People everywhere dream of generating passive income. Unfortunately, many never go beyond the dreaming stage, mistakenly believing that one must first be wealthy to create wealth. Their ideas of passive income strategies are limited to buying a rental property or investing in a startup business. This misconception prevents individuals from recognizing ways that they too could earn extra cash with little effort.
If you’re looking for a passive income source that doesn’t require a major upfront investment, consider the following options:
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Start Your Own Microbusiness.
In your career, you’ve probably developed at least one monetizable skill. If you are a teacher or editor, for example, you can leverage your strong command of the English language to become a freelance content writer. If you have a great deal of experience in a particular industry, you can earn money by helping younger companies develop business plans. Another way to make your talents work for you is to start a blog. No matter what industry you work in, odds are good that you can translate your skills into some form of microbusiness.
Of course, for passive income to truly be passive, you don’t necessarily want to be involved in the day-to-day running of your enterprise. Instead, once you’ve established a website and a client list, use resources like Upwork.com or Freelancer.com to find people who can essentially run it for you. By outsourcing the work to freelancers, all you’ll have to do is check in on a weekly basis to ensure that everything is running smoothly.
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Turn Your Hobby into Profit.
Do you enjoy taking pictures? Making illustrations? Restoring antiques? There’s probably someone out there who’ll pay you for your work. You could start a shop on Etsy.com or create your own website from which to sell your goods or services. Although you do have to put in some effort to make an income this way—after all, you need to make the products you’re selling—if you truly enjoy this hobby, it won’t feel like work. You might even become so successful that you’ll be able to quit your real job to focus on this business full time. If you have some disposable income, consider hiring a freelancer to help you market the business in the early stages.
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Sell an eBook.
If you’re an expert in any topic, write and publish an eBook on it. Better yet, hire a freelancer to do most of the writing for you. As long as you hire someone with experience and provide them with useful resources, it’s not difficult to outsource this type of work. You can always revise the eBook before publication if you need to make any changes.
You should also start a blog to promote and sell your eBook. Again, you can hire freelancers to do most of the actual blogging for you. Selling advertising space on your blog is another way to make even more money from this venture.
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Rent Out Your Property.
No, you don’t need to own a multifamily property to earn rental income. Travelers looking for affordable places to stay often turn to Airbnb. If you’re comfortable with letting a few strangers live in your home while you’re away, this is an incredibly easy way to make extra money.
Do you live near a popular destination or a crowded urban area with limited parking? If the answer is “yes,” you should take advantage of Justpark.com. This app lets you rent out your driveway as a parking space. It’s a good idea to do this when you know that a highly promoted event is coming to your town, and parking will be scarce. While you shouldn’t expect to make a lot of money this way, it’s a very low-effort income strategy.
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Post Your Own YouTube Videos.
If you make a list of all your skills, there’s a good chance you’ll find inspiration to make a video. If you’re a great cook, you can make videos showing off your favorite recipes. Love to play a musical instrument? You can film video tutorials. You could even create video reviews of recent films, targeting a specific audience, like parents interested in learning if a new movie is appropriate for their children.
After you film the videos, you can upload them to YouTube and open a Google AdSense account. This way, you’ll earn money when people view them. Although the process of making the video itself may require some effort on your part, once it’s on YouTube, all you have to do is collect your earnings.
Again, you don’t need a lot of money to earn a passive income. As long as you have a skill and a little bit of time, you can easily find a way to start making money without working 24/7 to do it.