In the current economic climate it is more important than ever to not only work hard but have your money work hard for you. These days just about everyone puts in a lot of hours at their place of employment. However, in the past few years the job market has failed to provide the security/stability that people are looking for. Jobs that many used to rely on to provide for their families have vanished with many pundits proclaiming them defunct, never to return. In addition, many people are questioning the effectiveness of the stock market as a means of growing their retirement funds in light of the recent crash and subsequent volatility. With the collapse of trusted institutions such as the job market and stock market many people have been looking for alternative vehicles that they can entrust their hard-earned dollars to in order to help grow their wealth. More and more people today are realizing the importance of finding sources of passive income to help supplement or in some cases replace the earned income from their jobs.

What is passive income? Passive income is typically considered money generated by any trade/business or income-producing activity which the individual does not participate in directly. For example, royalties paid to an author from having his/her book published would be considered passive income. Another example is if you were to write a song and received royalties for that effort. Unfortunately, the likelihood of becoming a successful author or songwriter is not a viable option for most of us. There are also a multitude of online systems geared towards generating ongoing streams of income. Everything from affiliate marketing to blogging has been touted as the definitive way for people to supplement their income or escape their day job. In other cases passive income is derived from owning an asset such as a business or real estate. In the case of real estate passive income comes in the form of rent collected from tenants.

This then prompts the question, how do you determine the most effective way of generating passive income? The number of courses, systems, and programs that offer ways of making money can seem overwhelming. So how do you narrow down the options? When doing research on the best system/investment to employ I would recommend you keep the following in mind:

1. Are there any tax benefits associated with the vehicle you’re looking into? As many accountants and financial planers are fond of saying, it isn’t just how much you make it’s also how much you keep! You could cultivate a healthy source of additional revenue only to have the government cut out a hefty slice come tax time.
2. Does the vehicle in question allow you to leverage other people’s time/resources? As we are all aware, time is a very precious commodity that most of us often feel we don’t have enough of. When investigating a prospective investment or money-making system ask yourself if this will help you to grow your wealth without severely impacting your already hectic schedule. For example, with real estate investments you can usually enlist the services of a property management company to oversee the day-to-day operations for a modest monthly fee. Having a professional team looking after your asset(s) is usually preferable to doing everything on your own!
3. Does the system or investment you’re looking into offer a good return? There are many courses or investments that cost hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars. Many of these systems promise the world but don’t necessarily guarantee anything in the end. If there is a particular money-making system or investment you’re interested in be sure to do some research. You can often find blogs set up by people who are already using that same system; this can provide you with invaluable information to assist you in determining whether or not to make the investment or move on.

If you are interested in establishing a source of passive income you may want to consider Turnkey Real Estate Investing. It offers a number of tax benefits, it allows you to leverage other people’s time & resources, and often times it provides a very good return on investment (ROI).