Money Crashers: 9 Passive Income Stream Ideas

One of the things I like about working for Money Crashers is that every month I earn a traffic bonus based on how many views my articles have received. This is for all the articles of mine that are up on the site, not just the ones I've written in the past month or even the past year. It's not a huge amount, but it's the equivalent of at least a full day's pay that I get every month for work I've already done and been paid for once.

This is an example of passive income - something many financial experts describe as the key to wealth. Basically, passive income is any earnings that come into your pocket automatically, without your having to work for them every month. In most cases, you have to do some work initially to get them, like I had to work writing all those articles for Money Crashers—but once that work is done, the money just keeps rolling in. And the more passive income streams you have, the more money you can take in each month regardless of how much work you do.

I talked about one form of passive income, earnings from investments, in my article on financial independence. However, there are lots of other ways to generate passive income. You can collect rent for properties you own, royalties for books and other works you've created, or ad revenue from a blog or podcast (one of the most popular sources these days. I've never managed to make any money off this one, because my readership is just too small, and increasing it would most likely mean writing about things that are interesting to a wider audience—and of no interest to me.)

In my latest Money Crashers article, I talk about the benefits of a passive income stream, and about nine possible ways to create one. Some take a lot of work up front, like writing a successful book; others are so easy pretty much anyone can do them, like earning credit card rewards. More work up front typically yields a bigger payoff—but even a little trickle of passive income is better than none at all.

9 Passive Income Stream Ideas & Opportunities to Make Money