I’ve got a recurring time block on my calendar every Monday morning.

It’s 15 minutes long and allows me to make around $300 guaranteed.

I do this every week, which means I make an extra $15,000/year give or take.

If you own 100+ shares of any stock you can do the same.

It’s called selling call options.

I know options are one of those topics that makes peoples’ eyes glaze over, so I’ll try to explain this as best I can.

If you sell a call option, you get an immediate cash payment in exchange for giving up some upside to a stock that you own.

More simply, you get an upfront payment plus any gains on a stock up until a certain price. Any gains over that price goes to the buyer of the call option you sold.

Here’s an example:

I own 100 shares of Meta Platforms (META). As I write this, Meta is trading for $600/share.

Call options on META at $650 that expire at the end of this week currently sell for $50.

This means if I sell the $650 “strike price” option, I make $50 immediately in exchange for giving up the upside over $650.

Not bad for literally zero effort.

In my opinion, $650/share is unreasonable by the end of the week.

That’s a heck of a run up and I’m willing to risk the price doesn’t get there after META’s recent weak performance.

Here are the 3 potential ways my trade can shake out:

Outcome #1: META Ends the Week Between $600 and $650

This is the most likely scenario.

Likely the share price fluctuates throughout the week, staying in this range, probably rising a bit.

If this happens, I still own the 100 shares of META, plus any gains on the stock for the week, plus the $50 I initially received on Monday for selling the call option.

Example: If META ends the week at $625/share, I make $25/share in gains (625 - 600) multiplied by the 100 shares that I own plus $50. That’s $2,550.

Outcome #2: META Ends the Week Above $650

If this happens, my shares get “called away.”

This basically means I’m required to sell 100 shares of META for $650 to the person who bought the call option that I sold. Any brokerage account automatically handles this.

Example: If META ends the week at $660/share, I make a profit on my shares up to $650 while any gains over $650 go to the person that bought the call option I sold.

Therefore, I make $50/share in gains (650 - 600) multiplied by the 100 shares that I own plus $50. That’s $5,050.

The last $10/share (660 - 650) in gains goes to the person that bought the call option I sold.

That person made $10/share multiplied by 100 shares minus his initial cost of $50 that went to me. That’s $950.

In this scenario, I would no longer own shares of META and then have the option to buy them back on the open market.

[Note: Because prices fluctuate, I typically buy back stocks below the price I sold them (ie $600) within a few days.]

Outcome #3: META Ends the Week Below $600

Stocks can go down, too!

As is the case in the first 2 scenarios, I keep the initial $50 from selling the call option. But now I have to take into account losses on my META position.

Example: If META ends the week at $575/share, I lose $25/share (600 - 575) multiplied by the 100 shares that I own plus $50. That’s -$2,450.

Yes, this is the worst outcome. But I wasn’t going to sell my META shares anyway. I’m a long-term holder.

In fact, the $50 gain on the option improved my outcome, just as it did in the first two scenarios.

Now keep in mind, the guaranteed $50 I made this morning is just from selling call options on my META shares. I also own 100+ shares of Nvidia, Uber, Starbucks, Lithium Americas, and GameStop (long story).

I sell call options on all of these positions weekly. Here are the payouts from just this morning.

Meta: $50

Nvidia: $100

Uber Technologies: $40

Starbucks: $40

Lithium Americas: $50

GameStop: $30

Total that up and that’s $310 I made this morning alone.

I do this on a weekly basis and make around $15,000/year.

I understand that learning to sell options is difficult, and there are some nuances I didn’t explain in here. But learning a simple strategy like this can make a big difference in your investment account.