How To Earn $1K to $5K a Month in Passive Income No Matter What State You Live In

A 9-to-5 job isn’t the only way to make money. Passive income opportunities allow you to bring in a steady stream of income without a ton of effort.

With some passive income strategies, after the initial setup, you’ll be able to collect paychecks without doing much of anything — or even nothing at all. Some of these opportunities can be unique to certain states, climates or parts of the country, but others are accessible to everyone.

This can be a great way to earn cash in addition to your full-time job, in retirement or maybe even in place of traditional employment. Keep reading to learn five ways to earn passive income, no matter what state you reside in. 

“To earn passive income through content creation, newsletters or online courses, the first step is to assess your expertise and build authority in that niche,” said Carlos Gil, marketing expert at GetResponse. “Share valuable content consistently on platforms like TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn to establish credibility.”

After building your presence, he said you can earn passive income by launching a course or paid newsletter and marketing it to your audience.

“Engage with influencers or contribute to industry blogs and podcasts to quickly grow your audience,” he said. “These days, everyone needs content, so why not fill that need?”

He said combining content creation with email marketing is a key monetization strategy.

“Using platforms like GetResponse, you can build an email list by offering a free resource in exchange for sign-ups and promote your paid content directly,” he said. “Unlike social media, where you’re at the mercy of algorithms, email gives you full control of your audience and your revenue stream.”

“I have been a Udemy.com training instructor since 2015, earning a steady income from publishing training courses in the cloud and DevOps space,” said Edward Viaene, founder and managing director of IN4IT and a Udemy training instructor. “The only materials I used were a $100 microphone and my MacBook.”

If you can find a good niche that you’re knowledgeable about, he said you can publish a course and earn passive income.

“High-earning courses are often technology-related, but there are also success stories in music instrument lessons and photography, to name a few,” he said. “Whenever a new technology or trend emerges, it’s an opportunity to publish your own course and potentially earn passive income for years to come.”

Nearly a decade in, Viaene published his first course at the end of 2015.

“I earned slightly more than $1,000 in revenue that first month,” he said. “Building on that first success, I started producing more courses and reached my best revenue in November 2017, [earning] around $26,000 for that month.”

He said November is always his most successful month due to Black Friday sales.

“I run a cloud and DevOps consultancy business, which now consumes most of my time,” he said. “The best part of the story is that I still earn around $4,000-$5,000 per month, more than two years after I released my last course on Udemy.com.”

For the most part, he’s just sitting back and collecting paychecks from his courses.

“Occasionally, a student asks me a question about the course or how to advance his career, which I’m very glad to answer,” he said.

“If you invest in a high-yield business development company stock, you can generate more than 11% in dividends,” said Alvin Carlos, CFA, CFP, financial planner and managing partner at District Capital Management. “That’s passive income you can do in all 50 states, with minimal work.

He said you’ll need to conduct research to determine what business development company stock to buy.

“If you invest $50,000 in a BDC stock yielding 11%, you could generate $5,500 in passive income each year,” he said. “That’s enough to fund a fun trip for two to Europe.”

“Dividend ETFs are diversified pools of dividend-paying stocks that offer investors a way to earn 2%-4% passive income through regular dividend distributions,” said Daniel Masuda Lehrman, CFP, founder and lead financial planner of Masuda Lehrman Wealth. 

He said examples include the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) and the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM).

“The benefits include potential long-term appreciation, which may lead to additional dividend income,” he said. “The drawbacks include volatility in stock price [and] potentially inconsistent dividend income.”

To earn $1,000 per month with an assumed 3% yield, he said you would need to invest at least $400,000. Therefore, this is likely only a feasible option if you have a large amount of money to invest.

“Owning a long-term rental property can provide cash flow through rent payments,” Masuda Lehrman said. “A well-managed rental could generate $1,000 per month in net income after expenses like property management, maintenance, taxes and insurance are paid.”

If you live in an expensive city, he said to consider buying property out of state.

“But keep in mind, managing rental properties is not passive unless you hire a property manager,” he said. “Still, you may need to manage your property manager, which makes it less passive for you.”

David Flores Wilson, CFP, CFA, AEP, CEPA, CCFC, managing partner at Sincerus Advisory, said buying, managing and selling real estate can also offer structural tax benefits.

“Often the passive income received from a real estate investment can be more valuable than other types of income, since it can be shielded from taxes,” he said. “For example, investors can offset income from investment real estate against the accounting concept of real estate depreciation to lower and sometimes eliminate taxes in a given year.”

He said real estate investing is unique in that when investors sell properties at a large gain, they can defer taxes by rolling the profit into a new property through a 1031 exchange (if all IRS conditions are met).

Of course, real estate investing isn’t without risks. “Investors should use caution when investing in real estate, since it’s not suitable for all investors,” he said. 

However, if this is something you’re interested in, it could be a great way to earn passive income.