Money for Nothing

First off I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes in this posting. I'm bleary eyed and exhausted after a very stressful day. I lost the GPS, was late for my exam because I had to search for the GPS, got lost because I suck at directions without it, didn't have time to cram, and struggled a bit with the exam. I think I did well, just not as well as I had hoped. My wife tells me to go to bed and no one will notice if I'm late with a posting, but I feel the need to stick to my goal of posting Monday and Thursday by 9am. I like to pretend it's important and something others look forward to reading. OK, enough of that...moving on...

I received a comment awhile ago asking about making money from blogging. I had requested another blogger to post a guest article about it, but either I gave him the wrong address, or he wasn't interested. So while my knowledge of this is limited to theory, here are my thoughts.

A great concept in making more money is the ability to make money for doing nothing (aka passive income). Getting paid for writing a blog you love to do is one example, but there are quite a few examples. Vending machines, selling used books, mystery shopping, rental properties, earning interest/dividends, etc. The problem I found with most of these ideas is that they either require a lot of money up front, or take a lot of work for a low return. I'd count blogging in the latter. If I didn't have the responsibilities that I do now, these probably would have been worth spending the time to grow. I'm hoping to encourage my children to explore many of these options.

I'm also very excited about the idea of investing in real estate and hope to be able to write about my many successes and failures in this area. First though, I need to pay down the debt and build up the capital before I can make these sources of income work for me. Once it starts though I think it will be like a snowball rolling down hill.

I think the best opportunity to make money for "no work" is to be a business owner. Not just working for yourself, but having others work for you. The idea is to become the least important person there so that you're still making money when you're not working. Obviously this takes time and a lot of effort, but the rewards would be quite high too. Whether you're self-employed or employed, your pay is limited to the number of hours you work. As a business owner, the business growth is potentially unlimited. You get paid more as the company does more work, not necessarily you yourself. This is something I've personally attempted so I'll share my experiences with you soon.

Anyone with any passive income success/failure stories? Tips? Love to hear them.