A lot of the searches that bring readers to The Frugal Cottage is about saving money, which is fair enough. The word ‘frugal’ was deliberate when I chose it, all those years ago! However, recently I have been looking at income. Specifically, passive income. There are posts here about saving 50% of our income and having multiple income streams, so it definitely is something I am a fan of.
If you think about it, if you have a job where you are employed by someone, then you have one stream of income. That income stream is active; you have to go to work and actively do things to get paid. It’s also the most precarious! If, for whatever reason, you suddenly lose your job, then your entire income stream disappears. That’s quite a scary thought. Also, having a job can cost you a lot! See this post here for that.
So, this is where passive income comes to play. Passive income is income received where you haven’t had to actually do anything to get paid. Some of these ideas are based on doing a lot of work up front, but then pay out after that.
1. Dividend Income.
I couldn’t do a list about passive income with dividend income being on here. This is one of my biggest income streams, outside of my day job. I have different holdings in various companies and funds (see this post for my most recent update on my portfolio) that pay me an income. This can vary – sometimes it is once a year, twice a year or four times a year. However, I don’t have to do anything to receive this! Totally passive 🙂 and my favourite passive income stream. And one which is the easiest to start! I am in the process of writing an e-course all about investing which answers every single question and gets you making money in 1 week!
2. Writing a blog.
Having a blog can eventually earn you passive income. This is through advertising; sometimes you might see an advert at the side of someone’s blog. I currently have one to the right which is placed there by Google, for example. The amount you receive for this is entirely dependent on how many visitors you get to your blog each month. There are also different advertising companies, not just Google. Some of them rely on you having over 100,000 page views a month though! But, it is passive. (I host my blog through Bluehost, and if you use this referral link you can start from £2 a month!)
3. Having a YouTube channel
Now, I am thoroughly enjoying my YouTube channel at the moment and want to see where this goes this year. However, YouTube can be a great source of passive income! You have to put the work in first, with researching the video, filming it, editing it and then uploading. However, once you’ve published your video, it is there forever! Now, there are some rules for monetising on YouTube. You have to have 1,000 subscribers and you need to have had 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months. This can take a while to reach (I am nowhere near!) but then you can ads to your videos and start earning money. Some popular YouTubers earn tens of thousands a month, so it can definitely be lucrative. Again, the more views you get the better this is.
4. Affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is something you can do to earn passive income. Bloggers, vloggers and indeed most social media influences use affiliate marketing as a passive income stream. So, if you write a blog post on a topic and then add a link, sometimes these are affiliate links. What this means is that if someone clicks on your link and then orders through it, you can earn some commission from that. For example, when I write about matched betting I link to Profit Accumulator, which is a website designed to help you make lots of money from it! That link is an affiliate link which means I earn a commission. The commission rates vary; clothing companies can be a lot more, for example. Using affiliate links doesn’t cost a reader anything but it does cost the company you’re linking to.
5. Writing a course.
Writing a course is an example of one where you need to do a lot of work first, and then the passive income comes later. Online courses are a massive online industry now, worth millions of pounds each year. Some bloggers have some amazingly successful courses which net them thousands a month. I have written my own course – Reduce Your Food Spend – which brings in money now and then. If you get this right, then this can be a very good passive income stream.
6. Book Royalties.
Another example here of having to do a LOT of work up front but then it pays out from that point onwards. I was talking to someone last week about having a book published and it sounds like a lot of work. There are also hidden costs of publishing and marketing. However, book royalties can be good and can last a lifetime! If you have it in you, then you could write a book to be published online, for the Amazon Kindle for example, and get royalties from that every month. I keep wondering about this but I genuinely don’t think I would have the time up front.
7. Printables.
Again, this can be a really lucrative passive income stream! There are lots of bloggers who have created digital and printable products that are then sold on sites like Etsy. You can pay to download them and print them at home. There are fees involved but this can be a great income stream. I have my own in The Frugal Cottage shop, though these hardly make me anything! That’s ok though; they are things I use every month so I would create them regardless. Some Etsy shops have hundreds of listenings which creates a great passive income stream. You can design things for free at Canva and upload!
So there we have it. 7 passive income ideas that you can start from £100, or less! And the idea is that you can build on these over time. Invest your profits and then see where it takes you. According to multiple sources, the amount of passive income you can generate can be endless. You just have to start somewhere!
Do you agree? Do you do any of these already? Let me know in the comments!
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