No matter what your financial situation is right now, its pretty safe to say that you’d probably welcome the option to have some additional passive income opportunities.

Most people think this means getting a second job or higher paying one than they have now. However, you can earn additional cash without doing either of those things.

All around us are plenty of passive income opportunities that are available and easy to do right from the comfort of our own houses. And we’re going to share some passive income ideas that fit that category.

Are you ready to make some extra cash? Let’s talk about some ways to do that.

Easy Passive Income Opportunities You Can Do From the Comfort of Home

The great thing about passive or residual income is that after you invest a little bit of work or money into it and get it going, you can automate it.

That means you won’t have to invest any further time into it to see the income coming. In other words, you’ll be getting paid for things that you already did the work for without putting a lot more time into it.

This is the type of income the most successful people really look for as it gives you the opportunity to earn money for the same work over and over again.

Most people would agree that time is more valuable than money. After all, you can always earn more money, but you can never get time back.

And with the right passive income choices, your life can quickly get a lot easier.

This is because you are decreasing any dependency that you have on your regular work income while increasing the amount of money that you make.

With the right passive income options, you could be saving enough for an early retirement, to pay off your house, or to treat yourself to a few nice things here and there.

Multiple Streams of Income

We talk a lot on this site about having multiple streams of income. Having multiple streams of income is important because if one of your income sources goes away, you still have other streams of income coming in.

For example, if your only income stream is your 9-to-5 job, and that job goes away, you’re left without any other sources of income. I’m sure you can imagine the hardship that being without income would place on you and/or your family.

However, if you’ve got three, four, five or more sources of income, losing your main 9-to-5 job wouldn’t be as big of a hit to your money situation.

Yes, you’d still likely have to look for another day job, but at least you’d have other money coming in in the meantime.

And if you play your cards right, your other streams of income combined might even be able to replace or surpass your day job income.

Imagine the peace that would bring to your life!

So let’s start talking about some of those passive income opportunities you can take advantage of right from your own home.

Dividend Investing

Investing is very important no matter what your financial goals are. However, one of the easiest passive income opportunities is found when you earn money off of dividends paid by the stocks of companies.

When you purchase dividend paying stocks, the company that holds the stock shares gives you a steady slice of cash as it grows. Dividends on stocks are typically paid out monthly or quarterly.

And the amount you get paid is usually based on the percentage of the previous month’s or quarter’s profit. The more money you have investing in dividend paying stocks, the higher your dividend income, provided the market’s doing well.

There are several great companies which can give you an additional percentage of your earnings and they are not necessarily ones that are going through some sort of trouble.

For instance, some of the top dividend paying stock companies include:

Proctor & Gamble

AT&T

Verizon

Citigroup

Delta Airlines

Home Depot

Best Buy

FedEx

Ameriprise

3M

Morgan Stanley

And hundreds of other companies you may or may not have heard of. Personally, I like to buy stock shares in dividend-paying companies that have a long history of doing well, like Coca Cola.

But you can buy shares in whichever companies you like. Search online for “best dividend paying stocks” for more information.

Trusts on real estate (REIT’s) also give you great opportunities as they are required to pay back 90% of the money earned to the shareholders and that means additional income for you.

Rental Properties

One tried-and-true passive income opportunity lies in real estate rentals.

While homeownership numbers do tend to fluctuate, there are always people who have to or want to rent instead of own.

And everyone needs a place to live. Some people invest in commercial rental real estate.

They rent spaces out to small or large businesses. Commercial real estate investing can bring in higher income, but it can be riskier in times of economic downturn.

One great thing about residential real estate rentals is that people always need a place to live–no matter what the economy is doing.

By investing in real estate now, you can find some passive income from renting such properties. You’ll want to evaluate potential rental properties to ensure the rent you can charge will outweigh the expenses and give you some extra money.

You’ll also be increasing your net worth as the mortgage is paid down and the value of the house goes up.

Note that truly passive real estate rental income happens only when you hand property management off to someone else.

You can hand property management off to a property management company or to an individual property manager. But doing so will cut into your profits.

For that reason, it’s important to factor that cost in when you’re determining the profitability of a rental property.

Website or Blog Ownership

Near the top of the list of passive income opportunities, you’ll find blog or website ownership. There are many things that you can do with a website that can produce passive income.

Some ideas include selling products, giving information about a company, or inserting advertisements into your blog articles or sidebars.

Having advertisements on your blog is a popular passive income revenue choice. Depending on the advertising company you work with, you have a couple of revenue opportunities.

Some ad companies pay each time that someone clicks on an ad. Others pay when someone buys something after clicking on an ad from your site.

You do not have to do much except promote and update your website once in a while. Do this so that visitors are able to find it.

Another option is to put some affiliate marketing products on your website. You’ll talk about a product or service on your site. And you’ll earn money when a customer makes a purchase for the product advertised.

Note that blogs and websites do take a lot of work up front. You’ve got to create good content and market the site so you get a lot of readers.

However, once that’s done and you’ve got income coming in, you can hire out for daily operations for the blog. That will make it completely passive income.

Royalties

Earning royalties is another great way to earn money online. That is because you get paid for work that you do once for a separate company.

Let’s say that you are skilled writer. You decide to write a few articles for a website that pays you royalties. Each time that someone clicks on your article and the ads in it, you get a portion of the money from the company.

That means that royalties can last forever. This is because ten years from now, provided that the website is still functional, your articles will still be available and earning money.

Another royalty earning opportunity comes in the form of writing books. When you write a great book and market it well, you earn a royalty off of every book that sells.

And the world of e-book writing makes writing and publishing a book easier than ever.

An additional royalty earning avenue lies in stock photography. If you’re a skilled photographer, this could be a good income stream choice for you.

Sites such as iStockphoto will help you upload photos onto their site. Business owners and bloggers use the photos on the site to enhance their business websites or books.

Each time someone buys the right to use one of your photos, you get paid.

More Income Opportunities

There are lots of other things you can do from the comfort of your house. Check out our huge list of passive income opportunities that you can try.

Which of the passive income opportunities mentioned here sound most appealing to you? Have you ever tried any of these ways to earn additional money? Can you think of other ways to earn passive income?

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!