Here I go along week 2 of having my husband gone all week. It’s rough being the only one home with the kids 24 hours a day from Sunday night through Friday evening, but for now that’s what it takes.

It really makes me appreciate how much my husband does around here.

It’s not like the days are all that different in some ways. After all, I’ve always been the primary caregiver, and at home all the time anyhow. But now there’s no relief, not first thing in the morning or in the evening. It’s allllllll me!

Brent’s always been a great daddy. Up with the kids in the morning, especially now that we have a baby still getting me up at night. Up in the middle of the night if either of the other kids needs a parent. A lousy housekeeper, but good at working in the yard and getting the kids out of my hair when I need a break.

I don’t have that right now for 5 days a week. I am so ready to get this move done and over with!

Researching an online home business is tough these days. It’s not just the ever present scams, it’s detecting them as those who promote them get smarter about how you research opportunities.

The big example is that searching for the opportunity or ebook name plus “scam” is often taken up by people promoting the opportunity. They’ve come to realize that this is a big term people use to check them out, so they try to claim it for themselves on the positive side of things.

These “reviews” can be hard to tell from the real thing. However, if you see a review of an opportunity or ebook starting out with something along the lines of “Is (opportunity) a Scam?” and then go into a glowing review of how it’s not a scam, be wary. Be doubly wary if all they have to say is positive. Just about any opportunity is going to have some negatives. A good review should note these.

Be even more wary if you see more or less the same review on site after site. Odds are it was provided by the business itself and the affiliates or promoters were too lazy to change it for their own sites.

So Where Are the Real Reviews??

Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? And it’s not easy to do sometimes.

Persistence is your #1 tool. Search on the business name. Use the name plus review. Use the name plus scam.

Check the testimonials on the site and see if you can contact the people giving the testimonials. If they have domain names with their testimonials you may be able to find a way to contact them on your own.

A lot of the big launches have big name marketers giving testimonials. That’s nice, but to me it doesn’t prove much of anything. A person who has been having success for a long time is going to see things quite differently from someone just starting out, and what they like may not be as useful to you if you don’t have the background knowledge yet.

Check their contact information and whois. Contact email addresses should be related to their business website in most cases. If you own your domain name, this is easy and comes with the hosting. Whois information can be kept private, but if it shows names and contact information it must be honest.

Read all the fine print, privacy policy, terms of service and so forth. Some sites don’t make it nearly clear enough that there’s a monthly expense for the information or opportunity. You need to know what your real expenses will be.

Try to figure out how it is you will be earning money. Mistrust any opportunity where either that’s not clear or you realize that you’re earning for recruiting rather than selling, especially if you only earn for recruiting.

Check Ripoff Report. Check scam.com. You can even check with the BBB, but honestly they have their problems as a resource.

Be wary if the site looks like a newspaper review of the business opportunity. That’s a popular way to present some programs just now, but they really are not news stories. Take a good look and you will realize that pretty much everything clickable on these sites relates to the opportunity being presented.

Ask on any work at home forums you know, such as the one here.

Think about if you can really afford to risk the money. No matter how good the opportunity, even when it is legitimate, you face the risk of failure. Not every person will succeed in any particular business. Sometimes it’s not a good match; other times it’s a scam. Either way, be sure that you can afford the risk.

Will This Guarantee That You Don’t Get Scammed?

Sorry, no, can’t promise you that. But you can cut down the odds that you’ll be scammed, which is a great place to start.

Always remember, be skeptical. Know the difference between home businesses and work at home jobs. Know what’s likely and what’s improbable. Ask questions. Do your due diligence. You are the one responsible for your decision in the long run.

And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

This has been kind of fun. I’ve been using Craigslist to find home rental listings, and they often have a link to Google Maps to see where the home is.

When you go to the map, most also have a link to Google Street View. It’s fun because it’s a slight preview of the neighborhood. I get a good look at the house, can go up and down the street and see something of what the neighborhood looks like.

It’s not a strong impression, not quite like being there, but it’s not a bad place to start. It’s easier to tell on Street View than from satellite photos is the neighborhood is seriously run down or on the newer side.

There’s still a lot more than that to picking a good place. I still need to check out the schools and really see the neighborhoods. But the extra impression of the area is nice to have.

Guess what? I hate moving. Really. It’s a pain and gets in the way of more interesting things.

Sure I’ll be glad to be in a new home, and new places are fun once you get there. I just don’t like the process it takes to do that.

Especially when it takes away from my work time and means I don’t have my husband at home. Neither of those is good for my state of mind, which some say is pretty crazy to begin with.

But for now, when we don’t know just how soon we’ll be moving, I think I have some parts under decent control.

Parenting’s tough, of course, but that’s a balance I have to deal with all the time anyhow. The lack of any sort of relief or help is hard, but not so bad, as I’ve said before.

Packing I try to do for about an hour a day, getting all the stuff we don’t need for daily life put in boxes.

I’m a little shorter on sleep than usual too. That’s because I keep staying up trying to get things done while I have complete peace and quiet, and no one waiting for me to go to bed. After all, baby’s going to wake me up whenever she needs me anyhow.

I’m trying not to overdo that part. Went to bed at a more normal hour last night, which I think helped some.

The hardest part has been house hunting. It’s hard to do that alone, or rather, from a distance and even with relatives willing to watch the kids so I can look faster. A part of that is just being comfortable where I am right now. It’s a nice neighborhood and we have lots of friends. Not the easiest thing to give up, considering how long it took us to really settle in here in the first place.

I got to take a peek at a Kindle today at last. It was during my kids’ swimming lessons. The grandmother next to me was reading a Frog and Toad story to the little girl on her lap, while the girl’s brother was in his lesson.

Pretty nice.

The little girl really appreciated having a story read to her because, let’s face it, watching someone else have a swimming lesson is boring. A Kindle is probably no easier to carry around than a child’s book, but then again you can carry several in it.

One of my sisters bought one recently too. She loves it; her husband doesn’t see the fascination. That pretty much seems to be the reaction I see around. I tend to agree with my brother-in-law more than my sister, although I haven’t actually tried one yet. Peeking over at someone else’s as they read to child and talking about it with them doesn’t make for much of an evaluation.

As for me, I’m most into paperback books. Let me get into a used bookstore with money to spend, and things get interesting. Much more my style, even if they aren’t as portable when you’re taking a bunch along.

But I’m curious what others think, and so…

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