If you need some extra income or are sick of the nine-to-five grind, you might want to consider passive income ventures that you can do from home. A passive income stream has the potential to help you earn supplemental income, grow your portfolio, and even replace your main source of income over time.
Here’s what you need to know to make it happen:
What Is Passive Income?
Passive income involves making money without actively doing anything. Contrary to popular belief, passive income doesn’t mean that you don’t work at all. Instead, it means that you do the work upfront and profit from those assets thereafter.
Also, contrary to popular belief, passive income isn’t really a “get rich quick” scheme. Passive income requires time, effort, and patience in order to make money.
Why Do You Need Passive Income?
For most investors, passive income is supplemental income on top of a job. This supplemental income can help you meet financial or savings goals, for instance, paying for a new house, car, school, etc.
However, with enough effort and expertise, passive income may actually have the potential to reap the rewards and become more profitable than a regular job.
10 Best Passive Income Ideas
Here are ten side hustle ideas to help you get started with making passive income:
1. Sell Stock Photos
If you love photography, you may want to consider selling stock photos as a form of passive income. There are tons of stock photo sites out there looking for beautiful pictures to add to their collection of stock photos. Some examples to check out include iStockPhoto, Adobe Stock, and Shutterstock. From there, you will get paid a royalty every time your photo is used on one of these platforms.
Even though most of these platforms only offer small royalties that range from 15 to 50% of the total commission, the more photos you post on these websites, the more likely you are to prosper over an extended period of time.
2. Sell Designs
If photography isn’t your thing, but you still want to get your creative juices flowing, you could try selling your designs online. Similar to selling photos, this involves creating eye-catching designs that you then sell to websites like CafePress and Zazzle.
These designs can be used on anything from notebooks to t-shirts to coffee mugs and everything in between. Whenever a customer on one of these sites chooses your design, you’re paid a small commission.
This is a great option if you’re able to keep up with design trends and current events to take advantage of a constantly changing market.
3. Sell Informational Materials
If you’re a good writer and have a specific area of expertise, you may want to consider creating and selling informational materials online. For instance, you could write an eBook, record an audiobook, or create a video course.
This model can work for anyone from talented writers to experienced travelers to professional language teachers.
Using platforms like Skillshare and Coursera, you can post and sell your informational materials for a specified price. And while these platforms will take a percentage of your profits, you get to set a price that will make it worth your while.
4. Affiliate Marketing
If you have an established social media following, you might want to consider affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves posting a link for a product and getting a small commission each time someone clicks on the link and makes a purchase.
This commission usually ranges from 3 to 7%, but this approach can be profitable if you have a large following or are involved in a specific niche with particularly valuable products.
5. Flip Products
Another interesting way that you can earn passive income is to “flip” products online. Flipping products involves finding and buying cheap retail products and then selling them for higher prices on platforms like eBay or Amazon.
Amazon’s platform is particularly appealing since it offers fulfillment services wherein you ship the items to Amazon and send the items to customers after being purchased.
Depending on how cheap you can get your products, you can earn a lot of money by flipping. However, you will likely have to sacrifice a portion of your profits to the selling platform — and even more, if you’re outsourcing fulfillment.
6. Sell Used Products
On the other hand, if you already have tons of things lying around the house that you don’t use anymore, you could also sell these items online. So check out your cabinets and closets for any unnecessary items that you could potentially sell.
This method of passive income is truly a win-win scenario — you earn money and clean your house in the process.
There are tons of different platforms for you to list your products, including Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, and more.
7. Rent Out Your House
Real estate investing is one of the best ways to earn passive income if you’re able. Perhaps you have an extra room or even a basement that you can rent out. Or perhaps you have some extra cash that you can use to invest in purchasing a rental property. From there, you can choose to rent these spaces out on a short-term or long-term basis.
For the former, rental platforms like Airbnb and VRBO allow you to list your space, set prices and specific dates. For the latter, you should screen your tenants and consider using a property management company if you don’t want to undertake all the work that comes with being a landlord.
8. Rent Out Your Car
If you don’t want to rent out your house, you could also consider renting out your car. This is particularly beneficial if you’re in a larger urban area where lots of people don’t have cars.
Platforms like Turo allow you to set prices and availability for your vehicle. They also offer insurance to protect your vehicle in the event of accidents on the road.
9. Create Digital Content
If you’re social media and internet-savvy and want to take advantage of the digital world, you could create digital content to earn passive income. For instance, you could start an online blog and earn money from advertisers.
On the other hand, you could start a YouTube channel — creating content within a niche and earning money from partners once you’ve established a following. You can also do this on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where brands are always looking to partner with “influencers” to promote their products to a specific audience.
10. Invest Your Money
Finally, the last way that you can earn passive income is to invest your money and let the market do all the work. Specifically, you need to invest in dividend stocks to earn passive income since these companies will pay you cash dividends on a quarterly basis based on how much profit they earn and how many shares you own. You can start earning passive income by investing with companies like Here or LifeGoal.
The Final Rundown on Passive Income
Many of these ideas have the potential to earn you a lot of money if you are diligent enough and employ the right approach. If you’re still not quite sure what the right approach is, reach out to business expert Greg Gillman for tailored advice and expertise to help you launch the right venture and grow from there.
Sources:
Passive Income Definition | Investopedia
Passive Income and Why You Need to Know About It | Forbes
15 Passive Income Ideas to Help You Make Money in 2021 | Bankrate
