
these two pursuits comes directly from these words you’re reading right now.

I hear you asking
me, “But Bett, you had nine months to plan your finances and write articles in
advance of your maternity leave. You could have afforded yourself time off to
rest and recover. So why didn’t you?”

You ask a sincere
question, my concerned reader. You do. It’s because pregnancy hormones shut the
right side of my brain down. I wasn’t able to write copy on deadline, let alone
every week. You may have noticed that I was missing from this space one or two
Mondays.

My left side, the
non-creative/logical side, was working just fine. But this is a column that
asks for words, not numbers.

And so here I am
on this Sunday afternoon – I am actively working instead of actively resting. I
need to show up here for the next couple of weeks so I can earn and eat. If I
don’t show up, I won’t make money to pay off my loan and keep up with my
savings.

I do have another
income stream though, one that doesn’t require me to show up to earn. Catch up
about it next week, Inshallah?

Florence Bett is the author of two
best-selling books about money and affirmations for wealth.