Chances are, right now you are glued to a computer in a 4X4 cube. It is 10:30am and you have spent one and a half hours screaming at the driver next to you for trying to squeeze in, uninvited, in your lane.
And you were stuck behind that garbage truck with a fresh load of not so fresh trash while you were desperately trying to pull up your windows.
Your boss had been quite particular about your presence at the 11:00am meeting with the big guy. You had hoped to polish up the presentation, by reaching in early, but alas your two year old decided to play fetch with your dog, unfortunately with a used diaper. And it’s only Monday!
The only thing that keeps you from going full on Office Space crazy, with the printer, is the cozy little corner on your desk, with a picture of your last vacation, a little bamboo plant your mom gave you for good luck (rright!) and the World’s greatest Parent coffee mug.
Maybe it could be a little less dramatic and everything is probably a-okay at your job. But imagine this. It is 10:30am, you are sitting on your couch with your laptop. You had a late night with your newly born, unable to fall asleep. So you probably woke up around eight, fed the baby, walked the dog, made yourself a nice cup of coffee and then parked yourself on the couch.
It helps that your infant child is sleeping and you are now ready to resume Work. You heard right! You can earn money by working from home. And no this is not like making some money while helping out a Nigerian prince by responding to an email with your account information, birth date, address and blood type.
This is a real deal, people! There are quite a few lucrative job options that don’t need you to possibly smell rotting spinach, on your commute to work. These are jobs you can do in the comfort of your own home. And while they may not have high executive starting salaries, they are still quite decent and give you the option of the convenience of home.
Such jobs are most popular among stay-at-home moms who are unable to leave their children without the attendance of a parent. However there is no reason why these jobs should be exclusive for only stay-at-home moms. Many men who are stay-at-home-dads or for that matter anyone who either chooses or is unable to work from outside of home can take a look at the various job options laid out below.
The trick, you should keep in mind, is that these job options require you to identify your strength and then market yourself well. Be enterprising (read this). You can’t just expect any business or company to pay you money if you don’t have a skill to offer or if they don’t know your ability to produce good work.
7 Best Jobs for Stay-At-Home Moms (and Dads)
Easy and Lucrative work-from-home career options
1. You are Vincent Van Photoshop
You are an artist. You are also decently skilled in graphics. You are probably the friend everyone goes to, to fix a badly taken photograph-say removing the annoying neighbor photobombing your perfectly posed engagement picture.
You have had a knack of designing your own greeting cards or have, in the past, even explored graphic designing as a viable career. Well you don’t have to stop because of a constraint requiring you to spend a large portion of your day at home.
There are many options to create flyers, promotional art, seasonal art, etc and there are publishers always looking for freelancers to fill in the seasonal rush.
2. You are a photographer, an artist, a craftsman or a sculptor
You could be any or all of those and find a way to sell your masterpieces. If you are a photographer, you can provide photography services at weddings or other events. If you are a budding Picasso, you can probably arrange a way to exhibit your work at a local festive event, like a Fair perhaps.
Or better still, you can sell your work on Ebay or some online portal. Who knows, if your masterpiece catches the fancy of some big shot collector, you might just be moving your family into a beach side villa or something. You know the basic things a successful artist may enjoy.
3. Those who can do, also teach
There could be many among you who are experts in a subject matter. There might even be a next door kid who often stops by for your help to solve his daily tragedy, trigonometry. You have managed to reduce his fears and now he has been coming over with his BFF, for math is not everyone’s friend!
If you become a little enterprising, you can turn these frequent math exorcisms, into tutorials. You might even get a few more students through word of mouth. You can start with lower-than-market charge for tutoring, and then slowly increase when you (and they) are more confident about the arrangement.
If you have issues with lack of space, arrange to teach at the students’ homes. Perhaps even try your local coaching centre for a few classes a week.
And then there is a relatively new, yet popular, thing about online teaching. You can either choose to work for a website like Vendantu, or many like it, that specialize in interactive teaching, online.
You can even create subject content for coaching centers for a decent sum. Jobs like this are aplenty and only require you to be skilled at what you already know.
4. Open a child care/creche
Well, you are already taking care of your own, so why not add a few more toddlers who aren’t yours. Hey, you can even be a job provider and hire some help. Those parents working from outside of their homes would welcome the presence of good healthy care for their children, during the day.
And you can start small, a few kids at a time, and increase the business as and when you can afford to. You can even rent a place if things start going really well.
Fair warning though. Kids and germs have a mutual understanding of infecting everyone around. Also, befriend a pediatrician as a consultant for the times when a kid shoves a candy up his nose!
How to spread the word? Why not start with your kid’s play school and get them to spread the word for you.
5. You fancy yourself to be a chef
Wonderful! Guess what is common in our country-festivities. And what do festivities mean for the attendees? Psst! Truth is harsh. Nobody really cares it is your birthday…everyone’s there for the food. So why not capitalize on this great obsession for delectables and use your skill, to make a mighty fine meal, into a business catering small parties.
You will need a small amount of capital to get the big kadhai and you know, everything you need to cook with. Then simply use word of mouth, social media or even flyers in your local community centre to get the foodies flocking.
6. The Event Manager
You are organized. You network well. And you have that genetic disposition to boss around.
Then you might have what it takes to organize and manage small scale events, like birthdays, anniversaries, the first day of summer, the last day of school or perhaps because some parent wants to celebrate the falling of the first milk tooth!
You step in as an event manager, organize the decorations, invitations, food, help, entertainment and wrap up. And if you are already doing that catering business, then just naturally guide your clients to have the food catered from you.
Have them give you a budget and charge them a percentage. You organize one event and the invitees might just like what you do and there you go- you have already got business lined up for the next three months!
7. To be or not to be…a freelance writer
Only if you have a flair for the words. This is a time to shine. Everyone is online. Social media has helped to make everyone a mini celebrity. So if you feel like you can write well and have something important to say, then blogging on platforms like Careerizma might be a good avenue to explore – read how Careerizma works.
Build your own brand and you will find that there are many companies and organizations who are looking for skilled writers, to promote their brand or product. You can even get into content development and get paid for setting up the visible content of a website.
Over time you will need to train yourself to think of the technical aspects of promoting your posts. But if you become successful, you can become the next Kulwant Nagi.
In the end, this list is not exhaustive and there are quite a few ways to get paid while working from home- sometimes for just trying out products made by a company. But you should be beware of scams.
There are, unfortunately, many bad elements out there who may lure unsuspecting individuals with promises of large pay offs/per day only if you agree to do some online survey while giving them all your information.
You must have seen those annoying pop-up ads that claim a certain Seema gets paid 36k per week for shopping on www.LetMeJustTakeAllYourMoney.com. Don’t fall for that. Use legitimate sites like Sheroes or even any of the usual job portals like Monster, LinkedIn, Naukri etc.
Good luck on your job hunt from home. You are smart, skilled and enterprising. So if you do manage to get the best of both worlds, more power to you! And above all do what you love, however small it may seem at first.
As a great philosopher once said,
Sometimes, the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.
– Winnie the Pooh
