6 Simple Ideas For A Lucrative Second Income Stream

Many would love the luxury of a second income stream, without having to work a second job or needing the time to manage a fully-fledged side hustle. 

Whether you have low or no start-up capital at hand. Each of these suggestions require some kind of investment. Whether that be a small financial commitment or investing some of your personal time or resources to begin with. BBC estimates that 20% of American Households earn passive income, with 36% of millennials already engaging in this practice. Here are some simple ideas to diversify your income. 

People use websites including Amazon and Etsy, a blog or even social media to sell their own electronic resources. This is especially useful if there is a skill you feel people could learn from and master themselves. As recommended by Time, this is an income idea for people who wish to make and sell templates, books, or courses that they have created, or could engage by teaching live workshops online

Starting an online retail business used to be a lot of work, CBS suggests a drop-shipping business. There are many simple to use platforms that allow you to customise a store-front, or partner with other online platforms. The best part about drop-shipping is that you can still have creative control with no need to manage inventory. With print-on-demand services, as customers order a product, your selected supplier will create and ship the product for you. A fast way to set up a business, without having to manually fulfil orders yourself. 

Forbes suggests investing in companies or shares that may provide dividend payments to investors is a passive income stream. You can also approach investing by holding shares in companies that may not provide dividend pay-outs, but can still generate growth if you wish to make a longer-term investment. You can approach this by selecting a company performing well on the stock exchange, or by investing in a field you are passionate about. Investments can be a risk without research, but even a small amount in a low-risk share may be worthwhile, and outweigh the upkeep that a property investment may require. 

Clearing out your wardrobe and selling clothes online is often encouraged, but a growing eco-friendly trend is clothing rentals, allowing users to rent out clothing or accessories that they get minimal wear out of. Only taking minutes to set up, Reader’s Digest suggests a more than $2 billion rental market by 2030, so best to be ahead of the curve and take advantage of pieces you’re not ready to part with, but could provide some passive income. 

Content creation often goes hand in hand with business, and social media is something many people already engage in, during their spare time. Often without a mass social following it can be hard to sign up to an affiliate marketing or creator program. Fondr recommends collecting tips as a way for users who enjoy your content to thank you for your dedication, whilst supplementing your income in exchange for your content. There are many services that make this process easy, such as Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee or Tipeee. Aside from social media, this could also be applied to a blog or newsletter content. 

Many people may not have the time to start a fully-fledged blog and monetise it through ads. Investopedia suggests selling images to stock photo platforms, which is a way to repurpose content you already produce, even vacation photos. This method has a low barrier to entry, but higher competition depending on your niche.