The new year is just around the corner, and many people are creating resolutions. Finding new income sources is an excellent New Year goal for 2025, and with the recent tech advances, you’ve got some interesting options.
What’s more, this goal is increasingly starting to look like a necessity. Looking at the data, monthly job openings have fallen from 7.4% in January of 2022 to 4.6% in October of 2024.
With opportunities being scarce and with so much competition, it makes sense to start looking for new sources of income. In this article, we’ll look at three options that, with some effort, have the potential to even become your primary income source. So, without further delay, let’s dive in.
1. Monetizing Skill Sharing
Traditionally, earning an income via sharing a skill wasn’t considered a passive source of income. If you’re taking time out of your life to teach people via lessons, it’s more or less a regular job. Sure, you’re the boss, but it’s still work that requires constant effort.
Today, however, it’s possible to make skill-sharing a passive income, and the best method is to create an online course. This will then generate income on its own as people find and purchase them. There are a couple of ways you can do this.
The first involves sites like Udemy or Coursera, but they take significant commissions. Why is this a problem? Well, when you’re trying to make your courses affordable to gain early subscribers, these commissions can leave you with just a few dollars. This is why a lot of people quickly pivot to the second option.
The second option is to create a website and host your course on it. You get all the revenue you make with no annoying commissions to pay. Now, a lot of people get flustered at the idea of making a website because it feels like it’s going to be complex. However, websites have gotten ridiculously easy to create, especially in recent years with AI-assisted services.
Hocoos notes that all you have to do is answer a bunch of questions about what kind of website you want, and that’s it. You’ll have it up and running in minutes. Of course, you’ll also have to put some effort into marketing, but if you can manage that, you’re set.
2. Faceless YouTube Channels
Now, we know what you’re thinking: making YouTube videos seems like a lot of work– how is this passive income? Well, you’re somewhat correct. There is some work involved, but with AI assistance, the effort is far lower than regular YouTube content.
You can generate YouTube scripts with ChatGPT and use one of the many background visual services for B-roll footage. If you want to go with minimum effort, you can use a text-to-speech AI voice, but we don’t recommend that. A lot of people hate AI voices and will click away the second your video loads up.
The poor retention rate can kill your metrics and in turn, your chance of getting promoted by YouTube’s algorithm. So, how much can you earn with this method? According to Nordranker, who analyzed over 50 faceless channels, 45% earned anywhere between $50 to $600 per month.
The more views you get, the higher these figures can be, with some channels making tens of thousands per month. There’s a lot of potential here, especially if you can find a niche that you’re passionate about.
3. Selling Digital Products
With this method, you aim to create and sell digital products on platforms like Etsy. If you’re confused by what we mean by digital products, a great example would be printables.
For example, you could use AI art generators to create coloring books for kids and adults or cute wrapping paper designs. If you have the know-how, selling 3D model plans is also incredibly popular.
The biggest advantage of selling digital products is that once created, you can sell them infinitely. Rachel Jimenez, a mom of two, made over $160,000 in passive income from selling Christmas scavenger hunts and digital planners.
That sounds unbelievable, but it’s not. The mistake that people make trying to sell digital products is they don’t take the initial effort needed seriously. The fact is, you’ve got to do your research and create a product that people would like to pay for. It’s going to take some effort, but if you can manage it, your creations are going to generate constant passive income for you.
All things considered, trying to find multiple streams of income is something everyone ought to be doing. The peace of mind you get when you know that you’ve got something to fall back on is worth it. Just remember, passive income isn’t completely effort-free. So, be prepared to dedicate some time and energy as your initial investment for the best results.