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Every so often, passive income has its moment in the limelight. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in money rolling in when you have to do very little to maintain it? It certainly sounds too good to be true!
Thankfully, passive income is real, and you can make a pretty penny if you crack it. Before I explain the areas I’ve looked into, I think it’s really important to mention that some ideas really are too good to be true. If someone has to put a lot of effort into selling it to you, you might want to proceed with caution.
As with all financial decisions, it’s very important to look into everything yourself before making a decision. Some passive income streams involve a bit of work in the beginning to set them up before you can reap the rewards. Others require less effort but might take longer before you start to see the income.
I’m not a financial advisor, nor do I have any qualifications in the field. Everything I discuss in this article is based on my own research. Always check whether something can work for you before investing time and money in it.
Blogging can create passive income
While blogging is quite an active way of earning, there are bloggers out there who do very little work after the original set up. Once your blog has content that people want to read, you can monetise the traffic you get and earn big off post you wrote one or two years previous.
Setting up a blog is a labour of love, but if it gets plenty of visitors then ad networks will pay you to show their ads on your site. You could also monetise by adding affiliate links into posts which allow you to earn a small commission every time someone clicks on the link from your site and buys something. There is a certain knack to ensure your website will be successful, but there’s plenty of free information out there.
Invest in crypto currency
It’s well known that the interest rate at the banks are poor and money invested in regular ISAs don’t really make a lot. Your money could work a lot harder for you if you invest it (but as with any investment, this can come with risks).
Crypto currency offers growth that no banks can compete with, and is thought to continue growing in the coming years. Ideally you should take the time to learn about the different currencies out there before taking the plunge, but just the sake of hypothetical scenarios you can check out how your money might perform by using this Crypto interest calculator. Crypto is thought to be a volatile currency, so bear that in mind before giving it a go.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing in its truest sense can be a good passive income stream. I’m not talking about the MLM that sometimes refer to themselves as affiliate marketing and require you to sign up friends and use your own cash, I’m talking about sharing affiliate links.
A few years ago a young woman went viral for making thousands of extra income in one year from sharing affiliate links on here social media accounts. While taking the time to choosing which links to share and when to post them does take up a small amount of time, if those links stay live on Pinterest or your websites for people to click on months in the future, you can keep earning long after the ten minutes it took to post them.
Sell ebooks
You don’t need to be the world’s best author to make cash from your writing. As long as you can write clearly, concisely, and to a publishable standard, selling ebooks might be right for you. If you’re an expert in something and believe your knowledge can help someone out there, then creating a non-fiction e-book might be a great idea. Or, if you’re in love with fiction writing and can really spin a yarn, self-published novels could make you some cash. Romance is a genre that lends itself well to self-publishing as it has a ready-made audience ready to devour the next saucy tale, but crime, thrillers and fantasy novels can all be good sellers too.
My husband repurposed his dissertation and published it on Amazon. While it didn’t make him rich, he regularly receives a small amount of royalties (and we never turn our noses up at low-effort cash).
Buy property
Again, investing your money into any endeavour is always a risk, but property seems to always hold its own. Even when the housing market takes a hit, it’s still quite hard to lose money. If you’ve got enough to invest in property and time to let your investment start paying for itself, then property is a really popular way to gain passive income. The only draw back is, you need to be quite financially stable to begin with, which isn’t ideal if you’re a low earner hoping to increase your income.
Good luck in your passive income journey, don’t forget to let me know what you invest in!