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Increasing your income is another counter-intuitive way of thinking about your budget. When it comes to a budget, most people instinctively think of ways to save. But if you earn more, then you also have more to spend. And sometimes making extra money can be easier than trying to cut back on spending. After all, who wants to spend their lives scrimping and saving?

But you already spend too much time working, you say, and the last thing you want is to work longer hours. But working longer hours is not the only way to earn extra money. What we are talking about is building a passive income. Of course, this will initially mean extra work, but once you have finished the work, the money will continue flowing. Many people that start with just building a small passive income end up making enough money to quit their regular job, which is what we did. It did take a few years, though, but it is one of the best decisions we ever made.

Now do not go thinking this is some get-rich-quick way of making money because it is not. Sure, some people make extra money quickly, but it is a much slower process for the average person. A lot depends on how much time you dedicate to this and how serious you are. For many people, this has to be done alongside their current job, so they have a limited time to devote to it.

So how did we get started? The short answer is – very slowly. We did not have much time when we started out trying to earn an extra passive income, and our revenue grew relatively slowly. But we persevered, and it has paid off. We now live off the passive income and continue working on increasing it. Most people who have a passive income realize the potential and will continue to build on their success.

So, what do we do and what can you do? We will explain what we do to earn a passive income but realize that these are not the only methods available, and another approach may be more suitable for you. The primary passive income comes from writing, with books like this one being an example. Sure, we have to spend plenty of time researching, writing, and editing a book like this, but once it is written, that is it. If someone buys the book a year after it is written, we still get paid a royalty. With writing, the idea is to spend some time upfront and get a regular income.

We do not want to make this sound more comfortable than it is, so you should know that some books we have written only sold a few copies, so some may think it was a waste of time. But we learned some valuable lessons from the books that did not sell. First, you need to write books that people want to read. Write a great book on an obscure topic that no-one else is interested in, and it will not sell. So, the lesson here is to do some research on any books you are planning to write. Some outstanding books for sale cover book writing in-depth, so check them out if this interests you.

A second way you can make passive income is by creating a variety of blogs. We choose a topic and write a few posts a week and build up an audience. Then when we have enough visitors to the blog, we start monetizing it. Monetizing can be quite a slow process, and some blogs, just like some books, end up as failures. But just like the books that failed, you can learn a lot from the blogs that failed. Learn what you can and then start another blog.

You should notice here that you should not take any failures personally, and you should not continue with a project that is doomed to failure. If you set up a blog and it is not working, then ditch it and start another one. Having a blog fail can be demoralizing initially, but it just goes with the territory. The people we know who are the most successful online are also those who have had the most failures. Working online can sometimes be a bit hit or miss, so you should know this before starting.

It is about three years since we started building a passive income, and it took over a year to see meaningful income. But even after a few months, we did have some money coming in. And this little extra may be all you need.

Out of all the books written and blogs created, only around 15-20% make most of the income. The others either contribute a little or nothing at all. If they provide next to nothing, scrap them, and forget about them. It takes up too much mental space worrying or thinking about books and blogs that do not work. It is better to free up that mental space for a new project with more chance of making money.

Another third passive income method is creating videos for youtube.com. Creating videos is often the most difficult, but making short videos as you travel is comfortable or doing something that you can teach. You can upload them and forget about them. It does not involve hardly any work, so you may as well do it. It is also a way to record places you have visited or how you have done something specific. Some people make big money from youtube.com, so this could be for you. But even if it brings in just a few extra dollars a month, it may still be worth it.

There are hundreds of other ways to earn a passive income, with many offline ways to make money. We do not have the space to go over them all in this book. But if you want to pursue this further, get a good book on the subject or do some research online to find something that suits you.