10 Easy Tips to Generate Passive Income

Passive income is income that does not require your direct involvement. It comes while we are sleeping :). It is not actually too hard to get passive income. Here are a few easy ways to generate some passive income for you.

1. Create a squidoo lens

According to the Official Squidoo Lens,
“We believe that when you go online, you don’t search. You don’t even find. Instead you are usually on a quest to just make sense.” There ought to be a way for you to talk about what matters to you, what 10 things matter to you, without the pressure of keeping it up daily (like a blog); and you ought to be able to make some money if someone buys something because you recommended it.”

I created a lens in 30 minutes about how to write a memorable birthday message. It generated more than $500 in total since 2007. Create your lens now by clicking here.

2. Create a commercial blog

There are countless ways to monetize a blog. When you monetize your blog, it becomes a commercial blog. To start blogging, register your own free blog at wordpress.com or blogger.com. However, monetizing from a free hosted blog is not that easy.
The easiest way to monetize a blog is using Google Adsense.

Maintaining a blog or website might be a daunting task for most people because it is like a life-long commitment to update and keep writing. I started many blogs and most had been abandoned. However, I’ve still got a few blogs that I’ve never updated for years. But it still generates income in the forms of advertising revenue and affiliate commission.

I’ve a course call Blogging Method – Make Money Blogging in Malaysia. I teach all the stuff I know about blogging and will definitely shorten your learning curve.

3. Subscribe to Icapital.biz and buy the KLSE shares recommended

The current offer is RM199/year per subscription. It used to be RM99/year only before year 2007. I started my subscription in March 2006. I bought the shares recommended after reading the detail report written by their experienced financial analysts. My stock investment portfolio is doing pretty well all these time since the subscription. I have the peace of mind while investing in shares market.

4. Let professional fund managers to manage your investment

If you want to go a step further toward passive investing mode, here is another option – engage professional fund manager. You can start as little as RM50,000 with Philip Capital. They help you buy and sell share, managing your portfolio on your behalf. Currently, they are engaging independent financial planning firms to market this service to the general public. If you are interested, just fill up the form below and I’ll hook you up with the licensed representative:

5. Write a commercial pop song

This advice is only for those who are talented song writers. Refer my previous post about passive income for song writers: Earning passive royalty income from song writing. I’ve tried to sell a song for many years but still can’t get any major artist to sing one of my compositions. As a result, I published my own album, sell my songs at iTunes (which I manage to get a sale once in a blue moon) and get my song available at music streaming service such as Spotify. I also have music clips listed at some royalty-free stock music sites.

I got paid for all these, but not much, which means that I can’t rely on it to have a good lifestyle. However, it will be something I love to do during my spare time.

6. Increase your saving rate

You can save in Fixed Deposit, unit trusts, investment-linked fund, endowment plan or even a normal bank saving account. The more you save, the more interest you get. This is simple but yet ignored by most people for so long!

But you have to accept the not-so-amazing return. It is 100% passive though!

7. Join Multi-level-marketing

You know what I am talking about here. I believe that most probably you have heard of all kind of MLM programs more than I do. The easiest way is to join an MLM system which doesn’t require you to do sales or recruiting. I join ecosway. I don’t do any recruiting. All I did is using their ecosway credit card for my daily expenses and join their shopper program. But now they had already changed their marketing plan.

The other MLM company that’s very hot right now is NuSkin. Their products is about weight-loss, anti-aging, stay young! Their marketing plan is great but only those who have medium to high income network will most likely to make it. It is because their product price range is high, which is able to provide significant commission for many levels.

However, building a network in MLM takes a lot of effort. Expect to work hard with two franchisese: 7-Eleven (7am till 11pm) and ESSO (Every Saturday and Sunday On), for at least 3-5 years. If you manage to climb up the level, you’ll be on your way to enjoy passive income onward.

8. Becoming a financial product consultant

An insurance agent gets commission for six  years when a customer renews his policy. A unit trust agent will get residual income for his clients who practice Ringgit or Dollar Cost Averaging. The commission is perpetuate. There are also overriding commission for upper tier managers. If you build your customers base and sales team, you might some day enjoy passive income!

9. Buy-to-let

Buying a residential or commercial property and rent it to trustworthy tenants. Real estate investing isn’t for everybody, but it’s an industry that has attracted many successful and unsuccessful people. Educated or not, investors can be found in all ages and backgrounds but it seems that the only surety to success is found with experience.

One of the reason I like about real estate is that it is a tangible assets. You buy the bricks, the lands, the dirt, the fixtures. These stuff get appreciate when population increases.

10. Create an information product and sell it online

People are hunting for information all the time through the internet. If you know some special “know-how”, write an e-book and sell it online. You can sell it at ebay or lelong. Best of all, sell it on your own website. You can create courses with video and audio download. You can create membership site.

BONUS Tip:

11. Participate in money game or Pyramid program
Personally, I don’t participate in this kind of program. The main reason is that I don’t want to earn other’s money without value added to them. There will be a saturation point where the lowest rank participant will be “sacrificed” and the program collapsed. If you are fine with that, maybe it is your cup of tea.

Now you might see some similarities among the above-mentioned passive income tips. You either need money, or effort and time to produce passive income. By using money, you can invest in business (Item 3,4,6,11) or real estate (item 9), or some other commodities not mentioned here (gold, silver, derivatives etc). By using time and effort, you can create assets and businesses of your own (Item 1,2,5,7,8,10). There are several items I haven’t mentioned here – such as books, art and illustration etc. I think you get the picture.

Generating a substantial and consistent passive income takes years of effort. Start now and you’ll be on your way to financial freedom.

Reference:
Passive income
Web 2.0 Burnout?
Online Passive Income Dreams – Goals All Bloggers Should Have.
Do You Have What it Takes to Become a “Rich Dad”?
Boost up your adsense income by referral program
8 Ways To Earn Passive Income Online