Passive income is a total buzzword these days, making money while you sleep? How is that even possible? Well, I’m a huge fan of passive income and all of the income I make from this blog is actually passive income.
I can go days without working and still make a few hundred dollars, pretty cool, right?
Passive income gives you the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want. When you’re earning passive income on the side you can find ways to invest more of your regular paycheques to earn more passive income and start a cycle of wealth building for years to come.
Are you looking for some kind of passive income strategy that you can implement? Here are quite a few simple, and super cool passive income ideas you can start in just a few small steps to start growing wealth.
As an affiliate partner of various brands, we earn commissions on qualifying purchases.Disclosure
Awesome Passive Income Ideas for Beginners
Table of Contents
In addition to the ideas below, be sure to also check out this other list of Passive Income Ideas, too!
What is Passive Income?
I’m going to assume that you’re a total beginner and you have no idea what passive income even is. I am a big fan of the strategy of “explain it to me like I’m 5” to be a great way to talk about personal finance topics.
The term passive income just means any income that’s created without you having to do any more work. This means you’re able to do the work one time and make money for months or even years to come. *There may be some maintenance required but it’s usually minimal.
For example, this blog is mostly passive income. I will write a blog post (just like this one!) and share it on social media and I’ll have income coming in on this post for years. I update my posts once or twice a year, but other than that it doesn’t take much maintenance.
Passive income gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. It’s the perfect side hustle because it doesn’t require you to do hours and hours of work each day to make your money.
You’ll find a lot of people will start a part-time job in addition to their full-time job and that is just going to stress you out. The goal is to work less for money money, right?
I’ve also noticed that most lower-income earners think that passive income isn’t possible unless you have tons of money to invest. I made sure to add things that don’t cost a whole lot of money to get started, in addition to the ones that need a bit more capital.
Online Passive Income Ideas
Start a Blog
This one is at the top of my list because it’s my preferred method of making passive income and is my main income source at the moment. This blog has managed to make me a full-time income that is entirely passive.
So, how do you make money with a blog? Well, you write quality content that people are searching for to start. Then you can place advertisem*nts, affiliate links, and even create courses or other products that you can sell to these readers.
This website that you are currently on is a blog, and makes money by recommending products and services to it’s readers and also through advertisem*nts.
==> Free course: How to start & monetize a blog this weekend
Start a Youtube Channel
If you have a desire to make online videos and you have a great on-camera personality, you can easily make some extra money on the side from starting a Youtube channel.
Youtube income is passive because you only need to make the video once but you can make money from the same video years later.
You can make youtube videos about just about anything! You can do tutorials, beauty videos, teach people about finance, or just do daily vlogs. There are so many opportunities to grow and monetize on youtube.
Start a Shopify Store
A nice way to make money passively online is to create simple digital products to sell in a Shopify store, or to start drop shipping using Shopify.
Drop shipping is the act of having something in your store that you don’t actually have in your personal inventory. Unlike a traditional store, you won’t have any inventory which means your overhead costs are much lower.
You would actually purchase the item from a wholesaler or third party and send that item directly to the person who purchased from your online store.
If you’re not into selling physical products, or would rather create something yourself you can sell printables. There is a blogger named Sarah Titus who makes over a million dollars online each year from selling printables in her shopify store, and she’s a great example of how you can make great passive income with Shopify.
She creates printable planners, binders, and more and is able to sell them to her online audience and they were free to create and she has no overhead costs for selling and creating these products.
Write an eBook
If you’re a writer or have ever dreamed of writing a book, this may be the best way for you to earn passive income. You can upload an ebook for sale onto the Amazon Kindle store and start earning a bit of money in just a few hours.
You can honestly write about anything. If you have a particular skill, you can write a how-to guide. Or you could write a fiction book. You’ll just need to learn some Amazon SEO and how to market it.
There is actually a huge market for romance novels on Amazon and people are willing to pay for them. If you have the ability to write a decent romance novel, this is an awesome way to make some passive income.
Buy a Business
Buy an Established Blog
You don’t have to grind out the first few months of a blog, if you don’t want to! You have the opportunity to purchase an established blog on BlogsForSale.co.
The blogs being sold already have some of the hardest parts of having a blog (1) written content (2) an email list and (3) social media accounts. They also have income already coming in and require minimal work to keep them running at the capacity they’re already at.
You can run these blogs on the side and not have to worry about doing the hard work at the beginning and the passive income will continue to roll in.
Create an Online Course
If you have something to teach, you can teach it online! There are people making incredible amounts of passive income by selling online courses.
People can make courses about real estate investing, cooking, home organization and so much more. You have the option of selling your courses on your own website or course platform, or on a marketplace website like Skillshare. √
Here’s how to create an online course this weekend, and market it so you can make 5 figures or more a month.
License Your Photos
Are you a photographer? Even an amateur one? You can sell your photos on a marketplace like Shutterstock! The way it works is every time someone downloads your photos from the website, you’ll get paid a royalty.
This also works for people who are good with digital illustration, people are looking for those as well. You can create tons of images and just see which ones are most likely to sell online and start earning money easily through stock photography.
Affiliate Marketing
If you have any kind of platform (a blog, youtube channel, a growing Instagram, etc) you can start affiliate marketing. So, what is affiliate marketing you ask?
Affiliate marketing is where a company will pay you money for directing traffic to their website and generating a sale. You’ll receive a commission when someone purchases a product or service through the link.
GET THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PROFIT PLANNER »
Regardless of what kind of content you create, you can start affiliate marketing.
Businesses are aware that social media is super lucrative and are definitely willing to create affiliate relationships with anybody.
If you want to get into affiliate marketing but don’t know where to start, I suggest you check out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. It’s a very popular course that will teach you everything about affiliate marketing (including the legal side of affiliate marketing which a lot of people ignore).
Design T-Shirts on Teespring
Designing t-shirts is one of the best passive income sources around because it requires no hard work on your part. Also, there are people buying t-shirts every single day all over the world, so you can make some serious cash if you learn a little about TeeSpring search engines.
I sold a joke shirt I made for a friend two years ago. That’s made me $100 and I’ve never even taken it seriously.
Imagine what I could do if I did!
Start a Patreon
If you’re any type of content creator, you can start a Patreon where your fans can give you a bit of money in exchange for exclusive content. This is extremely popular among YouTubers, sims modders, and artists.
It’s an awesome way to iron out the income rollercoaster and keep at least one part of your income consistent and completely passive. You can put behind-the-scenes content on your Patreon and this is something your readers will LOVE.
Design Products on Redbubble
If you’re good at drawing or graphic design you have the opportunity to design really awesome products for people to buy on websites like Redbubble!
You’ll submit your designs on Redbubble, and they’ll handle all of the distribution and creation of the actual product. You’ll get a great percentage of the final sale amount.
This is a great example of doing the work once, and possibly making money on these designs for a long time.
Investing
Peer-to-Peer Lending
A great way to earn passive income while also helping others is peer-to-peer lending. This is when you use websites like Lending Club to loan money to other people who are looking to consolidate loans or start a business.
Just like a loan to a bank, this person will pay back interest and you’ll get a slice of that pie.
This is just like any other loan or investment, there is a chance you’ll lose your money. Never invest money you aren’t willing to lose.
Acorns
Using the Acorns app is the most beautiful form of passive income. This website connects to your bank account and will round up your purchases to invest the spare change.
Let’s say you spend $3.02 at a coffee shop one morning, well Acorns is going to round that purchase up to $4 and invest the 98 cents for you. You don’t have to lift a finger, and it’s such a small amount of money that you won’t even realize it’s gone. It’s an awesome system and you can sign up today!
Wealth Simple
Wealth Simple is an awesome way for you to start investing money without needing a fancy investment account or a financial planner. It’s what’s known as a robo-investor and allows you to choose your risk level and how much money you want to invest each month.
I’ve been throwing $50 a month into Wealth Simple for a few years now and have been earning passive income every month and it feels so nice!
Things You Already Do
Get Cashback for Shopping Online
We all shop online, even when we are trying to save money, so no judgement here. The best way to online shop is to make sure that you are making the best of the situation and getting cash back for your purchases.
My favourite way to get cash back is using Rakuten (formerly ebates) to get anywhere from 1-10% cash back on purchases you’re already going to make! They have stores like Amazon, Sephora, Walmart, and so much more.
Use Paribus for Price Adjustments
Paribus is a really awesome free service that can get you cash for price adjustments that may happen soon after you buy something and you don’t even have to lift a finger.
Imagine this, you purchase something and two days later the price drops over $10. Paribus will use their magic to find a way to get that money back for you!
*Paribus compensates us when you sign up for Paribus using the links provided.
Get a Cash Back Credit Card
A lot of personal finance bloggers are really against credit cards and will tell you that they’re evil, but I am not that person. A great way to make money without having to really do anything is to take advantage of a cash back credit card.
You can funnel all of your bills and monthly purchases through a credit card and pay it off immediately and still get the cash back at the end of the year, which is just free money. Just don’t make the mistake of building a credit card balance and not actually be able to pay it off.
Buy and Sell Domain Names
Another great way to make money is to buy and sell domain names. A domain name is what you type in when trying to visit a website.
For example, the domain name for this website is sixfiguresideincome.com.
These domain names can be purchased for a few dollars a year and eventually sold for higher later on. This isn’t a way to make thousands of dollars a month, but you can make decent money.
Buy a Successful Brick and Mortar Business
If you’re willing to take on a bit more risk, you could buy a successful and already established business in your town. People are always trying to sell their businesses because they need the money to cover personal expenses and you can take advantage of this and earn passive income from them.
You also have the option of purchasing a franchise of a popular fast food restaurant and earning money through that.
Rent Stuff Out
Rent Out a Room
A really great way to make money is to rent a room out in your home, either for an actual roommate or an airbnb situation.
If you rent it out to someone to be your roommate you can make a few hundred dollars per month that can help you pay your rent!
Rent Out Your Whole House
You can make the most money with Airbnb by renting out your entire place to tourists or people just needing a place to stay for the night. You can even do this in smaller towns, not just big cities!
I’ve even heard of couples having two apartments in a big city and having them both on Airbnb. If one is rented, they will stay in the other. If both are rented, they’ve made enough money to stay in a hotel for the night and still have some leftover.
Rent Your Car for Ad Space
There are a ton of weird companies that are going to pay you money to put their logos on your car and will pay you every month for doing so. This is insanely passive, but it may make you look a little silly as you drive around town.
For example, there’s a company called Market Your Car for people in the Greater Toronto Area that will hook you up with a company to advertise for.
Awesome Passive Income Ideas for Beginners – Conclusion
Finding ways to earn passive income is the best because you don’t have to do nearly as much work as you would at a 9-5 job.
If you manage to get a few of these passive income ideas going for you, you can create a great side income for yourself!
