<prompt> Human: I just turned 32 on Sunday. Ive been trading stocks for seven years. Five of which were highly successful, but the last two have been absolutely awful. I think its the combination of politics and economy and my own personal anxiety about money that is causing me to trade with desperation.Anyway, I dont know what to do for money. I work for myself from home. I dont have clients and I have no interest in clients. I love my schedule. I break every day around noon to go to the gym. I love to cook and bake, and I have a side hustle online t-shirt business and I write books two self published so far and screenplays for fun.But I need a stream of income that does not worry me. I thought about buying some income properties or at least one to start, but the combination of condo fees insurance mortgage would leave me little to no profit leftover.There are people in my neighborhood who cat-sit and dog walk. I did that in my teens and feel like its a personal big step backwards. I know it isnt. Its my own personal hang up.I do not want a traditional 9-5 job. I LOVE my schedule as it is. Its mine. I work in my boxers if I want to. I go out for lunch at 2:30pm if I want to. I dont report to anyone or have to bring my work home with me. I can play video games at 4pm on the dot if its been a quiet day on Wall St and I want to.I do not want to change my entire life around. I just need some additional revenue stream so when the stock trading isnt working, Im not terrified of eating into my personal savings.I do online surveys, but they dont pay very much and I usually just take payment in the form of gift cards to the movies or starbucks so I can have some little luxuries. Its not very much money.I dont want to hear that I should go back to school or take classes because that is not the issue or the problem. A degree in business will open me up to work traditional 9-5 business jobs. I dont want traditional and I dont want a total lifestyle change.Im sure there are other people who are financially struggling and feel lost. Id love feedback or suggestions or ideas.  <response>: Hello, there. Welcome to the Adult World. Here in the Adult World, there are two things that can be exchanged for income streams:1. Labor2. CapitalYou have ruled out the first, at least in any traditional way. Those dog walkers can make some income, so can Uber drivers, but neither is going to be terribly much as they are more-or-less unspecialized labor, which is not highly valued in this Adult World that you now inhabit. You might have some specialized skills that could result in being an independent contractor in other ways, but contract writing doesnt pay terribly much either, for instance.Now, you already have some experience with the second, but without more information, it is hard to give you any specific advice. The easiest way to exchange capital for income is to exchange Financial Capital aka money for the income stream of a business or real asset, which is what those stocks youre trading are. So, just buy a bunch of them and hold them, and you will get dividends that are a pretty stable income stream, although one subject to market fluctuation. You can also exchange that financial capital for, say, government bonds for a smaller, yet even more stable, income stream. Generally, one can get a stable 4 income stream after inflation, so if you need 40,000yr, all you need to do is to invest 1,000,000 of your money in a diversified portfolio and boom, youre good to go! Dont have 1M? As I said, welcome to the Adult World.If you dont have financial capital, as I suspect is the case, then intellectual capital is the other option. Selling your business, expanding it, or actually selling the books you wrote in a serious way are all ways to exchange intellectual capital for income, but I suspect if they were good enough youd have done so already.So, that leaves you few options. Not sure what you wanted to hear, because if there was some magical way of getting a stable income stream without labor or capital, everyone on the planet would be doing it. So it looks like its time to grow up and join the rest of us in the Adult World, or learn how to put your emotions in a box when you trade.edit: Personally, as an aside, I spent a few months as a professional prop discretionary trader, and was actually pretty good. If I kept at it I probably would have little issue making a few grand per day trading futures. But its fucking miserable on the days I ended up down 15k, and being a quant trader who puts on pants and a shirt and goes to an office and works with other people for a salary and bonus was far more stable mentally and financially. 