Right now I am more fired up than ever to share with everyone how it is totally possible to have a passive income stream that can make you money even when you don’t work. I just spent a week helping a family member during their last days of life. There was no place on earth I would have rather been. At the drop of a hat I was able to book a ticket, stay a week and when I got home I realized I actually continued to make money the whole time I was there. THIS is what I set out to accomplish. Freedom to travel more and freedom financially. So, how is it done?
*This post contains affiliate links. I may make a commission on recommendations at no cost to you.
What is passive income?
Passive income streams, in all honesty, sound way too good to be true.
Simply put passive income is a way of making money where you do the work one time and continue to get paid for it over and over again.
When I was a wedding photographer, I would easily make around $3,000 in one weekend. However, this meant I was constantly on my feet, away from my family, and still required more work from me throughout the week.
I just knew, when I decided to transition from a stay at home mom to a homeschooling mom, that there had to be a better way to make money that worked around my schedule and didn’t take me away from my family.
Passive income was the answer.
The importance of passive income in my life
Having a passive income stream was so important to me because I wanted to be able to be my own boss, set my own hours and travel whenever I needed to…or wanted to.
In the last 2 years having a passive income stream has allowed me to:
- Homeschool my kids
- Pay off our debt
- Have a creative outlet that is all mine (separate from motherhood)
- Build up our savings
- Allowed me to travel to see my stepdad in Idaho while he battled brain cancer
- Made it affordable for me to celebrate with my brother when he graduated AirForce training in Texas
- Visit my mom more often with my kids
- Work less and make more money than any previous part-time job
Starting a blog
The passive income stream that seemed the easiest and best fitting for me to start was starting a blog.
Don’t get me wrong, there are so many brilliant ways to make passive income these days with all the growing technology and capabilities of computers.
For me, as a person who has always loved to write, was already on social media and has a degree in graphic design, running a blog seemed like the best fit.
See my full tutorial on how to start a blog to see how you can get fully set up and running in less than 10 minutes — and for very little money! Learn to blog in 5 days for FREE.
The basics of making money with a blog
There are 4 basic ways to make money with a blog (and believe me people ask me this question all the time!)
How to make money blogging:
- Affiliate marketing – Affiliate marketing is when bloggers recommend a product or service to you (that might even be totally free to you!) When you take advantage of their recommendation, the blogger earns a commission from the company they recommended.
- Advertisem*nts – We all know what advertisem*nts are and even without being “spammy” a blogger can make seriously good money having them on their site.
- Sponsored posts – A sponsored post is when a company pays a blogger to talk about the products or services. Sometimes this comes in the form of compensation but it also may come in the form of free products.
- Selling your own products – Another way bloggers make good passive income is by creating their own products. This might mean a budget bundle, a course, or an eBook.
The only one of these 4 that isn’t really considered passive income is sponsored posts because you generally are only compensated one time for them. Although often times you will be able to include affiliate links in your sponsored posts to help promote the company.
What it really takes to make money without working
So how did I make $500 without opening my laptop once for an entire week?
Well, like I said, passive income means doing the work once and getting paid over and over again…and that’s exactly what I did.
For 2 years I have worked on my blog…and I actually didn’t even start making money until about 8 months in (at least not significant money!)
I set aside time every weekday morning to spend at least 3 hours on the blog. I write posts, answer emails, work on YouTube videos and create content for social media.
Creating a successful income stream with a blog takes a lot of dedication, commitment and learning. I did so many things wrong for so long. But you know what, even while I made mistakes, I was making money.
I believe in blogging so much that I have created a course called The Fun Sized Blogging Basics that is designed to teach aspiring bloggers the ropes of how to start a successful blog.
Right now, this blogging course is on sale for only $75 and will jump up in price to $300 by the beginning of the summer! BUT If you get on board right now, you will get all the upgrades and perks without being charged anything else! Don’t. Miss. Out.
Get The Fun Sized Budget Bundle at a major discount right now!
Did I really make money without working?
You bet I did!
I intended on doing a little work here and there while I was able to but totally forgot my laptop charger. Besides posting one post to Instagram, I didn’t work at all.
When I got home I was curious to see how the blog had done without me.
The blog did terrible without me! Traffic dropped like crazy…and I still made $500!
While there is really no denying that not working for a week did have an effect on my income and the blog itself, I was still pleased to see how much income I was able to bring in. It more than paid for my plane ticket and expenses.
Other passive income streams
Maybe blogging isn’t for you or you don’t think you can commit to a few hours per day. That’s totally fine, I get it! One thing doesn’t work for everyone.
Not to worry, there are several other ways to start making passive income that can help you gain more freedom in your life.
Other passive income stream ideas:
- Start a Shopify store
- Open a savings account that pays you
- High-yield savings 1.55% interest
- Money Market 1.85% interest
- Savings Builder 2.45% interest
- Open an Airbnb *See how much you could make*
- Use affiliate marketing on social media
- Create a course with Teachable (although running a blog may help imrpove sales)
- Try Acorns investing
- Open an Amazon FBA store.
- Start a YouTube channel (see mine)
These are some of my best recommendations for beginning to work with passive income, although you know my personal favorite is still this little blog of mine!
Still have questions? Leave a comment bellow and I will do my best to answer!
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