by joanne_ 19 Replies latest jw friends
Hi everyone, I know this has been brought up before. But I was just wondering, do any of you know of any home business, with an easy start-up, legit, and a nice little income earner. I am finding it tough, I am raising 2 teenage boys and my rent has gone up alot, starting Dec. 1.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Take care all
Joanne
Freelance secretarial work - typing cv's for individuals or offering typing services to businesses maybe?
It depends on your economic climate but I suppose its ideal to find a business which markets itself to either other businesses or indeed to individuals who have surplus income but not surplus time; finding out what they need and how much they might be prepared to pay to free up their time is the key in my view.
My advice is to research your intended market thoroughly; find out what your clients/customers want and how much they are prepared to pay; check out the competition and what approach they are taking and whether or not you need to penetrate an existing market or indeed find a niche that makes you different.
It neednt take much investment either, especially where such businesses are labour intensive and only require payment relating to time spent working.
Hope this helped and good luck!
DB74 (Gary) of the 'This time next year, we could be millionaires ' class!
Hi Joanne,
Are you looking for a full-time business or a supplemental income? If so, how many hours and what type of income are you looking for?
What are you currently doing and what thing would you consider as personal talents, experiences, interests, etc...?
I'm not sure about Canada but the US has a LOT of programs to help get women owned businesses off the ground. My wife and I own three small businesses and I'd be happy to share the "good and bad" that we've learned.
Never overlook the obvious or the obscure.... My sister has a small business where she make's clothing for renaissance festivals... she does this in one room of her house, part-time and generates about 60K per year. My wife and I are both professional clowns.. basically for grins on the weekends... there's a lot of volunteer hours but we still make over $150 an hour for playing with kids. I know another lady that makes cheesecakes in her kitchen and sells them to local restaurants... over 40K per year.
PM me if you wanna talk...
Gordon
P.S. First things first! Sell the boys to some third world sweatshop... you'll thank me for it!
Perhaps you should list your skills and we could go from there. There's tons of ideas that we could suggest, but if you don't have the needed skills there's no point in suggesting ideas in that field (search and peck you can't really type for people and make money).
Kwin
Instead of putting more work on yourself, why not get the boys to (a) get part time jobs after school, (b) help with expenses?
They could use the extra spending money for things they want to do, which takes some of the financial pressure off of you for their entertainment expenses. If you get each of them to give you $75 - $100 per month for room and board, plus get them to finance their own entertainment expenses like movies and videos (which were coming out of your pocket before, right?) that should help a lot.
The other thing that you might want to think about doing is looking for a place that you can buy and have stable regular payments for the term of the mortgage instead of being at the mercy of your landlord's rent increases. In some areas you can even get a mortgage with no downpayment, and the mortgage payments would be less than what you'd pay in rent. It's incredibly upsetting to be throwing money away in rent, when for the same amount you could be investing in something for yourself.
Dear Joanne:
Can you first tell us something about yourself?
What are your skills?
What do you find to be interesting?
What are you willing to do or can reasonably do?
Respectfully,
The Wanderer
First are you looking for a business to AT HOME or FROM HOME, from home has alot more opportunities. If you good at sales, commissioned selling is good. I sell promotional products to businesses. Pens , mugs, caps and t-shirts all having the business aqdvertising on them. Since I'm freelance I can off if I need to. I get paid weekly for the orders I send in. I don't have to buy anything, or use any capital. The downside is most businesses are open 9-5 weekdays.
Working from home must have been the holy grail for my single parent community. I've studied the prospects for over twenty years. The problem with successful home businesses, is that you have to be constantly drumming up new business as you try and meet your current commitments. Business startups take at least as much energy as a new baby.
I think the most efficient option for a single parent is a job with regular hours with a large employer, like IBM or a government office. That way, you have benefits and set hours. Hence, more time with your children.
BUT if you are committed to working from home, I'll tell you what I learned from those who were successful. Don't buy in to Tupperware or those other multi-level marketing schemes. Your take-home is not worth the effort. You may have to run several businesses on the side, say, a cleaning service and something else. I hope you are comfortable selling yourself. All the time. To family, friends and strangers.
The coolest at-home job I found was graphic artist. She established her reputation first, in New York. Ever after she worked from her acreage in the country, frequently reminding the big publishers of her existence by mailing out postcards of her work. She said Fed-Ex was her best friend.
By the way, the religious right is BIG on home-based businesses. You might find resources from them.
http://www.visionforumministries.org/events/eb/001/schedule.aspx
offering typing services to businesses maybe?
transcriptionists make great money. It can pretty much all be done from home, getting the oral transcription, to typing it, to sending it back over the net.
There is a turn-around time, and you have to take some kind of courses, and familiarize yourself with medical terminology.
Some women I know make $70,000 a yr, doing this out of their home.
For myself I would starve......lol
purps
