Passive income is something everyone needs to works towards, and the sooner you start, the better. With an income stream that is passive, you can reach your financial goals faster, save for retirement, pay down debts, or have a safety net when the economy goes south (think pandemic)!
A big misconception about passive income is that you have to have tons of cash laying around to actually build a passive income stream. And, it is true that a million dollars invested in dividend stocks will get you a decent stream of passive income, but that isn’t the only way. Let’s take a look at some ways you can begin building your own passive income empire TODAY.
Print-on-Demand Products
Print-on-demand, or POD, products are things like t-shirts, coffee mugs, phone cases, etc. that you can sell in an online shop where you contribute the design and somebody else takes care of the actually production, shipping, and customer payments. It works like a royalty system. You don’t have to be a highly skilled artist to start creating designs for t-shirts that people would be interested in buying. Cute, funny, or catchy sayings in a nice font often do the trick! Pick a topic you’re interested in and think about what others who like that topic might be interested in buying. The best part of this route to passive income is that you can have an online storefront within minutes. Check out Teepublic’s platform if you’re thinking of starting this kind of business. They have decent reviews from customers (meaning the quality of their shirts and other products must be good), it’s very easy to use, takes only minutes to set up, and there is zero cost to you.
This type of income doesn’t come immediately, and it may require that you do a bit of promoting within your own social media circle, but you can upload several designs and you will start to see sales, especially around the holidays when everyone is scrambling to find a gift for that hard-to-shop-for person on their list. Once you get one store front setup, you can actually set up others and upload your designs there, too. This is a zero upfront cost way to build a stream of passive income. Even if you only have one idea for a t-shirt and that’s all you ever put in your store, once it’s up and for sale, it stays that way.
Selling Digital Products
The beauty of selling digital products is you don’t have to have a warehouse, a physical store, or worry about shipping. There’s almost no overhead cost to this kind of business, and once you have a product for sale, you don’t ever have to make more of that product. So, what kinds of digital products do people sell online? There are e-books, online courses, digital planners and calendars, printable coloring books, resources for teachers, photography, and more! Etsy is a place where you can put up digital products for sale. You could create a set of colorable bookmarks and bam! you’ve got yourself a digital product for sale! With Etsy, there is a $0.20 fee to list something for sale, so you should put in the time to make sure your product is something there is demand for.
Another site is Teachers Pay Teachers. You don’t actually have to be a teacher to sign up for an account and there is no fee to start listing products. Most people are selling things like lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers, but activity sheets and printable bulletin board decorations are things that sell on this site, too.
With digital product creation, whether it’s downloadable PDFs or superb photography, there is a lot of upfront work involved. Passive income generally requires either a lot of time or a lot of money to get going. However, you can start working today and set up a schedule of how much time you want to invest each day, week, or month depending on your schedule. If you’re goal is set up your own passive income empire, you need to be prepared for it to take some time if you don’t have tons of money to invest.
Reinvest Bonuses from These Brokerages into Dividend Stocks
The world of investing has undergone somewhat of a revolution this past decade. It used to be that you had to have a lot of money to be directly involved in the stock market and you had to pay big commissions for placing orders to buy or sell stock. Now, there are so many apps available that designed for individuals with little to experience and little money to invest. In fact regular folks directly investing in the stock market is right in the middle of a huge explosion in growth so brokerages are competing for business. This means that you can open accounts and get free bonuses for it. These platforms all offer apps that are designed for relative beginners and they are all currently offering sign up bonuses:
Public.com– This is a really easy-to-use investment platform that was designed for the absolute beginner. You can earn a free stock of choice valued at up to $70 when you open an account with them. What’s great about Public.com is there are no fees to buy or sell stock and you can have an account set up today. To get the free bonus stock though, you do have to go through a link of an existing member. You will be required to hold your bonus stock for 90 days after receiving it, but after that, you are free to sell it and reinvest that money into any other stock. Public.com allows the purchase of fractional shares, meaning you can buy just part of one share of a company. You could take your $70 and then create yourself a micro investment that is diversified with different dividend stocks. Public.com also allows for dividend reinvestment, so when you get paid your quarterly or monthly dividend, it can automatically be used to purchase more of the stock it came from. Using your bonus stock proceeds is a free and zero-risk way to set up an investment account for yourself. If you like the way it works, you can invest more, but it’s really great to be able to get started with zero investment!
Webull– This platform is a bit more robust than Public.com and features some intermediate tools. It’s still fairly easy to use after you spend a little time getting to know your way around the app. They also have a desktop version which is great if your goal is to be more involved in active trading. They are currently offering free stocks as a sign up bonus. Unlike Public.com, these free stocks will be randomly assigned to you and will have a value between $3- $300 each. You are able to immediately sell your bonus shares once they settle in your account (usually within a couple days of opening your account) and you can reinvest those funds wherever you’d like. Webull also offers lots of other promotions and opportunities to earn stocks periodically so it’s worth keeping an eye out for those once you open an account. Another big perk to Webull is the ability to open IRAs. You can have a Roth IRA right in the mobile app if you are looking for a tax advantaged account to but a dividend portfolio with.
Robinhood– Robinhood isn’t exactly a favorite among young investors, but they do offer one free stock for signing up. The platform is also very easy to use and they offer dividend reinvestment as well.
You can open an account on each of these platforms, collect all the bonus stocks, then sell them in order to consolidate your funds into your favorite platform. With this strategy, you can start your dividend income journey without even putting up any of your on money! If you like how your free investments perform, then you are already set up to invest more if you have a little extra to spare and you will already know exactly how to do it! With these incentives to open a brokerage account with no fees, there really isn’t any reason to not take advantage of these unprecedented times for new investors like you.
The Takeaway
You’re reading this because you know working an hourly or salaried job isn’t enough to cut it anymore. Inflation combined with stagnant wages is strangling people and sending our financial futures into uncertainty. The pandemic has taught many of us that we aren’t safe in our jobs and the rug can get pulled out from under us when we least expect it. These ideas are a few easy ones to get your personal financial safety net started. If you have some extra time OR money, you should absolutely be using it to create or buy assets that are going to pay you.
The Unraveled Teacher 