Oh I’ve been fighting malware,
All the livelong day!
I’ve been fighting malware,
Trying to make it go away!

Can’t I find the files that were
Infected so early in the morn?
Scanning the computer over
and over and over again!

Scanning, what’d it find,
Scanning, what’d it find,
Scanning, what’d it find for meeee?
Scanning, what’d it find,
Scanning, what’d it find,
Oh come on, let this be it!

Think of this as sung to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”. Probably badly too. It’s been a long day and I still don’t know if I’ve got it. Just glad in a way that it’s my husband’s computer rather than mine. I can at least do something semi-productive while waiting for each scan to finish.

Gas prices just keep going up. This has been going on for a while, but now many areas are breaking $4 a gallon – easily. It’s not a comfortable situation if you have a long commute.

And this is one of the most obvious ways that working outside the home has become more expensive. Many other prices have gone up as well.

I’ve come to realize that more and more people are getting serious about working at home, at least some of the time. They may only be able to telecommute a day or two a week, but the savings are obvious.

The challenge can be getting an employer to agree to let you telecommute. It’s not impossible if your job is suited to telecommuting, and many employers are feeling enough of a pinch from gas prices themselves that they may be more reasonable about it now than in the past.

This is why many others are looking at home business as an option. Most can be worked as you continue with your day job, so that you aren’t starting with no income whatsoever. You can find out if the business is going to be for you.

Starting a home business isn’t something you should do lightly. You should research your options and get several ideas for what you want to do. Then you can figure out which you want to focus on first.

Just one. You shouldn’t try to run multiple businesses right at the start. While there is something to be said for diversifying your income sources, if you try to do that right at the start you risk failing at them all. Learn how to run one business before you try to run several.

The beauty of it is that so many businesses can be run primarily online or entirely online. Even if you’re freelancing and taking on clients you can often do all meetings through email, IM or even VOIP. You may rarely need to meet with someone face to face.

That saves a lot of gas. Not to mention the other expenses.

If you want to consider this option, there are some things you will want to consider first to get a solid look at what you will be saving. It’s not just the gas money, after all.

You’ll cut back on dry cleaning bills, most likely. Most people who work at home don’t dress up for it. Some do feel more comfortable that way. Will you?

Similarly, you’ll probably spend less on your professional wardrobe.

Daycare may or may not be needed. This depends on the age of your children and how willing they will really be to let you work the hours you need. Not every parent who works at home keeps the kids there too.

You’ll probably eat out less. My lunch is often the previous night’s leftovers. Much cheaper than eating out. And of course there are many other fixings so that I can have a good lunch any day.

You can estimate these factors to figure out how much your home business needs to be reliably earning before you can quit your job. For most people this takes a while, and you should expect that. But you can also figure out if there’s a lower income level at which you can switch to a pure home business model.

And of course, figure out what you are willing to spend on a home business. It’s easy to underestimate what a business, particularly an online business, will cost you. Online businesses are relatively cheap to start, and you can start free if you really want to, but it’s often better to spend some money to get things moving a little faster. This means you need to know how much you are willing to risk and how much you will reinvest as you start earning.

If you can come up with ways to use less gas, the continuing rise in gas prices will still hurt, but you can limit its impact. How and where you work are potentially great places to cut back on your gas usage.

You’ve probably seen the ads often on television. Bundle your telephone, cable and internet (or similar services) and save money. Does it really work?

Not always!

In most cases you can do better by picking the best price for each service you want. The bundled price is simply better than if you bought the individual services from the company offering the bundle. They may not be beating the individual prices you can get.

Now prices can vary from one area to another, so it’s hard to say what the best companies will be for you. It can also depend on what level of service you really want. DSL, for example, may be quite acceptable for some people as an internet service, while others will only want cable. If you’re compromising on the quality or features you need, you are not going to be happy with a bundle.

Similarly, you may have had a bad experience with a particular cell phone carrier, or you may not get good reception in your area. And of course you may still be stuck in the middle of a two year contract that it’s not worthwhile to break.

This of course brings us to the point of “do you really need all those services?” And the answer is a very individual thing. You may have a good reason for needing both a land line and cell phone. You may need the high speed internet so that you can work from home more easily. But if you don’t need a service, bundling isn’t going to change that. Don’t use a bundle to add in a service you don’t actually want or need.

These days you have a lot of choices when it comes to land line telephone service. If you shop around, you can often do better outside of a bundle than in one. Similar for cell phones.

Cable television service, on the other hand, you often only have one choice, or else you have to go to satellite which not everyone wants to do.

As you compare, make sure you find out what the prices are after taxes and fees. If you look at your land line telephone bill, for example, you will see a number of fees and taxes added to the cost. These would be an issue when you bundle too.

It can be difficult to get an estimate of the taxes you will pay for some services when you order. It may not be at the customer service representative’s fingertips. But you can estimate based on what you pay for each now and do your best to get more information on the services you would be changing.

The one convenience many people state for bundling is that you get only one bill to pay. For me, that’s not much of a convenience, as bills can be paid automatically. Each still needs to be reviewed, but it’s not like you have to painstakingly write out a check for these services every month unless that’s still the way you prefer to do it.

As with anything else, bundling is only worth it if you’ve shopped around and you know what the deal really is. Don’t assume the commercials will tell you everything.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve had people ask me how they can earn some money online fast. It’s generally about some crisis in their lives, and they just need to earn some money, now!

While I’m not entirely unsympathetic to such needs, I do always mention to these people that very, very few people can manage that, and they are best off getting a regular job if things are so urgent. Or a second one if they already work.

It’s one of the ugly truths of working at home that it’s not so easy as many would claim to make a living. Some do earn money that quickly. More do not.

In a bad situation you should always go for the money you know you can get. That is, a job. And while jobs are somewhat harder to find right now than at other times in many areas, you generally can find something to do. Think about temp agencies, grocery stores, retail, fast food and restaurants if you need a job fairly quickly and earning something is more important than the exact type of job.

But if you need money really, really fast, a job isn’t the answer either.

A garage sale or selling things on eBay is a much better way to bring in some fast money. Almost everyone has some stuff they can sell. It may be hard to part with things you’ve had for years, but if that’s what it takes to get by, sometimes that is quite simply what you have to do.

Think of working at home as a long term strategy. It may pay off in the short run if you do everything right, but you are more likely to go through a significant learning curve. It may be years before you’re earning a living online.

Then again, it could be months. It depends on how well what you’re doing suits you and your customers, and how fast you learn. But don’t expect it to be one month to success.

Perhaps the fastest way to earn money online, if you have the skills, is to freelance. There are a number of sites, such as Guru, eLance and Shelancers where you can find work as a writer, website designer, graphic designer and so forth. It takes some time to get started, but once you have some clients things can go rather nicely. And if you provide a quality service you may get regular clients and word of mouth working for you.

Do not expect others to do all the legwork for you, however. I’ve had many people ask me if there’s such a thing as a real work at home job, when they’ve found me through my site that has a nice long list of jobs. If the resources are there in front of you, take advantage. If you need help figuring out what to do, ask for help and include your interests.

It takes a lot of self-motivation to succeed in any work at home endeavor, whether it be a job or a home business. Keep that in mind even when you ask for help. Your willingness to work should show from the start.