Any work at home moms here with advice?

Me ^ | 6/02/03 | Me

[honeygrl]

Are there any mom's around here that have actually found a good work at home job for extra money? There are so many scams out there that I don't know what is legit and what isn't. If I can't find a work-at-home job then I'm going to end up with 2 young kids in daycare so I can work fulltime or partime because we really need a second income. I have no college degrees and only graduated High School and no real experience in anything except animals. The animal stuff is just personal experience too, not professional.

[honeygrl]

Hoping for a few good ideas here :)

[Gerish]

Take a medical transcription course at a local community college if you are able. Doctors are always looking for transcriptionists along with hospitals. The pay is fairly good - usually by the line. You can usually work any schedule (days/evenings) and never have to leave the house. Benefits will vary - the hospitals around here will not give benefits unless you are full-time. It really is good work for a stay-at-home Mom!

[GovernmentShrinker]

Depending on your location, there might be enough demand for in-home daycare, that you could make decent money that way. Lots of parents prefer to put their child into a home setting, rather than into an institutional daycare setting. There are, of course, zoning issues, regulatory issues, and liability issues, but depending on who your clients and neighbors are, those issues might be safely ignorable.

[irishtenor]

You could try pet sitting, pet walking, dog washing, all sorts of things involving pets. Use your imagination. Start your own business.

[honeygrl]

"You could try pet sitting, pet walking, dog washing, all sorts of things involving pets. Use your imagination. Start your own business"

I would love all of those things if I didn't live in an apartment. I also have a toddler and a 7mth old that aren't very good with animals unfortunately. We have a kitten now that I can't believe is still alive. He's definitely insane and either very brave or very stupid.

[honeygrl]

"Take a medical transcription course at a local community college if you are able. "

I will look into that for sure. We have a few colleges here so atleast one of them should have a course on it.

[irishtenor]

Do you type? Live by a college? You could do term paper typing for college students. The best thing to do is find something that you enjoy doing, and make a business out of it. Bake? Start baking cookies for sale.

[Dan12180]

While our children were small I managed aprtments for about 3 years. We had a nice apartment to live in, I did the bookwork, marketing, screeing and showing the apartments. My husband helped with the maintenance work. It is a very good option for young famlies.

Once we had our own home I did daycare for a little over 4 years. It is a good income and great write-offs for taxes. You need to screen the kids and parents to get people you enjoy working with. I enjoyed working with the kids, they became part of my family. It was very rewarding and fun. We baked cookies, made soup, went on hikes (a couple of blocks) to the playground, watched movies for nap time.

You do need to check on local laws and requirements, and state registration with background checks. Best of luck. Vickey

[Maceman]

I would love all of those things if I didn't live in an apartment. I also have a toddler and a 7mth old that aren't very good with animals unfortunately. We have a kitten now that I can't believe is still alive. He's definitely insane and either very brave or very stupid.

A lady in our area has a business taking care of pets in their homes when the owners are away. She comes to the house once a day while the owners are on vacation, feeds the pets, changes the water. cleans the litter box (as necessary), brings in the mail, waters the plants, and so on.

We have a cat and a guinea pig, and use this lady's service every time we go away, sometimes for two weeks at a time. I don't know what we would do without this service. We have been using her since we move into our house three years ago.

She charges $14 per visit (each lasts 20-30 minutes), and seems to be doing pretty well. She has one person who works for her who occasionally does the home visits.

I guess you could bring the kids with you, although I can imagine that might be a little taxing. Maybe you can just focus on building the customer base and hire someone to help with the visits. The main thing is to market the service locally with flyers and yellow page listings. The lady we use doesn't have a web site, but I would think that you could create a value-add web site to help market the service and build a customer base.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Not much that isn't a scam, hg. You might consider nite office cleaning, where your kids are in bed, your husband in front of the tv and you go vaccuum. There really isn't much if you need something now. If it's there, I never found it. Alot depends on where you live and what opportunities might be available.

[ChemistCat]

Look into attending college! Grants and very-low-interest loans can cover tuition and nearly all of your living expenses. My church has an Institute of Religion down at the campus, and the students swap off childcare with one another.

I started back in school when my youngest was 2. I just took classes two nights a week then. Now that they're all in school, I take a full time load as my health allows. I'm a good student and being grown-up I can run intellectual rings around the unfocused kids in my classes. Age IS an advantage!

FINANCIALLY: I get enough student aid to enable me to keep the kids in a private school--tuition is about what part-time daycare alone was when they were younger. I should get my degree in about a year and by that time I will have a student loan payment comparable to a low car payment to make every month--yes, that will go on for just about forever, but if something happens to me--death or disabling--the debt is written off and my family doesn't have to pay it back. As long as the liberals have put such programs in place, for goodness sakes do what you can to put yourself in a higher income bracket later.

I feel so strongly that all women need a college education! That way we can be true helpmeets for a husband, or if we have no husband for whatever reason, we can stand on our own two feet in a hostile world, and support our kids.

[honeygrl]

I could get all tuition paid with Hope Scholarship if I took classes at the tech school here but they don't have any classes that interest me in any way unfortunately. When my youngest gets a bit older I'll likely get some college under my belt somewhere but she's still breastfeeding and it's hell on anyone to keep her more than 2 hours. I'm amazed that at 7 1/2mths old she still thinks she's supposed to nurse every 2 hours. She'll eat some solids now but not enough to make her happy yet without breastmilk with it and in a bottle or sippy cup just doesn't do it for her.

[ChemistCat]

My youngest nursed till she was nearly 3. I had a series of medical tests that meant she couldn't nurse, so that was that for us. Besides, I was TIRED of it by then. That they told me to stop nursing was really just the help I needed to steel myself--one is inclined to spoil one's last child, and it's good to be forced to stop that.

It was awful as she wasn't ready to give it up, even at almost 3, but it just had to be. Life is full of hard knocks, I told her, and after a few days she just about forgot all about it. But I'll tell you--she didn't get the ear infections and colds and other things the other two picked up almost constantly during late infancy and early childhood--they had weaned themselves at 7 months or so. Prolonged nursing IS very healthy, especially if it continues into toddlerhood, when they get into so much mischief (and contagion!) So I hope whatever you decide to do allows you to keep taking care of your daughter the way YOU want to do it.

You shouldn't have to be worrying about working outside the home yet. I wish I had some magic "J.K. Rawling" success tip for you. I can tell that you have enough on the ball--but there just aren't enough places for the balls to go!

[honeygrl]

"My youngest nursed till she was nearly 3. I had a series of medical tests that meant she couldn't nurse, so that was that for us. Besides, I was TIRED of it by then. That they told me to stop nursing was really just the help I needed to steel myself--one is inclined to spoil one's last child, and it's good to be forced to stop that.

It was awful as she wasn't ready to give it up, even at almost 3, but it just had to be."

You know, I bet at her age it had become a habit more than a need. My 2 1/2 yr old still sucks his paci and it's a habit I'm not sure I want to bother breaking yet. It's the orthodontic type that won't ruin his teeth and sometimes if he gets really insane, it'll be an instant fix. My hubby has been obsessing lately over it and wants me to just take it away cold turkey but I have yet to go along with that. I told him that HE doesn't have to deal with tantrums so let me keep the one thing that helps me with them. He only uses it routinely at night anyhow and doesn't even suck it in his sleep.

[ChemistCat]

When you *do* decide to take them away from him, all you need to do is sneak around with scissors and carefully nip off just the end of all his pacifiers. Then he may ask you to fix them, and you can solemnly examine them and tell him you can't. He may ask you go buy more at the store, which can be answered one way or another--we have no money for more, whatever. Then be prepared with some distractions, keep him busy, make sure he's tired at bedtime that night. There might be a difficult day or so but he'll forget all about them pretty quickly.

This worked on our oldest and youngest when it was time to lose the pacifiers. It DIDN'T work on the middle one who was an inveterate thumbsucker. You can take away a pacifier when you've had enough--but nothing we could do would make that thumbsucking stop till SHE decided to stop.

Looking back, I honestly cannot remember why it was so blamed important to make our toddlers stop doing that, to take away something they enjoyed and which brought them comfort. I think it was to encourage more talking. I rue the day...!

[honeygrl]

Well, since the 7mth old has pacis too he would just steal hers LOL She started as a thumb sucker but I made her take a paci instead. I have a u/s pic of her sucking her thumb at 12wks already. The books say they can't do that until 15wks but I can prove them wrong!