Boost your income with passive income

Boost your income with passive income

Passive income is highly sought after and often misunderstood.

Passive income streams require an upfront investment and a lot of nurturing in the beginning. After some time and hard work these income streams start to build and are able to maintain themselves, bringing you consistent revenue without much effort on your part.

Still, passive income can be a great supplementary source of funds for many people, and it can prove to be an especially valuable lifeline during a recession or during other tough times, such as the government lockdown imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Passive income can keep some money flowing when you lose a job or otherwise experience some financial hardship.

PASSIVE INCOME IDEAS TO BOOST WEALTH

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing

Where investing is a wealth-building strategy that has been around forever, the second passive income option on this list is fairly new. 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.

My main website, GoodFinancialCents.com, earns all kinds of affiliate income through relationships we have with investment firms, insurance companies, online banks, and more. But you don’t have to do things the way I did; you could start nearly any type of website and find affiliates that work in your niche.

And remember, you don’t necessarily have to start a blog per se. I know people who are crushing it with affiliates using YouTube, podcasts, and other avenues. You can even build an affiliate business using social media!

2. Online courses

Teach - online

One popular strategy for passive income is establishing an information product, such as an e-book, or an audio or video course, then kicking back while cash rolls in from the sale of your product. Courses can be distributed and sold through sites such as Udemy, SkillShare and Coursera.

“One product is not a business unless you get really lucky,” Tresidder says. “The best way to sell an existing product is to create more excellent products.”

Once you master the business model, you can generate a good income stream, he says.

That’s a good point, and it’s one to consider if you have skills to teach that people will pay $100 or more to learn. If you can get enough people to buy or your price is high enough, courses can bring in plenty of cash flow over time.

3. Digital Product

Digital Marketing

While courses are digital products you can sell over and over, there are other types of digital products you can dive into. I’m talking about e-books, online instruction guides, and basically anything else you can market and sell online.

My latest digital product is an online challenge that helps people earn $1,000 online. I actually offered this challenge for free, but I gave the option to pay $7 for an upgraded package with PDFs and instructional worksheets.

This upgrade is only $7, but even small amounts can add up quickly when you’re selling a couple hundred per month.

If you think digital products can’t work, consider a Forbes interview I did in 2016 with Christian rockstar Chris Greenwood. While Greenwood has earned considerable sums of money online now, his first product was a self-published book.

4. Youtube Ads

Youtube ads

While YouTube ads aren’t nearly as “passive” as some income-producing strategies on this list, they still fit in with the rest of this post. I’m making YouTube videos anyway, so why not post ads that bring in additional revenue? The passive part comes in because I make the video once and earn income over and over as more and more people see it.

For example, I took a ton of time off with my kids over the holidays since they were out of school. I don’t think I recorded any videos during that time — okay, maybe one — but the passive income continued rolling in since just as many people logged into YouTube to watch my show.

And it’s amazing just how much content YouTube viewers consume. Some people make a living with videos about extremely random topics. Take the “Slime Queen” Karina Garcia, who boasts over 10 million social media followers who tune into watch her play with slime. She is only 24-years-old according to Forbes, yet she’s making bank!

If you love being on video and want to earn some passive income while you sleep, YouTube ads are where it’s at.

5. Rental Income

Rent a house

Investing in rental properties is an effective way to earn passive income. But it often requires more work than people expect.

If you don’t take the time to learn how to make it a profitable venture, you could lose your investment and then some, says John H. Graves, an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) in the Los Angeles area and author of “The 7% Solution: You Can Afford a Comfortable Retirement.”

Opportunity: To earn passive income from rental properties, Graves says you must determine three things:

• How much return you want on the investment.
• The property’s total costs and expenses.
• The financial risks of owning the property.

For example, if your goal is to earn $10,000 a year in rental income and the property has a monthly mortgage of $2,000 and costs another $300 a month for taxes and other expenses, you’d have to charge $3,133 in monthly rent to reach your goal.

Risk: There are a few questions to consider: Is there a market for your property? What if you get a tenant who pays late or damages the property? What if you’re unable to rent out your property? Any of these factors could put a big dent in your passive income.