Making money while you sleep.
Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
After reading books like Rich Dad Poor Dad and 4 Hour Work Week, I became interested obsessed with making passive income.
What is Passive Income?
The common definition of passive income is income that you earn without being actively involved.
That typically means that you continue to make income with no or very little effort on your part to maintain that cash flow.
For the purpose of this article, we are going to lump passive income and portfolio income into the passive category, and active income into the non-passive category – although the IRS categorizes and treats each type of income differently.
You can see why the idea of passive income would be appealing. Typically when someone needs additional income, they get the stereotypical suggestion to “get a part-time job.”
But what if you don’t have the time or energy to put in all those extra hours?
I know I didn't. Plus, that wasn't as appealing as making money without needing to trade my time.
For that, you may need some passive income ideas – ways to make money with little investment of time and effort on your part. And a great benefit of this is if you are trying to pay off debt quickly, this can be a huge help!
Here’s a list of quite a few passive income ideas, so it’s likely that you’ll be able to find at least two or three that cater to your situation and skills.
24 Passive Income Ideas That Will Legit Make You Money While You Sleep:
- Invest in Lending Club
There is probably no passive income that is more perfect than earning interest on safe investments, such as U.S. Treasury securities and bank certificates of deposit. The problem of course is that those instruments pay paltry returns – generally less than 1%. It may be passive income at its finest, but you’ll never be able to relax or retire on returns that are that low.
That makes now the perfect time to talk about Lending Club. It is a web-based peer-to-peer lending platform where people come to get loans, and investors – looking for high interest opportunities – provide the funds for those loans.
Lending Club provides an opportunity to earn interest rates in excess of 10% per year – which is about 10 times what you will earn on more conventional interest-bearing investments.
Now let’s be clear on one point: those high rates do come at a cost. Unlike bank investments, Lending Club loans can go bad, in which case you will lose principal. However, there are ways to minimize those potential losses. I talked to a LendingClub adviser and they recommend starting out with an initial deposit of $2500. Since you can invest as little as $25 in a single loan, you can actually buy into 100 different loans with a deposit of that level. So you don't have to worry about a single loan going bad and ruining your investment.
Despite the risk of default, it’s very likely that you will earn far more on your investments at Lending Club than you will at a bank and I have averages just under 9% during the eight years I have been investing with them. That is a nice residual income stream. Investing larger sums of money in different ways can be beneficial, whether it be where to invest 10K or where to invest 100K, we can help you get a better understanding of how to invest your money.
Want to try out Lending Club? You can open a free account here.
- Invest with a robo-advisor
Putting money into an account and letting an algorithm manage the investments is about as passive as you can get. Robo-advisors like Betterment allow you to set your willingness for risk in the market and then manage the account for you.
The algorithm will do all the work for you and keeps your portfolio balanced. The fees are very reasonable and much less than with an account managed by a person. There are currently two main players in the robo-advisor game:
Wealthfront
My original evaluation of Wealthfront found them to be just OK, but they have made great changes over the last couple of years that make them even or better than Betterment for many people. Their strategy for reducing your tax burden is very well planned out and they have show to be competitive with any robo-advisor on the market. Their new PATH platform gives you a comprehensive view of your finances, putting them on part with Mint or Personal Capital.
What really sets Wealthfront apart from the others is that they charge you no fees for the first $10,000 that you invest with their service. This is a big deal for small investors who want to see their initial investments have the largest impact possible.
Betterment
I have been a long time supporter of betterment and even did an interview with their CEO in my Betterment investing review. Similar to Wealthfront, Betterment is great at reducing any taxes you have to pay on your investments and they work with you to give you the best financial advice through their algorithms. Unlike Wealthfront, you can actually talk to a human being if you want to. Betterment charges the same fees as Wealthfront, but does not wave the fee on the first $10,000 you invest.
My personal experience with Betterment is that their platform is really slick and the investments are very sound. I don't think you can go wrong with either service, but if I am investing a large sum to create a passive income investment, then I would go with Betterment.
- Go Safe With High Yield Savings Accounts
Savings accounts might be the most boring investment ever invented, but they are also the safest. If you are used to your run of the mill bank where you can walk in and talk to someone, then you probably think the interest earned hardly qualifies as income.
Online banks hit the scene in the late 1990s and have been able to provide much better interest rates to their clients than their traditional cousins. Now, you can get savings account rates that are as good as a CD without locking in your money for several years.
This is also a great option to stow away your cash and create a little passive income while you are looking for a more lucrative investment option
- Try out index funds.
Index funds are a type of mutual fund that provide you with a way to invest in the stock market that is completely passive.
For example, if you invest money in an index fund that is based on the S&P 500 Index, you will be invested in the general market, without having to concern yourself with choosing investments, rebalancing your portfolio, or knowing when to sell or buy individual companies. All that will be handled by the fund which will base the fund portfolio on the makeup of the underlying index.
E*Trade is our recommended online broker for buying index funds. They make the research and process of investing into different funds very easy.
We recommend them over other options because if you ever start to look at other types of stock or mutual fund investments (see #5) you already have the account set up and it is easy to move your money over. On top of that the cost to get your account going is super cheap and the cost per trade very affordable.
If you are not familiar with them, check out more details in our Trade King review. They have become one of my best accounts for investing.
With any broker you are free to choose a fund that is based on any index that you want. For example, there are index funds set up for just about every market sector there is – energy, precious metals, banking, emerging markets – you name it. All you have to do is decide that you want to participate, then contribute money and sit back and relax. Your stock portfolio will then be on automatic pilot.
If you are looking toward retirement with your money then we would look at opening a Roth IRA. It will shield your savings from any future taxes and you can withdraw all earning tax free once you hit 59 1/2. It is one of the best ways to save money for retirement.
- Make money for tasks you'd do anyway
Yes, you can make some money doing some of the things you're already doing.
For example, InboxDollars allows you to make money by searching the web, shopping online, playing games, and more! Swagbucks also allows to to make money doing similar activities. It's amazing. Take advantage of the compensation plan on each of these websites and make some extra money!
You can also make your own schedule with Uber and pick up extra income by driving others around when you are already out and about anyway!
- Get cash-back rewards on credit cards
If you're already using credit for some of your purchases, pursuing credit card rewards is an absolute no-brainer. Most top rewards cards let you earn anywhere from 1-5% back on your money, and that's with almost no effort on your part!
If you're already using credit for convenience, you can also earn a huge sum of cash in the form of a signup bonus. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® card offers one of the best opportunities out there. After spending just $4,000 on the card in 90 days, you'll earn 50,000 points worth $500. On top of that, if you add your spouse as an approved user, you score an extra 5,000 points. That works out to 59,000 points for just $4,000 of spending you were going to do anyway.
Even people who don't spend a lot can normally put that much on credit if they charge regular bills, groceries, gas, insurance, and all of their other expenses on a regular basis.
Our post on the top six cash back credit cards for 2017 offers an array of additional options to consider as well. With the right card, you could earn anywhere from 1-5% back on your money with almost no effort on your part.
If travel is your thing, we have seen people who are using bonus offers on travel rewards credit cards to save thousands of dollars on travel each year. You can really score big with these deals.
- Put your photography to work on the web
Do you like photography? If you do, you may be able to convert it into a passive income source. Photography websites such as Shutterstock and iStockphoto can provide you with platforms to sell your photos. They may offer either a percentage or a flat fee of each photo that is sold to a site client.
passive income ideas photography
In this way, a single photo could represent a residual income opportunity, since it can be sold again and again. You simply need to create your photo portfolio, put it on one or more photo platforms, and then the activity becomes completely passive. All the technicalities of the photo sales are handled through the web platform.
And yes, that's me in a stock photo you can purchase from iStockPhoto.com. My wife is a good photographer and has uploaded a few hundred photos to their platform and makes a good monthly residual income from it.
- Write an ebook
This can be a lot of work upfront, but once the ebook is created and marketed it can provide you with a passive revenue stream for years. You can either sell the ebook on your own website or offer it as an affiliate arrangement with other websites that provide content related to your ebook.
After speaking to sever ebook authors, many of the tell me that the time spent putting these books together feels like finding free money by the passive stream of income they have today.
- Sell your own products on the internet
The possibilities here are endless – you can sell just about any product or service that you like. It could be a product you have created and can manufacture on your own or it could be digital in nature (such as software, DVDs, or even instructional videos).
You can set up a dedicated website for this product or service, unless of course you have a website or blog already in place. Alternatively, you can also sell it on an affiliate basis, either by offering it direct to websites and blogs related to your product or service, or through a platform such as ClickBank.
If you make a lot of money in your current job and you're not sure that you can make a similar amount by selling products online, think again. Awhile back, I interviewed Steve Chou from MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. In our podcast interview, Steve explained how his wife quit her job to become a stay-at-home mom.
Now, being a stay-at-home mom is a full-time job – but Steve Chou's wife also started an online business that replaced her former salary and started bringing in a six-figure income! Wow, right?
You can learn to sell products online too and make quite a bit of money. While it's not entirely passive, it's certainly more passive than getting up and heading out the door to work every morning!
- Invest in real estate
This probably falls more in the category of semi-passive income, since an investment in real estate is always at least a little bit of an active venture. Still, once you have an investment property that is established and fully rented, it’s mostly a matter of managing the property and keeping it performing well.
Additionally, there are professional property managers who can manage your property for you, usually for around 10% of the monthly rent. This professional management can make the investment much more passive, but will take a bite out of your cash flow.
According to Brandon Turner, an active real estate investor and co-host on the popular BiggerPockets Podcast,
“The key to success with rental properties is buying smart. Not every investment property is going to provide a good return or prove to be passive. Understanding how to analyze potential real estate opportunities is incredibly important. As the old adage goes – you make your money when you buy!”
Another benefit of investing in rental properties is the loan pay down. If you obtain a loan to buy the property, each month your tenants are paying off part of the loan. Once the mortgage on the property has been paid off, your cash flow will increase dramatically, allowing your mediocre investment to skyrocket into a full-fledged retirement program.
It wouldn't take many paid-off properties to provide a pretty great, and mostly-passive, future for you and your family.
- Make YouTube videos
This is a venture that is growing rapidly. You can create videos in just about any area that you like – music, tutorials, opinions, comedy, movie reviews – anything you want . . . then put them on YouTube. You can then attach Google AdSense to the videos, which will overlay your videos with automatic ads. When viewers click on those ads, you will earn money from AdSense.
The keys will be to create compelling videos, to promote those videos on social media websites, and to create enough of them that your income will be coming from multiple sources. There’s a good bit of work that goes into creating videos, but once a video is done it can become a completely passive cash flow source for a very long time.
Don't think you can find success with YouTube? You sure can. Emily Eddington used her love for makeup and YouTube to quit her full-time job. She has received over 66 million views on YouTube. This former morning news anchor took her passion – makeup – and turned it into a phenomenal success.
- Buy a blog
Thousands of blogs are created every year, and thousands are either completely abandoned by their owners sometime afterward. If you can buy blogs with a reasonable amount of web traffic – as well as a demonstrated cash flow – it could be a perfect passive income source.
Most blogs employ Google AdSense, which provides a monthly revenue stream based on ads that Google places on the site. There may also be affiliate programs generating additional revenue. Both income sources will be yours once you purchase the blog.
From a financial perspective, blogs usually sell for 24 times their monthly income. So if the site generates $250 a month in income, you can likely buy it for no more than $6,000. Translation: a $6,000 investment will buy you $1,500 per year in cash flow.
You may even be able to purchase the site for less than 24 months earnings, if the site owner is particularly anxious to get out. Some sites have good “evergreen” content that will continue generating revenue even years after the site has gone silent. So a simple $5000 investment can net you ongoing passive income.
Bonus tip: If you were to buy such a site, and then to reinvigorate it with fresh content, you may be able raise the monthly revenue enabling yourself to sell the site at a later date for substantially more than what you paid for it.
Finally, instead of buying a blog, you might want to create your own blog. My blog currently generates a nice passive income stream from content that I published years ago. It's by far one of the best business moves I've made.
This guide will show how to make your first $1,000 from blogging. You'll find access to our free Make 1k Challenge which is a free email course that walks through the steps to start your first blog and make your first $1,000.
Join the free Make 1k Challenge here and get your blogging groove on. 🙂
- Pay off a credit card (or two or three)
Reducing a fixed expense is the financial equivalent of creating passive income. This is certainly true when it comes to credit cards. Let’s say that you owe $10,000 on a credit card, on which there is a monthly payment equal to 2% of the balance, or $200 per month.
By paying the card off, you’ll be free up $2,400 per year in cash flow that would’ve gone to the monthly payments.
That’s like getting a guaranteed 24% return on a $10,000 investment. Good deal?
You can speed up this process by transferring your current balances to a 0% APR card. You can usually get the promotional rate for 15 months or more and supercharge your credit card payoff.
- Write a book and collect royalties
Much like writing an ebook, there’s a lot of work upfront. But once that’s done, and the book goes into the sales stage, it becomes a completely passive venture.
This is especially true if you can sell the book to a publisher who will pay you royalties for the distribution and sale of the book. You’ll get a percentage of each sale made, and if the book is fairly popular, the royalties could be substantial. Just as important, the royalties can continue flowing for many years.
Mike Piper from OblivousInvestor.com did just that. He wrote a book, Investing Made Simple, which was sold strictly on Amazon. He had decent success with the first book that he created an entire series of book. Those books now net him over 6 figures per year in residual earnings. Not too shabby.
- Set up a website selling a product
If there is a product that you are particularly knowledgeable about, you may be able to sell it on a dedicated website. The technique is similar to what you would use for your own product, except that you will not to be concerning yourself with product creation, but only with the sale of someone else’s product.
You may even find after a while that you are able to add other products that are related. Should that happen, the site could generate substantial revenues.
If you are able to have the product drop shipped to customers directly from the manufacturer, you won’t even have to get your hands dirty. That may not be 100% passive, but it’s darn close.
- Invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs)
In #10 we talked about investing in real estate. But let’s say that you want to invest in real estate, but do it in a truly passive way. You can do that through a real estate investment trust. This is something like a mutual fund holding various real estate projects. The fund is managed by professionals, so you never have to get involved.
One of the big benefits of investing in REITs is that they typically pay higher dividends than stocks, bonds, or bank investments. You can also sell your interest in a REIT anytime you like, which makes it more liquid than owning real estate outright.
- Become a business silent partner
Do you know of a successful business that needs capital for expansion? If so, you can become something of a small-time angel investor and provide that needed capital. But rather than offering a loan to a business owner, you can treat this as a business opportunity and take an equity position in the business.
In this way, the business owner will handle the day-to-day operations, while you will act as a silent partner who also participates in the profits of the business. You will probably want to look at some business credit card offers in order to get a feel for how to manage your business finances while keeping tracking of how your partner is handling everything.
- Become a referral source
Every small business needs referral sources in order to maintain sales. Make a list of small business providers that you use on a regular basis and feel you can recommend to others without reservation. Then contact the owners and see if they have any kind of cash referral marketing offers available.
You can do this with accountants, landscapers, electricians, plumbers, carpet cleaning services – the list is endless. Keep a list of these businesses, and be ready to refer them to your friends, family and coworkers. You can earn a fee on each referral just from talking to people.
Don’t overlook referral programs at work either. If your company offers a referral bonus for either new employees or for new customers, then take advantage of that plan. It’s easy money with virtually no work.
- Rent out unused space with Airbnb
Airbnb is a concept that has only been around for a few years, but it has exploded around the globe. Airbnb allows people to travel all around the world and to stay in accommodations that are a lot less expensive than traditional hotels. They do this by staying with participating Airbnb members who rent out part of their homes to travelers. By participating in Airbnb, you can use your residence to accommodate guests and earn extra money just for renting out space in your home.
Paula Pant, cubicle renegade AffordAnything.com took a stab at making extra money renting out locations exclusively through Airnbnb. Her Airbnb experiment netted her an extra $19,000 in revenue and 1 police visit! 🙂
How much you will make will depend upon the size and condition of your home and your location. Naturally, if your home is located in a high cost city, or close to a popular resort, your income will be much higher. It’s a way of earning money on space in your home that might just be sitting empty otherwise.
- Build an app
Apps can be an incredibly lucrative income source. Think about how many people today have smartphones. Come on, it's just about everybody! People are downloading apps like crazy – and for good reason…
Apps make people's lives easier. Whether it's an app that helps people put together nice pictures for their blog or an app that keeps track of tasks, there are helpful apps out there for everyone.
You might be asking if there are so many apps out there, why would you want to attempt to create an app? Isn't there a lot of competition? Well, yes, but fresh, creative ideas can win. If you can come up with something unique, you can make quite a bit of money. Simple – yet unique – apps can be pretty passive.
Don't know how to code? No problem. First, you can learn. Check out Nathan Barry's success in his inspiring article, How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code. Nathan also put his design expertise to work in an ebook teaching others how they can design their own apps.
Second, you can hire a developer to build your app based on your idea. This could end up being an expensive option, although it will probably yield a professional-looking app.
The end result is an app that has the potential to make you some relatively passive income. Don't downplay the idea to build an app – it's a good one!
- Create an online course
Everyone is an expert at something. Why not create an online course about your passion?
My buddy Ramit Sethi at IWillTeachYoutobeRich.com is an expert at creating online courses. He has made an insane amount of money selling his lessons. Most people would be happy making a fraction of what he makes online.
There are a number of ways you can produce and host your own online course. One very simple way is to use a website like Teachable.com. Teachable as over three million students and is a great way to get your content in front of others for their consideration.
Once you create an online course, it can work for you while you sleep!
What do you put in your online course? Good question. You can add video lessons, checklists for completing steps you recommend in your video lessons, small ebooks to supplement the lessons, audio files for people listening while traveling, informative interviews with likeminded experts, and a whole bunch more!
In fact, you can create several packages at different price points. Some people will want everything, so you can include ‘the works' for the highest price point and then have two lower price points so that you can receive the largest possible volume of orders.
- Make an online guide
If writing articles or creating videos isn't your thing, and you want to make money online, try creating an online guide.
A good example of this comes from Pat Flynn's website, SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com. On the website, he has a map of the United States that allows someone to click on any state to see the security guard requirements for that state.
By providing specific information in a guide-like format, you can make money through some of the means already addressed: advertisements through Google AdSense, affiliate links, and even memberships you can sell from your online guide. It's a fantastic idea!
- Outsource most if not all of your business needs
If you're spending too much of your time on an existing business running it yourself, why not outsource most if not all of your tasks? Yes, it will require you to give up some control, but in many businesses it's the only way to free up your time so you can focus on other tasks that will result in more income.
If you don't want to hire employees, consider hiring freelancers who work as contract laborers. Look for freelancers with a strong work ethic who provide quality results.
Here's a list of tasks that you might want to outsource:
Bookkeeping
Writing
Web design
Editing
Task management
Social media marketing
and so much more!
Yes, many people can turn their existing businesses into passive income businesses. As long as the main product or service isn't something only you can do, you can transform your business into a passive moneymaker.
- Try affiliate marketing and make sales
This is a passive income technique that is better suited to people who have blogs and active websites. You can sign up to promote certain products or services on your site, for which you will be paid either a flat fee or a percentage of the amount of the sale completed.
This isn’t as hard to do as you might think, since there are thousands of companies in the world who want to sell their products in as many places as they can.
You can find affiliate offers either by contacting vendors directly, or on dedicated websites, such as ClickBank. It’s always best if the product or service is one that you are either very interested in or is highly relevant to your website.
- Purchase high dividend stocks.
By building a portfolio of high dividend stocks, you can create regular passive income at an annual rate that is much higher than what you get on bank investments.
Just as important, since high dividend stocks are stocks, there is always the potential for capital appreciation. In that way, you can earn passive income from two sources – dividends and capital gains.
You can make this process very easy and affordable by opening an account with Ally Invest. They have one of the lowest fees for each trade and have been a long time top brokerage.
If you are interested in other brokerage accounts we have provided a good write up of all the different options.
I’ve purposely provided a long list of passive income ideas in the hope that there is something on this list for everyone.
Have you tried one of these or are you thinking about trying one of these ideas now? Leave a comment! I look forward to hearing from you.