How to Make Money While You Sleep: 6 Passive Income Ideas You Can Get Started with Right Away

In many ways, the idea that money runs the world is very true.

Money grants us access, it acquires us things, it gains us respect and power and I guess one of the biggest advantages to having money is that it gives us a certain level of security.

They say “more money, more problems”, and that may be true but, the more money you have, the less problems you have too.

In this article, I want to introduce the concept of “passive income” and then from there give you a few ideas of how you can make money doing nothing or very little most of the time.

With all of these ideas, you will note that you have to put in some work at the beginning. How much work you put in will depend on what passive income source you decide to build.

According to Investopedia, “Passive income is earnings derived from a rental property, limited partnership , or other enterprise in which a person is not actively involved. NerdWallet describes passive income as “money generated from investments, properties or side hustles. The goal is to achieve a steady flow of cash without the daily commitment of a full-time job.”

So basically, in simple terms, passive income is money you make with very little effort or activity from your part. The initial investment you put goes on to earn while you pretty much do nothing.

Lets find out a few ways you can make money while you sleep. I will rank them in order of ease, number one being the easiest and the last being the hardest.

Note there are so many ways you can make money while you chill but in this article I want to mention the most attainable.

1: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate (you in this case) earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate either chooses the product of interest or is given the product, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

This is a really simple way to make money, all you need to do is convince others to use that product/service and depending on the agreement you have with the business, you make your money. The passive part comes when you combine your word of mouth efforts with the power of the internet, social media and content.

For the most part, content is forever, so lets say you gas up a product or service on your blog or video somewhere on social media, whoever finds this content and uses your affiliate links to use acquire the product or service, contributes to you pocket.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the ways I make money. I combine the creation of content and influence to make it work.

How much you make depends on how influential you are and how many people you get onboard that service or product. With the right combination of all these elements, you can basically sit back and watch the money roll in.

There are programs that offer great affiliate commission rates. Hostinger is one. Amazon is okay. You can do a quick Google search on what other companies offer affiliate commission.

2: Cryptocurrencies (Stacking)

So this is not a very popular method as cryptocurrency still has very low adoption as compared to traditional finance.

But in short, cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies. Think money, but virtual money that has different kinds of utility. Some can be used for transactions, some tokens can be used to vote on where the native company should go as a organization, some to buy virtual property and some even work like shares.

Crypto staking is a way of growing your holdings in certain cryptocurrencies by using them to help verify activity on an underlying blockchain network. When you stake a cryptocurrency, you can be rewarded with more cryptocurrency.

Think of it like putting money in a bank. It gains interest. That bank is using money to finance other things and you earn a certain percentage of interest.

As you can image, the more money you keep in the bank, the more you get from the interest. The same applies to staking cryptocurrencies, the more you stake, the more in rewards you get. Cryptocurrency staking offers much bigger interest rates so it would be good to look into now before adoption increases. Best part about staking is that it’s easy.

Just note, this isn’t financial advice. I am the last person you should depend on for that. But its just a heads up.

I have tried staking my Solana crypto on the Kraken crypto exchange and it does work. I got a return every two weeks. I only staked very little money to test so I didn’t ger rich hehe. I have an uncle who earns 400USD a week with his staked assets. So cool. I certainly plan on staking bigger amounts soon.

I will produce more articles on crypto soon, but I wrote a Cryptocurrencies 101 article on my blog so you can check that out.

3: Monetize Your Content

Content is king these days so if you can create valuable content, people will look for it. If they look for it, they will find yours and when they find it they may be willing to pay for it in views, subscriptions and purchases.

Creating content can be easy, with the barrier to entry getting lower and lower each time. You can start a YouTube channel, a podcast, a blog, or  a Patreon. You can create a course and host it on Skillshare or Udemy. You can even write and self-publish a book and then sell it on Amazon. Another thing you can do is upload meditations on an app like Insight Timer and make money through donations or subscriptions.

All you’d need to do is create valuable content once and then it will live on the internet forever to be consumed by generation after generation of internet users and, depending on how you monetize, you will be making money while you sip on a cocktail somewhere in Asia.

Its important that you be realistic though. The return from content takes time sometimes (unless you go viral). So focus on creating good content, then focus on marketing it well and in time you will reap the rewards.

For some, it takes months, for some years and for the very few its instant. But even if its instant you want content people can jump into after they are finished with that viral piece and from there you need to keep creating.

4: Sell Products/E-Commerce

You don’t have to create the next Balenciaga, but you can create simple products that you can sell online. They can be digital in nature like art or an e-book or they can be physical. Once you create a product that sells, market it. From there all you will need to do is handle shipping and some customer service in your pyjamas at home.

You can check out how I go about doing my online store.

You can go the extra mile and get some remote help so you can just rake in the money and pay a small fee for that help service. Or you can consider drop-shipping.

E-Commerce, especially drop-shipping can be very hard to get going, but once you do, you’ll be having karaoke nights in Japan or sipping tea with geishas (if you are making enough of course).

You can use platforms like Shopify, Orbelo, WordPress or Squarespace to set these online stores up.

All the best with that…

5: Sponsorships

Really good way to make money this, but not the easiest because not everyone has the influence or the status or the appeal to get sponsors.

Sponsorships are like the “affiliates” who went to private school. Usually, a sponsor looks for you whereas almost anyone can be an affiliate. You usually have to be a celebrity, a popular person or an industry authority to be hunted down by sponsorships.

I label this as difficult because, honestly, its a saturated market. But once you’re in, it can be a very lucrative passive income source. All you need to do is some simple tasks they ask you or be a brand ambassador of some kind.

I’ve seen people sponsored with R100K TV’s just for them to post it on their socials. These people were not even influential on their own but were affiliated with some influential people.

Keep doing what you are doing, it could be your turn next.

6: Assets

You can make passive income by renting out assets.

Think property rentals, think AirBnB, think Uber, think equipment hire and the many options out there.

Find assets and services that are in high demand but not accessible to everyone else, get the capital, acquire said assets and services and rent them out.

People are making a lot of this money this way. Why shouldn’t you? If you get a proper idea in place, you’ll be swimming in the waters of The Bora Bora Island in no time.

As you may already know, barrier to entry here can be stiff as property and certain assets aren’t cheap. Then there’s insurance etc. But if you can get this out of the way, you are set for life.

Well, that is it for now. I hope these few ideas gave you the urge to get something started. I myself employ some of these idea and I can guarantee you they work with mixed success. Wait until I get really popular then I’ll be racking in that moola! The success of how well they work will be dependent on how much work you put in at the start as well as the other factors mentioned. Whatever the case though, get started.

Now, go on and make that money. Remember me in your glory.