‘My side hustle brings in thousands – without me even realising it’

However, Ferns, who lives in Derby, East Midlands, says the term “passive income” is somewhat misleading.

She says: “There’s lots of work to do at the start and I spend about four-and-a-half hours during the week supporting students with live Q&As, assessing their work and responding to queries in the Facebook group. The marketing of the course also takes up a significant amount of my time – you can’t just build a product and sell it on your website.”

Ferns’ goal is to turn over £100,000 with her business Lavender Blue Sleep Consulting, which would equate to four or five students signing up a month.

She adds: “I’m still working as a baby sleep consultant, but the extra income means I can contribute more to my family, such as paying for a trip for us all to Lapland.”

Ferns says the key to earning passive income is doing something you’re experienced in and you love.

“It feels a bit unethical to set something up just to make money – and it’ll probably be unenjoyable too. I think anyone can make a passive income but I’m not sure how you’d be able to do it unless you were passionate about it.”

‘I am aiming to work just 10 hours a week’

Natalie Stanton is using her 11 years’ experience as a local government environmental health officer to create a video course in food hygiene. As The Safety Expert, she currently makes between £200 and £500 a month selling it to businesses, but says it takes up a lot of her time and she still works part-time as a food safety consultant. 

While the course generates a passive income, most of her week is taken up creating content for LinkedIn and Instagram, keeping her website updated and marketing herself. 

Stanton, 36, who lives in east London with her husband Stefan, 36, says her aim is to create enough content that can be repurposed to enable her to reduce her working hours to 10 a week.

She says: “It’s important to have experience in the area you’re wanting to pursue for credibility, but if you know how to sell or have marketing skills, you could probably make something work faster. It’s 100 per cent worth pursuing but I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it without working as a consultant alongside or having savings.”