Passive income ideas have a wide appeal. After all, who doesn’t like the idea of making money without having to work for it? Unfortunately, the truth is that you DO have to put in some work in order to generate money from them — unless you’re talking about truly passive income like dividend income. (And even then, you’ve probably got to work to buy the stocks that will earn you dividends.) But that doesn’t mean taking advantage of passive income streams is a bad idea. In fact, it’s a great idea. Here’s how passive income can help you succeed.

Diversifying

When you first start working at setting up your passive income streams, you’ve probably got a job. (And you could of course continue to have a job even after you’ve got that type of money coming in.) Not only will you have more money, but you’ll have money that’s coming from more than one source.

Why does that matter? Well, what happens if you lose your job? If you’ve got money coming in from other sources, it won’t hurt you quite as much because your income will be diversified. In other words, you won’t be dependent on an employer for everything you earn. And if you’ve got enough of it coming in (ideally also from multiple sources), you might even decide that you don’t need to look for another job.

Providing extra oomph

What you make outside of your job can also provide some extra oomph. In other words, it can give your current budget a boost because you’ll have more cash to work with. This can be used to create a cushion, or to help you reach a goal faster.

For example, you might decide to set aside all or part of it for a specific purpose like building your emergency fund, saving up a down payment on a house, investing for retirement (which is all about being able to live on passive income), etc. It feels good to have money coming in that you know will go directly to fund something that’s important to you. This can absolutely help you succeed, because you’ll be able to achieve the goals that require money faster.

Adding opportunities

Finally, once you begin using passive income to help you succeed, you’ll find that more and more opportunities open up for you. This happens for two reasons: your mindset changes, and you put yourself out there more. Instead of being stuck in a “if I want to make money, I need to get a job and wait for payday” mindset, you start seeing opportunities to make money in more and more places.

You start doing things that allow you to do the work once, and then reap the rewards later (with some tweaking and promoting in between). Or you begin to learn about investing, and the magic of compounding. Or you end up meeting a bunch of awesome people through the ideas you’re exploring. Maybe you even discover abilities you never knew you had.

The possibilites are out there waiting for you. Give it a shot.