Passive Income Ideas
Passive Income Ideas
Passive Income – The holy grail of Income! Who wouldn’t want to make money while they sleep? There are a lot of different ways to make money. This list is full of nearly 40 different passive income ideas.
Most people tend to only bring in income from their typical day job and work hard for their money. We used to be the same, but started thinking about different way’s to earn some more money.
We currently generate 6 different sources of passive income, but I would love to get that number up to at least 7. They say the average millionaire has 7 different streams of income.
Please Note – Some of these link’s are affiliate links, which means if you click on them and decide to do business with the company I may receive a small commission. I only promote companies that I use or think would benefit you the reader. Thanks.
Super Passive Income Ideas
1. Solar Panels – In Ontario the government will pay you for your clean energy. When this was first introduced the rates were a lot higher. But if you install a > 6 kW ≤ 10 kW (microfit) rooftop system. Based on 2017 rates you will get 28.8 cents per kwh. Generally you tap into the system and get paid for your hydro.
We got our system set up in January 2018 and it has had no problems and continues to create money for us every month. It’s about as passive as you can get and it’s great for the environment!
2. Dividends – Buy stock in good companies and collect passive income in the form of Dividend’s. I’m a huge fan of dividend growth investing. It is probably the easiest way to create a new passive income source. By combining Dividend stocks and the use of TFSA, RRSP or RESP accounts, you can create a small fortune. Some dividend companies have been raising their dividend every year for over 60 years!
We use Questrade to buy stocks as their trading fees are lower than most in Canada. Buying etf’s are commission free as well, which is a huge bonus. Click the banner below and get 50$ in free trades when you open an account.
3. Cash Back Credit Cards – Purchase stuff you normally do with your cash back card and pay off the balance before you get charged interest. Earn 1-4% on each buy. O.k. this one may actually be easier than dividend’s…… Seriously if you have a basic credit card go change it. I personally use a cash back card and get $300-400 back a year. Just make sure you pay your balance to avoid any interest charges. Some people prefer travel reward cards. The choice is yours, but definitely take advantage of credit card bonuses.
Rent
4. Rental Units – Buy and rent out a house a room or basement, you can even rent out part of your property for storage. This is something I’m really contemplating for a new income source, but housing in the GTA is sooo expensive!
5. Rent stuff – Post a ad on kijii and craigslist etc. I rent out my kayak and am looking into buying some have a heart traps and portable scaffolds. A friend rents out wedding linings. It’s all cash and just requires you to post a ad once in awhile. If you choose to do this I recommend asking for a deposit and to take a picture of their photo id.
6. Air B n B – I know a couple people who do this. Great money. Rent out your place for the night/weekend. My wife’s sister does this and just stays at her boyfriends or parents on the weekends and rents out her place in Toronto. I’d be worried about my stuff but people who do it don’t have problems based on previous references of renters.
Passive Income Ideas Involving Writing
7. Start a Website – Having your own website is fantastic. It’s a great way to become part of a community of like minded people who have the same interests as yourself. There is also a lot of ways to create a nice side income from it. This website is currently hosted by wpx but started on Siteground. Site ground is a great place to start as hosting is relatively cheap and the support is fantastic.
8. Affiliate Marketing – Get paid a percentage when someone makes a purchase from your affiliate link. There are so many options out there for this kind of stuff but Amazon is probably the most popular.
9. Write A Book – They say everyone has a book in them! Write a book and hopefully the passive income pours in.
10. Sell your e book – Put your E-book on amazon or your website and collect the profits.
Another 10 Passive Income Ideas
11. Own A Business – This one can go both ways. Running a business can be a lot of work, but there are businesses out there that the owners do nothing anymore just collect the cheques. This is not for everyone.
12. Certificates of Deposits – Although the interest is low, you could invest in these. A really safe investment.
13. Tax Leins – I know in the U.S you can go to court houses and find tax leins to invest in. Seems like a decent return. I don’t know if Canada offers this.
14. Annuity’s – Basically a investment to earn money for life.
15. Peer to Peer Lending – Lending Club is one site. You set how much you want to invest and split it among a lot of accounts for diversity then create a monthly income.
16. Write for sites – You can write articles for sites and get paid a premium for it. I’m thinking Seeking Alpha. I’m sure there are more options out there though.
17. Create A Course On Udemy – I haven’t done this but have seen it posted. You can create your own course on whatever you like and when people buy it you get money! Udemy
18. Design T-shirts/Logo’s – Create different designs and idea’s and put it on Cafe Press and earn $$
19. Trade Options – This is something I want to learn more about. Basically a contract to buy or sell stocks at a set price, and earn a premium for the risk.
20. Ads On Youtube – Setup a you tube account and put ads on them. You can make any type of videos you like. My son used to watch kids opening kinder eggs for hours. I’ve thought of setting up his own account to do whatever and promote his creativity while making a buck!
5 More. Why not?
21. Selling Stock Photos – Everyone is always taking pictures. Why not put them on Shutterstock or Istockphoto and start making money off your pics. People will buy them for their websites or businesses. This is something I want to do. I’ll keep you posted.
22. Promoting A Product – Celebrities or people with a big enough following get paid to promote products.
23. Searching or Shopping Online – Sites like Swag Bucks will reward you while doing the normal tasks you do online. I use them a bit, but there’s other blogger’s out there doing quite well, using this regularly.
24. Car Wash – Own a car wash, work a couple hrs a week filling the soap etc or hire that out. Seems like a nice cash cow.
25. Storage Units – Same as above, not to much work once it gets going. If people don’t pay maybe the guys from storage wars will come by.
OK last Time 4 More
26. Vending Machines/ Games – The hardest part would be finding businesses that would let you put this in their place. Candy and stuff would need to be restocked. Foosball tables would maybe need some light greasing and to empty all that money!
27. ATM Machines – Again once you find a business that doesn’t have one, its easy money.
28. Laundromats – People got to wash clothes, and if I have some really really dirty cover all’s they are going to the laundry mat. Nice passive income here. Make sure you check the quarters if they are old enough they are silver and worth more!
29. Buy Blogs – Recently I have been reading about people buying established blogs. They already are getting the traffic and creating a income. Find something your interested in and post the odd day to keep the site going.
Side Incomes
These ones contain work, and would be separate from your normal day job.
1. Survey sites – I personally use Mysurvey It definitely won’t make you retire early, but everyday they are sending me surveys. I don’t do them right away and lose out on the higher paying ones. The odd night ill knock out a couple. I’ve made over 10 bucks over the past 3 weeks. They just offered a survey for 10$ to track my expenses this month. Easy 10 bucks I do this anyways. There is a bunch of survey sites out there. If you know a better one let me know.
2. Set Up Websites – If your a blogger you probably know the basics. Why not make some extra cash at night.
3. Resell Stuff – Buy stuff cheap and resell them on Ebay, Amazon, KIjii, Craigslist etc
4. Drive for Uber – I know people who do this. They love it.
5. Gardening – Place a free ad on sites online and charge money to shovel snow, weed flower beds, clean leaves etc. Our company charges 50$ a hr to weed and clean up gardens. We have to turn a lot of it down because the guys don’t want to weed all day.
5 More Passive Income Ideas
6. Handy Man – Lot’s of people need a handy man, fixing leaky faucets, switching light fixtures, drywalling, mudding etc
7. Senior Help – Honestly this one bugs me. We have a bunch of senior clients and their kids don’t really help them. One told me his daughter came by and he asked if she can change some light bulbs and just laughed and didn’t do it. But with our regular clients I change their light bulbs when they ask and refill their soft water tanks with salt. Simple tasks that are hard for seniors. Make some extra money or some fresh cookies.
8. Transcriber – This one I want to do but haven’t gotten to it. There’s a couple sites out there that pay you to listen to audio and type it all down. Somethings easy to do for 1-2 hrs a night. From what I have read you can expect to make 15$ to $30 a hour depending on how good you are with a keyboard.
9. Newspaper/Flyer Delivery – I had to put this. I did this as a kid. Its extra money and good exercise.
10. Teach English to foreigners – This is something I have wanted to look into. And you can do it at night online using a camera so they can see you. Right now I cant find the link, but it seems pretty lucrative. But I would think there’s sites out there for every language.
Conclusion
Well that’s all I can think of at the moment. I will constantly be updating this list. Do you got any passive income ideas I missed? Please share as it’s great to have a updated list of all the options. Hope you got something out of this list of passive income ideas. Best of luck, if you decide to pursue one of there ideas!
If your looking to raise your income try a job search at Jooble. Lots of companies are there looking to hire you.
cheers!
Hey I’m Rob, creator of Passive Canadian Income.
In 2011 me and my wife had almost $60,000 in debt and a negative $7,000 Net Worth. Through hard work and financial education we paid all that off. Now we are focusing on increasing our Passive Income Streams to make the money work for us. Feel Free to Follow along the Journey by clicking the Social Media links below or subscribing to get notified of new posts on the sidebar.
Wow, this is a very extensive list. I really like #17, creating a course. I definitely want to create a weath building course in the future. I have written my six steps to save a million dollars. All I have to do is make them into actionable steps for readers to follow.
Definally Leo! I think you would be fantastic at it. Let me know how it goes if you do decide to do it.
On the issue of solar panels, I think Elon musk came out with really good looking panels that double as roof tiles! That was a really big concern for a lot of home owners. They just didn’t like the fact that solar panels looked like an eyesore on their roof
Hey I’m a huge fan of Elon. Just got to wait for them to go down in price. I priced out a system at 78k for me. A little too expensive atm. That was the clay tiles tho. I love what Elon is doing with Renewables and the electric cars. Space x is pretty dam cool too.
Great list of ideas. I love the solar panel and clean energy stuff. Just would require a lot of capital up front to implement before paying for itself.
Yeah that’s true. I wish we could power onto the grid. I should look into it again.
I didn’t know the job Transcriber. It is a nice list for making extra income. Thanks for sharing it.
These days, with the Internet, there are so many creative ways one can earn extra cash “passively.” Of course, most things aren’t truly passive as everything requires some degree of work more or less. I actually considered laundromats several years ago but never pulled the trigger as any decent size mat is very capital intensive and requires a good amount of cash to start. Great list!
Yeah that’s true. I keep looking around for some business that like but they sell for way to much at the moment.
Great list – also I love the new layout and design 🙂
Are you using the Skyscraper method for SEO?
Hey Erik, Thanks a lot. Glad to hear you like it. I found I had alot of people go to my main page and not really look around and leave. I like this more myself. Its the hueman theme and I use yoast seo. What is the skyscraper method?
This is an awesome list!!! With the internet today there is definitely no shortage of possibilities to earn money. They are not all glamorous but with some hard work it’s definitely doable!!!
Love lists like these, there are plenty of great opportunities out there for passive income. Heck, I guess I didn’t realize how many of these I have tried over the years. But now I have a place to go to when I have idea.
Bert
Great read, always looking for extra ways to make cash. I just wanted to share something I’ve been doing recently. I run an office and have noticed that unused toner was piling up in storage. Looked into returning but that was no good. Tried out the site http://www.tonerconnect.net/ and was impressed. They had quick service and that payout was nice.
Hey cade. Welcome thanks. Always nice seeing new people. I dont have much printer ink around so wont work for me but maybe someone else benfits from it.
Cheers
Nice. I will see what I can start from your list. The solar panel seems a great return just that it involves lots of capital before start getting returns.
Hey Daniel
Welcome!
I recently got our solar panels up and running and actually just our first paycheque.
Good luck with adding some new sources.
Cheers
Great list. Have been looking into a lot of these myself. I notice in one of the numbers regarding gardening you often turn down jobs. Need any extra people on your team? Located in Toronto/GTA.
Hey Jay
Thanks man, got to say I love the attitude!
We are quite a bit outside of Toronto and most likely wouldn’t be worth your commute. There are a tonne of landscapers hiring right now, best of luck. Its a really fulfilling job.
Cheers
Hello, I would definitely take the sponsored link: Free Car Media OUT! I signed up and all the offer after searching in my area is to become a Uber driver or to start my online business! That website is a scam.
Oh sorry to hear that Judith. Seemed like a legit company.
Will do, again sorry for referring you.
btw it wasnt a sponsored link. I did try to sign up
Hi,
Thanks for all these ideas. Personnally I sell options (mainly put option) on ETF or shares.
It’s risky and requires a strong market undertsanding but now, I earn around 500-600$ per month.
Thanks for your website,
Alexandre
hey Alexandre
This is something I have definitely thought of doing but don’t know too much about it and can’t really understand the market at the moment either.
Glad to hear you are doing well with it though.
keep it up
Hi,
You can buy the book Option Volatility and Pricing, written by Sheldon Natenberg. One of the best book to understand mechanisms, strategies, etc.
And then, make paper trading using Excel and Yahoo Finance (to get price).
As you already have a stock portfolio, you should have a look on the strategy called “Covered call”. The biggest risk is to sell your stock at desire price and meanwhile, you get the premium.
PS: just discovered your blog via twitter, really interesting. In a near future, i plan to move in Canada (Québec).
Alexandre
hey love it thanks
Will look to see if the library has that now. Add it to the reading list. I see alot of people doing very well with options these days.
Glad you like the site and best of luck on the move. Canada is a great place to live and Montreal has the best bagels!
haha cheers
I guess mining bitcoin could be passive.. Its not for me, but it is for some.
Also, there are other sources of regular interest income, not just GICs.. Direct Loans, MICs, construction financing, etc.. Or do you consider those non-passive ?
well they would be passive for sure. A lot of those come down to connections though. I dont know if the average person could get into construction loans or mics without knowing someone… maybe you know something I dont? If so lmk Id gladly read into them
cheers
MICs exist in most provinces. Being in Ontario, there are many. However most have 25k – 50k minimums. All are available to accredited investors.
But not all mics are equal. Some can be very risky and require multi year commitment, others are into second mortgages, while others can be very conservative. The company I deal with is conservative, offering 8% return. In their financial reports, they have almost $0 bad debt, and are constantly rolling theu deals in a timely fashion.
Google, and you will find many. HOWEVER,
you must do your homework! I’ve touched on some of the questions to ask.