Introduction
If you happen to be a fan of social media you must have come across several people talking about passive income streams. If on the other hand, you are not on social media but for some reason you want to make extra money to support yourself or your family, this blog post is for you.
I will discuss in this blog post examples of passive income ideas you can start today to generate income for yourself.
Let’s start by defining what passive income means. Passive income is money that you get based on work that you did once, and it subsequently keeps generating income for you. It could be a video you recorded once or a product you advertised once and made public and for several years, these keep generating recurring income for you.
Four side hustles that generate income
1. Sell digital prints on Etsy
Etsy is a platform where creatives come to sell. It is a marketplace that has over 81.9 million active buyers as of 2020.
A good side hustle to start is to create and sell digital prints on this platform. There are lots of options to choose from. You could create wall decor prints, nursery prints, planners, trackers just to name a few. You create and list these printable items once and people print by themselves when they make a purchase.
Does this sound like something you are interested in and can do?
Let me show you how to go about it.
To get started you need to create a Canva account. This is the place where you will be designing your prints. Canva has a free version as well as a pro version (A paid version).
You are limited to the functions available in the free version but I think as a beginner you can start with the free version. If you however want to pay for a pro version it costs €9.16/£9.34 per month on a yearly subscription..
Other people use programs like adobe illustrator, photoshop, and even word documents.
The next thing to do is to get clip arts, fonts, themes, and graphics that you will use for your prints. Examples of platforms to get them from include:
You need to make sure you choose a commercial license when you buy from any of these platforms. This allows you to sell your designs once you have created them.
Once you have created your designs on Canva or any other program of your choice, you open an Etsy shop and list your designs in your Etsy shop.
Here is a link to a video that will guide you to create a design.
There are several such videos on youtube you can use as a guide.
Etsy charges you a listing fee of $0.20 per listing.
Transaction fee 5%
Payment and processing fee 3-5%
Another thing to consider when starting to sell on Etsy is Etsy SEO. It’s basically how to get found in search. Marmalead is one of the tools used when conducting Etsy SEO research.
2. Affiliate marketing
The second side hustle idea to make extra money is affiliate marketing. What this means is you will be promoting the products or services of businesses or entrepreneurs. You get a commission when someone buys using your special link.
So how does this really work?
To get started you need to make some form of a platform where you create and publish content. It could be a youtube channel, a blog, a niched Instagram page, Facebook, or any other social media platform or a mailing list.
Once you have a platform you can apply to affiliate market platforms such as Amazon Associates, ShareASale, Awin, CJ Affiliate, Clickbank just to name a few.
Some of these platforms have requirements. You might have to have a specific following on these platforms before you are accepted to join.
Once you qualify, you decide what you want to prompt to your followers. You are provided a special link/links with products or services which you recommend to your followers on your platform. If they use your link to make a purchase you get a commission.
It’s free to join most affiliate marketing programs. The programs that charge a fee to join charge very little.
3. Youtube videos
Making and publishing videos online is also another way to generate passive income. It’s free to start and once you provide educational or entertaining content and have people viewing your videos as well as ads that play on your video, you get paid.
To start a channel you need your phone or a camera and an editing program. There are lots of free editing programs you can download and use. An example is hitfilm express.
How do you get started?
Sign up for a youtube account
Sign up for Google AdSense
Record and edit your video
Publish and make it public
There are tools you can use to help you be ranked in search or help you know which videos do better on youtube, they include Tubebuddy, vidiq, morningfame.
You get paid based on the ads that are placed on your videos and based on how many watch hours your videos get.
Another thing to consider is that you need to be consistent in producing content. Show your personality and be interactive with your followers, promote your videos too as that’s the only way you will make it on this platform.
It’s free to sign up and start publishing videos on youtube.
4. Blogging
With this side hustle, you will be writing articles and you get money when ads are displayed on your site or if you promote affiliate links, or if you sell courses.
How to get started?
You need to have a platform where you write your articles. There are lots and some of them include WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix.
You also need to have a domain name and a host, you can get it from Namecheap and siteground respectively.
Decide which niche you want to blog about and find out if people are interested in that niche.
Some examples of good niches include personal finance, food, personal development, lifestyle, and fashion.
Write well-optimised blog articles.
You can start a blog for free but if the blog is for business purposes and you want to generate real income from it, you can start with about $100. This is money you will use to purchase your domain name and domain hosting.
If you stick around to the end which I will really appreciate, I will reveal as a bonus six other side hustles that you can look into if you are interested.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Why you should start a side hustle
It’s a very expensive world we live in today and unfortunately, most people find themselves living paycheck to paycheck.
And if you happen to be one of those people, one way to break this cycle is to have a side income.
There is nothing pleasant about financial stress.
The pandemic brought most of us to a realisation that our 9-5 jobs are not guaranteed. If you happen to be one of those who lost their jobs during that period, Im so sorry about that.
Having a side income now is a good idea as should something of such sort ever happen again in the future, which I strongly hope will not, some of these side hustles could potentially become a good source of income. You never know:)
Is it easy to start a side hustle?
My honest answer is No. It is not easy to start a side hustle. But it is very doable. Let me explain to you why I say it is not easy.
If it is a side hustle idea you are not familiar with and you have to research about it before you start, you will be bombarded with lots of information online. Most of this information will be about other people who are selling courses that teach how to go about the business.
You have a responsibility to decide which of these courses will be the right fit for you. Truth be told, if you are not cautious, you might end up spending a lot of money before you start making any money.
Another reason why I say it is not easy is that you will have to invest a lot of your time upfront. A lot of work will be involved before you will start to see the benefits of whatever side hustle it is you are doing.
Do not let this discourage you, I will discuss in the next point how to remain focussed.
How to remain focussed on your side hustle journey
- You should always remember your reason for starting the side hustle
- Do not overwhelm yourself with too much information
- Buy a course or get a mentor that teaches how to go about starting the side hustle. Usually, bloggers who specialize in the said field are more knowledgeable and give good resources and tips on how to go about starting
- Work on it every day
- Have a main goal and small goals that will help you achieve the main goal
- Give yourself a time frame to complete a task
- Take breaks
As promised, this is a list of other side hustle ideas you can look into:
- Renting your room
- Sell your items in second-hand shops
- Dropshipping
- Sell low content books on amazon
- Invest in the stock market
- Real estate investing
I hope you found this article helpful. Best of luck as you start your side hustle. Remember to stay focussed and remember your why for starting in the first place!
BIO
I am Norkor Naate-Kivimaa. I have a website where I write mainly about saving money through frugal living and also I write about ways to make money with side hustles. https://thatnaatemom.com/home-2/
