How To Earn Money In Your Sleep

"Just sit back and watch the numbers add in your bank account"

Sounds like a dream doesn't it? At any age, the idea of making money while doing the things you love or the things you actually want to do could be considered as the dream. Maybe as kids we had dreams of making it big, earning money from your hobbies like writing the next Harry Potter or maybe making a band.

A lot of us learn that life isn't like that.

Most of us end up having a boring 9 to 5 job, just hours of looking at computer screens while daydreaming that we're somewhere tropical or snowy or doing something we actually love. Maybe you're one of those people who are bored with their office lives or maybe even a student trying to earn some money on the side.

The most common method for this is passive income. Basically, passive income is money earned with minimal activity through any venture that requires little daily effort or upkeep on the individual’s part. It includes royalties from books, movies, or songs. It’s also revenue that comes from real estate investments or business investments where you don’t have to be present to earn it.

Passive income is more about time than anything else. You could do a lot of things to make money, especially in this day and age where you could sell or find information about literally anything on the internet. Some passive income ideas need a some work at the beginning to earn, like writing an e-book, while some don’t take any effort at all, such as investing with an AI or robo-advisor.

Here is a list of the things that could help get some money in the bank even while you're asleep.

1. Investing with A Virtual Advisor

There are several easily accesible applications that could help you plan and earn money from investments. One of the better ones is Betterment, there's no minimum amount you need to invest, the fees are low, between 0.25-0.40%, and the best part is, you don’t have to know anything about money or investing to get started. They offer automatic rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting. You can also set up automatic deposits from your checking or savings account into your Betterment account to make things easier for you. Another one that's recommended is Personal Capital, it has quite a high minimum investment but they make up for it in the free tools on the app, the most standout one being their tool that tracks your investments and monitors your budget. If you're a student and new to the investing game or maybe a small businessowner, Wealthfront is the place to go. You're given a $5000 budget for your first investment and you can even loan money against your investments as well.

2. Making A Virtual Course/Class

Are you good at something and you want to earn money from it? You can easily make money through creating a virtual course online. All you need to do is record your tutorial or your teachings and charge for every person who wants to go through the course. One very simple way is to produce and share your course is Teachable.com. It has over three million students and is a great way to get your content in front of others.

3. Writing An E-Book

Passionate in writing but you don't want to go through the daunting editorial process and possible rejection by a publisher? You can write and publish your e-books for free in Amazon. Self-publishing also grants each author complete control over how they want to publish and market their books. Each author could set the price of their own works and all they need to do is wait until the royalties start coming in. Success stories of being a self-published eBook author are rising in the media, with people raking in over thousands of dollars in royalties from self-published eBook sales.

4. Rental Income

The one thing I learned about being a college student is that rental owners make big bucks. If you have a lot of money lying around, you could easily buy a house with several bedrooms and bathrooms in a college town without ever having to worry about not having anyone rent your rooms. College students come and go every term and they'll need a place to stay, so it's a great way for you to earn money without much effort.

5. Become A Social Influencer

This one actually takes a bit more effort but you'll have fun doing it. We live in a world where people like making untalented people famous. You may scoff at the instagram models or TikTok artists when you should really know that behind the pictures and videos and contents, they could earn thousands of dollars for just one post, even more if they're sponsoring a brand. YouTube has a feature where you could monatize your channel based on the viewing hours. So becoming a social influencer is quite a good idea if you want to get rich and famous.

6. Starting A Blog/Writing Articles

This one's a bit similar to becoming a social influencer but here you don't have to show your face. With several blogging sites and media sites where they pay you to write content (such as this one), it's a good way to make money if you have ideas and content that people actually want to read.

7. Build An App or A Product You Can Sell

This one's a bit trickier because it requires a lot of work and imagination, with quite a lot of market research. If you enjoy doing this then good for you. If you have a skill or service that you can share with others, you can build an app or create a product to sell.

Selling products that you create can also be very profitable. Sites like Etsy and Ebay allows you to sell your handmade, custom and unique products. It’s simple to set up a storefront and get started. There are also sites like Kickstarter, that help bring your creative projects to life. You can pitch your idea and if people like it, they'll help fund it.

8. License your Music

If you have a knack for the music and you enjoy writing songs, you can easily make money from it by writing songs and uploading it to streaming sites. If someone wants to use it, they can buy the right to use it.

9. Peer-2-Peer Lending

Banks obviously don’t lend money out of the kindness of their hearts, what's the point in doing so? They do it because it’s profitable. You van copy them through Peer-2-Peer (P2P) Lending. It's basically borrowing money to people who wants to start a business but can't or doesn't want to get a loan from the bank. The benefit for the borrowers is that they often don’t qualify for traditional loans from banks or credit unions. For the lenders, the interest they get on the loans can be higher than that of more conventional investments, sometimes averaging above 10%.

10. Sell Stock Photos

Do you like photography and taking pretty pictures? Put that talent to use! If you want to make some extra money through your photos, you could sell your photos as stock photos. The easiest way to make your images available for sale as stock images is through a third-party site, some notable ones are Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, and Alamy. If you have the skills and resources to do so, you could also sell your stock images on your own website.

And those are some methods you could try to make money while you sleep. If you enjoyed this article, don't forget to share and or leave a like!