3 Side Hustles That Create ACTUAL Passive Income

Side hustles continue to be a popular term these days, especially as the United States continues to see high inflation and interest rates hurt their paychecks.

Yet many of these side hustles claim to be methods of creating passive income, when in reality, they aren’t.

What actually is passive income?

A side hustle usually means you’re doing just that, hustling on the side. Does that sound passive to you? There are many websites out there claiming to have dozens of side hustles to generate passive income, but really these become part-time jobs.

That’s an enormous problem. If you’re doing something like drop-shipping on Amazon (AMZN), where you purchase large quantities of products to sell them online, you’re actively running a second business.

The same is true if you decide to sell your passion projects on the side. Whether it’s creating wooden bowls or beaded jewelry, these passion projects aren’t passive income. These are side hustles that could affect your day job.

Even if you’re doing something more simple such as taking on freelance jobs in the evenings, all this can hurt your performance at your day job. A job that pays the bills, provides insurance, helps you cover debt, and may now be hurt if you’re showing up exhausted, and answering customer questions on company time.

That’s why today I’m going to cover three actual passive income side hustles. These are passive income streams you can set up simply over a weekend, and look forward to cash flowing in for as long as you like!

Rent out space

Before you skip over this thinking I’m discussing renting out a room, does that sound passive to you? No, that’s why I’m recommending instead to rent out space you aren’t using in a far more simple way.

There are two ways to do this. First, there’s renting out anything that could be used as storage space. That might be a shed in the backyard, your garage, or an attic in your home. If you’re in an apartment building, this could be storage space provided to your unit.

This can be incredibly helpful for small business owners who want to save cash for a smaller amount of products. If you can undercut the average rate of storage units in the area, and advertise well, then you could have business owners flocking to your location!

The other way to use your space is by renting out a parking spot. This can be incredibly lucrative if you live in a busy downtown area. But even if you have an extra spot outside your garage, that could also be rented should you live near a busy place such as a hospital.

Of course these costs will range widely depending on where you live. But this could be as low as $200 per month, and as high as $775 per month depending on your city! So dig into it and create a very easy passive income stream.

Make an easy Amazon book

While drop-shipping on Amazon is a lot of work, creating a book on Amazon isn’t. Again, over a weekend you could set aside some time to get creative. Using a free program such as Canva, you can create an easy notebook, calendar, or even coloring book.

Some tips to do this would be to look at the top selling notebooks or calendars on Amazon and try to recreate the same trends that these sellers use. If you make several of these, you can then post them all through the Amazon account for free.

Again, go back and look at the cost of these top-selling notebooks. You’ll then want to undercut these prices, and create several different types of books to sell. From there, it’s a very easy process. After filling out the information on Amazon, the company will simply inform you whenever a unit has been purchased.

That’s it! Every time these items are purchased, Amazon does the printing for you. You’ll then just simply see a payment appear in your account each month.

Sell your photos

You don’t have to be a professional photographer these days. Smartphones can create some of the best quality images out there, allowing anyone to feel like a professional. So why not get paid like one as well?

For another passive income stream, use a weekend to go through your old photos. What you’re looking for are photos that could be used as stock photos. Those photos that websites, manuals and other mediums can use in their work.

This might be travel photos you took of some scenery. It could be a simple picture of flowers. But do your research to find out which are the best selling items that are needed on a regular basis.

For example, finding photos that represent do-it-yourself projects, healthy food, mental health, aging populations, environmental awareness, and drone footage are especially popular these days.

You can then use multiple media sites to sell your images. Websites like Alamy and Shutterstock (SSTK) will then pay between $0.05 and $0.25 per photo. So make sure you’re ticking all the boxes to sell yours. This would include have hundreds on these sites, as well as making sure the photos are high quality.

It can be a bit of leg work to go through all the photos and load them on multiple sites. However, this could generate quite a lot of cash as time goes on! So remember, don’t fall for the fake passive income streams. Instead, use a weekend wisely and create income streams that could last a lifetime.