Most of us look forward to not having to work so much, so we have more time to follow our dreams– you know, the things you always wanted to do and expected you would do one day, but somehow, that day never came because work showed up and rained over your whole life.

With passive income streams, you can make that day happen sooner. A passive income is one that makes you money again and again without you having to do much to it. Passive income usually requires an initial investment of time or money. If you’re seriously broke, like I was when I started this journey, then you can invest your time to get out of the rat race. Of course, if you’re busy and broke, it will take longer to get results.

My favourite passive income strategies for 2021:

1. Amazon Associates: Yeah, people love to hate Amazon but I make most of my money from them, either via Associates or my books. Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing program where you tell people about stuff that’s for sale at Amazon, and you get a commission. There are a lot of other affiliate marketing schemes out there, from companies with charter planes to companies selling make-up or even credit cards, but Amazon Associates has been my top-performing affiliate scheme this year and I’m making about $250 a month from it now, without having to do anything at all, due to the size of this website (over 500 pages and counting) and age of this blog (2014). Obviously, I had to put a lot of time and work into making this site useful to people, and I had to build my traffic to a good level, but now I can sit back and let the reward come in. That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing.
2. Ebooks: Starting a self-publishing business as an author is NOT a quick or easy way to make money, but if you get it right, it’s scaleable and you get to write books and earn from them. There are tons of niches in both fiction and non-fiction where you can find your blue ocean. If you write an evergreen book series about things people are looking for, you can generate a reasonable income from this. Thousands of self-published authors make 6 or even 7 figures a month.
3. Other info products: These are where the big money is in 2021. Courses are huge and the market is set to grow as colleges stay closed in various countries worldwide for yet another year. The way to make money with courses is to find something you know about, which other people struggle with. Position yourself as an authority on your topic, grow an audience, then BAM! Launch your course. Courses are better than ebooks because they are what’s known as a high-ticket item (you can price ’em high).
4. Rent something out: Your living room couch, your whole house while you’re on holiday, the parking space outside your house… the options are varied and you can put as much or as little into this as you like.
5. Cryptocurrency: I am not a financial adviser, but if you have money you can afford to lose, investing in crypto is high risk. You can make a lot from a little, but you also might lose it all on the whim of the market. Before investing in cryptocurrencies, educate yourself and do your own research from a variety of sources, don’t just listen to one person’s recommendations.
6. Stocks: A less risky investment (but you can still lose it all) is investing in the stock market. Like cryptos, do your research and don’t ever buy into a company on one person’s say-so.

So those are the top ways I’m generating passive income in 2021, there are obviously a lot more things you could do to bring in money, I haven’t covered side-hustles or ways you can earn cryptocurrencies from performing online tasks for companies (such as content creation) because I wanted to focus only on things I’ve tried and tested, which are bringing in a reasonable amount of money for me. That’s also why website advertising hasn’t made this list – it’s not even bringing in $50 a month to my site so I can’t count it as a reliable passive income stream.