In this Blog I’m going to rate (one is easy and five is hard) seven passive income ideas based on firstly how hard it is to get started and secondly how hard it is to maintain and make money from it.
So, whether you’re working 9 to 5 and want some passive income on the side or you’re looking to start a side hustle that you can scale this will give you some ideas on different things you can explore.
Below are the Top ideas we picked for you,
1. Real Estate –
You can make passive income through real estate and there are two main ways you can do this.
The First way
First way is to buy a real house and earn money by renting it out.
But it’s not easy to start because you need a lot of money upfront for the down payment.
Also, you must have a good credit score, and then you have to find a good house and a good person to rent it to.
Starting with this might be a bit okay, like a three out of five.
When it comes to taking care of it later on, you get to decide how much effort you want to put in.
If you handle things yourself, it takes time but doesn’t cost much.
On the other hand, if you hire someone or use a property manager, it’s less work for you but you’ll have to spend money.
So, it depends on whether you’re okay with putting in the effort or prefer paying to make it easier.
The Second way
The second way you can make money without putting in a big upfront payment or handling property tasks by investing in something called a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
It’s like a company that invests in different types of properties, such as hotels or shopping centers.
Instead of managing the properties, the REIT rents them out.
The money they make from rent is then given to the people who invested in the REIT.
They have to give at least 90% of that money as dividends to the investors.
Starting to invest in a REIT is easier compared to other ways.
You can buy REITs that are available for the public through a brokerage account, just like you would buy stocks.
And in terms of Maintenance and how much you can make I’d give this a two out of five because you do not have the hassle of direct ownership but you do need to invest a fair amount of money to make a decent return because you’re not relying on any leverage.
$50,000*3.4% = $1700 (/12 months = $141)
So, for example American Tower which invest in property around USA is offering a 3.4% return so to be able to make the equivalent of around $140 a month you would need to invest $50000 of your own money.
But because these REITs generally have long leases where the Blue Chip tenants the rental income you can make is relatively more reliable in various market conditions.
2. Affiliate Marketing –
Affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else’s goods or services and get a commission or a small percentage for doing so.
According to an article online the national average amount an Affiliate makes is $55,000 per year.
Know about Affiliate Marketing in detail.
So how easy is it anyone can sign up and join the Affiliate program that takes literally five minutes.
I’m going to give that a one out of five in terms of getting started but the hard part here is actually driving traffic.
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I earned a certain amount of money in a week, but it actually took me a whole year to create a platform and gather an audience.
This audience is what allows me to make money passively, and the affiliate earnings are like a bonus from the hard work put into growing that audience.
To make this passive income on a larger scale, you need a substantial amount of people visiting your social media, website, blog, or Twitter.
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The more effort you put into increasing your audience, the more money you can make.
In terms of maintenance, I would rate it a four out of five because it requires a lot of effort to consistently attract organic traffic.
3. Online Course –
I really like this thing because, as a regular person, it gives you a ton of information you wouldn’t usually have access to.
Plus, you can make money without actively working, which is awesome. I’d rate it a three out of five.
Take Cat Norton, for example. She started making TikTok videos about Excel tricks, and it became a big deal.
She turned it into online courses and, in her first year of doing it full-time, she made $100,000.
Now, she makes over six figures a day without doing much because people keep buying her courses.
The tricky part is figuring out what you’re good at and what people would pay to learn from you.
Once you know that, you can create a class and put it on platforms like Skillshare or Udemy.
It’s not too hard to maintain, or you can put it on your own website and get people to visit. The maintenance part is the easier side of things.
I’m going to give that a two out of five.
4. Digital Products –
Making digital products, like ebooks or website themes, is cool because it doesn’t cost much to create them, and you can keep making money without doing much later on.
Let me tell you about Steve Schoger. He made a book with all the design tips he learned from his job and earned $2.3 million from it!
You don’t have to come up with a groundbreaking idea to make good money.
Just think about what you know well from your daily work.
Steve turned his design knowledge into a book, and that worked great for him.
I’d say starting this is not too hard, maybe a two out of five.
You don’t need a lot of money to begin, but the tricky part is figuring out what people will actually pay for.
I’d rate this part a three out of five. You can sell your product on sites like Etsy, where people search for things, or you can build an audience and create content to boost your sales even more.
The key is offering something valuable that people are willing to pay for.
So, it’s not just about the product itself but also how you present and market it.
5. Creatorpreneur –
Being a “Creatorpreneur” means you’re a content creator who treats your work like a business.
If you only enjoy making content without thinking of it as a business, it’s just a hobby.
On the other hand, if you only focus on the business side, you might get tired before turning it into a steady income.
To make it work, you need to blend both aspects—treating it like a hobby and a business.
Take blogging, for example. Anyone can start it with just a phone and internet connection.
Starting (rating it one out of five) is easy, but turning it into a steady income requires time.
The key is to balance the love for creating with smart business strategies. You’ll need to stick with it and be patient without expecting quick returns.
This is where the business mindset kicks in—setting up processes, outsourcing tasks, so you can focus on creating quality content.
The tricky part is the commitment and consistency (rated four out of five for maintenance).
If you can push through the initial challenges, blogging can become a great way to make money passively, according to the speaker’s opinion.
6. Dividend Investing –
Making money without actively working for it is called passive income. One way to do this is through dividend investing.
Here’s a simple explanation:
When you buy a piece of a company by getting a share, it’s like owning a tiny part of that company.
Some companies share their profits with you through dividends, which are small payments.
It’s a bit like getting a bonus for owning their shares.
If you want to try this, it’s not super hard, but it’s not super easy either. If you buy individual stocks (shares of one company), it takes a lot of homework to make sure you’re making a good choice.
An easier way is to use something called Index funds. These are like baskets with a mix of shares from many different companies.
It’s safer because even if one company doesn’t do well, you have others that might.
Starting is quite simple. You open an account with a brokerage, put some money into these index funds, and you’re set.
But, if you want to make a lot of money this way, you need to keep putting money in and let it grow over time.
The more money you put in, the more you can make. Also, when these index funds give you dividends, use that money to buy more shares. This helps your money grow faster.
However, you don’t have to do much after setting it up. It’s not a “get rich quick” thing, but over time, the value of your investment (capital gain) will increase, giving you more money without doing anything.
So, it’s a bit like planting a money tree that grows slowly but steadily.
If you’re looking to increase your own passive income streams, then dividend stocks could be a good way to do that. Read about 6 Dividend Stocks That Pay Me $500+ Per Month
7. A Productized Service –
Productized service is a hybrid between a product and a service, making money through a service is one of the easiest ways to make money like editing videos or one-to-one coaching.
But these are limited, they’re capped because it requires you to trade time for money, so it’s hard to scale when there is only one.
A productized service turns that service into a product, and automates the process, so you can eventually take yourself out of the equation and that income can be made passive.
One of my friends is a personal trainer and prior to the pandemic she offered one-to-one classes and charged by the hour and now she presents it as a product.
So, she offers subscribers 30 workouts per month for 18 dollars, and she has about 4000 subscribers that are paying 18 dollars a month, and she’s making money from that.
So she built an app, she started a subscription service, and hired a team of people so she spent a lot of time building this up. I’ll give this a four out of five in terms of getting started.
She has now hired other people to run the business on a day-to-day basis, such as other personal trainers who record workouts and upload them, or marketing and she oversees it all.
A skill set is necessary to get there and to ensure that value is consistently provided, which is not always easy, and even on the maintenance side, it is hard to consistently make money I would give this a four out of five.
So those are some passive income streams to give you some ideas if you have done any of these already.
Note :- I always suggest my audience that do not depend on one source of income, generate multiple sources and it is not difficult to do so.
Do not fall in the loop of job and lose control on our lives to know about how to gain knowledge on money or financial goals.
Explore new things and think how to generate money for better life.
Also Read : How easy is to build Dropshipping Business and earn more than $20000 per month
