The 1980s promised women that they could have it all, but just a couple of generations later, that phrase has become more of a threat than the liberating promise it initially seemed to be. Women are now expected to meaningfully contribute to the household finances, while still being held responsible for much of the childcare and (often) for the emotional load of the various chores that go into maintaining a home. This often leaves women feeling as though they are not enough, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The trick lies in finding a way to work smarter, not harder, and to let your efforts sell themselves, earning you passive income without huge input from yourself.
What is Passive Income?
Passive income is literally what it sounds like: income that earns itself, more or less. This is not ‘free’ money: you will have to put in some work, often a considerable amount of it. But once you have perfected your product, then you can relax and let whatever it is earn you some money. A perfect example is that of a book: there is a great deal of work and polishing and perfecting to be done before there is a saleable product. But once the book is out on the market, and you’ve invested in some modest advertising (or your publishing house has, should you be lucky enough to be traditionally published) you can sit back and enjoy a trickle of royalty payments more or less indefinitely. Other examples of passive income include:
- Rent – paid to you on properties you own
- Returns on investments – be mindful when playing the stock market that you can incur losses as well as gains and choose your stock options carefully
- Blogging and Vlogging – affiliate links will earn you a small, but not insignificant stream of revenue.
- Stock photography – if you have a good quality camera and a decent eye for attractive composition, you can sign up with stock photography website – or set up your own – and sell your photos for use on other websites, newsletters and even in e-books and more
A moment’s thought will help you see that all of the above require some work to be done by you: maintaining the properties, reading up on financial markets, writing or recording your blogs and vlogs, and taking the photos, perhaps even seeking out information about what people who pay for photographs are looking for. Setting up websites for blogs and/or photos is also something that can be time consuming and finicky: but once you’ve got your site up and running, complete with contact us page and a business email address that you check frequently throughout the day, you can simply maintain and top-up the site’s content to make sure that returning visitors experience a new offering each time they click through. But the work invested in these products and services can continue to earn for you after you’ve recouped your time investment: hence the phrase ‘passive income’.
How Can I Earn Passive Income?
Play to your strengths. If you never could tell your theirs from your they’res, then writing and publishing is probably not for you. But find what is, and then brainstorm ways to make those skills earn you some money. There are a number of caveats though.
Don’t expect to make a fortune. Most passive income is a pound or two here, a tenner there, and so on. But it quickly adds up and if you save up for Christmas or for your holiday spends, you will soon find that you have a generous sum to splurge with.
Finally, fake it till you make it doesn’t work on experts. A great number of people have leapt onto the advent of AI to ‘write’ their own books, assuming that the machine-produced text is as good and indistinguishable from human-written work. This is not the case at all: AI writing is fairly easy to distinguish because the content will almost always show a lack of substance at its core.
Passive income streams are a great way to boost your finances, often freeing up time for the things that make life meaningful and enjoyable. Put in the work to find your passive income niche and get started working your way smartly to a happier, more prosperous future.
