Some telemarketers just don’t want to listen. I suspect their training keeps them from it.

My husband answered a call this morning. I gather the call first pretended to be some sort of a survey call, but it was really about trying to get us to sign up with a debt consolidation company… except they called it debt validation, and said we’d only have to pay 55% of our debts. Sounds like consolidation to me, guys, especially since we know where those debts we have came from.

It took my husband a long time on the phone with them. I would have long since hung up, personally, but he was in one of those moods.

The caller kept insisting that the initial consultation was free, especially anytime my husband asked about later costs. That and the 55% were his big things to go back to.

It was kind of fun listening when my husband explained that we are on the Do Not Call List. My husband was on his second person by then, who very quickly passed him back to the first one.

My husband tried to find out how they got our number.

“We did a survey in (our area),” they told him. Of course, we haven’t participated in any surveys or anything like that, for reasons such as this. But as I told my husband, the sales people may well not know how the numbers came to be on the list.

After he was done talking to the guy, I told my husband I would have kept things to two points myself: That we are on the Do Not Call List, and that we would like the name of their company. Once it became clear that it was in fact a sales call, that should have been the only two pieces of information that mattered.

It’s definitely a rough time to be searching for a job in my area. My husband is getting some interviews, but not a lot. We’ve been having to think on places to look for work that might not be so obvious.

Of course, we have the usual… search Monster, Career Builder, Yahoo! HotJobs, Craigslist and so on. But the other day my husband came up with a really great place to look for local jobs.

The Chamber of Commerce website.

It was one of those blinding flashes of inspiration. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself, since I know the Chamber of Commerce is supposed to be a good place for business networking. I hadn’t thought about their local business listings as a way to spot local companies to apply to.

Of course, one important thing to remember is that you don’t always have to meet each and every requirement listed on a job description. If it’s a skill that can be picked up quickly, the employer may be agreeable to train. This is something my husband has struggled with at times, since he wants to be a great match!

All too soon my husband also has to report to the unemployment office for the stuff they want to do in person with him. Hopefully he’ll get some useful information from that.

We’re all slowly recovering from being sick, which of course has been another complication for job hunting. Didn’t stop the hunt, but it sure made it harder to focus.

Dratted flu bug.

It’s had pretty much the whole family down for close to a week. First Ariel, with a 103.5 degree temperature, and eventually an ear infection. Then Gage, and finally me and my husband.

Of course, just as we get sick is when the kids are feeling better. While it’s nice seeing them perky and playful rather than cranky and exhausted, it’s very wearing to deal with when I’m sick myself.

This is an incredibly frustrating time to be sick, since I wanted to get my business ramped up some with my husband out of work. I’m way behind my initial schedule for that. The kids needed so much extra attention when they were sick, and right now I’m fully capable of sleeping until late in the morning and taking a 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon. This bug really just takes it out of me.

But I’m quite determined to get things moving again soon.

Whether you’ve been a stay at home mom for a while or are just starting out, this is one of those questions that can really hit you hard. Going down to a single income as a family is quite a tough choice in most cases. And in the current uncertain economy it can be even easier to feel guilty about not contributing to the family’s finances.

Directly, that is. As in earning money.

Indirectly, there’s plenty a stay at home mom can do. She is often the one to handle all the shopping and keeping track of all the bills. If you don’t think that has an impact on the family finances, think again.

Your first consideration is always how the family will manage to get by with one income rather than two. Sometimes the answer is quite surprising. Depending on what you earn, by the time taxes and the costs of wardrobe, eating out, childcare and so forth come out, you aren’t bringing that much home. Sometimes it can easily be made up for; other times it will take more planning.

If having one parent stay at home is going to be a huge sacrifice for your family, take a look at what can be cut. Don’t start with the grocery bill. Just because you have to buy food every week doesn’t mean it’s the most important bill.

Instead, start with your regular bills and figure out what can be cut. Cutting your cable plan down to basic can save you a nice chunk of money every month, and you probably won’t even miss most of the channels you drop. Decide if you really need both a landline telephone and a cell phone. Then decide if one or the other should be dropped.

Cutting those monthly expenses makes a lot of sense. It’s savings you won’t have to think about every time you go shopping.

But the biggest savings of all can be in paying down credit card debt.

Credit card debt, as a rule, is expensive. Much worse than paying for a mortgage. If you can get it paid down, your budget will have far more leeway, and that’s vital if you have only one income coming in.

You should also take some time to think about the things you spend money on, but really shouldn’t. A lot of people, for example, get new cell phones regularly, even though the old one is perfectly good. Same goes for televisions when they decide it’s time for a big screen unit. The list goes on and the numbers add up.

Get those other expenses in control as well as thinking about how you spend money at the grocery store. The broader your efforts the more you will save.

But What If You Want to Earn Money?

Of course, there’s nothing saying you absolutely cannot earn money as a stay at home mom. Many do, and despite how it can seem at times, not all work at home opportunities are scams. It’s just that there are so many scams out there it’s easy to get caught by one.

The trick to working at home is balancing that with the reasons you choose to be a stay at home mom in the first place. That is, as a rule, the kids.

I won’t lie to you. Working at home is tough, and sometimes it does limit what you can do. But what you don’t want is something that takes you from them every bit as much as working outside the home does. Kind of takes away the point of being a stay at home mom, after all.

Look for flexibility, and look for something you can love doing. Those two elements are key.

There are many factors to consider when looking at work at home opportunities. Job or business. How much do you want to be dealing with other people? Face to face, over the phone or over the internet?

Handling the “What Ifs”

There are a lot of what ifs that you should face if you want to be a stay at home mom. The biggest one is “What if the situation changes?”

“What if your husband loses his job?”

“What if the two of you separate or divorce?”

“What if a medical issue comes up?”

You do need to have a backup plan in case anything happens. Obviously you hope that none do, but life happens. Better to plan ahead than to be caught unawares.

This means keeping up your own job skills, whether or not you work at home. Having savings. Talking about how potential problems will be handled. Not panicking if something does happen.

You may never need your backup plans. But if you do, you will be very grateful to have some idea what to do to keep your family going. The middle of a crisis is a rotten time to have to figure all this out.

Being a stay at home mom has its own challenges. Just due to personality differences it’s not for everyone. But many learn to love it, and soon have trouble imagining doing anything else.

Network marketing is a very popular way to start a home business. You get to represent great products that you really enjoy, and build up a nice income. You can even help people you know get started themselves.

But for a lot of people it’s the wrong choice… at least until they’ve really thought about why they want to join the opportunity.

1. You think it’s an easy road to riches.

Just as with any other business, more people fail in network marketing than succeed. Those who succeed work hard on their business and take it seriously.

It also takes time. Those who are really good at it can build up a fair income within a year, but most take longer.

2. You think the only way to build a downline is to pester everyone you know.

That’s the old way to build a downline. There are all kinds of options that don’t involve alienating those you care about.

3. You’re considering options based only on what you think will bring in the most money.

Money’s great, but your enthusiasm for the product is what will help you to make sales. Also, if you choose a product line you feel awkward or uncomfortable selling, you won’t impress potential customers.

There’s a big reason that people talk about passion in the network marketing industry. Passion is what helps to drive you when things are tough. It’s what impresses your customers with the quality of your products.

Some people can cope with just their passion to earn money, but it’s much better to be passionate about the product as well.

4. You don’t want to sell or market.

Some opportunities trumpet the lack of needing to sell their products. But what you still have to do is market them, which is really an aspect of selling. There are many ways you can promote your business, from the standbys of handing out business cards, carrying samples and telling everyone you meet about your business, to online marketing through websites.

The great part about network marketing opportunities today is that you can promote some of them 100% online. If the home party scene really isn’t your thing, you can try an opportunity that lets you develop your own website to get sales and build your downline.

5. You’ve hopped from opportunity to opportunity.

Many people spend so much time hoping for success in network marketing that they don’t give the opportunities they join the time to work out. If they don’t get instant success, off they go to the next opportunity!

If you’re still in that frame of mind that the next opportunity will be the big one, it’s time to slow down and review your expectations. You can’t assume that you will have instant success, or even success in 6 months. Giving up one opportunity and joining another means you keep having to start over. It’s not a way to succeed.

Being in the right frame of mind is one of the key steps to succeeding in direct sales. Expectations that are too high, fear of committing to an opportunity and other problems can make it harder for you to build a solid business.

If you’ve been considering joining a network marketing opportunity, or if you’ve been trying to get yours going, I suggest reading The 7  Great Lies of Network Marketing. It might just give you some insights and ideas for where things could work better with your business.