If you’re interested in establishing a flow of passive income, here’s a guide to understanding the term and getting started. This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by...
You’ve probably heard the term passive income.
It sounds appealing right? According to the definition of passive, it would mean you’re earning income without participating or having to do anything at all.
Free money? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, that’s a common misconception. Just like you can’t pluck money from a tree, you can’t expect to earn passive income by being, well, totally passive.
However, it’s a viable way to make money, and offers you security and freedom.
If you’re interested in establishing a flow of passive income, here’s a guide to understanding the term and getting started.
1. Buy a Hotel — Even if You’re Not Rich
There’s no reason you can’t invest in hotels — even if you’re not rich.
A company called Yieldstreet lets you get started in the world of real estate by giving you access to private commercial and residential real estate deals in key markets. The best part? You don’t have to be the landlord. Yieldstreet does all the heavy lifting.
Normally this is something only available to the super wealthy, but now you can have access to investment opportunities like luxury apartments in Nashville, multi-family property in Dallas — and yes, even a resort-style hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Private real estate has outperformed the average S&P 500 return for the last 25 years, with average annualized returns of 10.3%. And Yieldstreet has a stringent vetting process to decide what properties to invest in to minimize any surprises.
Once invested, you can track your performance on Yieldstreet’s website, and watch as properties are acquired, improved and operated. You could earn money through quarterly dividend payments, and over time, you could earn money off the potential appreciation of the property.
So if you want to get started in the world of real-estate investing, it takes just a few minutes to sign up and create an account with Yieldstreet.
2. Get Paid to Play Bingo
There’s a free iPhone app called Bingo Cash that pays you up to $80 every time you win bingo.
The game is based on a classic Bingo format — plus tons of variations on the game. You’ll battle it out against other players at your same skill level. Everyone gets the same board and sees the same Bingo balls, so winning is totally a matter of skill. The top three players in a game can win real money — anywhere from $1 to $80.
Over on the App Store, it has a 4.7-star rating (out of 5).
To get started, just download the free app and start playing your first game immediately.
3. Use This Secret Debit Card
Here’s the deal: If you’re not using Aspiration’s debit card, you’re missing out on extra cash. And who doesn’t want extra cash right now?
Yep. When you sign up for a debit card called Aspiration, you could get up to 5% back when you swipe at certain stores — plus they give you up to 50 times the normal national interest rate on your savings balance.
It’s perfect for earning extra cash for things that are already on your shopping list. You were going to buy these things anyway — why not get this extra money in the process?
This card used to have a huge waiting list, but now you can sign up for free.
Just enter your email address here and link your bank account to see how much extra cash you can get with your free Aspiration account. And don’t worry. Your money is FDIC insured and under a military-grade encryption. That’s nerd talk for “this is totally safe.”
4. Get up to $200 in Free Stock
If you feel like you don’t have enough money to start investing, you’re not alone. But guess what? You really don’t need that much — and you can even get free stocks (worth up to $200!) if you know where to look.
Whether you’re got $5, $100 or $800 to spare, you can start investing with Robinhood.
Yeah, you’ve probably heard of Robinhood. Both investing beginners and pros love it because it doesn’t charge commission fees, and you can buy and sell stocks for free — no limits. Plus, it’s super easy to use.
What’s best? When you download the app and fund your account (it takes no more than a few minutes), Robinhood drops a share of free stock into your account. It’s random, though, so that stock could be worth anywhere from $2.50 to $200 — a nice boost to help you build your investments.
5. Get a Free $225 in Cash
If we told you you could get free money just for watching videos on your computer, you’d probably laugh. It’s too good to be true, right? But we’re serious.
A website called InboxDollars will pay you to watch short video clips online. One minute you might watch someone bake brownies and the next you might get the latest updates on Kardashian drama.
All you have to do is choose which videos you want to watch and answer a few quick questions about them afterward. Brands pay InboxDollars to get these videos in front of viewers, and it passes a cut onto you.
InboxDollars won’t make you rich, but it’s possible to get up to $225 per month watching these videos. It’s already paid its users more than $56 million.
It takes about one minute to sign up, and you’ll immediately earn a $5 bonus to get you started.
The Aspiration Spend & Save Accounts are cash management accounts offered through Aspiration Financial, LLC, a registered broker-dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC, and a subsidiary of Aspiration Partners, Inc. (“Aspiration”). Aspiration is not a bank.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.