Passive Income After Retirement - Possible or a Pipe Dream?

That's the retirement dream, isn't it? Passive income. Government and company pensions are passive income, you don't have to work for your money any more. That's why most people go to work every day, save whatever they can so they can "retire" with a steady income. And it is of course a good thing. Unless the pension income is not enough, or the company has folded or for any number of reasons you want or need more money.

The choice then becomes - should you go back to work? Start a business and work it? Or is there a way to create something that will give you a passive income in retirement. I am here to tell you it is indeed possible - I am living proof. Half of my income comes from passive sources. Meaning I have to do very little to receive this income. Of course, I had to set things up, but I have income sources that I haven't touched in years. Easy? It can be, but there's initial work to be done. However, with a strong initial effort - the payoff can be long-term and reasonable hands-off.

The ideal situation is to have 100% income passive. That's a tough nut to crack - to me a 80% passive is good enough. A little maintenance and tweaking is always needed. But hey, can you spare 10 hours a month to tweak some websites? If not - you can always outsource these tasks.

What about the long-term security of these projects? It's true, some of these sources will come and go. The trick is to diversify, have multiple sources of passive income. With as little maintenance as possible. And the tweaking there is - you can always outsource.

There are three basic ways a retired person can create passive income sources on the Internet:

1. Set up websites/blogs with advertising revenues such as Google's AdSense

Here you set up content websites - perhaps with a blog that you update with new posts once in a while. Not quite 100% passive, but with a modest amount of effort you can generate a steady stream of income.

2. Websites that sell other people's products (Affiliate Marketing)

You sign up with one or many affiliate product providers such as Clickbank and sell their products for commission. You learn how to set up a website and more importantly to drive traffic to it. Once the site is operational it takes very little maintenance to keep it productive.

3. Create products yourself and sell them through websites and/or affiliates.

This is ideal for retirees who have special skills learned through their employment. You write expert guides and sell them directly through a website and other affiliates. I know a successful attorney who wrote a book on Medicaid 18 years ago, left his practice and lives quite well selling this book.

The bottom line is that you can earn a fair amount of money for little work once things are set up. Say you make $1,000 per month for 10 hours work. That's $100 per hour. Good enough for me.