Most passive income ideas will either generate poor returns or
consume lots of your time (not very passive!). So the question is…what
really works?
I’ve spent 100s of hours thinking about all sorts of crazy ideas for making passive income online…
From the
smart ideas
like an online course to the dress-me-in-the-white-jacket ideas like
writing articles for adsense, I’ve thought about pretty much every
passive income stream there is.
During this time the one thing I wanted more than anything else, was
a big fat epic list of ALL the possible passive income streams there were.
Everything in one place so I could compare them and work out what was best for me.
Unfortunately no one has – even till this day – made a complete list.
So I spent the last week getting loaded on strong Ethiopian espresso
and compiling every different income stream from my head, my notes and
the world wide interwebs!
Enjoy!!
PS if you want to cut to the chase you can get access to
3 of my favorite ideas right here >
What is passive income?
When I say passive income, I’m talking about what happens
after you do the hard work up front.
ie first you need to haul ass and do something
crazy, eg write a quality 20,000 word ebook (insanely not passive
hahahah), but then you get to sit back and enjoy seeing PayPal sale
messages pop up on your iPhone each morning as sale after sale after
sale is made…on an ongoing basis and without any additional work. That’s
some seriously Pina Colada flavored passive goodness!
As you can see passive income streams simply come from assets, and
assets are either bought with money (eg rental property) or in the case
of most of the ideas below, bought through sweat (eg ebook)!
Let’s get started…
The much loved model for bloggers and content creators everywhere and
for a good reason…it’s pretty easy to write a 60-80 page ebook, not
hard to
sell say $500 worth a month through online
networking, guest posting and your own SEO optimized blog, and well you
get to keep a large whack of the pie after paying affiliates. Hells
yeah!
Continue reading >
Who doesn’t like some down and dirty affiliate fees?! It’s
even easier to make money this way
than with an ebook, because all you need to concentrate on is pumping
out the content for your own site and getting the traffic in – most
people can get an affiliate sale within 30 days of starting a blog.
Continue reading >
We’re talking a members-only multimedia-driven website here. Straight up I have to say,
this is a looooot of work. I’ve done it and it nearly killed me.
Continue reading >
I really like this idea, but must confess I’ve never earned passive income from a setup like this before.
I’ll be putting something together soon though and really wanted to share this one with you.
Continue reading >
This idea is for those of you hell-bent on
making some serious passive income online.
There’s a lot of work upfront and by comparison to other ideas, there
can be a fair bit of work on an ongoing basis. But if you automate as
much as possible and/or hire a VA in the Philippines for example, you
can get it down to just a few hours a week.
Continue reading >
I want you to think very specific here…
I’m not talking about writing a blog on cats and inserting some Google Adsense up in there.
Continue reading >
You can make
$1000s a month with this idea, easily!
Think simple
Google-friendly content site with a high converting inquiry form for capturing details (maybe even a free report attached to that or something else to boost conversion).
Continue reading >
For this one it’s easiest if I give you an example I’m thinking of launching next month.
Build and SEO optimize a website for people looking to
convert 8mm home videos to DVD / USB.
Continue reading >
Oh hello bankruptcy!
Haha, nah apps aren’t that expensive to get made anymore. And if you
want to create a mainly info-based app there are plenty of easy to use
programs online for DIYing this for a couple hundred bucks.
Continue reading >
Joking!! Got you! These suck big time.
I’ve read so many blow-by-blow financial accounts of these businesses and in
no way can they add up to profit,
apart from the exceptional few business operators who are crafty at
selecting locations, negotiating deals with vendors and efficiently
outsourcing all the leg work and maintenance.
Continue reading >
This is so tried and true it’s not funny.
If you buy at the right price, at the right time,
structure the deal so it’s good for your personal taxes and achieve full
occupancy – and most importantly, then do this again and again – then
just pour yourself a freaking Pina Colada son, because you’ll be
retiring by 50.
Continue reading >
Hang on, I said that relying on Google adsense is mental above.
What’s changed?
Well, I think that getting the
traffic to a blog is a lot harder than getting views on You Tube these days,
because the text-based content world is so freaking full (and thus
crazy competitive), whilst the video world is so relatively empty since
most people are too shy to turn their prose into video.
Continue reading >
The first thought that pops into my mind is
web hosting and the second thought is mobile websites.
These are just two examples of the types of things you can resell to businesses (or people) in the real world.
Continue reading >
I really didn’t want to have to put this in as it’s oh so freaking unoriginal and boring, but hey it works sooooooo well.
In fact, if you
look at your average millionaire,
the majority of their income often comes from the dividends and capital
gains their investment portfolios spit out reliably every month.
Continue reading >
This is different to setting up a blog and putting up adsense on it.
With this idea instead, you write like a freaking nutjob and
distribute your content to one of dozens of high page rank content publishing platforms.
Continue reading >
Build a library of whatever your creative ass can muster and live off the royalties like a fat prince (well kind of).
From photos to icons to melodies, go nuts. Continue reading >
Whatever it is, from WordPress themes to online productivity tools to
a very industry-specific thing like an online billing service for
architects, this
could make you serious coin.
Obviously, you can get all the heavy lifting done by professionals,
and then you just sell the software online yourself through your own
marketing efforts.
Continue reading >
Obviously your monetization strategy here is Amazon affiliate links.
Now I know
Amazon pays sweet F all (say 5-10% on a book that sells for $10-$30), but a dollar here and there can add up…I think.
Continue reading >
This is a
very interesting idea for those of you who
think your own online store with drop shipping (where you take payment
and liaise with the supplier) or fulfilling orders yourself is too hard.
I hadn’t really thought about this idea until I came across an online bedding store recently.
Continue reading >
I’m thinking Canon 6D camera, photo booth, treadmills etc.
Obviously this is
not so passive and something’s
could be a biaaaatch to deal with (ie anything big that doesn’t fit in
your closet), but hey, this is just another form of rental income and
the ability to reap in rentals week after week is pretty cool.
Continue reading >
So the idea here is simple…
you build the website and do the online marketing, whilst someone else creates the info product, whether that be an ebook, online course, template or whatever. You go
50-50.
I love this idea and that’s why we’ve teamed up with a lawyer friend recently to create some
legal kits for online sale. Continue reading >
We’re
getting desperate with this one.
But who cares, I want this list to be comprehensive and all encompassing.
Continue reading >
What the f am I talking about?
Peer to peer lending is basically what the name says; you chuck a
bunch of cash into an online account and then divvy it up amongst dozens
of people looking for loans around the country. You lend say $25 to
each person (you and a couple 1000 other people together give that
person enough money for their loan).
Continue reading >
If you look at the success stories on Tim Ferris’s
4 Hour Work Week Blog, you’ll notice many of them involve
people who had a problem, couldn’t find an easy solution and so decided to just get a product manufactured themselves.
They’ve then gone and
setup a simple online store – many using
Shopify(store done in 2 hours!) – and spread the word through online networking, guest posts through an affiliate program.
Continue reading >
It sounds too good to be true, right?
Just stump up a couple thousand and then you have a cash-generating machine in your hands.
Continue reading >
In today’s world we don’t suffer from lack of information, we suffer
from lack of accessible information…the kind that is organized and easy
to use.
If you can organize an unwieldy body of knowledge into one tight, succinct set, you can charge for it like a mofo.
(I apologize for not setting a very good example with this
comprehensive and structured article on all the different passive income
streams around ;).
Continue reading >
If you’re not super excited about risking a bunch of capital to create and sell a product, but you
have ideas for products that fill real gaps in the market, you could become a freaking inventor.
This is a pretty nice passive way of earning recurring income over time.
Continue reading >
Now get the idea of creating the next Subway out of your head immediately.
I don’t want you to think so complex. I mean, Subway ain’t really
all that passive, since the system requires so much support from head
office; from food supply to leasehold to training, head office ain’t a
passive place to be.
Continue reading >
I kinda hate myself for including this as it’s not really going to net you much more than $1k a year in income so to speak, but hey, every dollar counts.
So the idea is so brain dead simple.
Continue reading >
How passive is this idea really?
Well, if you get someone to take care of the fulfillment side of things,
pretty passive. Continue reading >
Hello silent partner investment!!
Oh no! There are so
many horror stories of people investing in their mate’s pub or bar or whatever, that the idea sends shivers up my spine.
Continue reading >
This is gonna take some serious work, but
can pay off big time.
It’s important to think outside the box with this one and realize that any niche can work well with this.
Continue reading >
If you’ve got any design talent at all, this
can be a very cool idea.
Sites like
Cafepress make it
super simple to submit designs, which means just like with the stock
photography idea above, you can pump out a ton of designs in an
afternoon and leave them up there waiting for people to buy.
Continue reading >
Think nichey here.
The idea is to get a bunch of people involved, creating content
through forums and posts, and then sell them all kinds of products and
services
related to their interests.
Continue reading >
This ain’t going to be easy! But once again, think niches here.
The upfront work can involve a fair bit of programming, even if you
do use a lot of template and existing off-the-shelf programs.
Continue reading >
This is a popular passive income stream for lots of WordPress
developers, especially of plugins, and is also quite popular amongst
bloggers who pump out lots of useful content for free (eg Steve Pavlina)
– not to mention a great lead generator for future premium product
sales.
The idea rests on your product
adding a ton of value to users lives and you systematically and nicely / in a fun way, asking for donations.
Continue reading >
This is the craziest kind of passive income I can think of, because it basically
involves executing Michael Gerber’s e-Myth idea 110%…ie so much so, that you are no longer involved in the daily running of the business.
But it isn’t that hard.
Continue reading >
The average blog is like the average wardrobe…a complete fecking
mess; with gold nuggets of wisdom spread throughout 100s of articles.
How much
more useful would it be – to your reader – if you created a unified guide?
Continue reading >
This is different to the ‘fake store’ idea above, because here it’s not an online store we’re building, but rather
a content-rich site with tons of product-focused articles and videos etc.
ie one idea is for an online shop and the other for a blog/affiliate site of sorts.
Continue reading >
This is going to
make millions for those that get it right, but to be honest it’s not entirely passive.
The example that springs to mind with this idea, so I can really explain what I’m talking about here, is
Corbett Barr’s Fizzle.
Continue reading >
Kind of
like Mixergy, but for any niche!
You give away a ton of the content for free, and then charge for the premium stuff or for the latest stuff.
Continue reading >
Why the feck did I include this?
Well, because I am OCDing all over the joint and want to make this list uber complete.
Continue reading >
If you were knocking around on the Internet back in the early 1990s
you could have snapped up domains like business.com for next to nothing
(actually they were completely free prior to 1995!).
http://realpassiveincomeideas.com/43-best-passive-income-streams-opportunities/
24 Passive Income Ideas to Make Money While You Sleep
This article may contain affiliate links. Read our Disclosure Policy.
Those of us wanting to live and work outside the box and do something
over and above our 9-to-5 (or leave our 9-to-5 altogether) dream of a
life where passive income streams can fund our expenses and leave us
with hours of free time to do the things that we love and be with the
people we want to be with.
By choosing the right source or sources of passive income for you and
your family, you can spend your time the way you want to spend it
instead of the way you “have to” spend it.
Here are 24 ideas that might work for you.
1. Rental property income
Real estate is a great way to make money while you sleep. Because it
costs so much to purchase a home, make sure to thoroughly research your
area before buying a property. To get started making money with real
estate, consider using
AirBnb to rent out a room in your house first.
2. Product Design
Another way you can make passive income is by designing t-shirts and other products. Companies like
CafePress
allow you to upload your witty design ideas to their site and create
t-shirts, coffee mugs, laptop covers and a host of other products.
Shoppers then visit the site, peruse your vast array of products, and
when they purchase one of your designs, CafePress will pay you a portion
of the profits.
3. Peer-to-Peer Lending
P2P Lending has become a hot investment opportunity in recent years.
With ROIs often in the 6-10% range after defaults, socking 10k or more
into a peer-to-peer lending company such as
Lending Club
can net much higher income results than a typical savings or money
market account. It might be worth your while to do some research on this
popular passive income source.
4. Bond/CD Laddering
Bond and CD laddering involves owning several different bonds and/or
Certificates of Deposit that mature at several different times during
the year, and taking the profits from those investments as cash income
during the year. Although many CDs and bonds might not earn as much of a
return as a Peer to Peer lending investment, bonds and CDs also
generally come with little to no risk, ensuring a solid income source on
a regular basis. If this is a route that interests you,
check out Discover Bank as they are paying over 1% for just their savings accounts.
5. Shopping via Ebates
You have to shop anyway, so why not
use Ebates
to get a cash back refund on things you’d normally buy in the first
place? With their double cash back specials, you can double your passive
income earnings if the right items are on sale. The key to earning
successful passive income with shopping sites is to commit to buying
only what you’d buy otherwise from other source, and to ensure you’re
paying a competitive price on the products you buy.
6. Writing/selling e-books or regular books
Once the initial work of creating the book is done, and you’ve spent
some time developing an effective marketing plan, selling books can be a
great way to produce some serious residual income. My daughter and I
both have books available for sale on
Amazon
and each month we get a check from Amazon for doing absolutely nothing.
Obviously, the more time you spend marketing your books, the more money
you’ll make. If you’ve got great writing skills and an idea for a book
that will bring value to readers, consider delving into this sweet
passive income source.
7. Get out of debt
The less money you’re paying in interest to creditors, the more money
you have in your pocket each month. Talk about a simple form of passive
income.
Get out of debt quickly,
and then increase your income even more by investing the money you’re
no longer paying to creditors each month. Have high interest debt that
you want to get a lower interest rate on?
Go to SoFi to get a $100 cash back if you refinance your credit card debt.
8. Affiliate marketing & Ads
If you have a website already than this is a no brainer. There are people that are
making over $50,000 per month like Michelle who created
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
By producing valuable content and working to reach a wide audience,
readers will automatically produce income for you by clicking on ads
from and buying products via your affiliate product links. If you want
to make money from Ads on your site,
check out Media.net
as they tend to pay out higher than Adsense. Also, once your blog
increases in popularity, bigger companies will approach you about
sponsorship opportunities, which can also create passive income from
your blog.
I make over $1,000 per month with my website. Start your own website today for only a few dollars per month with Bluehost.
Get Started Now!
9. Dividend income
Dividend income is dividends paid to shareholders of publicly traded
stocks or mutual funds in the form of cash, stocks or properties.
Dividend paying stocks that pay cash are especially enticing for those
wishing to make a living with passive income, as they ensure a check in
the mail each quarter or so, provided the company continues to do well.
Even Warren Buffet loves to dabble in dividend paying stocks. Provided
you educate yourself and pick solid stocks and/or mutual funds, dividend
income can be a great source of passive income. If you dont have an
investment account, you can
start one with TradeKing and I love them because
trades are only $4.95.
10. App/software creation
If you know how to create computer software programs or applications, and can come up with some
unique ideas for mobile apps
or software that will help people make their work lives and/or home
lives run more efficiently, you’ve just found yourself a passive income
source. Every app on your phone is making money for somebody, somewhere.
Get in on the game and use your technical smarts to create a new app or
software program that will benefit the masses and make you some
recurring income in the process.
11. Create an online course
Online courses are a great source of passive income. Here’s how they
work: you create an awesome and highly beneficial online course that
helps people with any number of issues. This course can include videos,
e-books and emails with pertinent information. Customers sign up to
purchase the course, and your system automatically emails
them everything they need to access the course. You get money for the
price of the course you created and today’s computer automation does all
of the work. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom: money in your pocket. Need some
inspiration? Take a look at my very own online course called
Debt Free in 18 Months.
12. Create YouTube videos
Entrepreneurs everywhere are making money on YouTube by utilizing
their video creation with ads in place. Each time someone watches a
video you create, you earn money from YouTube. The key to success with
this type of passive income source is to create videos that are helpful,
such as instructional videos, entertaining and fun, or both. Although
this can take a lot of time up front, once the video is live there is
not much you need to do. Granted you probably will not make a living off
of just a few videos, so be prepared to make over 100 videos if you
really want this to take off.
13. Rent out a room in your house
Do you have an extra room that you never use? Why not rent it to someone looking for a short-term rental on
AirbNb. There
are millions of people using Airbnb to find a place to stay instead of
staying at a hotel, sometimes even for months at a time. While this is
not entirely passive income, it can take a little up front work but the
return is pretty amazing. You could even consider getting a maid service
to minimize the amount of time you spend on transitioning from one
guest to another.
14. Buy a vending machine business
A successful vending machine business can be a great way to make
passive income. The key is to find the right places to install your
vending machines. Check with smaller brick and mortar businesses that
have over 100 workers in the building on a daily basis, and see if they
have a need for vending machine services. Another key to vending machine
success? Ask those workers what items they prefer to have in the
vending machine and then stock accordingly. Once again, is you want to
reduce the amount of time that you are involved, consider hiring someone
to stock the machines for you.
15. Photo/illustration licensing
Got a knack for taking pictures or drawing amusing and useful illustrations? If so, partner up with a company such as
istockphoto.com and
send them your pictures and illustrations. Each time one of their
clients downloads one of your pictures or illustrations, you get a
royalty payment.
16. Start a business and have someone else run it
Owning a business can be a good passive income source, provided
you’ve got the right people running the business for you. Whether it be
through the purchase of an existing business or opening a new business,
your great business idea can be a viable source of passive income.
17. Rent your car for ad space
By allowing companies to place ad wraps on your car windows, you can
earn a few hundred dollars each month simply by driving your car as you
normally would. Companies such as
Free Car Media can show you how you might be able to make passive income by wrapping your car with ads.
18. Buy an existing online business
Online businesses are for sale everywhere. Websites such as
Biz Buy Sell
have hundreds of current online business listings that are currently
for sale in all different prices ranges. Check with these and other
sites to see if there is an online business for sale that might appeal
to you.
19. Buy a laundromat
Here’s another turnkey passive income business. Many urban and
suburban areas have established laundromats that are available for sale.
You buy the already existing business, make sure you have someone to
manage the day-today operations, and watch the profits roll in.
20. Open a batting cage facility
I am stunned at the lack of batting cage facilities are in this area.
Baseball is one of the most popular sports for kids all over America,
yet, at least in my bigger metro area, only a handful of batting cages
can be found. This is one area where there is a need in many cities.
21. Open a high-yield checking/savings account
Looking for a super safe form of passive income? Open a high-yield checking, savings or money market account with a bank like
EverBank. The yields are much higher than most local banks, but still come with FDIC insurance.
22. Try your hand at house or pet sitting
Most house sitting jobs are highly passive income opportunities. You
have to live and sleep somewhere: why not get paid to live and sleep at
someone else’s house or pet sit while they’re away on vacation or at an
extended work project out of town? Provided there’s no unreasonable or
out-of-the-ordinary housekeeping or home maintenance expectations, house
or pet sitting can be a terrific form of passive income. Check out
Care.com where you can list your services for free.
23. Start a drop shipping business
Drop shipping is a neat little form of passive income that many
people aren’t familiar with. Here’s how it works: you create an e-store
front that offers products from certain manufacturers. The client visits
your “store”, orders a product, and your system sends the order to the
specific manufacturer. The manufacturer then completes the order by
shipping it to your client. You don’t send the money to the manufacturer
until after the client has paid you. If you’re interested in the
possibility of starting a drop shipping business, consider using a
platform like
BigCommerce to build your online store.
24. Rent your stuff
Thousands of people every day are looking to rent any variety of
“stuff”. In the last year alone, we’ve rented a pressure washer, a power
sprayer for paint, a truck for hauling stuff, a trailer to haul our
horses, and numerous other items. Search your home and garage for things
that you have but use infrequently, and consider advertising to rent
them out on Craigslist. Some other products you could rent out:
Extension ladders, party tents, tables and chairs, utility trailers, log
splitters, chainsaws, snowmobiles, ATVs and so on. Just make sure to
have a proper rental agreement signed by both parties, get paid in cash
beforehand, and get a current photo ID and secondary proof of address in
order to protect the property you’re renting out.
http://wellkeptwallet.com/2015/06/24-great-passive-income-ideas/
