If you're reading this blog, even as a day one new comer, and you are thinking about working from home to help supplement your family's income - start now.
I had this discussion with my significant other just the other day, and I felt like I should share it here as well in hopes of encouraging those who may scared or doubtful to jump in with both feet and get started.
I started this blog because our savings had been depleted and we were just barely making it from check to check on his income and I needed to figure out how to contribute, and I needed to do it quickly.
Now every time I think about our financial woes I kick myself for not taking action sooner. Here I am approaching the two month mark and I can see what a difference this is making in our lives. We don't have the same worries we had before, we're not stressing over money as much and we're talking about building up a savings again.
This month my focus has been a bit off target because I'm still getting a grip on freelancing, but I've made well over $300 from private clients alone this month...
Don't let fear or doubt hold you back. You CAN do it, even if you have small kids or a disability, it IS possible.
I had this discussion with my significant other just the other day, and I felt like I should share it here as well in hopes of encouraging those who may scared or doubtful to jump in with both feet and get started.
I started this blog because our savings had been depleted and we were just barely making it from check to check on his income and I needed to figure out how to contribute, and I needed to do it quickly.
Now every time I think about our financial woes I kick myself for not taking action sooner. Here I am approaching the two month mark and I can see what a difference this is making in our lives. We don't have the same worries we had before, we're not stressing over money as much and we're talking about building up a savings again.
This month my focus has been a bit off target because I'm still getting a grip on freelancing, but I've made well over $300 from private clients alone this month...
Don't let fear or doubt hold you back. You CAN do it, even if you have small kids or a disability, it IS possible.
16 comments:
I just started really earning about a month ago and you are so right, even a couple hundred dollars makes things easier. It also gives me hope that I really can do this, it feels so good to help my family while I'm still here to take care of my boys!
I agree completely. We had been living off of one fluctuating income for over a year when I finally gave up on ever being able to find an out of the home job that would meet our schedules.
Never had I dreamed that it could be this easy to earn money from home and supplement our income like I am.
It feels really great to be contributing monetarily again. A couple hundred dollars really does make an indescribable difference... I just wish I would have done it sooner.
I was in the same boat as you. When I stumbled across legitimate things I could do online to make money, my husband was kind of irked that I hadn't started on this stuff sooner. Honestly, I just didn't know how many real opportunities there were available. My husband makes enough to pay the bills and that's it. Not even enough for groceries. Since I started doing online work, we've actually managed to pay off one of our cars which is making such a huge difference in our lives now. It's like we can breathe and not panic if something unexpected happens. :D
That's the exact situation we were in. He was making enough for us to pay the bills and that was it... we were genuinely skimping on just about everything as our savings dwindled close to nothing.
I had reached the point of giving my 4 year old kool aid instead of juice because I could buy a months supply of kool aid mix for the price of one bottle of 100% juice... that was pretty much the killer for me because I can't stand the idea of him living off sugar water instead of real genuine juice.
We were eating dark meat chicken and rice almost every night because it was the cheapest thing we could think of that my hubby would actually eat lol
I'm actually at the point where I'm going to open up a spare checking and savings account for my earnings so I can keep everything clean and neat come tax time... I feel so developed haha
It's unbelievable how many opportunities are out there if you're willing to look... I just never thought that anything existed aside from phone jobs like I had when I first worked from home.
Oh my goodness, we almost got to the point of having to eat rice every night. Thank goodness my baby breastfeeds or else formula would wipe us out.
My husband was in charge of the finances. I say "was" because once I took a look at how bad things had gotten, I took it over. Somehow he managed to max two credit cards. Since he was charging everything and doing the bills himself, I had no reason to know how bad of a problem there was until one day I saw his credit card with a $15k limit get declined. I refuse to let him charge anything anymore. He didn't even realize how bad it was until I broke it down for him and told him that if both cards were maxed out, we had nothing in case of an emergency and no way to pay either card off. That means if I weren't doing this work online... we'd be filing for bankruptcy within a year.
Haha, that's the last time I trust him to do the bills. My goodness. I've been in a panic trying to fix the problem enough that we won't have to panic if something comes up out of the blue that costs a lot. (Like if I got pregnant again. Nooo!)
I've been behind for the month because I still haven't really managed to get into a routine with taking care of the baby, house cleaning, and working. It's hard, but I'm getting there!
LOL I took over the finances as well. As it happened I thought we had over 5k in our savings until the day my SO broke the news to me. I had been stocking up on food for hard times and driving us (unknowingly) into debt for when hard times would come...
Little did I know! That's why we had a freezer full of food though lol
He's no longer in charge of the savings needless to say but I still let him pay the bills haha
It's good that you found out when you did! Thank God for breastfeeding also. Formula was a killer for my little moo cow - he ate a lot and did formula to supplement since I was going to school and working when he was born. Formula and diapers were the death of me.
My husband has a problem with seeing the big picture and didn't quite understand why piles of credit card debt was a bad thing. Hah. It's funny in a really sad kind of way. We've got a plan to at least pay off most of our debt before I have to start my internship for grad school (either Sept of next year or Jan 2011). But it requires me to make $750 a month online. I don't sleep much anymore.
I'm SO glad about breastfeeding. Right after Jordan was born I had an oversupply, but now he's 3 months old eating 30oz+ per day. I almost can't keep up with him, but luckily haven't had to resort to formula yet. I went on a diet and it messed with my supply, so I'm just going to have to deal with my baby weight for a year until he's done!
And diapers... They are SO expensive, I've toyed with the idea of using cloth diapers.
I thought about cloth diapers briefly... but after making my own cloth bra inserts for leakage protection and realizing what a PITA it was, I opted to not risk the mess lol
HOw do you go about finding private clients? Thanks for any advice!
Lise there are a lot of ways you can do it. I personally have gotten all of mine through offers on job forums (like www.wahm.com/forums) or from freelance sites - my favorite at the moment is eLance.
There are tons of places to seek out clients and jobs. Never be afraid to apply/inquire about a position either. Each time you don't do it, it's a missed opportunity.
The more you try to sell your services, the more often people will accept :)
We were in a similar situation before having kids, savings depleted and barely living paycheck to paycheck (we bought a fixer upper house just before starting a family == money pit. lol). But after my son was born last year we found ourselves living on credit when our checking ran dry each month. With another baby coming anyday now I'm scared how bad it will get, the minimum payments on our 2 cards are getting higher and higher and harder to make. I'm hoping once I get the new baby and my son on something remotely resembling a schedule, I can take on more clients & private jobs too.
I'm glad things are looking up for your family's finances now though, that is wonderful! And by the way, cute changes to your website with the new background and custom signature. =)
That was painful, I hit the back button on my mouse when I finished my response and it disappeared. *cry*
Summary:
I was afraid to write because I was intimidated by terms like "SEO" and didn't think I had the skills or ability to write. I was wrong, dead wrong... writing SEO content for someone else (they provide the keywords) is really quite simple if you have any writing talent at all.
Clients are generally pretty flexible as well. I usually have a 24-36 hour turn around time but that's because I really prefer to do my work asap and get it taken care of haha The sooner I do it the sooner I get paid!
I'm pretty sure that you could do it as well, and you could start now and just write when you have the time to.
Another thing to consider may be forum posting or blog back linking jobs. The pay is kind of meh and they are super repetitive but you can literally do a post, get up and see your son, do another post, get him a snack etc. You don't have to maintain a train of thought like you do for full articles.
Sign up on a few freelance sites and try to grab a content writing job even if you only get $5 for a 500-600 word article you can probably do at least 2 a day which will net you a couple hundred a month.
If you need help with learning about SEO let me know.
I need help learning SEO. I registered with Constant Content, but haven't done anything yet because i worry about such things.
Way to go girl! You're an inspiration to us all! When I update my site, I will add your site to my list of links. This is definitely a site that needs to be seen :)
@Theody, I may have to think about writing up a basics of SEO writing post when I add pages and sections to my blog. Are you having problems with knowing SEO writing or knowing how to do research for them?
@Shae Thanks so much! I hope you find some useful info and good luck getting your site back up and running :)
Thanks Girl, I'm having problems knowing SEO writing.Is it same thing as Keywords?
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