31 Smart Passive Income Ideas That Actually Work _ Ways to get money, Smart passive income, How to g
18. CREDIT CARD REWARDS
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 1/10
RISK: 1/10
TIME: 2/10
MONEY GAIN: 3/10
Credit card rewards work a bit like cash back apps.
Choosing credit cards with a reward program can get you $1 to $2 back on every $100 you spend. It’s a great way to maximize what you can earn on your spending!
But before you run away to open several credit cards, remember that:
- Credit card rewards are only valuable if you pay off your cards in full every month. There is no point in earning a 2% cashback if you pay 15% interest. Remember: paying off your debt and becoming debt-free should always be your priority!
- Don’t open too many credit cards at once to avoid your credit score dropping.
- Choose a credit card that has a reward program you’ll use. If you love to travel, you can pick a credit card that will reward you with frequent flyer miles. Or, if you eat out often, you can choose a credit card that gives you high cash back at restaurants. Don’t let points and rewards go to waste!
Create An Online Business
If you don’t have savings and don’t own many things, you can still generate residual income by creating an online business. This usually requires more time upfront, making it a bit less passive than other ideas, but if you stick with it for long enough, you will be able to reap the benefits and generate real passive income streams.
19. START YOUR OWN ONLINE STORE
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 4/10
RISK: 3/10
TIME: 9/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
To be completely honest, having an e-commerce store isn’t the most passive way to earn money.
I included e-commerce in this list because if you set up your supply chain in a clever way, you could create a business that can make thousands of dollars a month with little effort to maintain it.
There are several business models for an e-commerce website:
- Sell your own physical product: this is a lot of work and requires some capital to invest, but you could create something unique with a high-profit margin.
- Dropshipping: you will not have to own stock. When someone purchases a product from your online store, the manufacturer will ship it directly to the customer. It’s great as you don’t have to handle deliveries and returns, but you don’t have much control over quality and customer experience.
- Sell other people’s products: you get to sell many different products from the start, but it’s hard to differentiate yourself and make a profit in a competitive market.
If creating an online business intrigues you, check out Shopify.
Shopify is by far the best e-commerce platform out there. They have beautiful templates that will make designing your site a breeze.
They also have many tools and adds-on to help you process payments, handle deliveries and returns, set up promotions, and more.
Start a 14-day free trial by clicking here.
20. START A BLOG
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 2/10
RISK: 2/10
TIME: 8/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
Really? Yes really! Blogging isn’t 100% passive and requires A LOT of hard work in the setup phase.
Believe me, I did it! It took me three months before I launched to generate enough good content, and don’t trust anyone who tells you that you can create a money-making blog in a week!
But I found out that if you put in the hard work and are clever about what you write, you can quickly generate traffic, and TRAFFIC = MONEY.
There are so many ways to make money blogging, some more passive than others: you can simply add advertising to your blog, or you can generate money using affiliate marketing, selling your own products, or creating partnerships with brands.
I managed to get over 180,000 page views and earn over $3,800 after only three months! In the article, you can find out exactly how I did it.
And if I did it, you can do it too!
If you are interested in starting a blog, you have to read this article: How To Make Money Blogging With No Experience.
21. BUY A BLOG
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 3/10
RISK: 3/10
TIME: 9/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
If starting a blog feels like too much work, how about purchasing a blog that is already making money?
You can simply learn how to maintain it, but all the leg work will be done for you.
The main advantage of buying a blog is saving time. Starting a blog and building an audience takes a lot of time and effort. By buying an already established blog, you can take a shortcut, as the design, the look, and social media accounts will be already set up.
You will also be able to verify if that particular niche is profitable before you buy without the risk of spending months on an idea that won’t get you anywhere.
All this, of course, comes at a bigger cost than starting from scratch. But it could save you months and months of hard work.
Websites like:
Let you choose between thousands of blogs and online businesses for sale. You can enquire about current earnings and profit and get an idea of the work involved before you buy.
It’s worth considering if you want to explore the idea of having a blog that generates money from day one.
22. AFFILIATE MARKETING
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 1/10
RISK: 2/10
TIME: 8/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
Affiliate Marketing is my favorite way to produce passive income on Gathering Dreams. It makes up over 60% of my revenues.
The idea is that you will research a potential niche that can be profitable, use SEO techniques and advertising to drive traffic to your website, and earn money by getting a commission for recommending products or services.
Building a large audience takes time and effort, but you will earn a good income with very little work once you have created the right platform.
And that’s why I love it!
You can read more about affiliate marketing here: Affiliate Marketing For Dummies: A Smart Guide For Beginners.
23. WRITE AN E-BOOK
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 1/10
RISK: 2/10
TIME: 8/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
Self-publishing is great: you write a book, hit publish, and then collect royalties for years to come.
If you love writing content, you won’t find it hard to write an 80-100 page e-book on the things you love. Make sure you pick a profitable topic and market your book through bloggers and influencers in that niche.
Non-fiction e-books that educate your potential audience on specific topics like finance, online marketing, and business will make you more money than fiction books. Of course, there are always exceptions, and you could write the next Harry Potter book, but if you want to create some residual income quickly, I suggest you go for what sells first!
Using the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform is an easy way to get your e-book on Amazon as quickly as possible and start making some money!
24. MAKE MONEY PUBLISHING BLANK BOOKS
INITIAL INVESTMENT: 1/10
RISK: 2/10
TIME: 8/10
MONEY GAIN: 7/10
We talked about self-publishing just before.
But let’s be honest: writing a book is no easy feat. Especially if you are not a professional writer!
What if I told you that you could publish books without writing? And still, make money? Yep!
Have you ever heard of low-content self-publishing?
With low-content publishing, you will be creating books that are made with mostly blank internal pages.
Think about:
- diaries
- planners
- journals
- notebooks
- sketchbooks
With these types of books, as long as you have a good eye for design and pick a profitable niche with good demand, you won’t have to write 50,000 words that possibly no one will read.
Once you create a great book layout, you can simply keep it as a digital file, use Amazon’s print-on-demand service, hold no physical inventory, and collect passive royalties whenever a book sells.
What’s not to like?
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