In this article, I’m going to tell you what passive income really is. I was reluctant to write this post because I thought there was enough information about passive income out there so this wasn’t going to add any value. But I’ve seen hundreds of articles talking about this subject, and many of them are still wrong or give an intentionally partial view. Here you are going to have my version and five good opportunities to generate them from home. Because, why do you need 50 ways if many of them are not going to work?
ARTICLE OUTLINE
Don’t lose your time. These are the key points we are going to take care of in this article. If you are looking for something specific, you only have to choose it from this list. Nevertheless, I recommend you start from the beginning because I try not to overwrite. I like to cut to the chase. Let’s go:
- MY PASSIVE INCOME DEFINITION.
- WHAT IS NOT PASSIVE INCOME?
- 5 WAYS TO GENERATE PASSIVE INCOME FROM HOME.
- AFFILIATE MARKETING.
- BUILD A NICHE SITE.
- CREATE AN E-BOOK.
- CREATE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL
- CREATE A PODCAST.
- HOW TO START RIGHT NOW?

MY PASSIVE INCOME DEFINITION.
As you could see on this answer I posted in quora.com, I gave a Passive Income definition comparing with Active Income and Portfolio Income. To me, Passive Income is the income you get without requiring a real-time presence at that particular moment. You are not trading time for money as you are when in a 9 to 5 job. And this is probably the best advantage of passive income: you don’t have to be there. That makes it scalable. You are earning money even when you are not there.
But don’t be wrong. You have to invest a lot of your time (or money) to get passive income. You have got to do it in front. To create a product or a business model that is going to generate income in the future is not anything you do overnight. It’s a lot of time and you have to know a lot of things to do it properly. And that’s why I’m here with Freenancial Exposed showing you how to do it at the same time I’m doing it. You can start here if you want to develop an online business with my help.
WHAT IS NOT PASSIVE INCOME?
A) PORTFOLIO INCOME:
When giving a Passive Income definition, many people consider Portfolio Income as Passive Income as well, but I prefer to differentiate both. Portfolio Income is the money you’re getting from a portfolio of stocks, bonds, funds. It’s true that is passive money but in front is money what you invest. Indirectly we usually get to that money investing our time but It’s not direct.
For me, Passive Income is when there is a relationship like this one:
- time (in front) -> product/service -> money.
With Portfolio Income is more like this:
- time (in front) -> money -> more money.
B) OTHER ONLINE INCOME:
I have seen a lot of lists with this kind of titles: “30 passive income ideas”. Then I read the article and see that they consider passive income activities like:
- Doing online surveys.
- Creating websites for another person (costumer).
- Buying Bulk From Overseas And Selling It Down Via eBay.
I don’t know where the author sees the “passive” aspect from doing a survey and be paid for it. Not all online businesses are passive. But even Wikipedia, talking about Passive Income says: “a stream of income earned with little effort”. And that’s not true. That’s why many people think passive income is impossible or a scam because they think about them as “easy money”. Well, it not easy at all, but It can be done. And the good thing about needing effort is that not everybody is going to try. So if you try and if you do it right, you can have in the future a big amount of income streaming to you. Here you have some of the resources you may need in your path to your financial freedom.
5 WAYS TO GENERATE PASSIVE INCOME FROM HOME.
I’m going to tell you the ways I’m using right now to generate Passive Income in Freenancial Exposed. Some of them are implemented and some others are part of the next steps I’ll show you really soon. As you know from our principles, I like to talk only base in my experience and being totally honest and transparent.
A) AFFILIATE MARKETING.
This is the first business model I started in order to get passive income in Freenancial Exposed. Do you know what affiliate marketing is? Well, It’s making money from a commission that you earn by selling other’s company products. To do that, you need to be seen as an authority in your niche because people are going to use your affiliate links because they trust you and they like your content and opinions. You could share those affiliate links on a website, social network, emailing your contacts, etc.
For example, in this article: Hostgator Review (2019). Why we chose them instead of Bluehost I tried to help people about choosing the best hosting for their future blog or online business. There are two affiliate links inside, one for BlueHost and another for Hostgator. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation when you make a purchase through this link along this post. Thanks] If someone hit the link and after that, they make a purchase, I would get a commission.
B) BUILD A NICHE SITE.
These are sites that you create around one particular niche (a subject). For example, It could be about bicycles, sunglasses, modeling. You give content to the site and try to rank on the first page of Google (what it needs a lot of effort). From that moment, you could monetize from Adsense Ads on the site, or using the site to place your affiliate links, for example with products from Amazon. If you rank high you can make good commissions from Amazon and other companies. For example, there is it Shareasale, another Affiliate Market that works really good and has a lot of companies with affiliate programs. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation when you make a purchase through this link along this post. Thanks]
Freenancial Exposed is indeed a Niche Site, but my main concern is not to create a “closed site” but to keep it alive updating and guiding people. So it’s not the perfect example, but it has a lot of the Niches: “financial freedom” and “passive income”
C) CREATE AN E-BOOK.
Now it’s easier than ever to publish a book. You have the opportunity of creating an electronic book (e-book) or even a paper one (with services like Amazon’s to print and distribute it worldwide). Find a good idea or a subject that you think it’s going to be attractive to a lot of people and go for it. The less important thing at that time is the technical part. Later you’ll need some knowledge to make the world know you have the book ready to sell. But maybe I should talk about this later in deep. Probably you don’t know, but I have written a nice book, published in Amazon, called: “La espiral de la Felicidad” ( the spiral of happiness) [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation when you make a purchase through this link along this post. Thanks]
D) CREATE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL
With Inspira y Avanza, my offline business, I have a youtube channel that is making money from Adsense. If you want to check it, here you have it (although is mostly in Spanish, there are a couple of videos in English). The Freenancial Exposed youtube channel is coming soon!
Youtube is going to pay you depending on the views your channel get. For example, for Inspira y Avanza:
E) CREATE A PODCAST.
Podcasting is very similar to blogging. The only thing that changes is the platform. You create a lot of content in front, so you can build the authority to get money from:
- Promoting your own products.
- Recommending other’s products through affiliate marketing.
- Getting some sponsors for the content.
- Creating a premium podcast (a new one, or for some special chapters of the free one).
In Freenancial Exposed the Podcast is coming soon as well. Do you like to be part of the beginning, go to the podcast page and register there to help us reach 100 subscribers. We’ll start the podcast as soon as we reach that number!
Podcasting is very similar to blogging. The only thing that changes is the platform. Clic para tuitearHOW TO START RIGHT NOW?
Maybe you are in a hurry. You need money right away. Then you should probably start with some active income. You could do some surveys for example. Yes, they are not inside the passive income definition, but it’s a start.
If you want to go fast, and you don’t have money to invest in outsourcing the work, maybe there is another option that it really falls within the definition for passive income: Writing Articles for a big site.
You only have to write a lot of articles in those sites and wait until the ads they have placed around your post generate income. They’ll give you a part of that income they get from advertisement. I haven’t tried this option because I’m not in a hurry with this project. Sometimes I’ve heard bad things about those sites (bad payment, etc). The one that I’ve heard better opinions from is https://hubpages.com/. But I have to tell you, I haven’t tested it and, of course, I don’t get any money sharing with you this link. I do it just in case it could help you.
DO YOU WANT TO START YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS NOW?
If you think you are ready, those articles are going to help you a lot to start your online business:
And remember that you can join our community of “freenancers”. Register to the Freenancial Exposed Newsletter here.
Luis Gil.