How else are you going to take that 3-month mini-retirement in your dream Thailand yoga retreat? We have prepared more than 50 possible ideas for passive income to get your imagination flowing and your entrepreneurial juices flowing! Here goes…
1. REAL ESTATE OWNERSHIP
One of the oldest ways to get a passive income is through owning property, such as an apartment, a house or similar. It is completely passive and only involves regular cleaning and maintenance activities during the year which, in most cases, you won’t do yourself. The money comes from renting the property on a weekly, monthly or daily basis in the case of serviced apartments. This freedom is the reason why many people decide to get into property investment. If you are willing to try any type of investment in real estate, read these tips for beginners.
2. CROWD-FUNDED REAL ESTATE
When you want to invest in property but lack an amount of capital, perhaps crowd-funded real estate is a good solution. If you don't own any property, you can apply through many crowdfunding platforms and get your investment into some property. Check Realty Shares or Property Moose to get more info.
3. USE AIRBNB OR HOMEAWAY TO RENT A ROOM OR YOUR HOUSE
Using your free space in your house or apartment and making it rentable can bring you secure money each month. That is possible through Airbnb and all you have to do is set up your space and become an Airbnb host. You can do the same for your entire home if desired. Both Airbnb and HomeAway.com offer this possibility.
4. LET SOMEONE CAMP ON YOUR LAND
Do you live in a picturesque area? Perhaps somewhere popular with tourists. Did you know you can rent a spot in your garden for a tourist to pitch their tent and sleep for the night?
Well, you can! Camp in My Garden is one such platform you can sign up to.
5. RENT OUT STORAGE SPACE
If you own any big property that you don't use, you can make it huge storage and rent it out for any number of storage purposes. Indeed, sometimes people invest in big spaces for this very purpose and after some time they become their passive income. For a clearer understanding, read why storage units are considered one of the best income streams.
6. GET DIVIDENDS FROM INVESTMENT
Buying shares and investing in stock can make you earn enough money by just receiving the dividends from the investments. It has its risks and takes a lot of investigation at the beginning and, of course, a certain sum of money, but it can pay off in the future. Some websites, like StockBrokers, offer quality and quantity reviews for the stock market, and they might be a good start.
7. PEER-TO-PEER LENDING INVESTMENT
Lending is a good way to increase the amount of money you have, and this way will net you bigger rates, without any bank fees. As an investor, you lend money to other people interested to borrow and then receive it in return at a higher interest rate than you could hope to get from the bank. A good start is this blog, which will help you to get into the topic in more detail.
8. ANNUITY
Monthly or yearly investing in an insurance fund can help you receive a certain amount of money when you retire. You choose the period you want to receive the money and the investment you would give, but people usually decide to receive annuities during their pension years. If you have any doubts, read about the possibilities annuities can bring to you.
9. INVEST AS A SILENT PARTNER
We all have friends or people we know with great business ideas. If you find those ideas inspiring and sustainable, you can help the owners with an investment as a silent partner and start earning money when they develop their business.
10. INVEST WITH ROBO-ADVISORS
There is one special type of investment that is fully automatized through programs called robo-advisors. With robot programs, you can specify your investment wishes and capacities and let the fully automated system search for investment opportunities. Betterment is one such company providing such opportunities. Also, the likes of Wealth front can help you with developing a good investment strategy and reduce the risks that can occur at the beginning of an investment process.
11. CREATE SAVINGS
The traditional way of "collecting" money in your bank account (or even under your bed if you are old school) is a totally passive process that can lead to creating a fund for use in future investment. Online banks have better opportunities with interest rates for creating such funds, but given previous financial crashes, stuffing notes under the mattress starts to look more attractive! If you think you are not very good at saving, look at these 8 tips and start today.
12. CASHBACK REWARDS ON CREDIT CARDS
We all go shopping every day, and the opportunity to get cash back when you buy with a credit card is something really worth doing. Once you have set the cashback rewards, they only bring you income when you pay with your cards. And that is all that you need to do. Interested in maximizing cashback rewards? Check out Forbes’ advice.
13. CASHBACK REWARDS ON CASHBACK SITES
When you shop online, one of the best things you can do is use cashback sites and get rewards for doing a regular thing - shopping. It’s pretty easy because all you have to do is just a few more clicks. Check out Elates for more info on cashback opportunities.
14. SELL ICE CREAM OR BETTER STILL ORGANISE SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT
What do you desire more, during summer, than ice cream? Be in the right place at the right time, and it could increase your earnings a lot, allowing you to spend less time working in the off season. If you think we are stretching the meaning of passive income here, then employ somebody else to do it and take a modest cut. Rally, we want to illustrate that opportunism has a part to play in earning passive income. There are always things you can start and farm out to others to actually do the legwork.
15. OWN A VENDING MACHINE OR LAUNDROMAT
Just as with owning an ice cream stand, having vending machines around the city or laundromats is not so passive unless other people do most of the work for you. However, it requires relatively little maintenance and an activity that is not a daily job. Also, it brings extra money and if it develops it can become serious business. Thinking about this business? Read this article.
16. RENT EQUIPMENT YOU OWN
If you own any interesting equipment like audio, video equipment or something with a high-value that most regular folks do not own, you can rent it out and do nothing. With a few ads online, you can have an income, while people come to you to take the equipment and come back to you to return it. Make a list of all possible stuff you can rent and start today!
17. DROP-SHIPPING
Going to the trouble of creating a website, marketing and selling something that somebody else has produced is not passive work on the face of it, but it can be if you are, for example, working in marketing. It's not so hard these days to throw up a website and even an e-commerce site through the likes of squarespace.com. Once the business is set up and running the processes involved can easily be outsourced so drop-shipping can transform nicely to passive income. So check all starting points you need to do before you get into it.
18. OWN A PARTY SPACE SUCH AS A MARQUEE
All your job when you own equipment such as a marquee for parties or celebrations is to transport it to the people who have rented it. They may even come to you and pick it up if you want to make it more passive. The most important thing here is marketing, and you can sit on your couch and wait for the money to come, after renting. Do you like the idea? Read this step-by-step guide and start your own business plan!
19. POST A COMMERCIAL ON YOUR CAR
Renting your car window and door for an ad is one more way to earn certain amounts of money. You can check Carvertise and see how everything works.
20. EARN MONEY THROUGH PLATFORMS BY DOING WHAT YOU USUALLY DO ONLINE
If you like watching videos, researching online or some other stuff you do almost every day, then you can earn money very simply – just doing that. Platforms like Inbox dollars and Swagbucks have these possibilities, but before you start us – make sure they are totally legit!
21. SCAN A GROCERY RECEIPT AND EARN MONEY
We all shop for groceries nearly every day and when we get the receipts, we can earn money through several apps just by scanning them. Click here to learn how to earn from grocery receipts.
22. DRIVE FOR UBER AND MAKE MONEY
Imagine that you can drive your car to your usual destinations and make money for that just by picking up other people going in the same direction? That is possible with Uber and it's totally passive because you are doing the things you already would do.
23. BECOME A REFERRAL SOURCE IN YOUR FIELD
If you think you can help someone to sell his services or goods through your business, website or blog you can become a referral source. If you are an influencer in your community, you can help a business grow by referring others to their services and goods. Every referral can bring you a certain amount of money depending on what you agree with the business or person you're promoting.
24. WRITE AN E-BOOK
Of course, it takes time in the beginning to write an e-book. Keep in mind that an e-book can be from just a few pages to hundreds. When you finish publication, depending on the topic, you can receive royalties from selling your book online years after it was published. There are several platforms you can publish and sell your e-books, for example; Fiverr, Amazon, Blurb. Check these sites and find your starting point.
25. WRITE A FEW KINDLE BOOKS
Fancy yourself as a novelist? Amazon’s very powerful publishing platform, Kindle, is a place where you can publish your own books and start earning money from them. Make sure the topic is popular, the content is authentic and note: you don't need to be a writer. Kindle is not under the e-book topic because it requires special formatting and conditions, so check them here.
26. BUY A WEBSITE OR BLOG
Buying already established websites or blogs with specific traffic can give you a good starting point for developing a business. You can either develop business for profit or increase the current traffic and resell it. Flippa is a good place for looking at such websites and domains.
27. CREATE A BLOG AND MARKET IT
To create a blog and start earning from it requires many skills and knowledge and also the not so passive activity of creating it and making it profitable. Once it is established, however, there are many possible ways to get a passive income rather than active income from it. Posting quality pictures, sharing your content on social media and create the bound relationship with your readers are just a few of many ways that can help your blog be the recognizable and good basis for marketing ideas, such as Google Adsense or Affiliate marketing. A lot of the process can be “automated” and outsourced thus getting some way to doing what you want to do an earning that passive income.
28. EMAIL MARKETING
Another type of online marketing that can get an additional passive income is email marketing. By sending emails for products and informing people to buy you can get additional income. One good example of passive email marketing is just sending affiliate offers through an email network which is even better if you have platforms where you have gathered many subscribers and you got a good email base. You can also put in the hours (or pay someone else to do it) in creating a valuable network of high worth individuals through lead generation or networking through LinkedIn, although of course, it is difficult to be credible in doing the latter.
29. NETWORK MARKETING
Network marketing includes developing a network of people working for you and selling your products. One of the best examples is the Avon company for this type of marketing. In the beginning, you need to provide all the resources, but after the network itself grows and at the same time it grows your earnings.
30. AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate marketing is something like a referral. You offer other people’s products and expect to earn a certain commission from the purchase or sign up. If you are into some topic and have relevant platforms, you can sell products or services from other people and get your own earnings from that or you can create an affiliate platform. If you are new in this, we suggest a beginner’s start.
31. MAKE YOUTUBE VIDEOS OR TUTORIALS
Filming a video and posting it online with the many millions of people who can watch it, is something that can genuinely create passive income. Of course, you have to generate enough views, but there are a lot of possibilities to earn money.
32. CREATE ONLINE COURSES AND WEBINARS
Setting up the right course on the right online platform, and with a popular topic, can make you increase your earnings long-term just with a bit of hard work at the beginning. Every purchase of a course or webinar earns you royalties from it and if you get the topic right you can keep earning from one course for a long period of time. Check Learn Words and Teachable for a good start in the world of selling courses.
33. GOOGLE ADSENSE
If you own a website, blog or Youtube channel you can add Google Adsense and allow ads to show on your platforms. Depending on the traffic you have this can give you a decent income, although it is fair to say that web users are more and more inured to adverts.
34. CREATE COMPARISON, GUIDE SITE OR LIBRARY SITE
These kinds of web sites can bring you a lot of traffic over time and help you earn with various online advertising techniques and if the niche and content are good, it doesn't necessarily take too much upkeep. We all use comparison sites for example, so this is an ongoing investment with a great chance of remaining active for many years.
35. BUILD A STORE FOR YOUR OWN OFFLINE SELLING BUSINESS
Do you have you a successful offline business? Create a store in the online world and start earning money from the same business both online and offline. There are a lot of things that need to be done, like shop website, marketing, before you start operating but it is relatively simple these days with the likes of Shopify.
NOW, WHAT?
Have you found another way of making passive income? Perhaps you rent out your apple trees to a cider maker? Whatever it is let us know!
If not I hope this has given you some ideas on how to increase your income and go some way to creating the quality of life you are looking for.
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