Five Passive Income Ideas for 2022

What is passive income?

It’s a way to earn steady money with little to no daily effort. Earning passive income is not a sit-on-your-butt-and-make-fast-money gig. You’ll need to put in the work — at least on the front end. Some passive income projcets— like building a blog or an app — take time (and sometimes money) to get up and running. But if you play your cards right, they could eventually earn you money while you sleep. — Ramsey Solutions

One essential element that all these passive income ideas have in common is an audience. So in case you don't have an audience you are going to have to build one, but I will get into that later.

Keep in mind it’s a long-term game.

A little disclaimer. This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.

Here’s the list of ideas:

1. Dividend stock investing

For this one you don’t need an audience, you do require some cash though. Dividend stock investing can produce the largest results with the least amount of work, which is great in case you don't want to put in the effort and time to try out the next ideas.

So how does it work?

In a nutshell, for every share of a dividend stock that you own, you are paid a portion of the company’s earnings.

A dividend stock is a publicly-traded company that regularly shares profits with shareholders through dividends. A dividend is typically a cash payout to investors made at least once a year, but sometimes quarterly.

“Let’s say, for example, Company X pays an annualized dividend of 20 cents per share. Most companies pay dividends quarterly (four times a year), meaning at the end of every business quarter, the company will send a check for 1/4 of 20 cents (or 5 cents) for each share you own. This may not seem like a lot, but when you have built your portfolio up to thousands of shares, and use those dividends to buy more stock in the company, you can make a lot of money over the years. The key is to reinvest those dividends.” — Shauna O’Brien

2. Affiliate marketing

For this one and the next ones, you do need an audience.

How does it work?

Take for example the Amazon Affiliate Program, which is one of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the world, so essentially you receive a commission whenever a customer uses your referral link to buy one of Amazon's products.

There is also the Skillshare’s affiliate program, you can earn 7 dollars for every new customer that signs up for a Premium Membership or free trial.

This YouTuber Benas, for instance, gained 628.26 dollars this year 2021 through the Skillshare’s affiliate program. Not bad!

Now a personal example, I joined the Medium Partner Program two months ago and so far I have 10 referred members, so I’ve earned 22.44 dollars. Which is also, not bad. I am grateful for every new member I get honestly.

3. An online course

You can teach absolutely anything online.

I know about this lady who sells Excel Courses packets and it's an excellent idea because I don’t see many folks selling that type of product.

She is passionate about Excel, she has the skills and the experience, and being aware of her fortes helped her find the right niche.

The prices of her classes range between $99 and $997. She is good at what she does so her tariffs make sense.

4. Blogging

Similar to the previous one you can write about absolutely anything and get paid for it.

These are examples of important questions you can ask yourself when you are trying to find out what to write about:

• What is something that I can provide that many individuals need right now?
• What can I contribute to fulfilling that need?

So in my case, I am passionate about dating and relationships, I’ve documented myself extensively on the topic and I’ve noticed that many of us don't know what we are doing when it comes to dating.

We don’t know what we want, we don’t know how we want to be treated, we don’t have boundaries, we don’t accept ourselves or love ourselves and the list goes on.

And that's what my profile on Medium is about. I try to make the process of navigating the dating realm for others less difficult, I don’t want to say that I make it easy, because dating simply isn't easy.

I genuinely believe we all have important lessons or experiences that can help others, so in case you are not sure about what to write about, you can start with that.

5. Create a YouTube Channel

Also similar to the previous ones you can create videos about subjects you want to teach and at the same time advertise your blogs or your online courses.

Advertise products, get those commissions, and have companies sponsoring your videos, and so on…

For example, nowadays we see numerous folks talking about ways of investing your cash and making it grow while you sleep.

Or we all know about Zulie Rane, she talks about writing and her earnings on Medium on her YouTube videos, and on Medium she writes about her profits from YouTube, and I believe that is just GENIOUS.

She uses each forum to talk about her experiences with the other platform. Once again. Simply genius.

Now a few things to keep in mind when making money on YouTube:

YouTubers need at least 1,000 subscribers before they are allowed to run ads, and then they make around $9.90 for 1,000 views.

To Conclude

I like to think about passive income as the book, The richest man in Babylon says “cash that will keep flowing into my purse whether I sit up the wall or travel to far lands.”

The truth is however that all of these ideas, maybe except the first one do require a lot of work.

Millions of people are using these and other ideas to improve their financial situation.

For me, blogging has definitely improved the quality of my everyday life, I am aware if something goes wrong with my current job I can allow myself to take a break, to take the time to find a job that I really think is adequate for me.

I feel more financially stable and I have more peace in my life.

And if you know about other passive income ideas that have worked for you, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!