I remember when I was first building up my side income, I would always think of what the monthly side income pays for.

Back then, my first source of side income is dividend income from stocks. The income was not a lot to begin with. If I recall correctly, the first dividend stocks I got was ST Engineering. I put in around $5000 and was getting about 3% dividend income yearly. That works out to be about $12 per month.

I think, back then, this dividend amount covered part of my monthly phone bill. The fact that my side income covered some of my monthly expenses motivated me to work harder on increasing my side income.  The thought is that one day I will be financially independent of my job when my side income is sufficient to cover all of my monthly expenses.

Today, my side income have grown to a much larger amount. It is now more than enough to cover my monthly