Most of us probably have the same fantasy at some point in life. The dream is to earn cash without having to do much, or any, work at all. Even after 25 years in the plumbing business my father used to read the classified advertisements every day. When asked what he was looking for the response was always the same, “my thousand dollar a week job where I don’t have to do anything.” We all used to get a chuckle out of it, but the idea always stuck in my head.
Ways To Earn Passive Income
Investment Property – Buying investment property, even in our current housing market is a great idea. There are stories all over the world of people who simply buy up properties and then sell them, trying to make money on the resale. While this can be lucrative you have to have a lot of money at your disposal and put in a great deal of work to make it happen. But, if you actually buy properties up and hold on to them you can earn income without having to do all that extra work. If you were to buy one house that carried a mortgage of $1,000 you could probably rent it out for $1,300 per month. Right there you have already added $300 of income to your monthly budget. Of course, in the first few years you probably want to stash some of that money away for an emergency fund or to make repairs to the property, but after that it is gravy. You can even use it to pay down the mortgage faster so that you send less on interest charges. After a few years you could sell it and all get the full purchase price back as profit.
Using The Internet – There are loads of ways to earn income on the Internet. If you are ambitious you could start your own membership site. On it you provide valuable content for a specific area. Your members pay a fee to see that content, which becomes your profit. This can be a lot of work and you have to have some area in which you are an expert or you will wind up spending a lot of money buying content from others. Another way is to use Google AdWords to set up a Pay Per Click campaign. When web surfers click through the ads that you promote you make money. While it is not a lot of money per click, over time it can add up. This is an excellent way to add profit to a web site that you have already set up or will set up. If you have eBooks you have written or other intimate knowledge of a subject you can set up the site once and then sell the advertising space. Ebooks themselves are an excellent way to earn passive income. If you choose to sell the book online you can make easy cash for as long as you choose to sell it.
Software – Even if you do not consider yourself the most technically savvy person in the world you could create software. All that you really need is one good idea. For example, if you know how to train a dog because you have had dogs all of your life, you could build software that helps teach others how to train dogs. Broad topics are excellent because they can be sold to people all across the globe and tend to be timeless.
You probably have some of your own ideas about how to build passive income. Most of us come up with little ideas all the time that we think could make us the next Steve Jobs. The difference between us and them is that many of us do not follow through on those great ideas. With a full time job, a family, and loads of other responsibilities it is easy to see how those ideas can get left in the dust. Take action to make sure that this does not happen to you.
Make Your Passive Income Dream A Reality
Step One – Do not forget anything. Carry a notepad and paper with you all of the time so that you can write down your inspirations and ideas. The wildly popular and lucrative Harry Potter series started from an idea written on a napkin. You just never know when brilliance will strike so be prepared all the time.
Step Two – Try it. Try everything, even those ideas that you think sounds silly at second glance. If you have an idea for an eBook, sit down and try to write one. If you think you can make some money doing Pay Per Click ads, then give it a go. Even if you do not make loads of money at first you can learn a lot so that eventually the money will start flowing.
Step Three – Build a war chest. If you want to create a passive revenue stream you might need some seed money to do it. So even if you do not have your million dollar idea yet, save money as if you do. That way you will have the cash on hand whenever you are ready to get started.
Step Four – Do it every day. If you do not work on your ideas every day they will gather dust. Instead, take time out every single day to work on your ideas or to track the income streams you already have going. It does not have to be a lot of time every day, but enough to keep you focused on the goal of having long term passive income.
Imagine how great your life would be if your could take a few simple ideas and put them into action that can generate passive income. It is completely possible. While it might not start out as passive income within a short time you could be earning money for nothing.
Timothy Ng is an experienced personal finance writer, specialising in credit card comparison.