Editorial Team
The Covid Pandemic has had many difficult lessons in it, and one of those lessons includes the fragility of relying on a single source of income. Not only did people lose their jobs, but many had difficulty finding new sources of revenue.
So what are some ways to ensure income without the need to be active daily? We share the best passive income ideas to date.
What Are the Benefits of Having Different Streams of Passive Income?
- Having different streams of income ensures you have some form of income coming in. You may lose a job, but if you have different revenue streams you aren’t necessarily in trouble.
- Passive income is also perfectly named because it’s about making money passively, that is, your revenue isn’t based on being active. You can be making money while you’re asleep, or on vacation.
- Multiple streams of income also have the benefit of feeding off of each other. It takes a bit of capital and time to create these multiple revenue sources, but once they are up and running, one can aid in the building and reliability of the next.
8 Passive Income Ideas to Make Money Online Easily
These are 8 of the best passive income ideas, all of which you can perform from your home.
Keep in mind some of these ideas require some investments to start, whether they’re financial investments or time investments, but the goal of passive income is to grow wealth over time reliably, not to make money immediately.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to make a passive income if you build a personal website, YouTube channel, or blog. You act as an affiliate for a product or company through your particular brand, essentially marketing their product.
If a customer purchases a product that was advertised or presented through your source (i.e. website, Youtube channel, etc.) you then make a percentage of that money. This is a fantastic way to make money even when you’re sleeping as people can purchase products marketed on your website any time of day.
Many companies look for affiliates since your particular audience or followers may match their demographic.
For instance, if you own a blog where you discuss fitness, a protein bar company may reach out to you to place ads on your website. You make money from their product, and they ensure their marketing is focused on individuals who are likely to buy the product.
Win-win!
Rental Income
This source of income takes a fair amount of investment. You purchase a property to then rent out. This source of income is great if you have reliable tenets, as you are making a monthly income.
The biggest downside to this source of income is that repairs, and vacancies can result in a loss, but the nicer the place, the more you can charge, and the more you can make passively.
Start a Dropshipping Business
This method is an easy start and doesn’t take too much capital to initiate.
The way dropshipping works is that you can act as the middleman between a company that’s trying to sell a product and the customer. You’re essentially starting your own e-commerce business.
The one downside is that it’s a bigger time investment. Marketing is important so people can know about your store and it may take some time for the business to catch on.
You also need to rely on shipping, and getting that set up and working with that may become more of a time investment than what you’re looking for.
Sell Digital Products
If you aren’t interested in selling physical products you can always sell digital ones. Digital products include MP3s, PDFs, and other digital streaming products.
This is a good way to sell your own art or music, but it can be difficult since you are competing against a lot of people who give their work away for free. You have to ensure that you pump the digital product enough for people to want to buy it.
Create an Online Course
Since the dawn of SkillShare, online courses have really taken off. It gives you the ability to easily create an account and share your knowledge with the world.
For a website like SkillShare, you generally make money for each view you receive for your course.
So you can film an hour-long course about something that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, post it, and hopefully people will learn from you, and you will make money from them.
Write an ebook
Writing an ebook can allow you to work from home, and there are many venues where you can upload your book. You can use an ebook creator tool to make it more interactive.
If you have no idea where to start, ask yourself a couple of questions:
- Are you creative? Maybe there’s a story you’ve had kicking around in your head for a while that’s longing to get onto the page – the digital page, that is.
- Do you have any knowledge that you can give to people? Writing an ebook is a good way to spread your knowledge to the world. Experience in marketing or financial advice is especially coveted by the public.
Keep in mind that writing an ebook and expecting a reliable income from it is difficult. Part of getting an ebook sold is also marketing it so people know about it.
If you already have a blog or an online presence, you have a leg up, but if you’re starting from scratch, this may be more difficult.
Invest in Stock Market
This form of passive income has become popular in the past couple of years with the founding of apps such as Robinhood and eToro. These apps allow you to take part in the stock market from your phone.
There are a couple of ways to make income through this method, one is to just invest in stocks, ETFs, and Bonds.
It’s highly suggested to invest in the stock market even if you aren’t interested in passive income. Taking part in the stock market allows you to let your money work for you instead of keeping it in a bank where it accumulates little or no interest.
Investing in the stock market can run its risks, as well. It’s suggested you do the proper research and possibly seek the assistance of someone who knows what they’re doing if you want to diversify and ensure you don’t run too high of a risk.
If you’re willing to take risks, trading options are a good path to making income. This is where to pay a premium in the hopes of buying stocks at a particular price in the future. You don’t even need to exercise your options in order to make money.
Ensure you do the proper research before you invest in stocks or trade options as there is a risk of losing your entire investment.
REITs
REITs or Real Estate Investment Trusts allow everyday people like you or me to invest in real estate and make money from their return.
This is great, especially for your community. Invest in a business or particular building development to help bring something new to your neighborhood, and you can benefit from their success.
These operate through companies that are active on the stock market, so that’s how the investment is made. The way you make money is through the dividends, which are typically paid out on a quarterly basis, and capital growth.
Conclusion
There are many different ways to make a passive income these days, and all of them have their perks, but with that comes their difficulties.
A lot of these best passive income ideas require some time and investment, but if you put in the time and care they can become the path to making money while you sleep.
Bio: Georgi Todorov is the founder of ThriveMyWay, a place for online entrepreneurs, bloggers, SEO specialists, and freelancers to find success in their own way.
LinkedIn: Georgi Todorov
Twitter: @GeorgiTodorovBG