6 Passive Income Streams That Will Make You Rich

Many Kenyans yearn for that extra coin to supplement their regular paycheck. But how can you make more money if your job or business takes up so much of your time?

The most talked about component of personal finance right now is passive income and how it can turn around fortunes. 

A well-thought passive income stream could help you easily reach your financial goals. However, certain passive income streams are so robust that they can make you wealthy.

Read Also: What Is Passive Income and How to Build Passive Income Streams

What is Passive Income?

A passive income stream means you earn money from a source without putting in too much effort as you would in your regular job. It's a business model that requires little of your time yet continues to grow and self-sustain.

Most passive income streams start with an initial investment that generates a steady gain for as long as possible. And instead of active participation, it's your money that works for you. 

Unlike active income, where you earn once and get paid once, passive/ residual income equals working and getting paid over and over in the long term.

Which Passive Income Streams Can Make You Rich? 

1. High-Growth Financial Assets/ Investments

Financial asset investment is a passive income stream that revolves around using your money to make even more money. The type of assets and investments you choose plays a huge role in your future earnings without your active role. 

Once you invest, you mostly rely on the proceeds from those financial assets. Some of the best laid-back yet lucrative income streams to invest in right now include:

• Government treasury bills and bonds -  these are the safest low-risk financial investments that can eventually make you rich. In layman's language, buying bills and bonds means loaning the government and earning interest. Treasury bills include short-term borrowings of less than a year, while bonds are long-term, between one year and 25 years. 
• Money market funds - which, unlike bank savings,  attract a higher return on savings.
• High-yield savings account - that provides higher returns than a traditional bank account would.
• Index funds that can hold stock for your long-term savings goals.
• Dividend stocks for a fixed income from bonds or stocks.

The advantage of the above investments is that they require minimal maintenance. They also have high growth potential, although in the long term.

Read Also: What Is Passive Income and How to Build Passive Income Streams

2. Real Estate/Rental Property

A passive income stream popular with many Kenyan investors is real estate/ rental property investment. However, can it make you rich? 

There are several ways you can profit from your property.

• Your investment continuously appreciates, but you can only get returns once you sell it.
• Residential property can also bring tidy sums of money. However, a crucial factor determining how much you can get is location. Busy neighborhoods with all the right amenities, roads, shopping centers, schools, and even health institutions improve the value of your rentals.
• Investing in housing doesn't stop at erecting structures and letting people in; routine improvements attract the right tenants and spur your property's appreciation.

Read Also: How to Generate Online Passive Income in Kenya

3. Vending Machine

A hassle-free money-making investment that can make you rich is the vending machine, a growing retail technology in many parts of Kenya. 

Here is how you can earn money from it:

• Charge rent from clients who use your machines at their business premises.
• Provide ad space on your vending machines for brands that want to showcase their products.
• Like any other business model, vending machines spur more returns when identifying high-traffic areas.
• Identify well-performing businesses, outlets, and brands to hire out your vending machines.

Investing in vending machines is a one-off financial input that can consistently provide excellent passive income for the foreseeable future. And so the more machines you invest in, the higher the returns.

Finally, it might look a little if you collect about Ksh2000 weekly per vending machine. If you have 10-20 vending machines in high-population areas, the amount could even be higher, and that is how you can rake in money without putting in too much effort.

Read Also: Becoming Wealthy is Like a Game with 7 Rules

4. Music and Book Royalties

A steady stream of passive income revolves around music and book royalties. What are royalties? These are payments you receive when someone uses your intellectual property.

Your immediate concern might be how to earn royalties when you are not a book author or musician in the first place. Investing in a song, even when you have never sung, is possible. 

Some artists will often sell their rights to their music work. The same applies to authors. As an investor, you can purchase a certain percentage of advertised royalties. Investing in popular music or books is the trick to earning more money that can make you rich.

Some of the advantages of investing in royalties are:

• Royalties are often independent of market fluctuations and dynamics.
• Royalties are a consistent income that you earn no matter what.

Read Also: 8 Ideas to Create Multiple Sources of Income

5. Do Commission-Based Affiliate Marketing

Many people are surprised that affiliate marketing can provide a lucrative passive income stream. Yet it is a branch of digital marketing that many investors use to earn hefty commissions for products bought on their websites.

How does it work? The first step would be to create a website with high-quality content that attracts traffic. The more visitors, the more you encourage them to buy specific products from your affiliate stores and brands and earn a commission.

Some strategy people devise is investing in targeted traffic, especially from Google. You can also identify a wide range of products you think people are searching for and heavily promote those that sell. 

Also, be discriminatory and promote only those products that earn you a massive commission. Of course, the initial start is hard work. But once people begin ordering products from your site, you sit back and benefit from a constant stream of income that can make you rich.

Read Also: 5 Things I Realised When I Moved From Fixed Salary to Commission-Based Pay

6. Become a Social Media Influencer

If you think social media is just another pastime where people gossip and laugh, you are wrong. Many industrious Kenyans have taken social media influence to the next level, earning serious money, passively. 

The trick is to align yourself with brands and produce and post sponsored content.

Some of the rates you earn are dependent on the number of followers you have. Brands also calculate their earnings based on their active engagements with their audience. 

But you can also go a step further, share links of your affiliate partners, sell their products and earn commissions. Lastly, consistency and niche creation will get you far ahead in your earnings. 

WRAPPING UP

A passive income stream might work for you if you have no spare time but a strong desire to grow your wealth portfolio. There are many options, but whatever investment or business model you choose, let as many people as possible know about it. Effective advertising and awareness will draw customers and help you make sales with less effort.