How to Make a Livable Wage Working from Home

Working from home is becoming a popular choice for a lot of people for several different reasons, the first of which has to do with people’s desire to improve their quality of life by creating their own work schedules and have more flexibility with their time. After all, when you work for an employer in an office setting, you are required to work pre-set hours. This kind of flexibility equals greater freedom in the eyes of many. Of course, on the flip side, when you work for an employer, you are giving them your time and sacrificing your flexibility/freedom, but in return you are also getting a steady income. So, if you want to work from home because you desire greater flexibility and freedom, but you also want to make a livable wage, how can you achieve this goal? It is not easy, but it can be done, and here is a step by step plan about how to do it.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. First, do not give up your day job right away. Hang onto it. Some people, in their eagerness to work from home exclusively, “throw in the towel” on their steady office jobs too soon. This is not a good plan because earning a livable wage from home takes time and making the full transition from office worker to home worker can take months or even years, depending on your particular situation. The sooner you acknowledge the reality that you will need to be patient during this transition period, the better off you will be. Since you are not giving up your day job, you may need to do your work from home job(s) in the evenings or on weekends, at least at first. (Of course there is one exception to this first step and that is the following: if you are in a financial position to give up your day job with little to no consequences, you can plunge directly into working from home full time.) Once you have accepted that there will be a transitional period (the length of which varies from person to person) involved in making this change from office work to home based work, you can focus your full time efforts on making your plan work.

2. Step two is to research different work at home options that would mesh with your particular set of skills, interests and talents. For instance, if you have a background in sales, you could work as a sales representative for a company that enables you to throw parties in people’s homes selling cosmetics or kitchen products or other items. Similarly, if you like to write, you could investigate creating content for people’s websites. (There is a thriving market for freelance writers who get paid per article or blog post for their work.) If you write quickly and well, this can be a good option for you. Alternatively, you may want to run a home business by buying and selling items on one or more online auction websites. Don’t shortchange yourself during this research phase of your effort. When it comes to working from home, you want to make the best possible choices. Some people rush through the research process, and in the process, they may get defrauded or tricked. Therefore, you must proceed with caution and with the understanding that there are some con artists out there who are more than willing to take advantage of people who are brand new to working at home. (For research purposes, the work at home message boards can be a great resource, alerting people to which are the fraudulent work at home companies versus which ones are legitimate.)

3. After you have done your research and due diligence, your next step is to apply for the specific work at home jobs that interest you the most. Approach this step with your utmost professionalism. The better your resume (and/or portfolio and/or writing clips are), the greater your chances are of getting hired. Cast a wide enough net to hear some responses. And don’t give up if you experience some rejections along the way. Job hunting for work at home jobs (or freelance assignments or any other type of home based work) can be just as difficult and time consuming as job hunting for office work.

4. Once you start getting job (or freelance contract) offers, accept as many as you feel you can do well. Challenge yourself, but don’t overdo it or stretch yourself too thin, because you don’t want to burn out. How many work at home jobs (or freelance assignments) you are able to accept will depend, of course, upon your particular work schedule. If you are also working an office job, you will not have as much time as someone else who is working from home exclusively. Build upon each individual work at home accomplishment by continually adding more. For instance, if you are writing articles for websites like eHow, work steadily to build up your library of articles.

Tips & Warnings

• Be patient with yourself. This process takes time. Also, there is a lot of talk about having “multiple income streams” when working at home. Be aware that this is just a fancy way of saying that the more work at home jobs (or freelance assignments or home businesses) or other work at home activities that you pursue (including writing for sites like eHow), the greater your chances are of creating a sustainable and livable wage over the course of time by working from home.

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on 10/3/2009 Thank you for your 5* advise.