After being laid off, I learned to love passive income. I asked a financial planner how to make even more.

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• I've been working on passive income streams for years, but I always want more.
• I asked a financial planner what else I could do.
• He pointed to dividends, REITs, digital products, and ads.

When I got laid off from my full-time job in 2016, I decided to become a solopreneur. I had an existing business in the wedding industry that I worked on scaling. I picked up freelance writing gigs and created a range of services that spun out of my personal brand.

After growing a few income sources, I noticed that I was working upwards of 65 hours a week. It felt like the only way to continue to expand and earn more money would be to introduce passive income streams.

Over the years, I've found a handful of ways to make money without trading my time. I've sold courses, rented out items around my house, and moved money into CDs with the highest rates. But in 2024, I've found myself eager to find a few new passive income streams.

I asked certified financial planner Jeff Rose to review my business and finances and suggest new and practical ways to earn passive income by the end of 2024. Here are his top recommendations. 

1. Consider investing in more dividend-paying stocks 

One of the first things Rose asked was whether or not I had started investing in stocks that pay dividends. When I audited my investment portfolios, I noticed that I had not bought very many of these stocks and was potentially missing out on recurring passive income.

"Dividend-paying stocks reward shareholders by paying out a percent of their earnings, on a quarterly basis, as a token of appreciation for investing and owning their stock," Rose told me.

However, it does come with risks. "Getting paid dividends from a stock isn't guaranteed," Rose said. "The company could go bankrupt or no longer be profitable." 

The biggest benefit of this passive income stream is that if the company is doing well and paying out consistent dividends, you're also benefiting from the stock price rising as well. "When you look at people making money in the stock market, it's not just because the stock price is going up," he said. "It's also the dividend earnings on top of that. It's like getting your cake and eating it, too." 

2. Look into putting money into more REITs 

I shared with Rose that I always wanted to earn passive income through real estate but didn't have the capital to buy a rental property. Instead, I recently started putting a little money into real estate investment trusts (REITs) to see if that could generate passive income.

Rose shared that REITS can be a great way to invest in real estate without purchasing or managing a property of your own. When you put money into one of these trusts, you are investing in a company that already owns real estate.

"REITs typically can bring in a higher return than dividend-paying stocks. However, they could come with more risk," Rose said.

This is a more volatile investment because the real estate market can fluctuate depending on many factors, like the economy or interest rates. "While you could potentially get a bigger dividend yield than you would by investing in other stocks, the biggest risk of investing in a REIT is seeing the money you put in drop suddenly or more harshly than it could if you invested in a blue chip stock," he said. 

For others who don't have the money on hand to buy property, Business Insider has created a list of the best real estate investing apps.

3. Sell more digital products 

After looking over my business, Rose suggested another opportunity that I could take advantage of for passive income: selling more digital products. In the past, I've created and sold online courses as a passive income stream. He suggested expanding and changing my offerings and selling ebooks, PDFs, or digital workbooks instead,

"We live in a world of digital products," Rose said. "Think about how to take your skills, expertise, and business services and create step-by-step guides, checklists, digital journals, or planners," he said. 

Since my courses are outdated and I've seen other people make passive income selling these types of products on Etsy, I made doing this a goal for 2024.

"The biggest benefit is that once you've created these digital products, there's minimal upkeep involved," Rose said. "However, the risk is that to earn the income, you have to invest time in marketing or have an existing audience ready and interested in buying what you create." 

4. Tap into what you already have 

If a person is eager to introduce a new stream of passive income into their life, they should first look at what skills or assets they already have that can be monetized. "Audit what you're already working with and see how you can turn it into a passive income stream," he suggested.

You could rent out items you own, create digital products, or write an ebook to sell on social media. 

In my case, one missed opportunity for passive income we discovered involved the traffic I'm already getting to my business website. After speaking to Rose, I decided to run Google ads on my website and last month was able to bring in $390 in passive income just through those ads. 

While that passive income stream will vary month to month based on how much traffic my website gets, it could bring in an extra few thousand dollars this year. As a solopreneur, new streams of income keep my business afloat, and the passive ones give me time to enjoy other aspects of my life.