I made over $9,000 in passive income this year

I’ve worked really hard to get to this number. I reached over $9,000 in passive income this year through a variety of side hustles. I’ll talk about what I do, how I make money, and what my goals are for this year.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at my passive income portfolio…

2 Income Streams — $9K+ in Passive Income

My passive income is broken down into 2 income streams:

• Digital products
• Affiliate marketing

Digital products = passive income

Digital products are online-delivery products I can sell on the spot and instantly digitally deliver to customers. This can include digital templates, website themes, checklists, digital calendars, digital planners, and more.

The two types of digital products I sell are courses and ebooks.

You can find my courses here and ebooks here, if you’re curious about what I teach.

I’ve been a course seller for several years now.

Truthfully, I’m really not doing it right.

If I were using the right systems, I think I’d be earning a steady up to $3K to $10K or more per month from products.

You need email marketing and a sales funnel.

Both of these tools freak me out so, I’ve delayed setting them up.

I just don’t think I’m going to get it right so I’ve put it off but, I hope to knock it out before summer ends.

It’s definitely worth trying and delaying this is leaving money on the table.

Affiliate marketing = passive income

I do content marketing mixed with affiliate marketing to make money passively.

I’ll write an article today on Medium for example. Then, publish it and not touch it again.

Then, in a few days, a few weeks, later this year, I’ll continue to make potential affiliate commissions from the one article I wrote today.

You can make some real money doing this if you focus on either high-paying affiliate products and/or recurring commission affiliate products.

For example, I promote Jasper AI.

It’s an AI writer on a monthly subscription. Every time I make a referral to Jasper, I make money monthly for every month the customer continues to keep Jasper.

How to start making money passively?

Pick your poison, then put a plan into action.

• Digital products
• Investments
• Affiliate marketing
• Peer-to-peer lending
• Crowdfunded real estate

Then invest, either your time, money or both.

The Proof

Now, here are some screenshots (for proof)…

The Lazy Way vs The Cheap Way to Make Passive Income

There are several directions you can go with passive income.

Let’s look at the lazy way and the cheap way.

The Lazy Way

If you want to go the lazy route and do the least amount of work possible, go with investing.

You have money, you put it in a place and earn dividends.

For this, you can look at companies like:

• M1 Finance (the “Finance Super App” — easy to use to customize your investment strategy)
• Arrived Homes (rental property investing)

After you invest your money, you sit back and relax, basically.

There’s nothing else you need to do other than check in on your account to check your balance, payouts, etc., if you want to.

The Cheap Way

The cheap way to go is good for people who don’t want to (or can’t) invest money and would rather invest their time and effort to build a passive income stream.

You can create digital products and go with affiliate marketing, for example.

To create my digital products, I use Gumroad and Teachable.

For affiliate marketing, I’m enrolled in a bunch of affiliate programs. Some are private, through the merchant and others are with an affiliate network like Shareasale or Impact Radius.

Digital products are about creating something that fills a need. Your audience has a problem and your digital product solves it.

For example, for my faceless Tik Tok ebook, it’s for people that want to start a business and make money from Tik Tok without having to show their face.

Affiliate marketing is an easy way to make money selling someone else’s product. You want to be authentic and try to solve your audience’s problem here, too.

For example, if your audience is new and aspiring bloggers, you might refer Jasper AI, an AI writing tool to help them save time writing blog posts.

My Passive Income Goals for This Year

I have a lofty goal of hitting $25K in passive income this year.

It’s more than halfway through the year already and I haven’t made it to the halfway mark ($12.5K).

I’m hoping for a strong second half of the year to help me reach this milestone.

How will I do it?

• Sales funnels
• Email marketing
• Creating audio courses
• Getting onto Skillshare
• Creating more ebooks

TL;DR

I’ve made over $9K this year in passive income!

I’m excited to have reached this milestone.

I do it with digital products and affiliate marketing but, there are other ways:

• Investments
• Peer-to-peer lending
• Crowdfunded real estate
• And, other ways

What are some ways you earn passive income?

Note: Affiliate links are included in this article.

Note: This is not financial advice. Remember to consult with a financial advisor when making financial decisions.

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