Every time I see an Instagram post telling me to “buy five vending machines and you’ll be rich,” I feel two things:
- Admiration for the hustle.
- Relief that I don’t have to live that life.
Yes, vending machines can generate income. So can rental properties. So can a dozen other low-effort, high-hassle income schemes that get packaged as passive for clicks. But if you peel back the stickers and look at the underlying mechanics, they’re all doing the same thing:
They’re taking your capital and slowly grinding it down in exchange for cash flow.
The vending machine rusts. The tenant breaks the lease. The roof leaks. The machine jams. The lawn needs mowing. There’s always some form of decay. Some form of stress.
That’s not a bug. That’s the price of income.
So when people hear that OppenFolio uses high-yield ETFs that suffer from something called “NAV decay,” their first reaction is usually panic.
“You’re losing money! It’s giving you your own capital back! This thing is broken!”
And I get it. I really do.
But here’s the thing: NAV decay is just the financial equivalent of rust. And once you see it that way, the rest of the argument falls into place.
Every Income Stream Has Its Version of Decay
Vending machine breaks? That’s asset depreciation.
Tenant ghosts? That’s rental loss and legal costs.
Property taxes go up? That’s yield erosion.
Even a high-yield savings account loses value to inflation if rates can’t keep up.
So why do we treat NAV decay like it’s a disqualifier, when it’s just another form of capital impairment? Especially when it comes with liquidity, transparency, and total control?
The answer is simple: because NAV decay is abstract.
You don’t see it on a broken lock or a bounced rent check.
You see it on a graph.
And for most people, graphs feel worse.
Cold Math, Warm Money
The whole point of OppenFolio was to sidestep chaos. I didn’t want a side hustle that involved peanut butter in the coin return or midnight calls from a property manager. I wanted income. Without drama.
So I wrote some scripts.
They allocate capital across ETFs with aggressive distribution yields, yes.
But they also monitor NAV trends, volatility, correlation, and decay.
They rebalance. They exit. They rotate. The math isn’t infallible, but it’s tireless. And emotionless.
And for what it’s worth, it works.
It pulls in real money. Grocery money. Utility-bill money. And it does it without drywall, compressors, or inventory.
Why You Don’t See This on Instagram
Because it doesn’t sell.
You can’t show Python code in a Reel and go viral.
You can’t shoot a TikTok of NAV decay graphs and explain options premium compression in 15 seconds.
There’s no course to sell. No flashy lifestyle to emulate.
OppenFolio is just code and capital.
And unless you’re wired for abstraction, that sounds boring.
But if you’re the kind of person who’d rather write logic than unclog a vending chute, then this isn’t boring.
It’s freedom.
For a Certain Kind of Person
If you’re highly technical, financially literate, and already covered on long-term growth and housing, then you might be in the same spot I was.
You don’t need another job. You need a machine.
Not one you feed quarters into, or fix with WD-40. A system. A logic loop. Something you can trust to do what you designed it to do, without calls, crises, or clutter.
That’s what OppenFolio is.
Not perfect. Not permanent.
But, in its own way, more passive than anything with a lock and key.
So yeah. NAV decay exists.
But so does rust.
And I’d still rather lose a few basis points to math than spend my weekends restocking Diet Cokes.
Read the first post here: I Do Not Want to Own a Vending Machine
You can always reach me at [email protected] if you want to go deeper.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and reflects personal opinions, not financial advice. OppenFolio is not an investment advisory service. See site disclaimer for full details.