Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through to make a purchase.
1. Be a long- term, passive investor
Since my investment horizon is long (meaning I expect to be working for at least the next 30 years), I have the luxury to be aggressive in my investment choices. However, looking at my current state of income and savings, apparently it is rather pathetic. Hence, I have to be pragmatic in my approach.
Below pointers are what I have implemented:
– Buying REITS to collect dividends
– Buying Blue Chip stocks as they are more stable and some even pay out dividends
– Buying into Indexes and ETF’s
– Subscribing to Peter Lynch’s concept of Beating the Street and One Up Wall Street for my investments
READ: Beating the Street by Peter Lynch
READ: One Up Wall Street by Peter Lynch
2. Doing Online Surveys
I agree, there is an abundance of surveys online promising participants points in exchange for their opinion. The points can be used to exchange for vouchers or en-cashed.
Personally, I am only actively participating in three of such projects:
– Milieu (Referral Code “TQPIIF”)
You simply download their mobile app available on Google Play store and the App Store and check the app regularly for any surveys which are pending your action. This opinion platform is only open to Singapore and Thailand users at the time of writing.
Doing surveys on Milieu is a simple way to earn some cash vouchers while completing the questions, which are mostly multiple choice questions.
You have to be patient for the points to accumulate while you complete the surveys which can take quite some time before you are able to exchange their points for vouchers, cash, transport credits or charity donations.
Edit as of December 2019:
Milieu has expanded its reward options to include vouchers from retailers such as Best Denki and Grab. To entice users to redeem vouchers from these retailers, Milieu has offered a 20% discount for the amount of points required in order for an exchange. Although we are not sure how long this offer will last, users are encouraged to sign up and take part in their surveys to enjoy this offer.
This survey is done via online sign- ups. I chanced upon this while surfing Facebook and decided to join for the fun of it.
Fun Fact – SGD $10 welcome voucher is given when you first sign up.
Not so Fun Fact, their survey frequency is not as high as Milieu which means a long wait for users to be able to claim their next voucher. But of course, as with all these gimmicky surveys, there is a referral code for the referrer to earn more points.
Please contact me at contact@everydayinvestinginyou.com with your name and email address if you want me to refer you to the Happy Dot Program. You will receive your welcome gift after completion of the registration survey. I, the referrer will receive points for every successful referral.
– Earn
According to their website, Earn (formerly 21.co) is a service that allows users to charge cryptocurrency in exchange for reading and replying to messages. Basically you link your work email and LinkedIn account details to Earn for them to perform a background verification to see if you are legit. Once done, Earn will send their users paid messages and surveys for them to complete. The amount in your account is collected in USD, but paid out to users in BTC.
Edit: Since December 2018, Earn has changed its format to Coinbase Earn, in invite-only mode.
Use my Referral Link to sign up for an account with Earn.
Traditionally, people earn cryptocurrency by mining or purchasing the assets they were familiar with. Many were hesitant to explore a new digital asset due to the lack of knowledge. Coinbase Earns strives to close the gap by allowing users to earn cryptocurrency while learning about them.
And of course, I acknowledge there are 1001 ways to generate passive income. Ultimately, it is your choice how you want to do it and the amount of effort you want to put in.
OpinionAPP is the latest survey for cash that I recently joined. Like any other paid surveys, you are first required to complete your profile in order for the algorithm to match the user to the appropriate surveys.
The OpinionAPP is available for download on both Android and iOS.
Google Opinion Rewards is a survey based app on Play store where any user is able to sign up for. Users can answer short surveys (about 1 to 3 questions) and earn Google Play credits. Google will send notifications when your profile matches the purpose of the survey.
Do note that the points accumulated will expire 1 year from the date of credit. I recommend to spend the google play credits as soon as you are able to as there are no notifications for your credits expiring. I am sure you do not want your google credits to go to waste!
3. Earn Cash Back Rewards
AIA Vitality is a wellness program that encourages users to keep fit by earning rewards for doing so. At the time of writing, the AIA Vitality program is available in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. For just SGD $5 a month, you can enjoy a plethora of rewards such as movie tickets at a discounted rate, supermarket vouchers and savings from their partner airline. Users can also enjoy health screening, checkups and purchase fitness trackers at member’s rate too. Personally, the benefits that I enjoy can more than offset the monthly fee that I pay. This program is highly recommended. For more information on how you can join, please refer to link above.
As of July 2020, the benefits of the AIA Vitality program has been tweaked to the disadvantage of the participants. Firstly, the membership fee has been raised to SGD $8 per month. Next, the rewards are getting harder to earn. There are no guaranteed vouchers. Instead, one has to spin the virtual wheel to determine what reward they will be getting. Prizes include AIA branded merchandise, one day gym passes and movie passes. The customers of AIA Vitality program certainly do not want such lousy prizes on top of paying a higher premium.
– ManulifeMOVE
Similar to the AIA Vitality Program, Manulife has also come up with their customer loyalty program that rewards customers for being healthy. Singapore is the first and only country so far that Manulife that launched this program. The rewards are simple. By maintaining an average daily steps of 10,000 or more, the amount of cashback that you will earn is SGD $50 for every 6 months. However, I feel that this program is lacking as compared to the AIA Vitality program in terms of eligibility and rewards. From what I read, eligibility conditions includes having a regular premium policy with a minimum annual premium of SGD/ USD 3000. I am not sure how many potential members are cut off because of this requirement. Also, the SGD $50 cashback for every 6 months is not as much when compared to AIA Vitality program.
– Credit Card Rewards
I shall leave the research to you, the reader. I do not have any specific recommendations for this. There are too many card rewards programs on offer and personally I feel that these benefits add up to more or less the same. The decisive factor is what kind of reward you prefer, be it cashback, dining, travel, shopping/ entertainment or airline mileage. So choose accordingly to your lifestyle preference!
Places to get started for research include SingSaver and MoneySmart where they provide comparison tools for users to narrow down their credit card selection suitable for their lifestyle and needs.
– Google Pay (SG) Rewards
With so many peer to peer payment services, one needs to dangle some incentives in order to grab the market share for payment services. Google Pay (SG) Rewards is one of them that I recommend for guaranteed* (*Accurate as the time of writing) cashback. Coming in the form of a scratch card offer, every transaction above SGD $10 to a unique recipient provides the recipients with the opportunity to receive up to a maximum of 2 digital scratch cards a week inside the Google Pay (SG) rewards app. Each scratch card allows you to earn up to SGD $30 cashback, though on average the cash back is about SGD $0.50 per transaction based on personal history. The cashback from scratch cards are sent directly to the your bank account that’s linked to PayNow.
Referral Code for Google Pay (SG) Rewards: 9g7ra2r
We both get SGD $5 for each successful referral and/ or eligible transaction.
4. Peer to Peer Lending (P2P)
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), P2P Lending also known as lending- based crowdfunding by business, is a fundraising model where many persons lend sums of money to a company and in turn receive the company’s legally- binding commitment to repay the loan at a predetermined time intervals and interest rates.
For those who are wondering if such means of borrowing is legal in Singapore, the answer is yes. It is regulated by the MAS under Securities and Futures Act (Cap. 289) and the Financial Advisers Act (Cap. 110).
Basically P2P came about as a form of disruption to the lending market. Traditionally when people want to borrow funds, they approach banks and licensed moneylenders. With the strict requirements, possibly higher cost of borrowing and processing time means many potential borrowers are being cut off from this approach.
For as low as SGD $1000 minimum investment, your role as a money lender in P2P will be to lend money via the P2P platform, and receive monthly interest and principal payments in return. The returns are higher than investing your money in stocks/ bonds but the high returns comes with higher risk too. The company that you loan your money to may default on its payments and if the P2P platform closes down, you may have issues recovering your money.
The popular P2P funding platforms in Singapore include Funding Societies and Moolah Sense. However, there are more firms that are growing their presence in Singapore and around the region. Do check out Value Champions and Seedly for their excellent research on the best P2P platforms available.
5. Affiliate Marketing
There are countless of affiliate marketing out there in the market, with each aiming at countless niches to suit your website’s niche. Affiliate marketing is a type of performance based marketing in which the business rewards each customer brought to the business via the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
An affiliate marketing account is easy to set up but not necessarily easy to clinch a sale. Nonetheless, these are the affiliate marketing that I have based on my blog’s niche.
Optimise Media is a privately held company founded in 1999, headquartered in Norfolk. Affiliates are able to sign up for as many affiliate programs as they wish, subject to the advertiser’s’ approval. Based on past experience, the approval time is around 1 working day, with most of the affiliate programs that I signed up for being approved.
Once approved into an affiliate program, you will have access to the banners and links for you to place them on your website. Be sure to include a disclosure for your visitors!
READ: Affiliate Disclaimer for this blog
– Interactive Brokers Trader Referral Program
Another referral program which I recommend is Interactive Brokers Trader Referral Program. This program is open to anyone except for those residing in Spain. Do note that there are different set of rules applied for those residing in United States and those residing outside the United States. There is no limit on the number of referral bonus one can receive. However, in my opinion, it can be rather difficult to reach the first commision tier for the non -US Trader Referral Program as Interactive Brokers is known for low cost trading.
READ: Commission Free Interactive Brokers account: IBKR Lite
READ: How to Sign Up for Interactive Brokers Referral Program
– Amazon Associates
The Amazon Affiliate Program is one of the programs that I signed up with because it is one of the broadest range of products among the suite of affiliate programs available. However, depending on your website’s content and preference, you may prefer to join Affiliate Programs with a niche.
READ: How to Sign up for Amazon Affiliate Program
– Siteground
Many of you who come by this page might have the same dilemma I had when I was deciding which Hosting Provider to choose for my blog. There are simply too many options to choose from, with each hosting site packaging their offers in attractive promotional bundles which can make comparison a bit difficult. After much going back and forth between different competitor websites and comparison site, I have decided to host my website with Siteground.
READ: Why I chose Siteground as my Hosting Provider
– WordPress
Refer.WordPress.com is an Affiliate Program where applicants can promote WordPress.com and Jetpack to their clients and earn referral rewards for their loyalty.
READ: How to Make Money with WordPress Affiliate Program
6. Park your hard earned Money in a High Yield Account
With the bank’s interest rates for savings accounts dropping till almost nil, it is time to re-think where to park your hard earned cash to earn that higher interest rates.
– Singlife
Introducing the Singlife account, the insurance savings plan that offers up to 2% per annum (returns are non-guaranteed), with no lock in period and comes with a free Visa Debit card. To get things started, you only need to fund the account minimum SGD $500 and keep the value above SGD $100 to enjoy the benefits. The Singlife Account is also insured under SDIC (Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation) up to SGD $100,000.
Beginning 1 July 2021, the Singlife Account will offer up to 2.0% p.a. return on the first S$10,000. While the base crediting rates will be revised to 1.0% p.a. on the first S$10,000 and 0.5% p.a. return on the next S$90,000, customers will still have the opportunity to enjoy up to 1.0% p.a. bonus return.
READ: How to Maximise your Cash
– Elastiq
Elastiq is a universal life plan offered by local insurance company Etiqa. With a minimum sum of SGD $5000, one is able to enjoy a guaranteed interest at 1.8% per annum for the first three years, with a minimum holding period of 90 days.
Do you know of any other ways to earn passive income? Do share in the comments below!
I’m always looking for savings opportunities. Thanks for sharing these great ideas!
Hi Heather, I am glad that you found this useful. My pleasure!
I love finding new affiliate programs and reward programs. Every penny you can make and save counts! Thanks for these great tips.
This is such an interesting post. I haven’t heard of some of these ways to make passive income so thanks for teaching me about them.
I make passive income through affiliate marketing and love it. It’s such a great way to earn some extra money.
All good ideas to build multiple income streams without much effort. Helpful post, thank you!
Thanks Corinne! I’m happy that you like it.
Your blog is really wonderful. Thanks for sharing your ideas with us. Keep posting!
Hi Nancy, thank you for the compliments!