10 Simple Ways to Generate Automated Income
If you have student loans or credit card debt, your fulltime income may not be enough to get you by. And even if you’re not trying to pay off debt, you may be saving money for travel or building up a college fund for your children.
Whatever situation you’re in, making more money can help you live a more fulfilling lifestyle and relieve the stress that money issues can cause.
Short of getting a raise or switching jobs, it can be hard to make more money through your career alone. That’s why automated income has become increasingly popular as a way of making additional money.
If you’ve never explored automated income it can seem intimidating, but it is actually quite simple to make money while you go about living your life.
Below, we’re recommending 10 ways that you generate the additional income you need to live life the way you want.
1. Robo-Advising
Generating automated income by investing with a robo-advisor is one of the most passive ways to make money.
All you have to do is put your money into an account and set your willingness for risk in the market. An algorithm will handle the rest and manage the account and your investments for you.
There are additional benefits to this kind of investing as well. The fees associated with a robo-advisor are typically less than they would be with an actual person and some firms do have real people available to talk to you if requested.
2. Get Paid for What You Already Do
In today’s sharing economy, there is no shortage of money making opportunities, especially when it comes to getting paid for things you already do.
A site like Airbnb, for example, gives you a chance to make money off of your apartment or extra room. Once you’ve set up an account and listed your space, your effort is minimal and the payout can be significant.
You can also make money by shopping online for things you would purchase anyway. Some brief research should reveal several sites that offer cashback at a variety of popular online stores.
3. Create an Online Course
Do you have expertise or knowledge on a technical skill that isn’t commonly taught? If so, creating an online course could be a source of significant automated income.
Designing the course will require some work up front, but once it’s is online you can make money without having to do anything at all. Every time someone launches your course online or downloads it to their computer, you’re making money.
It’s a passive way to generate revenue that’s well worth the front-end effort.
4. Explore Affiliate Marketing
If you have a large social media following, you could make money just by posting to your pages. Affiliate marketing allows you to act as a broker, promoting someone else’s products or services.
When purchases are made through the affiliate links that you’re sharing with your audience, you get a piece of that revenue.
Affiliate marketing doesn’t work for everyone, but if you have a large number of follows on your blog or social media accounts it can be well worth it.
5. Sell Your Photos
If you’re good at or have an interest in photography, you can generate automated income by making your pictures available online.
Certain online photography websites give you a platform to sell your pictures as stock photos. Each time your picture is sold, you’ll get either a percentage of the sale price or flat fee.
Since there is no limit to the number of times your picture can be sold as a stock photo, there’s no limit to the amount of automated income it can generate for you.
6. Post Videos to YouTube
For a video to make you money on YouTube, it will have to be compelling content. The good news, though, is that you can choose pretty much any topic to create a video about.
If you’re a subject matter expert or are engaged with your topic, viewers will take an interest in your videos. Once you’ve generated a following, you can include ads at the beginning of all your posts.
Anytime a viewer clicks on that ad, it’s money in your pocket.
7. Create a Smartphone App
Similar to designing an online course, creating an app does require some initial work. You’ll need an idea, of course, and you’ll also need a programmer to create the app.
Once the hard part is over, though, you can begin selling your app on every smartphone through the app store. With each download, you’re making money and your upfront work is paying off.
8. Invest in Real Estate
Real estate is probably one of the best-known sources of passive income, and it’s a classic for a reason. Having a rental property is an excellent source of cash flow, particularly once the property is paid off.
If you have the means and the qualifications to purchase a property for the sole purpose of renting it out, you have a great source of automated income available to you.
9. Get a Cash Back Credit Card
You probably use a credit card to make most of your purchases, but if your card doesn’t offer a cash back reward, you’re throwing away free money.
Cashback cards reimburse you anywhere from 1 to 5 percent of the purchases that you would have to make anyway. You may even get an additional sign up bonus if you’re switching from another card, or if you spend a certain amount in your first month.
10. Peer-to-Peer Lending
Peer-to-peer lending sites give you the opportunity to loan money to people who can’t qualify for traditional financing. Investment returns can be anywhere from 6 to 10 percent, so investing money this way can get you much higher results than from a traditional savings account.
Ready to Start Earning Automated Income?
It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur looking for untraditional sources of income or a nine-to-fiver trying to earn extra money on the side. Automated income in the easiest way to increase your earnings and improve your financial standing.
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