How to build wealth through multiple streams of income

Your day job—probably your biggest source—may present opportunities for more income. Develop strategies to make yourself more valuable to increase your income potential. In career development discussions with your boss ask about advancement opportunities which usually increases your pay. If you are in a company that has a pretty low ceiling, start networking to find companies that offer more career advancement opportunities. Just be careful about job hoping too quickly in an unstable economy.

Put your money to work for you. Although investments are traditional streams of additional income, they still provide opportunities for wealth building. The question is, where do you put your money these days to create the income stream? There are many financial advisors who can point you in the right direction. Seek their professional advice. Just be wary of the ones who only make money when they sell you an investment vehicle. You’ll get better, honest and objective counsel if you work with someone who charges a fee for developing a financial plan. Start with small, safe investments and the returns on  those investments become your second source of income after your day job.

Service jobs. You probably have some skills that people will pay for. These can be simple manual labor jobs such as, pet sitting, house sitting, home cleaning, lawn mowing, checking in on senior citizens, home maintenance jobs and the list goes on. You can charge by the hour or for the whole job. Find something you are good at, market yourself and it could be another source of income.

Residual income. Service jobs are great but you are limited to the hours in a day that you can work. If you charge by the hour you can bill no more than 24 hours in the course of a day—assuming you never sleep. With residual income you multiply your earning potential in limitless ways. Writing articles and posting them on sites such as eHow.com is a form of residual income. You write the article once, publish it and it makes money for you while you are writing your next article. Your articles now work for you and put cash in your pocket on a regular basis.

Musicians have been earning money this way for years. Do you ever listen to an oldies station? Just think how many times you’ve heard a Beatles tune for the last 40 years. Every time a song is played on a radio station or in a public commercial area a small amount of money is paid to the writer and the owner of the rights to the song.

Sell photos to a site such as iStock Photo. Take the picture once, sell it thousands of times. Do the same with eBooks, podcasts or DVDs and your creations will continue to make money for you while you are off doing something else.

Blogging. If you have a strong point of view or just like to share your thoughts and knowledge on a particular subject, start a blog. Drive traffic to your blog, incorporate Google AdSense and affiliate links to products referred to on your blog and you’ve just created a new source of income.

In today’s economy it’s smart to have more than once source of income. When one stream gets a little thin you can make up the difference with several other sources. Even if the sources only bring in a small trickle of income, together many trickles turn into a steady flow.