By Rachel Puryear

Passive income is everyone’s dream, and it’s proven to be a popular subject matter on this blog. So we’ll bring you more about that!

Passive income is that which is earned without having to continue working for it. Although some actual work may be required up front, or to maintain the source of income, recipients of passive income aren’t continuing to sell their time and efforts to make every dollar – they have a way to receive more income independent of employment.

See here for a discussion of the basics about passive income.

One of the things about passive income, though, is that it tends to take at least some money to get started. This can unfortunately create a barrier to earning more passive income for people who don’t have much.

However, there are some ways to get started for people who don’t have tons of money to begin with. It will most likely take more time to build passive income with less money than more, but there are still places to start.

Here are some possibilities for generating some passive income starting with about $500-$1,000.

Small Investing

When people think of investors, they often imagine the super-rich buying up everything in sight, and making loads of money from it.

Sure, that happens, and is why having wealth initially tends to beget more and more wealth.

However, there are ways for someone with much smaller amounts to invest to do so, and generate a little passive income. Over time, that can also grow.

If you can save enough money in a savings account to reach $1,000.00 to invest, you can begin to access Vanguard’s low-cost index funds. Low-cost index funds are the best place to start with investing, so that fees don’t eat up your gains. Vanguard is investor-owned, and offers great customer service, in my experience.

The more you can invest over time, the more you can make compounding interest work in your favor, and gradually grow what started out as a small investment.

Micro Lending

People typically associate lending with big banks. Sure, major financial institutions have a lot of that market cornered – but because of that, there are also a lot of people who have trouble getting needed loans to start small businesses.

That’s because they don’t meet the banks’ criteria. It’s not that they aren’t necessarily creditworthy, but the loans they need are too small to be profitable enough for banks to be interested.

That’s where micro-lending comes in. And anyone with as little as just a few hundred dollars to invest can become a micro-lender, and reap rewards accordingly. Besides, you can also feel good about helping someone else get a hand up, who might not have otherwise had the opportunity to access a needed loan.

Affiliate Marketing

If you’ve always wanted to have an online store, and make money selling things online, you might have been discouraged by the start-up costs of such a venture – as well as the risk of losses, and liability.

However, there’s a way to still promote products online, and earn commissions on sales you helped a company to convert – and that’s called affiliate marketing.

See the previous post about affiliate marketing, to learn more about this low-risk, and easy way of making money online.

Blog or Vlog Channel Influencer

If you’re knowledgable and passionate about a particular subject, or you have some great stories to tell, you could start a blog or a vlog channel. If you’re afraid no one else will share your interests, don’t be discouraged – in the big online world, even a small niche is shared by plenty of other people.

As you grow your audience and getting more regular views, you can start marketing products on your site or channel in order to generate income. You could do this via affiliate marketing, as discussed above. You could also do this by way of being an influencer, and specifically marketing products for a commission or fee.

A great thing about a blog or vlog channel is that it’s ready stackable, and scalable.

As you make one successful site, you can add more on top of it, and make more money that way. As you grow your audiences, you can make more commissions without doing much more work. Furthermore, as long as your site is still getting views, you can still continue to monetize it without an ongoing effort – making it a great source of passive income.

Selling Digital Products

If you’re knowledgeable and passionate about a subject matter, you could also turn it into digital products in order to monetize those. You can create online courses, write e-books, or develop apps and other software.

Again, this is also highly stackable and scalable. And these can continue earning more money long after you’ve initially developed them.

Rent Out What You’ve Already Got

You might think of renting as something only for those who own houses and nice cars, and other high-ticket items. Maybe you don’t have a house or newer car you can rent. That’s okay, that doesn’t have to mean that renting isn’t for you – there are still smaller and less expensive assets that you can also rent out.

Bikes, specialty clothing (including wedding wear, costumes, formalwear), tools, equipment, camping and travel and sports gear, beauty supplies, party and events stuff (including weddings and funerals and barbecues), vehicles, solar panels, electronics, furniture, children’s toys and equipment, games, appliances, musical instruments and art supplies, moving gear; and more are items you might have that you don’t need all the time, and that others will find useful. Finding ways to rent these items out can earn you some passive income, without having to first spend a ton of money up front.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to passive income started with just a little bit.

Check out my other blog, too – World Class Hugs, at https://worldclasshugs.com. It’s about celebrating empathic and HSS/HSP people, balanced versus toxic relationships, loving spirituality and spiritualism without religious dogma, and visiting gorgeous natural places.

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Wealth