Passive Income
Most passive income ideas will either generate poor returnsor consume lots of your time (not very passive!). So the question is…what really works? I’ve spent 100's of hours thinking about all sorts of crazyideas for making passive income. From smart ideas, like an online course, to free and fastideas, like writing articles for AdSense, I’ve thought about pretty much everypassive income stream there is. Now I want to share some of my favorite passive income ideas with all of you.
What Is Passive Income?
First off the word passive can be misleading. It oftenbrings up ideas of making money without having to do any work. That is just nottrue. In truth you will spend lot of time and hard work at the start. Then overtime money will start coming in and you will no longer have to work hard at it, or spend a lot of time doing it.
So let’s get right in to it.
1. Create A Blog
I wanted to start with this one because in my mind it is thebest. It cost you nothing to start! Thereare many ways to make money at it. Start just by adding AdSence this will startyou bringing in cash right off the bat. While it will not be a lot. It willstart the ball rolling. Next look in to affiliatedmarketing , all you need to concentrate on is pumping out the content for yourown site and getting the traffic in – most people can get an affiliate salewithin 30 days of starting a blog.
2. . Sell An eBook
The much loved model for bloggers and content creatorseverywhere and for a good reason…it’s pretty easy to write a 25-80 page eBook. It's not hard to sell say $500 worth a month through online networking, guestposting, and your own SEO optimized blog, after paying affiliates. Hell yeah! Look at it this way, if the average eBook is 25pages, and you have made 25 blog post onthe same topic, you just made a Ebook.
3. Trees, Yes trees!
It is so easy to graft (clone) trees thatmy 6 year old is taking over my tree grafting business this year for me. And cloningtrees is one of the only businesses out there that your unsold product goes upin value the next year. I know what you’re thinking, “Oh, but Carl, I don’t haveany trees” or “but Carl, I have a black thumb and cannot grow anything.” Let me address both of these one at a time. Isell only fruit trees. You can make a lot more money off of ornamental crap, butI believe we are in a WAR ON HUNGER and the only way to win is to grow morefood, so I refuse to grow or sell non edibleplants. Now if you follow me on any of Manabu Farms social media platforms, youwill know that I just started a new farm in Flint MI. Right now I do not have one fruit tree on theproperty and as I already said my kid is taking over, so how is she
doing thiswith no trees? Easy, we walked around our neighborhood till we saw someone witha overgrown apple tree. Then being a little shy and not wanting to go up and knockon the door we just keep walking by every other day or so till we saw someoneoutside. We walked up and commented onthe tree and of course it had a story, one I will save for another post. After talkingwith the owner of the tree for a while I offered to come by and trim it backfor him, and explained how he would get a better harvest if it was trimmed up. Theowner was a little hesitant but after I told him that I would also cut him aclone so he could plant a second tree he was more than happy to have us comeback. A bag of peat moss some emptywater bottles (something Flint has a lot of) and a jar of honey and she was upand running. If anyone wants more information on how to do this, message me! I willpersonally walk you through the whole process. Why would I do this? As I saidwe are at war and I need more fighters to join me on the battle field!
4. Sell An OnlineCourse
This is one I cannot tell you a lot about. I am planning on doing this sometime this year. If you blog or YouTube about a subject a lot, you should look into offering classes online. it can be a great source of passive income because once you're done making the course. you're done. You just sit back and watch the cash roll in.
5. Create aComparison or Review Site
I really like this idea, but I must confess, I’ve never earnedpassive income from a setup like this before. I’ll be putting somethingtogether soon though and really wanted to share this idea with you.
So here’s the way it works; find a niche where there are aton of products, all with semi-complex feature mixes – or basically any type ofniche where customers are going “I don’t have a clue what to buy”. For me thatis going to be solar equipment. Nowcreate a site that first, shares a bunch of useful content (think tutorials,how-to's etc) on the niche. Secondly review every product/service in thatniche (the pros, cons, verdict etc.). You get bonus points if you communicate this infothrough a mix of text, photos, and video.
Plus create a comparison table page where you have everyproduct listed and rated on a number of features, all side by side. Customers can finally decide what product isright for them via this bird's-eye view table. Plus the in-depth individualreview articles/videos you will provide. Next to everyproduct, there is a link to the purchase page of the seller (eg Amazon), andwell you guessed it, those links are affiliate links.
6. Take Photos and Sell Stock Images
This one is not going to make you rich, but itdoes become a great hobby to make a profit from. Any time you’re doing anything, you can have those actions making you money. One of the easiest ways to makethis happen is with a camera. If I am out digging in my garden, I have my camerawith me and take shots of everything from a dirt covered shovel, to a rock I found, to clouds passing by. Then putthose pictures and or video clips up on places like shutter stock. You'dbe surprised at what pictures you sell.
7. Build an App
Apps aren’t that expensive to get made anymore. If you want to create a mainly info-basedapp, there are plenty of easy to use programs online for making your own app for acouple hundred bucks. For less than$1000 you can just give the idea to someone at one of the hundreds of appbuilding companies.
So this is a great way to make money, but you need to besmart about it and willing to take some risk. Also, if you cannot afford to outsourcethe work that is needed to run this daily, then wait until you have earned alarger passive income from other ideas before starting this one. The best way to make this work for me at leastwas buy up land in the poorest cities. Here in Flint, MI I have found houses youcan buy and own outright for $500. No joke. These houses are trashed, and unless you live in the area you’re goingto have to hire a repair crew to come fix up the place. This can cast you anywherefrom $500 more to $10,000 more so be ready to spend before you make. Then againif you do not live in the area you’re going to have to hire a property managementcompany to handle the day to day business. Even ifyou do live in the area, you should hire a company anyways. It’s the onlyway to make this a passive income, otherwise you will have to find the renters, deal with dally complaints, and more.
9. Unleash Your InnerLoan Shark On Peer-To-Peer Lending
What am I talking about?
Peer to peer lending is basically what the name says. You put a bunch of cash into an online account and then divvy it up amongdozens of people looking for loans around the country. You lend, say $25, to each person (you and acouple 1000 other people together give that person enough money for theirloan). This takes at least $1000 toreally do right, so it is not a starter idea. Here is a video on how it allworks. I really love this idea as it lets me help out those in need and make money at the same time.
10. Setup Your OwnYouTube Channel
If this is free and easy to do, why did I save it forlast? Because while I love it and I suggestyou all do it, it also sucks! Unless you’re lucky or really talented, you’re goingto make very little at it. Here is my personal experience with it. I started my YouTube account in 2010, in 2014 I made my first $100. In 2015 I made $200, then I quit making new videos(I moved off grid) until 2017. In that time, though without doing any work at all, Imade $167. So that was the first passive income I made from YouTube. To thisday I make around 10-40 cents a day off YouTube. I have started putting out more videos nowand I have even started 3 other YouTube channels to try and do different ideason how to make money on YouTube. Only time will tell if any of these pan outbetter than my true channel. In closing YouTube is great if you're doing it tospread a message or just for fun. You will make money at it but it will not bemuch unless your good at it.
Bonus
Start an eBay Store
I have never even got something from eBay, let alone sold something on eBay. Out of the 19 families that I have taught to live without monthly bills, two of them make an income off of eBay. I would not call it passive, but it is a home-based income. One way I have seen this work is going to yard sales and flee markets, The person I know that is doing this buys up baby clothes and woman's clothing, washes it, and resells it on eBay. Another way that I have seen this work, is that a young man I know is now living free of all monthly bills. He buys bulk electronics from overseas and then marks them up and sells them on eBay. Both are making more money doing this, then any passive income I am using at this time.
