While these programs aren’t going to get you rich by any means they will provide you extra income while you don’t change your life at all. I recommend spending the hour of your day to sign up for these accounts / install these apps and start earning now. Let’s just say this process makes you $1 per day. If you signed up for these programs a year ago, you’d have $365 a year. That can be the reason why you have a Nintendo Switch or not.
Email Tracking: Paribus
Paribus from Capital One is one of the simplest apps on this list. You simply create an account and sink your email with them. It will then track your email receipts from online purchases and will begin price tracking those items. If those items drop in price, it will work to give you a refund. This works with Amazon and most online stores. Takes about a minute to sign up and will continue to bring you money back for the foreseeable future.
Debit Card Tracking: Dosh, Drop, and Nerd Wallet
These three apps are very similar and you can stack them for extra income. I recommend signing up for all three. Basically, you link you debit or credit card to the account, they track your purchases and give you cash back on their promotional offers. While cash back reward apps are all these rage, these thee specifically get my recommendation because of how passive they are. Just set them and forget them (well eventually you will need to cash out).
Chrome Tracking: UpVoice
Do you browse the web on Chrome? There’s a good chance you, like 58% of the world’s online population, you do. Well did you know you can get paid for doing it? All you have to do is install a Chrome Extension, sign up, and viola. You’re making money.
Search Engine: Bing/Microsoft Rewards
Everyone has an opinion about Bing but the fact of the matter is that if you switch to Bing, you earn money. Well redeemable gift cards, but with Amazon cards availibe, it might as well be money. I’ve personally used Bing over Google for nearly a decade and earned a ton of money back. In fact, it pays for my Office 365 account with me doing very little extra work for increased rewards.
Background Apps: HoneyGain & NiceHash
These apps are basically the simplest version of “bit coin mining” you can possibly think out. While HoneyGain pays out in cold hard cash, NiceHash does pay out in digital curriences. While the concept of BitCoin is still scary to a lot of people, it’s no scarier than the world of stocks, and the fact of the matter is that it’s free money you’re not earning.
In an over simplified explanation, HoneyGain stores partial encrypted files in it’s app and delivers them back to the internet using your data. You can of course set data limits and turn the app off if it gets a little crazy. After a 24 hour test run, I’m earning about $2/day and giving up 1GB per day. Luckily I’m on an unlimited wifi plan at home, and will consider uping this amount soon.
NiceHash uses your computer’s power. If you have a graphics card installed, it will use that processing power to generate you income. While there is a concern of electric bill spikes, NiceHash includes a calculator to show you that while your electric bill may increase $10/month, you can still be on track to earn $40-$50 profit just by letting the app run in the background.
Other Ways To Earn Passive Income
While this article focuses on the concept of ‘setting and forgetting’ with little to no start up costs there are a ton of ways to keep earning extra income. From jumping into the stock market, to investing in media royalties to purchasing existing websites that just aren’t being maintained anymore. There’s also the idea of creating a blog with useful guides like this one and displaying ads for additional passive income.
* An asterik above denotes a referral link. If you sign up using my link, we both can earn bonuses on our accounts. If I'm the one who referred you, please use my links. I have to eat too.
