Please correct me, you are here because you are interested in Side hustle ideas, passive income but the biggest lie young people are told when they’re 18, 19, and 20 is “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
>This process starts in school when we’re taught to follow the traditional path of getting a job and a mortgage, which leads to working every hour of the day just to earn enough money to retire at 67, and finally die. Let’s be real for a second. Do you think that’s how I make $67,257 per week? There is clearly something else going on, and no, I’m not talking about getting a high paid job or starting a side hustle.
Achieving Passive Income with Side Hustles
To achieve this, you need a way of making money that doesn’t rely on you working day in, day out. It’s called passive income, and here are seven ideas I strongly suggest you consider, along with my ratings of each.
Idea One: Invest in Stocks
There’s a bit more to this than just invest in the stock market and you’ll make passive income. I mean, I can see why people might think this, because let’s say you buy a share in a company and it goes up in value. Technically, you’ve generated some money without doing anything, but in order to actually get your cash out, you have to sell your stock. Some will consider this passive income, but instead I just think of it as a bonus and not something to rely on.
I consider passive income as nothing less than actual money flowing into your bank account every month without the need to sell the asset that’s making you the money or simply i say it Passive Pay Days. That’s why the only form of stock market investing I consider to be real passive income is dividend stocks. These are chunks of companies you can buy. Think Starbucks, Pepsi, and McDonald’s, and in return for owning them, you get a share of the profits paid directly into your pocket, as well as benefiting from the stock going up in value as a bit of a bonus. They’re one of the easiest ways to make money on a consistent basis with absolutely no work. Well, that’s as long as you pick the right ones to invest in.
Dividend Kings
These are the stocks that have not only paid a dividend but actually increased it for 50 years in a row.
Dividend Aristocrats
Under that, you have the dividend aristocrats. These are the stocks that have increased their dividends for 25 years. That’s where the official definition stops, but I like to think of the stocks under this as dividend working class. Sure, some of them will eventually become aristocrats and kings, however, it’s very hard to tell which ones will make it. I’d be very cautious with these as a lot of people get drawn in by companies offering extremely high dividends. I can understand why, but remember, as much as it’s about the amount of money you’re being paid, it’s also essential that it’s sustainable long-term.
How to Rate the Ideas
To help you sort the good from the bad, I’m gonna rate them in three different categories.
How much time does dividend investing take?
I’ll rate this, say, one out of five, as all you have to do is download an investing app, deposit some money, and buy a few dividend stocks.
How much money do you need?
I’ll give this a five out of five. As it’s so quick to do, the trade-off is that you need a lot of money invested to make a significant income.
How easy is it to make a hundred dollars per week?
This also gets a five out of five. Let’s do the maths. As dividends are calculated on a yearly basis and are paid out at the end of each quarter, let’s first work out how much money you need per year, which is pretty simple. There are 52 weeks in a year, so let’s multiply that by a hundred, which gives us $5,200. Now, let’s say we invest in one of my favorite companies, Starbucks, who currently pay an annual dividend of 2.4%. In order to make $5,200 per year, or a hundred dollars per week, you would need to invest a grand total of, wait for it, $216,666.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. This sounds great for people that already have money, but what if I’m just starting out? In that case, it’s a much better idea to use your time instead of your money to make passive income, which is what the next idea is all about.
Idea Two: Automate a Side Hustle
A lot of people don’t understand the difference between a job and an automated side hustle. When I was younger, I had a friend called Jamie who had a small dog training business. He was fantastic at what he did. I remember seeing him tame the craziest of dogs. One day when we were sitting in the park, I asked him how much money he made. I was surprised to find out he was only just getting by. It didn’t really make sense to me how such a skilled person who obviously had a lot of value to give was unable to make the money he deserved.
If we put aside the fact that he probably wasn’t charging enough, we get to the real issue, which was the business model. He only had a limited amount of hours he could sell and dogs he could train. Therefore, he could only earn so much before his potential was capped as at the time there was no way to automate and scale it.
But now we have the internet, these little side hustles can become much more passive and make a lot more money.
How to Automate a Side Hustle
So how do you go from having a skill like Jamie’s to having an automated side hustle? Well, here’s the steps I’d take, and I’m pretty sure I could turn a small side hustle like Jamie’s into a million-dollar business nowadays.
Identify What You’re Really Good At
Firstly, you have to identify what you’re really good at. Ideally, you should have some kind of unfair advantage, but this is where the majority of people get caught in the same trap as Jamie, as they start to sell every minute of their time for a small amount of money.
Build a Digital Asset
Instead, you need to focus every waking hour on building a digital asset of some kind. For Jamie, this could have been a blog where he talked about training dogs, a manual for owners to train their own pets, or a course that teaches other people how to start a dog training side hustle.
Time Commitment for Automating a Side Hustle
Well, if you’re doing it on your own, I’d give it a five out of five as it does take a while to build a digital product, and then you have the added headache of making a website. However, if you do decide to use something like Hostinger, then I’ll give this a three out of five, as you don’t need to worry about having any technical or design skills for the website as you can just use the built-in AI website builder to make the website for you.
Idea Three: Make Online Content, my best Side Hustle Idea
For decades, millions upon millions of dollars have been hoarded by the traditional media. I’m talking about the radio stations and television networks. The public had no idea how much money was in advertising until YouTube opened their doors for the public to create their own content. Then the curtain was well and truly lifted.
How to Make Money with Content Creation
The people leveraging online content are dipping their hands into the previously extremely guarded money pot and rightfully taking their fair share. It still shocks me how some people don’t understand how content creators make money.
Focus on Content Quality
Here’s the best piece of advice I’ve received about social media. It’s not if you do it, it’s how well you do it. So how can we use it to make money? Well, it’s like I previously mentioned. You can start a YouTube channel, and once you reach a thousand subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. You can start getting paid from the adverts on your videos.
How Much Time Does Content Creation Take?
I’m gonna give this a five out of five rating as it’s one of the most time-consuming things in the world. I’m not gonna beat around the bush, but making content is a long, hard process.
Idea Four: Start Private Investing
Now, I want you to imagine you’re an investor on “Shark Tank.” An entrepreneur walks in with an incredible business. You think you can help with, and they’re looking for some money to expand. You have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this business. Are you gonna take the risk?
Idea Five: Become an Affiliate Marketer
I remember when recently a big bank had a promotion. My son’s girlfriend sent a signup link to all of her friends. Letting them know if they downloaded the app, they could get a free $10. She was shocked by the results. Every few hours a new friend had signed up and thanked her for the free cash.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
This is essentially affiliate marketing, but real affiliate marketing doesn’t have a limit. So you can make as much as you want. It’s considered to be one of the simplest. Yet most profitable ways to make money online as it doesn’t require you to have any extra skills or previous experience.
Idea Six: Create a Digital Tool
My best friend decided to do this. Now he’s a multimillionaire who spends more time on vacation with his wife than he does at home. He noticed a gap in the market for a digital tool that helped large membership organizations keep track of all their customers’ data. Creating digital tools i would say is a best side hustle idea for the long term permanent passive income.
How to Create a Digital Tool as a Side hustle idea
At first, he decided to sell his software as a one-time purchase. However, he always had to search for a new customer. When he made the switch to a subscription-based model. He was able to make a very predictable amount of passive income every month.
Idea Seven: Rent Out Your Stuff
Most people don’t realize that they’re sitting on a gold mine. They could already own what they need to make some passive income. I remember a few years ago, one of my friends revealed to me. He was struggling to pay his bills. I then suggested that he rented out his driveway to make some passive income.
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