What’s better than one large source of income? Multiple sources of income that regularly rake in money, right?
Having money flowing in from different places is extremely powerful.
First, your earning potential increases. Second, you can benefit from both active and passive income sources. Third, multiple flows of income is the Holy Grail of financial freedom.
It’s long been known that the average millionaire has seven or more streams of income. So, you’ll want to learn this skill today.
Multiple Flows of Income
Imagine a river with lots of tributaries flowing into it. Each tributary contributes to the river’s overall magnitude. The more there are, the bigger the river becomes.
It’s the same deal with your bank balance.
Of course, it also mitigates financial risk. The river keeps on running even if it loses a tributary or two.
There are lots of ways to create multiple flows of income, including:
1. Earned Income (Main Job)
Earned income is active income that you make from your job.
Usually, this is income that you are paid as a W-2 employee in the form of a salary.
2. Secondary Earned Income (Side Hustle)
This income you make from a second job or side hustle. For most people, this is an easy flow of income to add into your life.
Given that you can live off the income from your main job, you should be able to push all (or nearly all) of this income into investments, creating a flywheel for your wealth!
If you’re ready to start locking down this type of income, easy places at start are by:
- Selling your expertise by the minute on Brain.fm
- Teaching through VIP Kid ($14 to 22 per hour)
- Doing freelancing work through Upwork.com
3. Rental Income
This is money you make from renting out an asset that you control to other people – such as tenants, renters, or in the case of short-term stays, guests.
If you can’t afford to buy an investment property, then start by renting out something of lesser value, such as a room, a vehicle, a parking space, a car, or an RV.
For example:
- You can rent out a single room using AirBnB.com. (*Note: Only do this if you own the property or get express written consent from your landlord.)
- You can rent our a parking space on SpotHero.com.
- You can rent out your car using Turo.com.
- You can rent out unused storage space on Neighbor.com.
- Or, you could spend as little as $10,000 to $30,000 to acquire an RV and rent it out on RVshare.com.
4. Business Income
This is money made from running a part or full-time business. A business is defined as any process through which you can predictably and repeatedly make money from selling a deliverable.
This could be income that you make from running a brick and mortar business or income generated from an online business.
If you want to start a business for little to no money, consider starting a service-based businesses. For example, you could start a:
- Lawn mowing company
- Dog walking company
- Pet sitting company
- Offer social media services to small businesses
- Sell video marketing services (it’s easy to learn how to record and edit basic videos and most companies need help in this area)
5. Sales Income
Sales income is any income that you make from selling a product (whether or not it is sold through a formal business entity).
For example, you could create an e-book or an online course and sell it for a profit.
Sales income can also be made by selling another person’s products, known as affiliate marketing.
For example, when you join BigCommerce’s affiliate program, you can earn $1,500 per Enterprise referral. Need more ideas? Here’s a list of popular affiliate marketing platforms.
Or, if you’re musical, you could upload your beats online at Airbit.com and get paid out instantly.
6. Commissions
Commissions are any income that you get paid based on performance.
Commonly, commissions are paid to sales people or managers for hitting revenue targets.
If you want to earn sales commissions, consider posting your resume on Closers.com. It is a popular website that connects companies with sales professionals.
If you have the skills to high-ticket products and services, you can easily earn six-figures or more per year. If you need to learn them,
7. Service Income
Service income is any income that you get paid as a result of providing a service.
For example, this could be money you make from washing a car, money you get paid in exchange for proving graphic design services, or money that you get paid for mowing a lawn.
8. Consulting Income
Consulting income is money that you get paid in exchange for your consulting expertise.
If you don’t know where to start, then sell your expertise on Clarity.fm. This is an awesome site where you can be paid by the minute for your expertise.
9. Capital Gains
Capital gains are profit that is made from a selling an asset at a higher price than you bought it.
You can make capital gains from selling physical assets, like real estate, land, art, clothes, boats, or vehicles.
You can also earn capital gains from selling financial products for a gain, such as stocks or bonds.
10. Distributions
Distributions are the money that you get paid for owning a share of something profitable – most often, a business, land, or rental property.
This could also be money you take out of a retirement account, such as a 401(k) or Roth IRA, after reaching 59.5 years of age.
11. Dividend Income
This is money that you are paid for owning shares of a company. If you’d like to start earning dividend money, then check out these high-paying dividend stocks:
- AT&T (ticker: T)
- Energy Transfer (ticker: ET)
- AbbVie (ticker: ABBV)
- Medifast (ticker: MED)
- British American Tobacco (ticker: BTI)
- Healthpeak Properties (ticker: PEAK) – As a real estate investment trust (REIT), Healthpeak has to pay out 90% of its income to shareholders.
12. Interest Income
This is income you make from lending your money out.
This could be interest paid in the form of bond, a certificate of deposit (CD), mortgage lending, hard money lending, or anything else.
Peer-to-peer lending is the act of lending money to other people. It’s fast an easy way to generate interest income.
Check out these companies that facilitate the process:
Or, if you’d prefer to earn interest from business loans, check out Funding Circle.
13. Royalties / Licensing
This is money you are paid when someone else uses something you created.
This could be fees paid for the use of your music, art, books, videos, training assets, or anything else of value.
If you’re ready to starting earning money from royalties, then you’ll need to create an asset.
If you’re musical, song-writing is a great place to start. If you’re a strong writer, then pursue a book deal. If you’re knowledgeable about a specific niche, then create training videos that people will pay to access.
Committing to Multiple Flows of Income
And the list goes on. If our parents and teachers had simply taught us there were other ways to make money than earned income, then I’m confident everyone would be going after it. The good news is, this is an easy skill to learn and I’m here to help you.