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I am so excited for this post! Passive income is truly dear to my heart. Therefore, in this article we are going over 8 of the best ways to make extra money through passive income!
Before we begin, if you are new to this blog, we’d like to say a quick “hey!”, but also give a heads up that we have a free workbook that you can download to get a headstart on your financial journey. Might as well now than later!
So, you are interested in starting your life without debt.
Ready to live financially free?
One of the biggest secrets to having a life without debt is through passive income, and we’ve laid out 8 unique ways that young adults can make extra money!
There are a handful of reasons why you’d want to start earning passive income:
- Reduce and pay off student loans
- Have no debt when you get married
- Be able to afford a family and children
- No worrying about working extra hours to pay off bills
Unfortunately, today’s typical American education does not provide information about personal finance. Young adults enter their 20’s without a foundational understanding of money!
So, What Is Passive Income?
You can earn passive income by working hard upfront, and earning money after the fact, without putting in direct work hours.
Let’s examine active and passive income, before diving into 8 ways to start earning!
Active Income:
- You do work, you get paid. You don’t earn anything past what you worked for!
- Example: You mow your neighbor’s lawn on Monday and earn $20. You do it again Tuesday and earn another $20. You return on Wednesday and do not mow. You do not earn any more money, and only get paid for the work you did.
Passive Income:
- You do work upfront, then continue to get paid after the fact.
- Some examples include: Earning money from YouTube, blogging, writing books/ebooks, stocks and dividends from investing, owning rental properties
8 Genius Ways to Earn Passive Income
Simple! By earning money without putting in the work, you can pay off more bills, get rid of debt, and life your life financially free!
Eventually you can build up your passive income with multiple “streams” of income and be able to quit your 8 to 5 job (or, never have to work at one)!
For example, if you choose to start blogging, you could earn money through affiliates, YouTube, ebooks, digital and physical products, and courses.
All of those methods take time up front to create, but then you can sit back and make money without tons work!
So, are you ready to find a way to earn passive income for you?
8. Start a Blog
Blogging is an extremely popular way to earn passive income!
As mentioned above, there are quite a bit of ways to monetize blogs and earn money while you sleep.
But, blogging does take a learning curve and a few months of dedication before you can really start making good money.
People earn anywhere from a few dollars to thousands each month blogging! Bloggers can usually start monetizing within their first month, depending on how much time you have to put in!
Additionally, some people can only spend a few hours a week to their blogs, while others quit their jobs to start blogging. No matter your situation, it is possible to be a blogger!
We put together a free step-by-step guide to help our readers start up their first blogs. It is regularly updated with information we learn and with answers to questions our readers ask!
Plus, it contains tons of links to all of our articles about blogging. It’s definitely worth checking out!
Interested in learning how to launch a blog? Check out this course that skyrocketed our success!
7. Udemy
While in high school or college did you develop a unique skill?
Do you have any talents or hobbies?
You could easily start earning passive income by teaching others!
Udemy is a platform where people can create courses to teach others skills, give helpful information, and guide others to develop new hobbies.
Understandably, for some of you, Udemy may be a place where you’d frequent to learn, but if you have unique skills or hobbies, you could start earning by helping others!
You could earn money through Udemy by making a course about:
- Brush lettering, calligraphy, drawing, painting, or other arts subject
- Coding
- Musical instrument like guitar or drums
- Graphic design
- Singing, sight reading
- Social media influencing
6. Etsy
This passive income option can tie right into the previous one.
Let’s say you don’t want to put forth the effort of creating a course, potentially due to lack of equipment or nervousness.
If you have any hobbies in photography, crafting or graphic design, you could make great money off of Etsy!
Etsy is a platform where people sell hand-made items. This varies greatly, from clothing to cards to jewelry. You don’t need to be great at anything to start making money!
Some examples of products you could sell on Etsy:
- Have you taken a sewing class?
Find something that is easy to make, like headbands or dog tutus, that can be sold for more than the money put in. - Do you have experience with graphic design (or, do you have an app like Canva or Over)?
Make templates for birthday cards, resumes, or Save the Dates and make it an automatic download through Etsy. No extra work needed after you post it on Etsy! - Do you have any basic crafting experience?
Make simple earrings, buttons, or hair bows. Cheap to make in bulk, and easy to sell for high profits!
5. Product Flipping
This option takes more time, but could be worth it if you have some time to spare!
There are plenty of places to get items to flip, like estate and garage sales, and antique stores.
For example, you could take an old dresser, paint it, and resell it for significantly more money than what you paid it for.
As long as you have some space for storage, flipping is a great way to earn extra money without needing any creative skills!
4. Dividends from Investing
There are two great apps that help young adults learn about investing!
Robinhood is a free app that helps you learn how to invest in stocks, which can give you dividends (pay outs).
Interested? This link will give you a FREE stock to start practicing with investing!
This is a great time to start getting into investing, especially when you don’t have much money or time to spare.
*Full disclosure, this link belongs to a ThirtyEight Investing family member. When you use this link, they’ll receive a free share too! It’s a win-win!
Acorns is a free app that helps you learn to invest without putting any money in! If you follow the link above, you get $5 for free to start investing! Yay!
Starting investing at a young age can literally mean the difference between retiring at 40 and retiring at 75.
Compound interest is an amazing secret that should be taken advantage of early!
3. Social Media Influencing
It doesn’t take much to be an influencer these days, and it provides some awesome monetization opportunities.
You could be an influencer through Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or even in conjunction with your blog! For young adults, this option allows for minimal efforts and potentially high payouts.
Using affiliates are the most popular way to earn as an influencer.
To get an idea for what you could earn, here are a few examples!:
- $50 per sale by promoting SmileDirectClub, and for each person that buys it
- Earn 10% per sale for when people buy clothes from your links
- Earn $15 for promoting a free app to help them write better
You could be an “influencer” for literally any niche you could think of!
Some topics include:
- Makeup and beauty products
- Religion and/or Christianity
- Fashion
- Finance
2. YouTube
Earning passive income through YouTube is also a popular option that many young adults are turning to.
What’s great about YouTube is that you don’t have to have much skill in editing or filming to create a good product!
With the quality of phones, and how inexpensive filming equipment can be, making videos is easy for anyone to make and earn from!
1. Fiverr
Surprisingly, many young adults have not heard of Fiverr!
Do you have any skill in graphic design, know a second language, have coding experience, or love social media?
Fiverr is an awesome platform where you can earn money for providing services that you could already be skilled at! Plus, as you continue to age and learn, you can provide services for even more money!
Some ways you could make money on Fiverr include:
- Making logos
- Posting for social media accounts, being a social media manager
- Translating
- Providing relationship advice
- Making and editing websites (A great option if you have blogging experience!)
- Providing voice-over for videos/books/etc.
Okay, Now What?
There are plenty of other ways to earn passive income, and this list is definitely not exhaustive! Unfortunately, there aren’t many popular options out there for millennials to earn money, aside from social media.
Hopefully this list sparks some interest and gives you some ideas to get you closer to financial freedom!
Thanks for hanging out with us! We continue to enjoy helping our readers achieve their passive income goals!
ThirtyEight Investing
All advice and opinions provided in this post are reflections on experience and are for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please see our disclaimer page details.