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.
People think passive income means no work needs to be done, but in most cases, there is lots of work involved, especially at the beginning. If you’re thinking about creating a passive income stream, here are some ideas:
1. Sell an Online Course
Create an audio or video course, then sell it online through sites such as Udemy, SkillShare and Coursera. Information products can deliver an excellent income stream, because you make money easily after the initial outlay of time. However, it takes a massive amount of effort to create the product and you need to be really good at what you are doing to be able to differentiate yourself online.
Nowadays, buying a property remotely from the comfort of your home is much simpler and affordable.
2. Property Rental
Perhaps the most common form of passive income is to buy a property and rent it out, thereby earning regular rental income. Most people think that you need to have a lot of money to be able to buy an investment property. This is true only if you are only looking at conventional bank financing, but many investors do dozens of deals a year using alternative financing techniques such as owner’s terms, lease optioning, money partners and hard money lenders.
Many people are also just looking at their current location when considering buying an investment property. Nowadays, with all the sophisticated online tools available for everyone, buying a property remotely from the comfort of your home, at a destination where properties are comparatively undervalued, is much simpler and affordable. For taking your first steps in real-estate investment in a guided environment, multiple online venues are available.
One such resource is Project X, (www.projo.live) a project-based real estate investment training course that offers real-world industry experts, hands-on training and a community dedicated to helping you complete your first real-estate project. Project X was developed with one of the world’s leading property investment gurus-Robert Shemin. ‘Learning by doing’ step-by-step instruction, coupled with mentors and collaborations among like-minded learners takes real estate from beginners to Pro investors. Project X’s live online events, meetups, real estate and entrepreneurship skill sets and access to a global network of real estate investors, supports property investment, from start to finish.
3. Buy Shares of Dividend Paying Companies
Owning dividend-yielding stocks can be one of the most passive forms of making money. Shareholders in companies with dividend-yielding stocks receive a payment at regular intervals from the company. Companies pay cash dividends on a quarterly basis out of their profits, and all you need to do is own the stock. Dividends are paid per share of stock, so the more shares you own, the higher your pay-out. The tricky part is choosing the right stocks as you’ve got to investigate each company’s website and be comfortable with their financial statements, but online trading mobile-apps such as DEGIRO allow you to open an account and trade online comparably cheaper than through traditional brokers, and provide ample tools for analysis and research.
It can be one of the most passive forms of making money.
4. 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. Amazon might be the most well-known affiliate partner, but eBay, Awin and ShareASale are among the larger names, too. Affiliate marketing is considered passive because, in theory, you can earn money just by adding a link to your site or social media account. In reality, you won’t earn anything if you can’t attract readers to your site to click on the link and buy something.
5. Sell YouTube Ads
We’ve all heard about successful YouTubers, some as young as 4 years old, that are making millions from their videos. How do they do it? For every thousand impressions of an ad that is played per video, the Youtuber will get paid a certain amount of money. These can typically range between one to five dollars. YouTubers that attract significant volumes of followers may also receive kick-backs from promoting various merchandise and through affiliate links.
6. Write a Book or a Song
Authors and composers who have written successful books and songs enjoy royalty income whenever their book sells or their song is played on the radio/online. Of course, your book or song must be very successful to earn significant royalties, but in today’s online world, e-books and digitalised music can be more easily distributed, giving your creation a target audience of many millions of people.
For most people, passive income is just a supplementary cashflow to their day job, but if you really want passive income to become your primary source of wealth, get in touch and we can guide you on how to achieve this.