It’s a hard knock life for us. Most of us scurry around lost in the rat race, trapped in the ebb and flow of the 9 to 5 existence. Days seem to go on forever yet years seem to fly by in the blink of an eye. We strive for success yet constantly find ourselves banging our heads against the glass ceiling. It’s little wonder that so many people today eschew the world of salaried work for the allure of entrepreneurship, turning ideas and side hustles into functioning (and even thriving) enterprises. It seems in the digital age there’s no shortage of ways in which ordinary people just like you can enrich themselves with just a small investment of their time and money.
Passive income is a phrase that gets bandied around a lot these days, and let’s face it the sound of it is pretty darned appealing. Passive income. Could there be a way to make enough money to pay the bills without the back breaking, soul crushing labor that we endure on a daily basis? Well… Yes and no. While there are many ways of generating income that are considered passive, you have to be a lot more active than you might think in order to make them work for you…
Trading
We’re always hearing about people who “made their fortune” on the stock market. While of course it’s possible to make money investing in stocks, shares, commodities and foreign exchange, doing so is often far from passive. The image of the wealthy Mr Burns type, sipping coffee while he leafs through the financial times to leisurely check on his empire is something of a fallacy. Making money as a day trader involves quite a lot of fast paced and frantic work, unless you have the coding knowhow to develop an algo trading platform. Algorithmic trading can take a lot of the legwork out of your stock trading but it requires an awful lot of knowhow and trust in your algorithms.
Writing
Lots of people blog, even if they don’t expect that a whole lot of people will be reading it (although you may be surprised). It’s a fun way of documenting your daily musings and reflections. When we hear about people who monetize their blogs it can seem like a dream come true. Imagine snoozing away while every little click on your fun little blog makes you money. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Growing the audience for your blog takes wither a large investment in Pay Per Click advertising or a lot of hours spent marketing and publicizing your blog.
The same goes for a self published e-book or white paper. If you’re serious about making money writing, the only way to do it is by developing a portfolio, taking the time to build relationships with reliable clients and striking out as a freelancer.
Property
If you have a little money to invest (or you happen to have a spare property that you don’t live in), you might fancy making your fortune as a landlord. Unfortunately, being a landlord is akin to a full time job. Every time a pipe springs a leak, a door handle falls off or a window gets broken, you are responsible. Sure, you may want to enlist the aid of a property management company to help take this burden off your shoulders, but you can expect them to take a sizeable chunk out of your monthly rent payments. After tax (don’t forget your rent income is taxable) you’re very unlikely to be left with enough to live off.
