Passive Family Income » passive income opportunties

Why you May NOT Want to Use eHow

John S. — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:35:49 +0000

Writing articles and publishing them on eHow is one of the best opportunities I have found to create a legitimate work from home opportunity. Even if you spend just 3 or 4 hours every week adding articles to your eHow library, you should be able to build a couple hundred dollar passive income stream in less than 1 year! Provided you spend some time researching your topics, paying attention to keywords, and publishing high quality authentic content, you should have no problems generating income using this tool.

While eHow can be a great way to build a long lasting passive income stream, there are some reasons why you may want to consider NOT publishing content using this tool. Don’t get me wrong, eHow is a legitimate opportunity that I plan on using for many years to come as a way to diversify my income. There are however some really valid reasons to not use it that you should at least think about before you get started.

Reasons NOT to Use eHow

Here are a few reasons you should consider on why you may want to think twice about spending the time to build passive income using eHow.

Purged Articles – Just this past week, eHow went through and cleaned up their article library. As a result, several eHow authors had articles deleted from the system. I myself lost only 2 articles, but there are other writers who have reported losing well over 50! Ultimately, this makes eHow a more reputable site but comes at the cost of having your articles purged at any time that is out of your control.
eHow Goes Under – While their are no current signs that would suggest eHow going under or shutting down, the risk is still there. Who knows, 5 or 10 years from now things could be a lot different. Just remember that by using a site like eHow, you have given up some control compared to launching your own site(s).
Stolen Articles – There is a strong possibility that fellow writers will steal your content or the research you have already completed. Sure, this could happen anywhere on the internet today, but eHow articles just seem easier to duplicate compared to others. The reality is that there are some lazy people out there looking to take the easy way out. The reports of stolen eHow articles and research should be of concern to eHow writers.
Burnout – Publishing a mass number of articles for a few consecutive months could leave you burned out. I personally believe that burnout from writing is more common when you use a structured site like eHow or HubPages. When it is your own site and content, I feel that you are more motivated and interested to keep producing quality content.
Terms Change – The terms and guidelines set out by eHow today are really not that bad compared with other similar sites. But who knows, they could change their guidelines next week and it could have a negative impact on your passive income stream. For example, if tomorrow they decided to remove the ability to add affiliate links to your articles – what impact will that have on your bottom line?
eHow Format – I personally enjoy writing eHow articles using the step format of a “How To” article. However, there are times when I find myself struggling to force some of my content into this structure. Anything that does not provide steps or a guide to help the reader figure something out is not a good fit for eHow. Be sure to keep this in mind when you are planning out your strategy.
Payment Structure – One of the great mysteries of eHow is their payment structure. Nobody really knows how they split the ad revenue that is generated. You could wake up next week and see your earnings completely fall off and not really know why. At least with maintaining your own sites you can do some analysis on why this happened and take corrective measures.

Final Thoughts

I must admit that I am addicted to using eHow! I think it is one of the best opportunities to establish a passive income stream with basically no money out of your pocket. All you really need is a computer, internet access, and a creative mind to earn a very nice income. I also believe that building and controlling your own sites should be the ultimate goal of anyone looking to make money online. As long as you stay diversified and remain conscious of the risk factors, eHow can be part of an overall strategy to become financially independent!

What other risk factors do you see using sites like eHow or Hubpages?

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

How to Make Over $400 per Hour in Passive Income

John S. — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:44:22 +0000

Do you own a home that you are paying a mortgage on? What about other forms of debt that you may have? Wouldn’t you like to pay off your debts sooner so that you could use that money on other things? Think of all the extra cash you would have coming in each month just by eliminating your mortgage payments!

What if I said that you could make $400 per hour or more by building passive income streams? Sounds to good to be true – I know. However, if you break down the numbers (as I have below), you can see the power of passive income and the importance of paying down your debt early.

We are going to look at an example of how we can devote some time and hard work upfront creating a passive income stream that will pay us over and over in the future. Each month after we have received our passive income earnings, we will use that money to make additional payments on a mortgage which will show the importance of paying down debt and how much money it can actually save us!

Hypothetical Mortgage

The following is a hypothetical mortgage payment that we will use as an example. All of the numbers are fictitious and are simply being used to show the importance of passive income and paying down debt.

Total Mortgage Amount – $250,000
Interest Rate – 6.5%
Length of Loan (Years) – 30
Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest) – $1,580.17
Total Amount to be Paid on the Loan – $568,861.20

Passive Income Stream

For the purposes of this article, we will be using eHow as our passive income stream because of the low barriers to entry with this tool. If you are just starting out or don’t know anything about eHow – all you need is a computer, internet access, and a creative mind. If you don’t like eHow, then feel free to plug in any passive income stream of your choice.

“How To” Articles to Write – 100
Total Estimated Hours to Complete – ~75 hours
Estimated Months to Complete – 2 months
Estimated Earnings per Month – $50

Are you looking for some ideas on how to maximize your eHow earnings? There are people just like you earning over a $1,000 each month on a recurring basis from eHow. Here is a great resource that can help – How to Earn Passive Income on eHow.com: Maximize Your Online Earnings. I purchased this resource several months ago and have made my money back within the first month using the guidelines laid out.

I have estimated that it would take an average person approximately 45 minutes to write 1 eHow article. For more advanced eHow contributors, it may take as little as 15 minutes to write one article compared to 60 minutes for someone who is new to the tool.

Based on spending 45 minutes per article, I am estimating it will take approximately 75 hours (4,500 minutes) to write 100 eHow articles. In addition, I am estimating that publishing 100 quality eHow articles should allow you to make at least $50 per month (.50 cents per article per month). This number is definitely on the low side and some authors earn several dollars per month per article.

I am also estimating that it would take an average person between 2 – 4 months to publish these articles if they remain dedicated. That would translate into about 5 – 10 hours spent per week over the course of a couple months.

Pay $50 Extra per Month on Your Mortgage

Since we now have spent around 75 hours building our passive income stream, we can sit back and start watching the money flow in. The only thing we need to do at this point is to funnel our earnings from eHow into our monthly mortgage payments.

Updated Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest) – $1,630.17
Length of Loan – 27 years & 5 months
Total Amount to be Paid on the Loan – $535,950.18
Total Savings – $32,911.02

Assuming we can maintain at least $50 each month in passive income earnings that can be including in our monthly mortgage payment, we would save $32,911.02 over the lifetime of the loan. If we calculated out how much we made back by dedicating that 75 hours upfront, we would have made $438.81 per hour for our time spent.

Assumptions

We obviously made some assumptions in figuring out our calculations and savings noted above. Here are some of those assumptions we made.

We can maintain a $50 per month passive income stream until the mortgage is paid off. This is probably unlikely using eHow – but you never know.
The $50 additional payment is made on your mortgage starting in the first month.
Your passive income earnings don’t exceed $50 per month. This is also somewhat unlikely as your earnings from eHow should increase month to month.

Additional Tip – Look for other ways to reduce expenses to save even more, such as a mortgage refinance to get a lower interest rate.

Final Thoughts

The example of earning over $400 per hour above is based on a ficticious mortgage and passive income stream. However, based on personal experience, these numbers can be achieved with some upfront hard work and dedication. As stated earlier, the mortgage can be replaced with any type of debt (i.e. car payment, credit card debt, etc.) and the passive income stream could be anything you have found success with. There are obviously some passive or alternative income streams that can earn you thousands of dollars each month. The key is what will you do to maximize your earnings from this income?

Do you use your passive or alternative income to pay down any debt? What has your experience been doing this?

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Make Money Online – How to Use SwagBucks

John S. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:25:11 +0000

Do you use the internet as a tool to find helpful information? Have you ever purchased anything online? If you answered yes to either question, then you may want to check out SwagBucks.

SwagBucks is a tool that allows you to make money online by earning points that can be redeemed for gift cards and other prizes. Points or “Swag Bucks” are earned in a variety of methods at no cost to the user. Depending on the number of points accumulated, you can redeem them for prizes like Amazon and Starbucks gift cards. For those who spend a lot of time using this service, you could redeem your SwagBucks for more expensive items like an iPod Touch or flat panel television.

So what are the different ways to make money using SwagBucks? Check out the list below for more details.

Ways to Make Money Online Using SwagBucks

There are 5 different ways to make money using SwagBucks. While the methods vary, they are all FREE and don’t require any out of pocket expense.

Search – The most common way to make money online with SwagBucks is to earn points by searching the web. Instead of using one of the more popular search engines like Google or Yahoo!, you can use the SwagBucks search engine to earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards and other prizes.
Special Offers – I have not participated in any special offers to date using SwagBucks. However, it seems like they have some decent offers that you can sign up for and earn additional points. For example, if you join Netflix through their site, you can earn 75 points just for signing up. If you are thinking about starting a blog or website and need a domain name, you can open up a Go Daddy account and earn 150 SwagBucks for spending at least $5. These are just a couple of the special offers where you can earn additional points.
Trading In Electronic Devices – One of the opportunities to earn a little extra money on SwagBucks is to take advantage of their Trade-In program. You can turn in your old cell phones, MP3 Players, and video games & consoles for Swag Bucks! While the amount of points you earn is not a lot, it beats putting your used electronic devices into a land fill. Regardless the number of points you earn, SwagBucks still offers a pre-paid shipping label which allows you to recycle your old devices at no cost to you!
Online Shopping – A nice way to make some extra money through SwagBucks is to shop online using their portal. Just the other day, I spent over $400 at Wal-Mart using Swag Bucks. As a result of my purchase, I earned enough points to get $10 worth of Amazon Gift Cards. I will note that there are some services like EBates that may have better returns on purchases you make. If you are looking to maximize your online shopping return, be sure to check out several of these services to find the best option for you.
Promote & Invite Friends – This service also allows you to promote their product through Email, referral links, and website banners in return for points. They will match the points your referrals earn up to 100 for each friend. This is where I find the real value of using SwagBucks! I really like that they offer the referral points, which makes it a bit more “passive”. Any income stream that allows me to earn points and dollars based on actions taken by others is a win in my book!

Final Thoughts

Am I going to get rich off of using SwagBucks? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that using this service is not worth the effort. I believe that every little bit of alternative income you can earn is worth the effort, as long as you are not spending too much time on it. While I may not treat SwagBucks as a passive income source, it is still a worthwhile tool that can be used to put some money back in your pocket!

Do you use Swag Bucks? Have you taken advantage of all their ways to earn Swag Bucks? I would love to hear your opinions!

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

5 Ways Passive Income can Improve your Marriage

John S. — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:48:54 +0000

One of the most common arguments that married couples tend to have is over financial matters. Let’s face it, a marriage should not be dictated by money, but that isn’t always the case. Whether it be lack of communication over the family finances, struggling to pay the monthly bills, or over spending and going into debt – a couples finances can be a huge factor in the success or failure of a marriage.

There are some opportunities however that couples can take to help improve their marriage when it comes to money. One way to help improve your marriage is to create passive income. You may be thinking to yourself – How can passive income help improve my marriage? It doesn’t seem like the logical solution, but it really can help.

If you are interested in learning more, check out a few of the ways that passive income can improve your marriage listed below.

1. Spend More Time with Each Other

One of the most common reasons a marriage fails is a result of not spending enough time together with your spouse. This can be caused by many factors including work. In order to survive and pay the monthly bills, at least one of the partners in a relationship is usually spending a lot of time at their job. In many cases, both partners are working, sometimes different shifts!

Establishing solid passive income streams takes some of the pressure off of working so much. While this type of income may not allow married couples to completely quit working, it can allow one or both to reduce hours at work. It may also allow one or both members in a relationship to take a less demanding job. All of this extra time can really go a long way to improving your relationship with your spouse.

2. Raising Children

Anyone who has children can tell you the raising kids can get very expensive. Buying diapers, saving for college, and paying for day care are just a few extra costs involved with having children. These extra expenses can really put a strain on a couples marriage, as financial matters tend to cause many couples to split up.

Earning additional income through recurring passive income streams can help offset expenses associated with raising children. Even setting up an income source that can be put into a 529 College Savings Plan or help pay for day care can make a huge difference in your personal finances. Alleviating any concerns around paying for these costs can go a long way in improving your marriage.

3. Gifts, Surprises, and More!

Do you ever surprise your spouse with gifts or special weekend getaways? Sometimes a nice long weekend getaway is just what a marriage needs. Unfortunately it isn’t always in the budget to account for these special gifts or occasions.

Earning passive income is one way to help supplement your income that can be used for these special times. While money should not dictate any marriage, giving small little gifts and surprising your spouse can improve your marriage.

4. Simplify Your Life Together

Bills, bills, and more bills. Does it seem like every time you get finished paying off your monthly bills, the next ones start coming in? Earning passive income can actually help you and your spouse simplify your finances and daily life.

As a test, identify a monthly bill that you receive every month. This could be a car payment, cable or cell phone bill, credit card statement, etc. Just think how much simpler your life could be if you had enough passive earnings coming in each month that could make your monthly car payment. Making your personal finances simpler will no doubt have a positive impact on your marriage!

5. Retire Early and Enjoy Life

Planning for your retirement may not always be the first thing that comes to mind in a marriage that is in jeopardy. However, if both you and your spouse can set some realistic financial goals that involve the planning of your future (including retirement), you will both be on the same page. Communication is one of the most important parts of marriage and can make or break its success.

Passive income can play a huge role in any retirement or financial planning between you and your spouse. Sit down with your spouse and create a financial plan that includes the building of passive income streams. Communicating and planning with your spouse can go a long way in improving your marriage and help with your personal finances.

Can Passive Income Save Your Marriage?

Telling someone that passive income can save their marriage probably seems like a strange statement. A marriage should not be dictated by financial matters at all. If two people truly care about each other, then money should never cause any conflict. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, as financial issues can cause stress and problems in a marriage.

Since money matters tend to cause conflicts in a marriage, taking actions to avoid these concerns can really help the relationship between you and your spouse. Generating consistent passive income is just one opportunity couples can take to improve their relationship and marriage by taking money issues out of the picture!

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Can Covered Call Income be Considered Passive?

John S. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:56:45 +0000

There are many stock investors today who earn their income by trading options. These investors have several different options trading strategies available to them that are considered low to moderate risk. One of these low risk methods for trading options is known as “writing covered calls”.

The main requirement of writing a covered call is that the investor must already own at least 100 shares of a stock. The term “covered” means that you already own the shares of the security and can transfer it to the buyer if the contract is “called”. There are many more details involved in trading covered call options, which we don’t have time to cover here. If you are interested in trading options, please do some research on your own before you get started.

The great thing about trading these types of options is that you can earn covered call income just from owning a stock. There are some valid concerns that you need to be aware about, but overall it is one of the least risky options trades you can make.

Depending on your investment strategy, some investors earn a steady monthly income just from selling covered call options. These are seasoned traders who understand the stock market as well as the positions and companies that they own. Some dividend investors can even “double dip” and earn a steady income from monthly or quarterly distributions made by the company as well as income generated from selling covered calls against the same position.

All of this sounds great? What better way to build passive income then to start buying up dividend paying stocks and selling covered call options against those positions every month?

Can covered call income be considered a viable passive income stream? Let’s take a look.

Passive Income Basics

There are plenty of different definitions of passive income depending on who you talk to. To most people, the term refers to a form of revenue or income source that requires very little effort or time once established.

There are some people who believe that passive income does not exist, while others tend to exaggerate the definition a little too far. Regardless your opinion, I think we can all agree that building income streams that require as little additional work as possible on your part is something everyone wants.

I tend to believe that there are many forms and levels of passive income. The key is to continuously look for improvements to reduce the time and effort it takes to maintain an income source while maximizing your returns.

For additional information, be sure to check out – What is passive income?

Is Covered Call Income Passive?

Based on the information outlined above, I would say that selling covered calls is NOT passive income. While in many cases, covered call income can be a great way to increase the value of your stock portfolio, there is just too much time required to make it passive.

Those who trade covered call options spend a lot of time researching existing stock positions and covered call contracts. They also need to be aware of what is going on in the stock market and global economy. Once an existing covered call contract expires (if it is not called), then the investor must spend the time to identify a new covered call contract to sell in order to keep the income stream flowing. All of this activity is way to much time and effort for this to be considered passive.

Important Disclaimer

I enjoy trading options in general and use them to help build my portfolio income. While I believe that options trading is a viable way to earn money, I recognize that it is a difficult stretch turning it into anything that resembles a passive income stream.

If you are interested in learning more about selling covered call options, I would recommend the following eHow article as a place to start – How to Sell Covered Call Options. I would also be happy to discuss topics around options trading with anyone interested.

Are there any forms of portfolio income that you consider passive? What are your thoughts on earning covered call income?

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.