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How to Generate Passive Income with No Initial Funds?

By Kevin Ballard

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No matter who you are or what your current financial status is, let’s just say that it’s not too much of a reach to say that you are looking for more ways to make money. This is because even if your parents are Bill Gates or Elon Musk, you still want to get as much money as possible.

But, making money is a lot easier said than done, and while actually making a living is not the hardest thing in the world, earning enough to never have to worry about your purchases is definitely a luxury that not everyone has.

Luckily, there are plenty of ways for you to make money these days, and they all come with various advantages and disadvantages that you need to look into before you start paddling towards that goal.

The most commonly found one is to just put in the work and try your hardest to rise up through the ranks and make enough money by the end of the month. But did you know that there is a better way?

We are talking about generating passive income, making money while not doing anything whatsoever. This may sound like a dream come true, but as mentioned previously it does come with its fair share of advantages and disadvantages as well.

One of the most commonly discussed disadvantages is the fact that you need to invest a lot into the business for it to pay off in the end. But what if we were to tell you that you don’t actually need any initial funds to do so in the first place?

That’s right, today we will be discussing how you can start generating passive income on your own without any initial funds behind it. So, without further ado, let’s begin this guide by answering all of the questions you may have right now, starting with:

What is Passive Income?

What is Passive Income
Photo by Karolina Grabowska / pexels.com

If that intro piqued your interest and you want to start making money without actually doing anything, then you will need to first understand what passive income is to begin with.

Passive income refers to any sort of money that you earn without actively putting in work to get it. It does take a little bit of effort to get started, but once your business has started you can continue to make money for an indefinite period of time without putting in any effort.

In simple terms, passive income is any sort of income that doesn’t require your daily attention to come to you, you are not exchanging your time for money as you would with any other sort of job out there.

In order to start though, most passive income projects require an initial fund to be invested, so that you can facilitate someone else to do the job for you as you continue to make money off of their work.

With that being said though, there are also numerous ways for you to continue to earn passive income without actually spending a single dime in the process, and we will soon tell you all about them.

The Benefits of Passive Income

Passive income is very sought after for a multitude of reasons, including:

  • Free time – Since you don’t need to actually do anything to earn money, you can use your time more wisely, either working on a different project or just following a different goal whatsoever.
  • Location-independency – Since you don’t need to go to work, you can go wherever you want and you can live anywhere you want without having to worry about traffic or getting to work in time.
  • Diversifies your income – As mentioned previously, you can occupy your time with other money-earning avenues, so you can get a different job, or you can learn a new skill that can make you more money later on down the line.

So, if you’re just as eager as we are to start earning passive income without any initial funds, then let’s get started with the first business plan we have in store for you today:

1. Create a Guide or a Course

Create a Guide or a Course
Photo by Nick Morrison / unsplash.com

You can actually make a lot of money creating guides for people to follow in case they need help getting through their problems.

These guides can be about anything whatsoever, as long as you know the solution to the problem. For example, you could write a guide on how to better finance your savings, or you could go as far as to write a dating guide online.

These guides shouldn’t be all that long, but they do need to be a bit longer than blogs since you want to get through every possible means of solving the issue that you can think of.

Take for example Greg Jeffries, he actually earned well over $30k a month by simply creating online courses. If you want to earn a passive income you can always just write about the stuff you know and people will pay to get your insight on the matter.

What’s amazing about this is the fact that it can be on any topic whatsoever. If you want to see what information people are looking to find you can always just google it for yourself and you should come across an easily digestible topic that you yourself know how to preach.

You can spend money on this project to boost up your sales, sure, but for the most part you won’t need to deal with anything outside of just writing the guide or course yourself.

2. Write an eBook

Write an eBook

This is very similar to creating a guide or a course, but it does entail a little more effort since you will need to write a fully-fledged book instead of just making up a course or a guide in the span of a couple of days.

The great thing about this though is that the book itself can be about anything you want, it can also be an informative guide or some sort of a course that can help people get through their problems, but it can also be something completely different.

Maybe you like writing stories in your spare time, or maybe you just like to write about your own life in an exaggerated way. Regardless of what you choose, you can always just write it down and hope that it piques someone’s interest, which it most likely will if you advertise it properly.

You can get a publisher to handle the business part of your eBook too, or you can just self-publish if you do want to spend a little bit of money on this.

What’s important about it isn’t the fact that you can do so with minimal effort and investments, it’s the fact that if you do manage to get on a few people’s radars you can end up with quite a huge profit by the end of the day.

3. Lending Your Car for Money

Lending Your Car for Money

One of the most important advantages that we mentioned previously when it comes to earning a passive income is the fact that you don’t need to drive to work anytime soon, so instead you can use your car to earn quick and easy money.

How? You just lend your car to other people that need it more than you, and you end up making money off of them using your car in the first place.

This works with pretty much anything you own, it can be a computer, a car or anything else that people may need in their day-by-day basis, but the car works best in this case.

4. Deliver Takeout Food

Deliver Food
Photo by Vittaya_25 / stock.adobe.com

Another way that you can start earning money without doing much is by delivering food in your spare time. While this can be categorized as a job all on its own, one that you need to work for actively, it can also be a passive way to make money because you only work whenever you feel like it.

So, let’s say that you need a few extra dollars for rent this month, or maybe you want to buy a better car in the near future. Wouldn’t an extra $500 be quite nice to have when that time comes?

There are plenty of companies that allow you to use your own vehicle to do their bidding for them, including Uber, Lyft, Food Panda and whatnot. You just need to pick out whichever you prefer and then you can get started whenever you feel like it.

5. Rent Out Your Spare Room

Rent Out Your Spare Room
Photo by Jean van der Meulen / pexels.com

Many of us live in big houses that have a ton of extra rooms that we rarely ever use. So, if you want to make a few extra dollars and you’re not bothered by the idea of sharing your home with someone else, then you can always just rent out your spare room to whoever is willing to pay you for it.

What’s amazing about this option is that you can also just search for people that are looking for a temporary home, so for example you can rent out your room for about two to three months or even less, just for a couple of weeks.

This will earn you a decent amount of money, and you will not need to worry about investing any money into this money-making plan since you already own the place to begin with.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing
Photo by buritora
/ stock.adobe.com

Affiliate marketing is one of the most ingenious ways that you can start earning money passively through, although it does imply that you have a medium that people would be interested in too.

Let’s say for example that you have a good blog on your hands and you get a decent number of clicks on it every day.

So, what you will do next is you will start looking for brands that want to have their products or services advertised on your platform, and you start recommending or reviewing them on your blog.

While you do need to have a pretty large platform that a lot of people click on to begin with, once you get that out of the way you don’t really need to invest any money into the project in order to make money.

There are even some lucky individuals out there that earn as much as 6 figures through affiliate marketing. Take for example Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, he has earned as much as $110,160.30 in a single month using this method.

7. Start a YouTube Channel / TikTok / Instagram Account

Start a YouTube Channel

We are living in the age of social media influencers, and there is no better time to be alive if you’re looking to earn passive income through your online presence.

Similarly to opening a blog, an account on any of the aforementioned platforms will help you earn a lot of money while also not investing any of it into the account itself.

There are plenty of accounts out there that are low quality, with no real money to back them up in the first place, that have made millions off of just appealing to a demographic that they know a lot about.

Take for example Shoenice, he was a YouTuber that ate strange stuff in front of his cheap camera. That’s all that it took for him to garner millions of views and make a lot of money in the process.

This is why starting a YouTube, TikTok or Instagram is always a great choice if you want to earn quick and easy money.

8. Sell Stock Photos

Sell Stock Photos
Photo By santypan / stock.adobe.com

Do you consider yourself to be a pretty good photographer? If so, why not actually put it to good use by licensing the pictures and then selling them off to different image companies.

The pictures don’t even need to be pitch perfect, all you need is to be very broad or specific with the picture itself.

What we mean by that is, let’s say a website needs a picture of a horse next to a cat. Well, they can either choose between your picture, which is not that high quality, or someone else’s picture which is very high quality but it doesn’t fit all of the requirements in the first place.

On top of that, you can also make some pictures that are less niche, like for example you can take a picture of the sunset, you can snap a photo of your cat or you can just take a picture of an appliance and send it over.

Some of the most famous stock image websites out there include:

  • Getty Images
  • PikWizard
  • Alamy
  • 123RF
  • Adobe Stock
  • Shutterstock

9. Invest into Cryptos

Invest into Cryptos
Photo by Jason Briscoe / unsplash.com

Investing into cryptocurrencies is definitely a double-edged sword of some sort, as it can be your ticket to earning big without actually doing anything for that money to begin with, but it can also lead to you having to mortgage your house to stay afloat.

There are plenty of amazing coins for you to invest into for sure, but there are also a lot of scams that you may want to stay as far away from as possible.

With all that being said, the investment itself is pretty cost effective since you don’t actually need to slam hundreds of dollars to make a profit, you can start off by racking up dimes and if you’re lucky, you can end up with quite a huge profit on your hand.

Do we recommend it? Yes. Do we believe it is a risky business? Absolutely. So, weigh out the pros and cons and if you see this as a fitting path to take, why not give it a try?

10. Create Single-Use Software and Apps

Programmer Coding At Desk
Photo By AntonioDiaz / stock.adobe.com

You can always just build an app that allows you to convert a specific file into a different type of a file, like for example an app that converts HTML to text.

While these are not exactly huge money-making machines, they are very useful and a lot of people will continue to use your app once they need it which makes it a great way to ensure passive income.

It is completely free too, but at the same time you can cheat your way to the top too by outsourcing the creation of the app and just making back your investment over time.

You don’t even need it to be that big of an app, just make something simple that people need once a month, and price it accordingly so that they will return afterwards when they need your help again.

Conclusion

Earning a good passive income sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? Well, wake up and smell the roses because it doesn’t need to be just a dream after all.

You just need to be smart about your approach and understand that while not all of your plans will work out, the few that do will help you generate just enough money to make this worthwhile.

So, regardless of which of these methods you decide to make use of, just keep in mind that you will eventually earn enough to justify the time and resources you’ve put into the projects to begin with.

About Kevin Ballard

I’ve worked in corporate finance for almost fifteen years. I have a bachelor’s in Finance and an MBA. I am also a Certified Management Accountant. At one time I had my securities license (Series 7) and Health and Life insurance licenses. What’s more important is that I like to learn and always seek to truly understand the subject I am studying. Learn more about Invest Some Money's Editorial Process.