Passive income is money that you receive on a monthly basis and which requires little or no effort at all to maintain. Put it this way, finally your money is working for you, and not the other way around. So basically, even if you didn’t take any jobs in the future, from the money you earn from your passive investments, you will be able to support yourself, pay for rent, food, and other necessities. That sounds amazing, doesn’t it? There are so many benefits that come with this type of income. First of all, there are no associated costs with the passive income. You don’t need to have uniforms or lunches with co-workers or clients, and there are no transportation costs involved either. When you are financially independent, you can literally live anywhere in the world and work from home if needed, it is up to you whether that place is Spain, Bali, or an island in the Caribbean. All you really need is a laptop and an Internet connection.

Did you know that there is enough money in the world for each of us to be a millionaire?

There are many ways to generate passive income. You can make money by buying something, e.g. a property, and then renting it out, or you can decide to do it the hard way and sweat through days and nights until you have a product in your hand that you can sell. Some of the ideas require more work than others, but you will end up having extra money in your pocket with all of them. So, in no particular order, here is a list of my top 10 great passive income ideas that you can try.

1. Royalties

Earn royalties from writing a book or a song, or develop a product. Well, that is exactly what I’m doing here. After you create the content and publish your book (hard copy and/or eBook) all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the sound of the sales messages popping up on your phone each day.

2. Affiliate Marketing

This option could be done by signing up with a company and promoting and selling their products through your website. You can earn a nice passive income if you receive a decent amount of traffic to your site, and get a thousand email subscribers.

3. Investment

Building an investment portfolio can work like magic. It doesn’t matter whether you go with bonds, stocks, or shares, you need to make sure that you either understand how the market works, or hire a financial adviser who helps you choose the right investment for you.

Master the Currency (“Forex”) Market

Forex is the biggest financial market in the world, with some $4 trillion traded each day, so the potential of making big bucks is definitely there, but there are some rules you need to follow. You need to possess many different characteristics and skills in order to be successful in the financial markets. You must have the knowledge to determine the direction of the trend, but not one of these is as important as the ability to contain emotions and maintain discipline. Although the theory is given, we all place our orders with the intent to maximize gains and minimize losses, but emotions often cloud our decision-making and prevent us from acting in a rational manner. We need to understand fear and realise that greed is our worst enemy. Through meditation, we can learn to be disciplined during necessary times when we feel our strategies are not working according to our plans. Using meditation as a midday break as well as a morning preparation for the day can help us take a few steps back from the markets and approach them with a fresh perspective. If we want to be successful at trading, we need to stay focused and consistent. Setting trading rules, building a trading plan, doing research, and getting experience can also help us overcome these little mind matters.  Are you using any of these passive income opportunities?

4. Real Estate

Buying a property where you become the landlord and then rent it out on a monthly basis is a great way to earn extra income. You can also decide to buy a property in order to fix up the inside and outside and then make a profit by selling it at a higher price than you originally paid. People will always need a place to live.

5. Network Marketing

It is probably the most popular way to generate passive income. There are many different systems you can join. The end goal for all of us is to become financially free, meaning our passive income streams would cover all our expenses, and from that moment on, we would only work because we choose to, not because we have to.

6 Paid Surveys

I believe participating in surveys is the easiest way to earn some extra cash. We might not talk about big bucks here, but for answering some questions, clicking a few boxes regarding your opinion about something, it is definitely worth it. Most of these surveys are short and take less than five minutes to complete.

7. Reward and Discount Programs

This option, like the one above, might not net you a lot, but as they say, every penny counts. Whether you get money back after using your credit card at particular places or shopping online, the system is very simple. Airline miles program can be another one you might want to try.

8. Systemize, automate, and outsource any active business

One of the best ways to earn an enormous passive income is to create a business and then leave it to others to operate while you are no longer in the daily running of the operation. I understand that it is time consuming and takes a lot of effort to build the value and worth of your company, but believe me, after systemizing, automating, and outsourcing your business, you can sit back and let it work without you while you live like a king.

9. Online course with membership

I won’t go into much detail on that as the process is pretty obvious. Find a niche that you know inside out and create an instructional or informational video that would help people solve their problems. What’s more, if you structure it smartly, you can charge a monthly membership fee.

10. Buy and then rent out expensive equipment

I hear you, this idea of generating an income is not entirely passive, but without too much effort, you can rent the same item over and over and over again. Think about digital tools, such as an expensive camera.

I didn’t include blogging in my top ten suggestions, as it is, I’m sure, already well known to most of you. It might not be passive in nature, but blogging is one of the best platforms that can create other passive income opportunities.

There are so many other ways to generate passive income, you just have to find the ones that resonate with you the most. Be creative! Sometimes very little or no money is needed to create some passive income streams.

Let me tell you a short story about a lady who made a lot of money from almost nothing only by being creative and taking the opportunity that was around her. One day she noticed that even though the big empty field that was next to her flat was already sold to a company a long time ago that wanted to build other residential homes on it, the building had actually never started. She thought to herself: it was a such a waste having that empty land there and not using it for anything. One day she came up with a brilliant idea. As her apartment was close to the city centre she thought: Why not use that space for parking for the time being? She contacted the company that owned the land, and found out that they were not planning to build anything on it for at least another year or so. She presented her idea to them and within a short amount of time she made a nice sum of money. All she needed to do was to refit the land so it could be used for parking. She hired a man that was there day and night to charge for the lots and the people were also happy as they could leave their cars in a safe parking area relatively close to the centre of the city. Opportunities like this are all around us. We just need to keep our eyes open and be creative.