11 Passive and Extra Income Ideas in Ireland

• Even passive income needs your time and maintenance
• Share your knowledge using an online course or give your opinion with online surveys
• High interest peer to peer lending is passive but high risk
• Dropshipping and Ecommerce requires upfront funding and selling skills
• Renting a room can be very lucrative
• Movie extras – long hours but not difficult

I love the idea of having passive income, sitting back and letting money roll in on a regular basis with little or no effort sounds like a perfect life. However, I have never come across a business model yet that provides this. No matter which passive income structure you go with there is always some maintenance to perform on a regular basis. Albeit, some need less hands-on work than others do.

What I have found is there is a lot of upfront work and then regular upkeep after that. The regular upkeep usually takes a lot less time than the upfront and with the right business model it can provide a good hourly wage.

So, let’s take a look at some passive income and extra income ideas.

Review Music

Are you into music, do you like to find new music. Get paid for reviewing music on Spotify. If you qualify, you can get up to $12.00 per review. To qualify you must own playlists on Spotify or YouTube that have real followers. Payouts are transferred directly to your bank account, no messing with gift cards!
This has got to be the easiest way to make passive income.

Are you an artist? do you make TikTok and Spotify music, sign up here to promote your videos to go viral. Use the following code to get 7.5% discount on your first campaign.

Create an Online Course

I have not done this myself yet, but I want to. It will take some effort at the beginning but if you can create a useful and sought-after course, it would provide extra income for a long time.

Udemy provides a central hub with thousands of online courses. Anyone can create a course which can then be provided for a fee to the general public. Every time that someone purchases your course, you will get a percentage of the fee.

There is some work involved in this; you will need to plan out the curriculum in a way that makes sense, then records each lesson and upload them. Then it is recommended to create interactivity such as quizzes or assignments.

Start a Meetup Group

If you have a tendency towards self-organising and you enjoy planning events then this may be ideal for you. On Meetup.com website you can start a community on virtually any topic; aerobics, palates, dancing, hobbies, music, concerts, or even staying at home. This is a good time to start a community as many people are at home and bored, they are looking for something to do. You can build up your community now via social media and when the restrictions are lifted start meeting up.

I would recommend that you set up a community based on something that you enjoy doing. You can then charge a membership fee on the Meetup site for meetups, so that you can get paid for doing something that you like.

Online Surveys

Upkeep needed: 10/10

Respondent. This is one of the fastest earning surveys that I know. You can earn up to $150 for a one hour survey. You get to pick the surveys that you want to do, most will pertain to your current career or hobbies. During the registration phase, you will need to fill in what company you work for and you will have to upload a profile picture as well. Some of the surveys are done face-to-face via Skype. Money is paid into a paypal account.

Europinions Join and fill in a quick questionnaire. You will have access to instant surveys. It will show you how long each survey takes and how much it pays. They have an app that you can download, so this is ideal for your train or bus journey to work. They provide the opportunity to take part in surveys or focus groups. The focus group participation seems to pay out well.

My Survey You can take surveys or participate in group discussions about products. This company seems to only provide payouts in gift vouchers or gifts.

iReach, I haven’t tried this yet but it does look interesting. You can take part in surveys or conversations. Emails are sent out when you match the demographic of the target response group. Conversations are held on a forum where participants discuss their opinion on certain products. Points are assigned for surveys and conversations.

Red-C, Red C pays out an x amount for each survey; they pay between €2 to €5 per survey. You will get an email asking you to take a survey; it will show how much you will get once you complete the survey. When your account reaches €50 they will send you a cheque. There is no registration costs just time cost. I haven’t reached the €50 point yet but I’m close.
NOTE: they changed their payout structure, they would send a cheque once the account got to €50 but they have changed that now to a virtual card. I’ve stopped using them because of this.

Peer-to-Peer Property Lending

Property Bridge gives lenders the ability to lend to property developers for local investing. They have a low entry of €500 and you get to choose the investments that you want to put your money into. I would recommend spreading the risk by diversifying your money across a few investments.

The advantage of this type of peer-to-peer lending is that the investment is used as collateral against the investment. The investment is secured against physical assets.

Peer-to-peer Business lending

Upkeep needed: 2/10

This is a newish online concept; the idea is to bring together small businesses that are looking for loans with people who are offering small loans.  You can loan as little as €50 to each business. I would recommend that you diversify, as a small percentage of loans do default. I aim to invest in a minimum of 20 business for small amounts and then reinvest the payouts so that I collect the principle and interest, in essence the interest that I receive is working for me and making more interest (compound interest).

I’ve been doing this for almost two years, I have invested in 68 companies, 20 loans have completed and one has defaulted. I’m currently making 8% per year on it and that is after one loan defaulted.

I have been using Flender and Linked Finance. They both provide the same service however, Flender has no fees for the lender, Linked Finance does charge a fee to the lender. The problem with both of them so far, is that there are not enough companies looking for loans. So, you’re cash sits there for a while before it gets working for you.

Online User Testing

There are a few websites that give you the opportunity to make extra money for providing user testing of websites or software. You need to follow their rules carefully and provide valuable feedback to get paid. Give your opinion on the test subject and ensure that you test only what they ask for. You just need a computer, internet connection, and a microphone to get started.

Usertesting.com seems to have the highest payouts for this. They will post the tests required and how much they pay. You decide if you want to do it or not. You have to jump through some hoops at the beginning to get started but once you complete those then you are good to go.

testbirds.com is a UK based company that provides a similar service. I haven’t signed up to these yet but I will soon in the future to see how the platform differs to usertesting. They pay 20 euro per test and if you find a technical bug, you get a bonus. They post the jobs and the deadlines, you decide which ones you want to do.

Affiliate Marketing

Upkeep needed: 4/10

Affiliate Marketing needs some ground work but pays residual income. Once the ground work is put in then you can reap the rewards. For example, let’s say you set up a blog about your favourite hobby, you create a new topic once per week for a year; that’s 52 blog topics online. You can insert your affiliate links throughout the blog so that when someone clicks on the link or purchases an item you will get commission. If the blog is popular enough and maintains it’s popularity in the search engines then you could have residual income for life.

Dropshipping

Upkeep needed: 6/10

I’m not sure if I can call this one passive, so I will be moving this to the ‘Other Income Streams’ topic at some point in the future. Requires some upfront investment in time and money but the payoff can by unlimited. Try to find a niche market and focus on it. We can’t really call this completely passive as there will always be a little work needed on it on a monthly basis.

Dropshipping is a great way to get into retail without having large upfront costs. You don’t need storage space or to purchase large quantities of items that you hope to sell, and you don’t need to pay out distribution costs.

Once you have found a dropshipper and signed up for their service, you normally get a good discount on their products. You can then mark those products up and sell them. When someone purchases the product from you, you notify the dropshipper with the customer’s details. They send the product directly to the customers usually in an unmarked package and you pay the dropshipper the wholesale rate.

I use esources to find dropshipping an wholesale suppliers. It’s a great resource that has hundreds of suppliers from around the world. The website is a little old and tired but it works functionally.

Ecommerce

Upkeep needed: 6/10

I don’t consider this passive income so I will be moving this to the ‘Other Income Streams’ topic. You could automate a lot of the administrative work that is why I have given this a 6/10.

Related: How to make extra money in Ireland

AIRBNB

Upkeep needed: 8/10

Renting out a room in your home for short-term lets is a great way to make extra money. This can be classed as passive income if you also have an agency to take care of the room . If you are in a high-demand area such as a tourist spot (think Killarney or Dublin) then you can demand high rents. Airbnb does not fall under the rent-a-room scheme. You will need to claim any money made as income and pay appropriate taxes on it.

However, keep an eye on this space as there was a government initiative recently which is trying to restrict how long a short-term rental can be rented for during the year.

Upkeep needed: 3/10

Rent-a-room Scheme

This is a great government scheme as it is tax-free and very passive. As of 2019, you can earn up to €14,000 per year tax-free by renting out your rooms. You don’t even need to be the owner of the house to do this.

Movie Extras

Upkeep needed: 10/10

This one comes under extra income. There are a few companies in Ireland that hires movie extras. I haven’t done this myself yet but I think I will give it a try. I don’t know the reputation of any of these, if you do, let us know in the comments below.

A movie extra is someone that fills in the background to make a place look full or active. Usually, it is not speaking part.

• http://www.movieextras.ie/register.html
• http://extrasireland.com/
• https://www.theextrasdept.com/
• http://www.backstagecasting.net/

Do your own due diligence, get financial advice before investing in anything. I am not a financial adviser nor do I give advice in any fashion.