2020 Passive Income Challenge

For the past few years, I have tried to come up with a challenge for myself. While I do not normally succeed in these challenges, I think that they do help me to try something different and do something that I might not have otherwise done. Therefore, this year’s challenge is going to be to increase my overall passive income.

Passive Income is Not Impossible

What is passive income you might ask? Well, it is money that comes to me without having to put in any work at all. Before you think this is impossible, let me say two things. First, it is not impossible. It is actually quite easy and most people probably have at least some passive income without realizing it. Do you have a savings account? Are you making interest on it? That is passive monthly income. For most people it is a very small amount, but it is income.

Second, the term “passive income” is a little misleading.

Obviously, I cannot just decide one day that I am going to increase my passive income. There is always going to be at least some input of time, effort, or work in order to start making passive monthly income. It is not always easy, but there are some ways to increase it in realistic ways.

I already have some passive income streams. Obviously, I have a savings and checking account. Both of these things generate some (albeit negligible) passive income just by having money in them. While this one appears to be a source of no work only reward, I did technically have to set up the account at one point. I also have to keep adding money in order to keep getting interest. It is a good thing I have more ideas and this is not my only source of passive income.

Below, I will list the places that I am currently getting passive income from.

1.) This blog.

Currently, this is my least affective source of passive income. The ads on my site generate a few pennies to a couple dollars. A year. It cost much more than that just to keep the site running so really, I am not making any money off this at all. I was once also getting YouTube ad revenue but they changed their rules and I am not getting anything from them anymore. Both of these sources are from Adsense.

2.) Robinhood

I have put a small amount of money into some high yield dividend stocks through Robinhood. Sure, these dividends are affected by the market so if my stock goes down, the dividend needs to outweigh the loss (so far so good). Now that everything is set up, I am not putting any more work into this and it is a true stream of passive income. $4.50 from dividends. I get this every month. This is not a lot of money, but for doing virtually nothing at all, who can complain about that? I want to try to double this amount as soon as I can. Then, I will be able to reinvest the dividend each month and get it to grow even faster! Click here to sign up under me and receive a free stock.

3.) Slidejoy.

This one is even lamer. I make about a dollar a month or so most months. All it does is add an advertisement to the lock screen of my phone. Sure, it is negligible income, but occasionally the ads have been useful (Starbucks bogo days). This also takes no work since I would have to slide open my phone anyway. Click here to sign up under me and start earning pocket change!

Obviously, I have some plans to grow this passive income throughout the year. I have a game that is going to be published to a website soon and this is going to be more the kind of income I am hoping to grow. Some people count credit card cash back rewards as passive income. I personally struggle to see this as income because it is a direct result of me spending money. Sure, I receive a few hundred dollars a year from this, but it is not really passive. Likewise, if I am selling something on eBay, it is not passive. Unless it is a download or something that can be sold over and over, I will eventually run out of things to sell and this is therefore not passive.

Create streams of passive income.

My goal is to create things that will result in monthly income. Some of the ideas I have for this year are to create digital games and content, eBooks, podcasts, print on demand, board games, and anything else I find that can scale towards passive income. The goal is not to get rich quick. That is not how building passive income works. Instead, the old saying “it is a marathon, not a sprint” holds true here. If I can get to even $50 a month I would consider that a reasonable success. However, ideally, it would be a lot of fun to be able to get to a passive income that equals an extra paycheck each month.

In order to give myself a little extra time to get started, I am going to count the three things that I have going right now as January’s contribution. For the month of February, I will have to add something to my life and resources that might add to passive income. For this challenge, I am not saying that what I create has to actually yield monthly income, only that it has to have the potential to do so.

Extra earned income will go towards paying off student loans and car loans first and then will be added to savings. The first goal is to have a steady stream of around $50 a month. Which, given the work I’ve done so far puts me at about 10% of the way there. Hey, you gotta start somewhere!

Do you have any ideas for passive income streams? Post them in the comments below!