Let us face it: These are hard times, economically speaking, for many people around the world. Thousands of people have lost their jobs, or are on the brink of doing so. Many others have had their bonuses cut. The world economy is in turmoil, and things are certainly getting tougher for millions of people.

In such a depressing global economic situation, what can YOU do to secure, and hopefully improve, your financial circumstances? Well, you can do a number of things to earn extra income.

For example, you can take on a second, or even third, job. Or you can put in more overtime work at your regular 9-to-5 job. Or you can borrow money, from the bank or elsewhere, to start a part-time business (you know, to pay for rent premises, buy stock, etc).

But wait! There is, in my opinion, a much better way for you to earn extra income from home. It is by earning residual or recurring income from home. How? By looking for residual income opportunities online and promoting them vigorously.

What I am referring to here are ONLINE AFFILIATE PROGRAMS THAT PAY A RESIDUAL OR RECURRING COMMISSION. These are what you must look for. These are what are going to make you money, repeat money, big money, if you work hard at promoting them.

So what are affiliate programs in the first place? They are programs set up by merchants selling products or services online, who wish other people to help them sell their offers in return for a commission.

Most online affiliate programs offer you a once-only commission payment for each of the customers or recruits you send to the merchant. However, what we are interested in, in order to build up an ever-growing residual income online, is the affiliate programs that pay you repeat, residual or recurring commissions for each of the recruits or customers you send to the affiliate merchant.

Affiliate programs that pay you recurring or residual income by way of commissions are much better than those that pay you a once-only commission. In the former case, you work hard to get a customer or recruit, and the affiliate merchant keeps paying you commissions regularly, every week or every month, for as long as the customer or recruit you brought stays with the merchant's product or service. The beauty of this kind of affiliate income program is that the affiliate income you earn per month keeps growing bigger, if you continue promoting the program in order to find more customers or recruits for the program.

There are many residual income affiliate programs that are free to join. However, in my considered opinion, the best residual income programs usually require you to pay a little money to join. This is partly a way of getting only people who are serious about earning big, long-term affiliate income to join the program, and weeding out people who might only be after freebies.

Thus people you recruit or refer to the program also pay a small fee to join, and so on. Such programs are better because they are usually better managed. Also, because everyone who joins has to pay a fee, the vast majority of the people you recruit or refer to the program are likely to stay with the program (thus earning you regular commissions) as they too want recruit other people in order that they, too, can earn residual commissions.

Those are the kind of residual affiliate programs I urge you to join for, in the long run, they can make you rich if you work hard to promote them. You may not like the idea of paying a fee to join each of these programs but, believe me, you will be very happy when you start receiving big, ever-growing affiliate commissions month, after month, after month!

As the wise saying goes, there is nothing like a free lunch. Work hard at looking for, and vigorously promoting, the afore-mentioned residual income affiliate programs now...and reap a much better, much higher and happier, financial status in the near and far future.