For example, it was arguably concluded that Bill Gates makes an average of 218, 000 dollars per hour while sleeping. So, if he sleeps for 8 hours, he would be making nothing less than 1,744,000 dollars. This perhaps may look amazing to you if you have not giving passive income a considerable attention in your life. But not to worry, the purpose of this article is to highlight the 5 major passive incomes you can create for yourself and pretty soon, you will be making money while sleeping too.

Rental Properties: Real estate has been around for quite a long time, but many sees it as business. It is yet to come to the general knowledge of everyone that real estate should be part of your life if you intend to be financial free. I am not talking about buying your dream home or a piece of land in a remote area. Such decision is a good initiative, but in no time, it will become one of your biggest liabilities. It will shelter you from the elements, no doubt, but will extort money from your pocket through maintenance. And anything that takes money from your pocket or bank account is a liability. Although your piece of land or dream home will appreciate over time, the rich do not focus their energy on capital gain. They focus on cash flow, thereby investing in rental properties that will bring monthly or yearly returns into their pockets or bank accounts. Such rental properties become sources of passive income for them. So, when you acquire a piece of property, turn it into rental property and it will forever bring money into your bank account even after your death. Once you have acquired one, get into the system of increasing the numbers of your rental properties. Take this side talk seriously; the rich makes the major part of their passive income from owning chains of rental properties before buying their dream homes.

Intellectual Property: Although we live in a society where intellectual property is not so respected, it can become your major source of passive income. Intellectual property could be an idea or design that someone has created and the law prevents other people from copying it. Example of such is writing a classic book or series of books.  Writing a book or books can become a huge source of passive income. J.K. Rowling was quite a poor school teacher until she wrote the Harry Potter series and became richer than the Queen of England. If you think you have the excellent skill for writing, then put your back to work and chunk out classics. Maybe you will turn out to be just another Chinua Achebe whose classic The Gods Are Not To Blame rakes in millions, in different currencies, even after his death. Or you will follow the path of Chimamanda Adichie whose books are part of the secondary schools and tertiary institutions curriculum. Other intellectual properties include recording your own all weather songs, making your own movies, creating smart phone applications, software, e-books, informational or self-help DVDs, and of course you can have your own inventions. Whatever it is you are creating, make sure you protect your ideas with copyright or patent. That way you can make more money, by suing anyone who steals your idea or invention without your permission.

Network marketing: this is perhaps one of the strongest ways of creating passive income for yourself if you are part of the first set of persons in the pyramid scheme or the founder. However, the beginning stage of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) involves hard work, networking and marketing because you have to recruit people to be part of it. When the structure and system is strong, it will become a money spinning investment for you. But if you are starting at the bottom of the chain, take this advice; see yourself as your own boss running your own personal company and put all your energy into it. You can still grow your network to a sizeable number, and then you will start reaping the profit of your hard labor.

Franchising: This part of passive income is probably new to some Nigerians, but cannot be ruled out when you intend to make passive income part of your life. Franchising is simply selling your brand to a second party who wish to leverage on your business model. Such will pay you very reasonable fee for buying your franchise and definitely you will continue to get lifetime percentage from every income such an individual makes from leveraging on your brand. Tara Fela-Durotoye is doing that with House of Tara. So, if you own a business, work hard to build it into a household name and once it becomes a formidable brand, franchising it will be very easy.

Paper Asset: Although paper asset is arguably accepted as passive income, it is also a form of passive income that should be part of your life. Paper asset include shares, mutual funds, insurance, fixed deposit, T-Bill and many more. It is important that you separate part of your monthly income to acquire some of these paper assets knowing you can start receiving dividends, interests and what have you after some months. Some of these are very secure with reasonable interest rate, while some are volatile. Whichever one you choose, make sure you have excellent knowledge on how it works and how to grow your income from where you are to where you want to be.