20 Realistic Ways To Make Money While You Sleep

Imagine going to bed and waking up with money notifications credited to your bank. It might sound like a fairy tale, but in fact, it is possible to create a stream of passive income that will generate money for you, even while you sleep.

With so much advancement in digital technology and the post Covid-19 startups boom, people are quitting their traditional 9-5 jobs and earning passively with their side hustles.

Before we move on to our hand-picked methods to build a passive income system for you, let’s understand the real meaning of making money while we sleep.

Making Money While Sleeping simply means creating a system for yourself that generates a continuous flow of passive income. A system that requires less of your manual work hour and relies more on your management.

Now that you’ve got an idea of how the passive income system works, below are a few ideas that will help you make some money.

20 Legit Ways To Make Money While You Sleep

When I started reading financial books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, I always wondered how people make money while they sleep. Back then, I didn’t believe in all that stuff and just ignored the idea of making passive money.

But when I dug deeper into this topic, I was amazed to see that there are few legit ways by using which people are earning more than their regular 9-5 jobs. This changed my whole perspective, and I myself tried a few methods that eventually helped to generate a good passive income. 

To share those passive income ideas with you, I have curated a perfect list of 20 ways to make money while sleeping.

1. Invest In Stock Market

You might have heard this multiple times that investing can make you rich. But believe it or not, more than 56% of Americans own stocks, according to the Gallup survey. And this is true for almost any globalized country in the world. 

Investing in the stock market is one of the best ways to make money passively. Those who are already aware of stock investing knows how to deal with booms and crashes of the stock market.

However, those who find stock investing a daunting task should start their journey by reading investing books and educating themselves first. This way, you will make yourself competent enough to understand the risks and rewards of investing. 

Imagine you’re waking up with the morning news that the stock you bought last month has sky-rocketed. Amount of physical work done to make those profits? None.

2. Publish An Ebook

Ebooks are digitally printed books, and a lot of people are benefiting from them.

If you had a passion for writing when you were small, now is a perfect time. With Ebooks, you can quickly write hundreds of pages, format and publish them digitally. Start with any topics ranging from Fiction to Nonfiction and fill it with the pearls of your words.

Amazon Kindle is one of the most popular platforms to publish your digital books. Thousands of Ebooks are sold on Amazon every day.

The benefits of starting an Ebook business:

• No Printing Hassles
• No Out Of Stock Worries
• Recurring Long Term Profits
• One Time Writing Investment
• Long-Lasting Reader base

With all that benefits and the gaining Ebook business popularity, people are crushing it. And you can do the same.

3. Build An Email List

An email list of 1,000,00 subscribers is worth millions of dollars. 

Read that again.

And, Once again.

One of the most efficient ways to make long-term money can be achieved by building a niche email list. Of course, the bigger your email list is, the more money you can make out of it. Businesses make money by selling products to their subscribers via massive email lists.

In addition, with an active email list, you can also shoot some sponsored emails and earn great commissions in sales. Just make sure not to spam your list.

To create an email list for yourself, start with some auto-responders and offer free resources on your website. Even if you don’t own any website, you can build your email list using free landing pages.

4. Launch Your Online Course

Gone are the days when only classroom teachers were making a lot of money. With digital advancement, the online teaching industry is booming like anything. 

The world is seeing unicorns in edtech startups, all offering one thing, online education. Covid-19 pandemic also boosted online learning across the whole world. Students find it relatively easy to learn with great visuals and tutorials that can be revised indefinitely.

And online tutoring is not restricted to only professionals. Anyone with some skill to teach can become a teacher.

Head over to the platforms like Udemy, Youtube, Coursera and launch your own course. You have to create an online course by offering some of your skills like Digital Marketing, Financial Skills, Language Courses, etc. 

A course once made, can fetch you recurring profits for a long period.

5. Real Estate Investing

Real Estate Investing is another popular method to make money while sleeping.

You have to buy some properties for yourself and sell or rent them for higher prices. Like stock investments, you enjoy the appreciation profits.

However, is it for everyone? Most probably not.

Investing in properties requires a hefty amount of money to start with. And it’s pretty difficult for people living paychecks to paychecks. 

There are no proper alternatives to Real Estate. However, you can still make some handsome profits by owning small restaurant chains, gyms, shops, etc.

6. Property Renting

Do not have enough money for a Real Estate investing business, don’t worry; Property Rentals are here to rescue.

With property renting, you can rent out an unused place in your own house to someone else. Let them use it for living, opening a general store, or a shop; you’ll get rent for every single month.

Remember the story of Elon Musk, where he rented out his own house to run a nightclub in it?

Suppose you bought a three-room house for yourself with a monthly loan instalment of $2,000. Now, you rent one of your rooms to someone else, and they pay you $2,000 rental charges every month. So, you use that money to pay your mortgage loan and eventually pay nothing from your pocket.

7. Sell Photos Online

Ever wondered that the incredible snaps you’ve in your phone are worth hundreds of dollars?

Yes, we’re talking about making money by selling photos. 

Today’s smartphone cameras are of high quality, and anyone can take a good photo with them. So use your creativity to snap some good pictures and sell them online.

Platforms like Adobe, Shutterstock, Flickr are great to list your photos professionally. A high-quality image can be worth anywhere around $50 – $500.

8. Start Blogging

Blogging is one of the oldest and evergreen ways of making passive income online.

It has been tried and tested by millions of people worldwide and is one of my preferred ways to make money while I sleep. With a high ranked website and traffic, you can generate a continuous flow of income as a blogger.

There are many options to make money using a website. For example, you can advertise on your blog, sell or review products, start affiliate marketing, etc.

However, seeing a blog make money for you requires a bit of patience, determination and passion. It can take somewhere around 6 to 8 months for your blog to start making money for you.

9. Flipping Websites

If you already know about blogging, then you must be familiar with building websites as well. And do you know, you can also sell your websites to other people legally?

Let me tell you how it works.

First, you create a niche website for yourself. Then, you promote it using SEO methods and by social media promotion. Once your website starts receiving gentle traffic, you begin with enabling paid advertising on it. 

When your website starts making some decent money, you list it on a few website flipping platforms. There are many popular websites flipping online platforms like Flippa, Empire Flippers, etc. 

Established websites can be sold up to 20-30 times their monthly revenue. So, it’s a great way to make some handsome amount of money passively.

10. Use Instagram As An Asset

Do you know how much Kylie Jenner charges for one sponsored post on her Instagram? A mammoth $1,494,000.

And Cristiano Ronaldo? $1,604,000.

Well, believe it or not, Instagram is one of the hottest digital assets right now. Unfortunately, we might not be able to earn like the celebs listed above; however, there is a way to turn Instagram into a passive cash machine.

Since Instagram has introduced reels into its platform, audience engagement has sky-rocketed by more than 80%. As a result, almost everyone is trying hard to become a publisher and is busy creating exciting content.

So, how can you make passive money on Instagram?

It’s simple. You need an active Instagram channel for yourself. Then, there are three common ways to earn profits via Instagram:

• Make Sponsored Reels
• Cross-Promotion of Different Channels
• Paid Sponsored Story Posts

And the best part, all of these can be scheduled perfectly. So, you don’t have to spend much time on publishing.

11. Use Peer-To-Peer Lending Platforms

P2P Lending is one of the trending and unique ways to make passive income. It is also known as “crowd landing” and “social lending”; anyone can try their hands on it. 

It involves lending your money to people over the internet – by legal means – and in exchange, you get interest on your lent out money. The earned interest is usually on a higher side as compared to banks and any other govt. Financial Institutions.

There are multiple established P2P websites that you can find online. Make sure you thoroughly read all the terms and conditions before you start using P2P platforms.

12. Make Paid Niche Facebook Groups

Do you know how much a sponsored post costs in a niche Facebook group?

It’s somewhere about $20 – $50 for micro-niches and $50 – $200 for macro-niches. And you can easily make that much profit from a Facebook group with an active and engaging audience. 

With micro-niches, I mean, businesses like plumbing, cleaning, DIY hacks, etc. And macro-niches, like, finance, investing, photography, etc.

Like the idea? Here’s how you can start making a recurring profit out of a Facebook group.

Choose a niche for yourself. Advertise it rigorously and gather at least 1500-2000 members in your group. Then, start posting some interesting facts regularly to make your audience engaged.

Now, reach out to related businesses, and quote them a paid sponsored post on your FB group. This way, you can advertise their posts on your FB group and charge them for a post.

If you’re based out of the US, then reach out to some UK businesses, and schedule their sponsored posts as per the UK audience timings. This way, you can actually make some decent money while you sleep.

13. Start A Youtube Channel

Youtube is one of my favourite methods to earn passive money. One of my videos that I created 7 years back still fetches me atleast $100-$150 per month.

Many people are scared of starting a Youtube channel as they don’t want to come on video cameras. However, this should not be the ideal case in any scenario.

There are almost a million Youtube Channels and a billion content creators. Youtube gives every video a chance to earn thousands of dollars from its platform. We just need to figure out how to grab that golden chance.

First, you need to select a niche for yourself. Be it anything like entertaining, educating, parenting, or DIY crafts, etc. Then, just start recording and publishing whatever you make as per your niche. You’ll make 50s of weird and scary videos but let it be. Delete the scariest videos after a month and understand where you’ve lacked. 

Trust the process and improve your skills with each video you make. You can also hire Virtual Assistants on Upwork to help you write scripts, voiceovers, video shooting, etc.

14. Try Dropshipping

How many of you get amazed by the success of e-commerce giants like Amazon and Ebay?

You can also create an ecommerce store for yourself by using drop shipping methods.

In dropshipping, you have to set up an online store for yourself and list out the products you want to sell. It’s one of the best ways to sell merchandise, clothes, apparel, etc., without any hassles and supply chain problems.

Use some popular online stores like Shopify and Dropship Direct to start your journey with dropshipping.

15. Start Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is all about promoting someone else’s products and earning commissions in exchange. So again, it’s a very legit method of making passive online income.

Start with popular affiliate marketing websites like Clickbank and start selling the products that can earn you handsome commissions. 

There are 2 ways to earn using affiliate marketing:

As A Promoter: By registering as an individual, you can start promoting someone else’s products. It can be anything from physical products like clothing, electronics or online products like courses, ebooks, etc. With each sale, you receive a commission in your pocket.

As A Seller: If you own a business, you can also register yourself as a seller. If you have a LinkedIn Marketing Course, you can choose to affiliate it. So, you just have to wait for people to promote your product, and you will get a sale without doing anything.

16. Rent Out Your Gear

Another great way to make good passive money. And the deal? Rent out your gear to the needy.

There are many online platforms where you can easily rent out your gear to someone looking to rent it for some time. 

Popular items that are easy to rent and always stay in demand:

• Camera Gear
• Golf Kit
• Travelling Kit
• Sports, Hiking Shoes
• Skiing Equipment

Head over to your storeroom, and list out the items which you’re not using frequently. If someone else rents it, you’ll make some quick dollars out of it.

17. Open High-Yield Bank Accounts

Savings account might not yield you some eye-catching interests, but passive is still passive, right?

If you don’t use any bank account to park your money, you’re missing out on interest rates. And worst, your money value is declining every year with the rise in inflation.

Before opening a bank account, always look out for high-interest rates savings accounts with minimum annual convenience charges. This way, you can save some of your dollars.

Related: How Many Savings Accounts Should I Have?

18. Earn Reward Points And Bonuses

If you’re a regular credit card user, you might be familiar with rewards points, cashback and bonuses. With every transaction, you’re eligible for rewards that can be redeemed in the form of money, goodies or shopping vouchers.

Also, you receive 1-3% of cashback on all your deals, making it more convenient to save more money. While you’re not directly making any more money here, you’re saving a lot of money using the credit card discount offers.

If you’re a frequent traveller, don’t miss massive discounts and deals whenever you book your flights, vacations, hotels, resorts, etc. 

19. Print Customizable Products

By printing customizable products, you can also generate some good passive income for yourself. The printing can be done on products like mobile covers, logos, clothing, bags, etc. 

Multiple websites offer customizable printed products. You can submit your design there, and they will do the final shipping of the product all by themselves. 

You can take your printing game to the next level by grabbing on-demand printing opportunities. For example, there’s a new Marvel movie release with a new character. Chances are super high that people will search out for merchandise related to that new character. 

20. Start An Etsy Store

Another great way to make passive income is to start your Etsy online store. 

Just like dropshipping, the Etsy store provides you with a lot of opportunities. You can easily sell your printable merchandise, ebooks, apparel, and digital products on Etsy.

The best part of Etsy is that here you are the manufacturer and seller of your own product. You can design your own products and sell them smoothly on Etsy.

Just make sure you choose a niche with a decent demand in the market and not much competition. You can research your niche by looking at categories and product reviews of someone else’s store on Etsy.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed our list of 20 innovative ways to make money while sleeping. 

Making money in your sleep is not as complicated as it looks. You need to try a few of the gigs yourself and see what works best for you.

Many people give up trying something for one or two days and assume that the passive income is not for them. You need to trust the process with some patience.

Here’s a BONUS tip for you:

Combine the below 3 gigs, and you might have higher chances to crack the code of making passive income:

• Launch Your Online Course → Build An Email List → Advertise Products To Your Email List
• Build Digital Printable Products → Start An Etsy Store → Sell Your Products On Etsy
• Buy A Camera → Click & Sell Professional Photos On Weekdays → Rent Camera On Weekends

These are just a few examples and you can also combine 2-3 ideas and figure out the best one for yourself. 

Let us know in the comments how hard you’re trying to make money while you enjoying your sleep.

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