Passive income can be a great supplementary source of funds for many people, and it can prove to be an especially valuable lifeline during a recession or during other tough times, such as the government lockdown imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Passive income can keep some money flowing when you lose a job or otherwise experience some financial hardship.
If you’re worried about being able to save enough of your earnings to meet your retirement goals, building wealth through passive income is a strategy that might appeal to you, too.
1. Selling Digital assets
One popular strategy for passive income is creating an information product, such as an e-book, or an audio or video course, then kicking back while cash rolls in from the sale of your product. Courses can be distributed and sold through sites such as Udemy, SkillShare and Coursera.
Selling Information Products Tip: With this side hustle, focus on niches where people have a huge problem they need to solve. If you’re in the fitness niche, you can create a fitness workout course or a diet plan with a recipes ebook. If people are desperately trying to solve a burning problem, there’s an opportunity to provide value by helping them solve that problem. The content you create can guide them towards a solution. Best part: You could make money while helping people.
2. Rental Income
If you’re interested in making money in real estate but want more of a hands-on approach, renting out your vacation home, house, apartment, or even a single room can be a great way to earn passively.
Additionally, there are professional property managers who can manage your property for you, usually for around 10% of the monthly rent.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an income idea that requires you to have a website or platform you can use to promote other companies, or “affiliates.” When someone uses your affiliate link to purchase a product or sign up for a service, you get paid.
You can send emails containing your affiliate links to potential clients or start a blog to publish your ads, as well as use free tools on social media platforms to build your affiliate business.
Affiliate marketing has a high-income potential, and it involves almost zero/minimal investment. You only have to promote products that are in demand, you like are of good quality.
4. Get paid for your opinion
Did you know you can get paid to take online surveys? Right from the comfort of your couch, you could be earning money just by surfing the web. There are tons of great survey sites out there, and some of them give you a bonus just for signing up.
5. Sell Goods on eBay
To get started, you will need to set up an eBay store. Then you need to do research on items that you want to sell. As with everything, you don’t want to blindly purchase items to flip without any knowledge on that item. Some research that you need to do includes market price, profit margin and shipping/packaging.
How many streams of income should you have?
There is no “one size fits all” advice when it comes to generating income streams. How many sources of income you have should depend upon where you are financially, and what your financial goals for the future are. But having at least a few is a good start.
