10 Passive Income Ideas for Beginners

Make money while you sleep and become your own boss. Isn’t this what everyone wants? Financial freedom. As a huge fan of passive income, I’ve been doing a lot of research to achieve this and not have to sacrifice working hours to gain some income.

We’re going to look at some passive income ideas that you can do right now. For some of these ideas, you’re going to have to put some upfront work but the goal passive in the end. Maybe some maintenance may still be needed on others but we are looking at minimal work. Why don’t we hop in and see what we have here!

**This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure policy.**

1. Putting Ads on your Car

Companies will pay you to be a moving billboard around your town by wrapping an advertisement around your car. If you’re the type of person that loves to flex your sexy car, you might just want to skip to the next passive income idea because this one might not be for you. 

You do need to own a car for this and have a clean driving record. If you already spend a lot of time in your car such as when you driving to work, then this is not bad way to earn extra cash on something you are already doing daily. If you are already an Uber driver that’s drives for his job, even better.

Make sure that the company is legit as there are a lot of scammers out there. Carvertise and Wrapify are 2 examples of legit companies that do this. Make sure to always do your research and apply on their official website because some scammers also can pretend to be working for these two companies as well.  Do not do it when a shady person wants to send you a large check beforehand to deposit in your bank for you to cash out to pay another person. It happens more often than you think and they can be very convincing.

Anyways, on average, you can expect to earn around $100-400 a month by simply driving your normal routes. Your miles will determine your earnings. The more miles, the more earnings. 

2. Print-On-Demand

Print-on-demand is great for beginners who want to sell custom merchandise with no upfront cost and no inventory stacking around their house.

The idea is that you create an artwork, place it on a mockup shirt or mug and post it online. If someone orders from you, the print-on-demand company can automatically print the artwork on the merchandise and fulfill the order. They will send the merchandise to your buyer so it’s kind of like dropshipping.

Here are print on demand companies that you can check out:

• Printful, Gooten, Teelaunch, Teespring, Teechip,Cafepress, Spreadshirt, Merch by Amazon & Redbubble

To create your artwork, you can purchase some cool fonts on Creative Market which will give you full license to use to print on merchandise. I have done it myself by purchasing the Groovy Font and used it on a hoodie to sell.

If you want something free, you can also design on Canva (although it’s worth upgrading to Pro). It’s very easy that you don’t have to be a designer to create the artwork.

I would suggest to order a sample of the product you made, this way you can see the quality and you can create your own photos & videos of the product. If you do not want to order a sample, another alternative is to use the platform PlaceIt and put your designs on mockups to create great product shots.

After you have done all of that, everything will be passive. Some marketing would help bring up sales but make sure to have SEO keywords and it will be much easier if you start of at a big platform like Etsy.

3. Sell Digital Downloads on Etsy

What’s great about digital downloads is that there is no product to ship. Your buyers will automatically download your products as soon as they pay you.

You can create ebooks, planners, journals, invitations, expense tracker, greeting cards, resume templates, WordPress themes and many more. Learn to make something and sell it online.

Some businesses don’t have a lot of money to pay a social media manager so there are templates that people like you can sell to businesses so that it’s easier to make content for without a social media manager whihch would be way cheaper. It would bring a solution to a problem.

I started on Etsy 3 years ago, I created filters/presets, Instagram Highlight icons, iPhone app icons, coupon books and a drinking game. 9 months ago was the last time I published a digital download and I’m still making monthly sales from it without paying for ads or barely even promoting it now.

I’ve mainly used Canva and Photoshop for my digital downloads, but it depends on what you are trying to make. For some, you just need Google Docs or Microsoft word if your are trying to create a resume template or a bill tracker.

Once you upload it, you won’t have to do anything on your part. Your customers might sometimes have some questions so there can be a little bit of customer service but again it’s minimal work and kinda rare that they message.

4.  Dividend Stocks

From all the money you make though your passive incomes, make sure to put some on the side and invest it in dividend stocks. When investing in dividend stocks, you’ll get small percentage that is usually paid quarterly just for having some of your money in there. Your money is basically giving you an allowance.

I am not a financial advisor but I like to play it safe by putting money on blue chip stocks which are companies that have been around for years and that I believe are going to be around for lot more years such the  Coke and Apple.

Continue putting money monthly so that your dividends will grow and to create some ongoing cashflow which will be very passive. 

Personally, I use Robinhood as my platform to investing and trading platform. I’m not saying it is the best but I think it’s great for beginners as it is so easy to use.

Try to be updated on what’s going on in the market though as people can lose money in investing as well so do your research before investing in any company. Remember the stock market can be unpredictable and you are never guaranteed anything. Invest what you are willing to lose.

5. Real Estate Investing

REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) allow you to invest in real estate without owning a physical property. By investing instead of owning, you won’t have to do any work such as operating or managing it.

REITS must pay 90% of their taxable income back to their investors. Just like dividend stocks, you’ll be receiving distributions (or dividedends) but more often as they usually pay monthly.

Personally on Robinhood, I have Realty Income, STAG, Vanguard US and AGNC but like I said, this is not financial advice. Always do your research before investing in anything.

You can potentially get good returns though and it is less risky than buying property and renting it out. However, flipping houses and or having a rental property can potentially get you better returns so keep that in mind.

6. Affiliate marketing

If you have a blog, a Youtube channel or just a social media account with some following, you can recommend a product or service that you already enjoy using. Share your affiliate link that will lead them to the website to purchase. If people buy after clicking on your affiliate link, you’ll be getting a small commission from the company.

If you don’t have a big following. You should try out by posting on Pinterest and Tiktok as these 2 platfroms don’t require a lot of followers to achieve a lot of views or impressions. With Tiktok, there are a lot of niche accounts that are just based on cool things they like on Amazon and then they’ll put their affiliate link on their profile bio. If you have a cool product that has a wow factor, there is  a good possibility that it can blow up on Tiktok.

Make sure that it something that you already use, believe in or curious about. Don’t just promote different products and services in hopes that people will click on your link as you will start appearing insincere.

There’s affiliate programs you can apply to such Amazon Affiliates, Clickbank, Shareasale but sometimes you can always check directly with a brand that you would like to work with and check if they have an affiliate program themselves. 

7. Create a Course and Sell Online

If you are an expert of something, make an online course. It will take a lot of your time at first but once your are done, you can post in online for people to purchase digitally.

Make sure that you are bringing value in your course. You can upload your course on your website or on big platforms such as Udemy and Skillshare.

If you feel like you are not an expert yet on something then learn to be one. Take notes and learn about a certain topic that interests you or a topic that you think people would want to learn more about.  Remember that every teacher was once a student.

8. YouTube

Starting a YouTube channel is not easy and getting monetized does take time. However, if you make a lot of evergreen long lasting content then you can eventually be making money even if you haven’t posted for a while.

It is somewhat passive and to be honest it is fun to make. You make money very similar to when you are writing blogs.  With YouTube, you can make money through ads, affiliate marketing, sponsors etc. If you have your own course on your website, Youtube would be a great place to market it by sharing some tips that are part of your course like a trailer to a movie.

The more niche the better and you do not need to show your face if you are not a fan of talking infront of the camera. You can get creative on how you would want your channel to be.

9. Rent out what You have

There are several apps and websites that will allow you to lend something that you already own and I have a couple of examples for you.

Turo— Rent out your car.

Airbnb – Rent out space in your room.

Swimply– Rent out your pool for an hour or more.

Outdoorsy/Hipcamp – Rent out your campervan or RV.

BabyQuip – rent out your baby equipment.

KitSplit – rent out your camera gear.

10. Niche Blog

Writing a niche blog would take a lot of work as well in the beginning but it can be very profitable if done right. The more niche the better and pretty much like YouTube, you can place ads, put affiliate links, have sponsors and many more. I am using WordPress and Bluehost which has been a great experience so far.