The problem with passive income, is that it is always portrayed as ‘easy’ online. How many times have you seen articles, posts or videos about making an easy $100 per day with five minutes of work?

The reality?

This generally is absolute rubbish, and untrue. Passive income takes work. Anybody who has become wealthy through little effort is an anomaly, and incredibly lucky or unique.

Anyway, now that I’ve started with something negative. Here’s the positive…

Once you have set up a system of passive income sources, it will be one of the most fruitful income sources you will have. It just takes some work to get to that point!

Right, let’s get to it, my Top 10 Sources of Passive Income!

Investing

Most people shy away from getting involved in Investing because it can be a little confusing to get to grips with. However, don’t be scared, there are a tonne of online resources to learn more about investing.

Another alternative is to look into robo-advisor investment companies. These are companies which will handle your portfolio for you entirely. You just hand over the money, decide upon your risk appetite, and then they do the rest.

Some Robo-Advisor Investment Companies:

  • Betterment
  • Robin Hood
  • Wealthfront
  • Acorns
  • and more!

Give them a Google and see if they are right for you.

Another resource I would always recommend is Reddit. There are a tonne of great SubReddits online around the topic of investing. Subscribe to a few of them, ask questions, and read. You’re bound to come out with a whole host of interesting viewpoints on investing!

I always strayed away from investing in the stock market due to a lack of knowledge, and I didn’t really know how much money I needed. My first ever investment in the stock market was only worth $500! I then started to put a monthly sum into my investment account every pay-day with my accounting job. This grows quickly over time.

Cash Back Credit Cards (and others)

These are pretty straight forward. If you’re going to be spending anyway, why not get rewarded for it? For work, I would travel quite a lot, so I decided to get a British Airways American Express card so that I could benefit from all the air-travel I was going.

Over time this really adds up. I was recently able to travel to London for a huge discounted rate by using the points I had collected using my card!

Look online and use the available comparison sites to enable you to decide which card might be best for you. Some are easier to apply for than others, so make sure you are likely to be accepted, as rejection can effect your credit score!

Patreon Income

Do you have a following? Perhaps you’re a musician, or an artist, or you create valuable content for others.

Patreon allows you to create a community of individuals who will pay you on a monthly basis for certain benefits. For example, Jaret Campisi utilises Patreon to allow his YouTube subscribers to potentially win a completely custom motorcycle which he has shown the build process of. His viewers might pledge $5 or even $50 per month in order to increase their chances of winning!

So, if you have a following on your Instagram, for example. You could utilise Patreon to bring in passive income for content you might already be creating for free anyway.

Perhaps you are a guitarist, and you might release unique and limited release songs on your Patreon to those who subscribe to you!

Stock Photos – Photography Income

Are you a photographer?

Got a camera?

This is a fantastic way to have fun, and bring in some extra dollars.

I could photography as one of my hobbies. I’m not great at it, but I can take a decent photo. Uploading all my best photos to a stock photo website can bring in some passive income from a hobby I do purely for enjoyment.

Individuals will pay you for the right to use your images! Simple as that! If you’re a photographer, or take photos for a hobby, you would be silly to not get involved in this.

Real Estate Passive Investment

I harp on about Real Estate a lot. I know….but there’s a reason for it.

I know plenty of people who are making upwards of $250,000 per year from their real estate investment portfolios.

The effectiveness of this will depend heavily on your location, as it is easier in some locations compared to others. It also requires a lot of work, especially if you’re acting as the landlord by yourself.

If you want this to be truly passive, I would recommend trying to find an effective property management company locally to you.

YouTube

Have you ever looked up PewDiePie’s net worth? Go on, do it. I’ll wait…

Now, he’s obviously a one off. However, there are people earning very good income from YouTube every day. I know a handful of people who are utilising YouTube to create a completely passive income through various methods.

Affiliate Sales are one way of doing it. Review products and link to an affiliate link for people to buy the product.

You could promote your own business and make an income from the advertising of your business.

The list could go on! Let’s get a discussion started in the comments to discuss what ways you could monetise a YouTube channel.

Blogging

I’m blogging right now!

Admittedly, this isn’t my main source of income (yet!), and is more of a hobby. However, there is great potential for me to turn this blog into a fully fledged income source.

Blogging is best used as a marketing source for products, books and courses. In fact, let’s discuss those sources next!

Gone are the days where you could make an average blog, slap some Google Adwords Ads on it, and make a healthy income. You really need to be clever about how you utilise your blog for income. That is why I generally recommend you start a blog purely for the fun of it, don’t do it primarily for the income!

If you ever want advice on starting a blog, I’m more than happy to point you in the right direction, just get in contact with me!

Product Sales – Dropshipping – Amazon FBA

I tried dropshipping for a few months in 2017. I was able to grow my store to a peak of around $150 per day. Compared to others, this is pretty pathetic. However, I honestly didn’t give it my full attention, it was just a little marketing project for me.

Saying that, there are people easily making 6 figures PER MONTH using dropshipping. Admittedly, it isn’t really that passive to start with, only once you’ve built a strong store, and can utilise Virtual Assistants to run the dropshipping side for you.

There are an absolute tonne of videos on YouTube about dropshipping. I’d love to give you a crash course, but honestly, there are people who know far more, and are far more successful at it than me.

Writing a Book – eBook Creation

This is something I am working on right now! Writing a book. I’m honestly not a natural writer (as if you couldn’t tell from the blog…). But, I enjoy it! and my readers generally value the information that I put out there. I plan on creating a book about Personal Finance so that people can read about everything I recommend in one place, instead of trawling through all my blog posts.

Plus, some people just prefer to read a physical book…

The best way to start this is with a plan, and then just start typing away. There are loads of services on places like Fiverr which can help you with designs for your books, or someone to proof read it for you.

Once your book is finished, get it published via Amazon! They will handle all the printing and logistics. You just deal with the marketing and cashing the cheques!

Creating Online Courses

Last but not least. A passive income from creating online courses.

As with the general theme of this post, this isn’t a get rich quick, easy money making idea. You will need to create good, valuable content, which people will want to purchase.

However, once that content is created, other than a spring clean and an update, it will be able to be sold and bring in passive income for years to come.

I would recommend checking out the Warrior Forum, or BlackHatWorld if you’re interested in learning more about making money from creating online courses.

I do plan to put together an in-depth post about creating courses in the future, so stay tuned for that!

In Conclusion! Finally…

Sorry about how long this has been, but sometimes I just start to ramble. I tried to keep it short and sweet, I promise!

I would love to see how you guys implement these passive income ideas into reality, so make sure you let me know how you get on. I’d love to help each and every one of you, so please feel free to comment below and I will reply as soon as I can!