Top 10 Passive Income Streams to Generate Residual Income


Top 10 Passive Income Streams to Generate Residual Income

I’m sure you must have heard Warren Buffet’s saying, ‘If you can’t find a way to make money whileyou sleep, you will work until you die.’

Most people are on board with this idea. Money is one of the most twisted yet desirable assets in the world. And it has one fact: there is never enough of it.

While we all work hard to earn it, people always lookforward to making money the easiest way. Even though the easy ways of makingmoney requires some initial investment along with time and effort, they don’tneed your active attention at all times like a regular job.

Welcome to the world of passive income: the holygrail of entrepreneurs, the secret to making money while sleeping and freeingup your time.

Who wouldn’t want to wake up to a pile of cash gradually creeping into their bank accounts?

Does it sound crazy to you? Well, it isn’t!

Passive income is highly sought after by people and also one of the things that are misunderstood quite often. It is easy to imagine money piling up your accounts, but what people forget is that there is a lot of work involved too. 

For people who are looking to take some time out forthemselves, untether from their daily 9 to 5 office duties, passive income is awonderful option.

Consider passive income as an infinite potential income stream. It’s infinite because there is literally no limit to the amount of passive income one can generate.

And for people who are constantly worried about whether their earning will meet their retirement goals, building wealth through passive income is one of the best options.

Adding passive income streams in life or a portfolioisn’t going to harm you. It may require a few additional efforts but theincrease in your earnings will surely accelerate your financial goals.

What is Passive Income?

Just like the name, the income received, in thiscase, is passive. In other words, passive income includes regular earnings froma source other than an employer or contractor.

There can be many sources from where one can earn passive income, the most common of which remain the rental property and business, in which one does not participate very actively.

Some of these might include booking properties or stock dividends etc.

In fact, making money with a blog is also a passive income.

But, many people think that passive income is aboutgetting something by doing nothing. The point is that it does have a get-rich-quickrich appeal, but those who think nothing needs to be done are often mistaken.

Clearly, it is hard to generate passive income. You give both the work and the investment upfront, only to reap the benefits later on. Sometimes, there are even no returns for a certain period of time.

In fact, one can go for even months and years withouta single dollar produced from passive income activities. This makes even themost sharp-witted entrepreneurs lose their patience in sheer frustration.

The importance of passive income comes from the fact that time is more valuable than money. While money can be spent and earned, time can be only be spent once, before it vanishes into thin air with each passing moment.

Passive income can come really handy when one grows old and chooses to spend their time freely.

As we grow older, we realize the importance of timemore than before. But, the sad part is that we do spend most of our livesworking and making money, leaving barely anything just to us. With passiveincome, it doesn’t have to this way.

For example, when you plan your retirement, you could use your passive income streams to achieve financial independence sooner.  So, if you’re convinced about taking up passive income, there are two things that you must absolutely know about:

  • Passive income requires some upfront monetaryinvestment.
  • You alsoneed to invest some of your time to your passive activity.

Even though the idea of passive income sounds likethere is nothing that you have to do to bring in money, it’s wrong. If you wantto earn some passive income for your life, you need to spend either of these,sometimes even both.

Before we get down to the top 10 ideas for makingpassive income, let’s quickly take a look at its types. There are four types ofpassive income that you can start working toward today:

  • Buy Cash Flowing Assets: This means you can make money with money. If you’re earning a decent amount of income, that is sufficiently enough, you can generate passive income from them.

For example, you can invest in dividends, lend in businesses, along with other options.

  • Build Cash Flowing Assets: Building something that has value is a viable path to passive income streams. These things do take some time to create and sustain the market but can keep on generating an income passively for years.

For example, building a digital product like a website can help earn money from advertising.

  • Share or sell Assets: If you’ve got assets, why not try making passive income from them? Sharing or selling your assets is an excellent way of making passive income.

For example, you could rent your spare house or extra space around your house. Similarly, you could sell stuff you have collecting dust among other things.

  • Reverse Passive Income: Even though money might not be coming from external sources in this case, but you do make it by saving your earnings. You could cut down your monthly expenses, after all, money saved is money earnt!

Also, sincethe taxes earned on earned income are huge, its a safe and better form ofpassive income.

Some of you still might be thinking that passive income is a tough nut to crack and you might not need it. But, that’s not the case.

Just like finding a new job takes time and patience, so does establish a passive income activity. But, once the seed has been sown, the crop is yours to harvest!

Why do you need Passive Income?

If you haven’t made up your mind on passive income, the followingreasons will definitely melt your heart-

#1. Get Freedom of Time

Everybody must be on board with the idea that time is the mostimportant asset we have. It is what we choose to do with it, that shapes ourfuture. While money can be earned and spent over and over again, time can bespent only once.

You can never relive a moment physically after it has passed. Andthat’s what makes passive income so important. Passive income gives you thefreedom of time by taking off the burden to feed your monthly financialrequirements.

But, it doesn’t mean that you totally become free from life’sobligations. It means that you gain the flexibility that is usually notpossible with a 9 to 5 job. As long as you are able to make passive income in away that outpaces your active income, you attain true financial freedom.

#2. Reduces Stress and Fear of the Future

Not being able to pay bills or constantly hustling to pay them buildsup anxiety.  This results in stress overtime and causes desperation in the future. Moreover, it eats you up mentallyand leaves you exhausted even physically.

Passive income, on the other hand, helps you stay secure and firm. Italleviates all your worries because you have something in the backup. So, evenif you lose your job or decide to quit, you don’t completely feel helpless.

Moreover, you are no longer tied up with doomsday scenarios of yourfuture, which in turn helps you stay mindful and focus on the task at hand. Youfeel more motivated and energized towards your job as passive income builds afinancial momentum in your life.

#3. Do What You Love

In life, we often have to make compromises to find something that paysus well. So, even though you might love traveling you can’t do it, becausemaybe it’s not a well-paying job. As a result, we are trapped in the never-endingcycle of payments and debts.

Passive income gives you the opportunity to exit the rat race and live life on your terms. It ultimately frees you to produce an active income by doing something that you love. For example, if you love music, you can take piano classes without having to work extra hours for some money.

Online earning sites can help you to start the micro-jobs and you can scale it easily after getting some experience.

Similarly, if you wanted to travel for a whole week, you could easilydo that without having the fear of boss calling you or feeling guilty about atrip. No matter what your passion, with passive income streams you can pursueit freely.

#4. Work Flexibility

While a 9 to 5 job requires you to work for your entire life from theoffice, it is different when it comes to passive income. When you have passiveincome streams, you can work from almost anywhere in the world for as long asyou wish.

Travel ordinarily for most people is temporary. It comes and goesrapidly and you have to return to your office bench within no time. On theother hand, when you have passive income streams running smoothly, you can hitthe road any time, live anywhere and work freely.

#5. Financial Stability and Growth

With passive income, one thing is guaranteed. It gives you financialstability in your life like nothing else. When you are receiving an automatic flowof income you don’t need to worry about paying your bills at the end of themonth.

Instead, it allows you to explore new ways that can strengthen yourfinancial stability and grow it. For example, you get time to research thingsand likes taxes, stocks and investment options, which might turn out to be morepassive income streams for you.

The point is that it is much easier to focus yourself on your financeswhen you don’t have pending payments tieing you up. You can train your mind’seye on the things that will provide you with growth and prosperity over time.

Top 10 Passive Income Streams

Now that you may have made up your mind on adding passive incomestreams in your life, let’s take a look at some of the top passive incomestreams.  These have the potential to notonly take away all your worries but help you wake up to a pile load of cash.

#1. Affiliate Marketing

One of the topmost passive income streams is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing revolves around promoting other companies or products on websites, blogs or social media portals. It required you to have a blog or a website of your own.

There are so many authority affiliate marketing websites that are making very goods passive income each month.

Thecompanies that are promoted are called affiliates, and the links that you poston your website to promote them are called affiliate links. Affiliate marketingis a passive income stream in a way that every time a user clicks on youraffiliate link to purchase a product, you get paid.

Andyou don’t even need a blog to do affiliate marketing. If you’ve got a goodnumber of followers on any social media platform, you can simply capitalize onthem.

#2. Ebooks Sale

Many people love to write but can’t pursue it as a career because they think it won’t pay well. However, creating e-books can be a wonderful way to generate passive income. 

With digitization taking the world off its feet, people are more and more drawn toward reading on digital devices and platforms. As a result, e-books are in huge demand.

Take the Kindle as an example. People purchase the device specially to read e-books. Maybe it’s the knowledge that you’re gaining as part of your work experience, or something that you’re feeling has the potential to turn into a great story.

Whateverit is, you can create an ebook in no time and sell it on digital platforms likeKindle books. Every time someone purchases it, you get paid.

#3. Audiobooks

Inthe fast-paced world of today, audiobooks are a huge hit. While people don’thave spare time to read a book, they listen to it. The best part is that ithappens on the go.

Thismeans people can listen to audiobooks whenever they want, while driving, duringlunch breaks or anywhere in between. You can capitalize on this customer changingbehavior and let your audiobook bring you a good amount of passive income.

Infact, through the Audiobook Creation Exchange, Amazon can help you connect withprofessional narrators that will read and produce for free, in return forfuture royalties.

#4. Course Sale

No matter what people want to learn, they head to websites like Udemy for the task. Lots of people who specialize in a subject create courses and make them available on these platforms.

Over time as people read and take those courses, authors earn money. This would require investing your time in creating an appealing and easy to understand course. But, once it catches the user’s eye, the income never stops coming.

Whileyou may need to respond to student’s questions or queries eventually, it willbe worth the money that you receive passively.

#5. Sponsored Display Ads

Anothersuccessful way of earning money is sponsored ads. It does require you to have awebsite on your own, but people are able to generate much more than they investin it.

There’sone thing clear in passive income. The more you have a digital presence ofdigital property, the more you can benefit from it. Display ads work likebillboards across the highways.

Theonly difference is that they are on your website instead. Advertisers pay topromote their products, so their ads are displayed on your website. The moretraffic you get, the more can you earn from your display sponsored ads.

#6. Revenue from Apps/Website

Let’ssay that you have a crazy idea in mind or a game that you think people wouldlike to play. Why not out it on the app store? Whether you have the skills todesign an app or you want to outsource it, it’s completely your choice.

But,a little initial investment can turn into huge rewards, without even realizingit. The more people download your application from the play store, the more youearn. It’s as simple as that.

#7. Photo Licensing

You’ve probably heard it everywhere that photo licensing is one of the easiest ways to generating passive income streams. But, as easy as it sounds, it is equally challenging.

There’sa lot of competition out there and stock image sites are filled with plenty ofphotographs. But that doesn’t mean they don’t earn well. You’ll need to addthousands of images to make any meaningful profits from them.

Eventhough a single image would sell for a relatively very small price, it can besold to a thousand buyers at the same time.

#8. Software

Doyou think you can solve a mass problem with software? Whether you have an ideaor you are a professional developer who has got the right skills, you canutilize software to generate passive income.

Apremium software tool can be sold off as a one-time thing or made available tothe customer on subscription plans. All you need to make sure is that you stepinto a hungry market so that you can make the most out of it by selling yourproducts who need it. Do your homework before you step into the field.

#9. YouTube Channel

Earningmoney from Youtube is one of the fanciest things in today’s world. And why not,people turn to Youtube for all sorts of issues. Be it checking out a recipe, ora DIY project or a language course. Youtube is a great way to generate passiveincome.

Dependingon what your hobbies are you can create a Youtube channel. You would require toinvest some efforts in earning the first thousand followers, after which youcan enable Google’s build in monetization.

Notonly will it help you earn money from your subscribers but also from the adsthat are placed on your videos.

#10. Digital Products

Digitalproducts have more than a few potentials in today’s world. They are also thebiggest generators of passive income. With a little investment of your time andmoney, you can create a digital product that is ready to sell out there.

For example, you could create a book, a course, an audiobook, a guide, etc. and sell it on different platforms like Amazon, Fiverr, etc. Just make sure you add value and do not have fluff in your content.

 The more people download or purchase yourstuff, the more will you earn money. And once you start providing qualitycontent, your reputation will spread word of mouth.


Now that you understand the A to Z of passive income,you must be reluctant to get started with these. Jut remember that whicheveridea you decide to pick up, it will require the investment of your time andmoney at first.

But, just like every other business, with faith andperseverance over time, you will get to see the results. Another tip that manycome handy is that choose a passive income stream in which you are interested.

For example, if you like to write or create content,you can choose to create an e-book or your own blog. Similarly, if you’re a fanof traveling, you could vlog on youtube from your travel destination.

Just remember to stick to your idea and have patienceas you work toward it. After all, a little investment of time and money todaycan help you secure your future and provide financial stability.

Kulwant Nagi

Hi! I am Kulwant Nagi. I created this blog in 2011 with the vision to help new bloggers. I am running more than 10 blogs on various categories and running a digital marketing company in India now.

One thought on “Top 10 Passive Income Streams to Generate Residual Income

  1. Hey Kulwant Nagi ,

    Excellent post with great passive income stream. I really like your post especially the passive income streams that you have suggested, whereas your all the suggested streams are effective to earn a good passive income.

    Affiliate marketing is a great source to earn a good income simply by selling the others income. Making a you tube channels also works well, whereas youtube have become a great source to earn a good income. Selling the digital products, creating and selling E-books also provide good results. Your all the suggested ideas will works well if used correctly and in a proper way but i truly like an idea of doing an affiliate marketing, selling E-books, digital products, revenue from apps & websites and
    Youtube channel.

    As this post will help several people to earn a good passive income.

    Really helpful post and thanks for sharing.

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