Motivational Monday

Motivation is something that everyone needs on a regular basis to stay encouraged, but for those of us in situations where we work from, finding motivation can be harder. Those who are self employed or turn to freelancing and legitimate work at home jobs as their source of income rarely get the same kind of encouragement that occurs in a brick and mortar environment.

The solution? Motivational Monday!

Stop by on Mondays to check for encouraging words from a variety of people. This week you'll have to listen to me ramble, but hopefully next time you'll hear from a special guest.

If you're interested in being a Guest Blogger, contact me to let me know. Don't be shy, you can share your success story and help others stay motivated!

I set out on my legitimate work at home job search in late September, as many of you already know. My family was financially spent and although I had been looking for out of house work for several months I was unable to find anything that worked with our schedule. I decided that I would create a blog to track my progress and warn others about work at home scams while pursuing my search for legitimate work at home opportunities.

I wanted to find legitimate work at home sites and jobs that would let me stay home with my son and supplement my husband's income to relieve the stress he was under. My original intention was to earn enough monthly to buy our groceries and keep us out of the red. Little did I know how easy it would be to find legitimate work at home jobs that paid more than I could even imagine.

My first goal was to earn $200 during October. I started off with some task work like Cloud Crowd, GPTs and survey sites. Some of them worked out really well, some weren't so great. I ended up earning just under $250 that month and was absolutely thrilled to have made my goal, even if it wasn't enough to pay my bills, it was enough to buy groceries and that was exactly what I had set out to do at that point.

October Earnings:

Wanelo $105 Proof of Payment
Livework $66.19 Proof of Payment
CloudCrowd $35.49 Proof of Payment
Greenfield Online $30 Proof of Payment
YouData $2.55 Proof of Payment

With my new found confidence I set out looking for more opportunities in November and I was determined to make my $300 goal. I decided to branch out a bit and found a few freelance opportunities doing things like forum posting and writing. Even though I had no experience, I figured I really had nothing to lose and if these were legitimate work at home jobs, they were worth a shot.

My (semi) fearless attitude paid off and I earned $777.28 in just my second month of work at home job hunting and my first month of being a freelancer. Not only had I surpassed my November goal, but I had surpassed my December goal as well! Even more impressive was the fact that I had actually earned enough to pay our rent and I did it all without paying anyone or getting wrapped up in any sort of work at home scams or business opportunities.

I will admit that I made a tiny investment in my Elance account to allow me to bid on more projects, but clearly that $15 was a good investment.

IMShopping $58.25 Proof of Payment

YouData 49¢ Proof of Payment

Cloud Crowd $4.40 Proof of Payment

Wanelo $30.00 Proof of Payment

Greenfield Online $32.00 Proof of Payment

AroundMe $23.97 Proof of Payment (one time deal)

SurveyHead $25.50 Proof of Payment

Private Clients $602.67

Then came December and the end of 2009. I had expected a slow month because I lost a couple clients and a few were too busy with the holidays to supply me with work. While I knew that I would make my $400 goal that was set the day this blog was born, I worried that I'd make less than I did in November and would lose my motivation. I picked up a couple of one time projects after putting in bid after bid on freelance project after project.

The results? I broke my record and even more amazingly, I had a four digit income as well. I didn't even realize how much I had earned until I sat down to put it all together for this blog and when I did, I couldn't believe it. I sat in shock and checked the numbers over and over, but they were accurate. I really had made $1200 during what I thought would be a slow month.

(Break down coming soon)

In three months I went from making nothing at all to making over $1000 all through legitimate work at home freelance opportunities, GPTs, survey sites and other online odds and ends. I managed to avoid all the basic work at home scams that lure in a lot of innocent victims and invested under $70 over the season on random odds and ends to help my legitimate work at home dreams grow.

Along the way I met an amazing bunch of people who have kept me inspired and motivated (you guys), I spread the word about how easy it is to find legitimate work at home jobs if you put a little bit of time into it and I heard amazing success stories from people here.

2010 is now upon us and I'm looking forward to seeing all of us grow and succeed as the year goes on. Best of luck and well wishes,