A Few Ways to Increase Income From the Comforts of Your Home

Over the past couple of days I have discussed why the two income family is a myth for moms and some ways to cut back household expenses.  Many households may find that simply cutting expenditures is not enough because they have been overspending too long.  At the same time working outside the home for many moms involves a low paying job with expenses including daycare that in reality gives them a net gain of under $40 per week.  There are a surprising number of ways to make money from the comfort of home that in most cases will give a net weekly income greater than working outside the home.  Some of these activities have the added bonus of creating allowable tax deductible expenses towards the income as well.  Here's a few examples:

• baby-sitting service - Providing childcare for one child in your home from 8 am to 5 pm can give you an income of $150 to $250 per week.  Many libraries have a lending program for larger toys or they can be bought used quite inexpensively.  You may have to provide breakfast, lunch and snacks but quite often Moms will send snacks with their kids.  The downside to this is providing childcare will not work well if you want extended periods of time away from the home (eg. vacations) or if you are a real stickler for the drop-off and pick-up times.  Sometimes parents run a little early or late so being a bit flexible will keep good relationships.   This job requires a good commitment because calling in sick is not an option.
• cottage industry - Years ago women worked cottage industry (eg. knitting, sewing, candlemaking, soapmaking, and etc.) to make a bit of extra income.  The immediate downside is the expense of the materials needed to complete the projects.  The second problem is marketing.  However, many are making a rather good income doing just that!  There are a lot of online resources for selling homemade products as well - kijiji, ebay, craigslist, etsy to name a few.
• selling on online auctions - Making money on online auctions has become the sole source of income for some people.  We joined eBay in late 1998.  By the following spring of we were grossing $400 per month with minimal out of pocket expense.  At most we spent around $50 for a net income of $350.  Selling on eBay and other online auctions takes time and effort but with a bit of effort netting $500 to $1,000 per month or more is quite an achievable goal.
• other online income - There are many, many ways to make money online.  You can open up an online shop (eg. etsy, cafepress), sign up for programs like microworkers where you are paid to do small online tasks, and there are similar programs that have a good track record of paying.  Microworks should give an income of $15 to $20 or more per week for about 30 minutes worth of work each day.  In general stay away from paid to click and paid to surf programs as many of these are huge scams!  If you are good with html you can make a bit doing webpage design
• blogging - Blogging can and does allow you to make money and there are several ways to do so.  The first is monetizing your blog using Adsense and various other advertising networks.  Sign up as publisher or advertiser on Adgitize and CMFads.  Become an affiliate for other programs like Payloadz.  On a one to one basis none will pay you a huge amount but combined you can make well over $100 per month with most of that being passive income meaning all you do is display the advertising on your blog.

Clearly working from home can certainly increase your income without all the expenses of working outside of the home.  I haven't even touched base on some of the higher paying jobs like telecommuting, teaching online and freelance writing.  In this day and age it is quite possibile to make a decent income without having to leave your home!

Garden Gnome