Sometimes the biggest challenge of being home with the kids is, well, the kids. Especially the ones too young for school. It’s exhausting not having a break from them at times. It can be hard to get anything done, whether you’re trying for a bit of housework or trying to earn money from home.

Even if you’re most comfortable with long stretches of work, parenthood often means learning to do more with small bouts of fast work. That’s just how kids are. You have to work hard, work fast and hope they’re feeling cooperative.

Here are some basic activities your kids may enjoy:

1. Having a friend over.

Believe it or not, once they’re used to each other this can really work. An extra child in your house can make it easier because the kids focus on playing with each other, not on trying to get your attention.

Work this one right and you can also earn trades with another stay at home parent. You take their kids, they take yours. Lots of fun for the kids and free quiet time for mom!

2. Water play.

Kids love water. I give my kids a plastic container full of water with some sponges and they take it outside and start scrubbing. This works best with some dish soap added so they have bubbles to enjoy as well.

Water painting can also work. Take a bowl of water, some paintbrushes, and some of the non-glossy ads you get in the mail or your newspaper. You can also use just plain newsprint. Young children love seeing the color change as the paper gets wet.

If the weather is warm enough you can also just set up sprinklers and work on things where you can still supervise as necessary.

3. Computer time.

My 3 year old loves to play on Starfall. It’s very simple for him to use, and means he’s working on the computer next to mine if I’m working. The controls are very simple for the ABC games, so you won’t be stopping too often to help your child out of a jam.

4. Paper and scissors.

Get some child safe scissors, give your child some paper, and let him or her at it.

You may have to watch things a little, as these are sharper than the ones we had as children, and experimentation will inevitably happen. But if you make the consequences good enough for any cutting of hair, clothing or other unauthorized objects the interest in cutting random stuff up goes way down.

The negative can be the cleanup. My kids can get paper just about down to confetti levels when they’re in the mood.

5. Mother’s helper.

I haven’t often used this one, but if a neighborhood child who isn’t quite old enough to babysit wants to earn a little money, this is a great way to let them help you. They just play with the kids and come to you with problems such as diapers, snack time or injuries.

6. Forts.

Kids love to make forts or tents. You can drape a sheet over the table, across some chairs, make it out of couch cushions, whatever works. It’s great for the imagination.

If you have a closet under the stairs you can also have what my family calls Narnia. You could refer to Harry Potter if that’s what your kids prefer, of course. They just play in the very back, doing whatever it is they want to imagine.

This is particularly fun if you are lucky enough to have an under stairway closet that has a turn in it. Kids love places that feel secret.

7. TiVo or DVR.

Yes, it can come down to turning on the TV. I have our TiVo set up to record my kids’ favorite shows. The nice thing is that since they can watch their favorites anytime they don’t spend any time at all waiting for it to come on. No watching a show just because it’s before a favorite, that is.

My 3 year old can even pause it. He loves that so that he can run to the bathroom or go play for a time in the middle of a show. Once he’s distracted from me he’s more likely to go play on his own. A single show running maybe 20 minutes sometimes lasts an hour because he has control.

Different things work for different families, and what works will change as kids get older. But getting any time at all to work when you’re staying at home can be a big treat.

I love working at home, especially not working for anyone else. The flexibility is a delight, and through the years I’ve learned to be more and more accountable to myself.

But when it comes to home business finances, you are responsible to more than just yourself. There are taxes to consider as well as the impact on your family’s earnings overall.

Home Business Income May Be Irregular

One of the nice things about traditional jobs is that you generally know what you’re going to earn. If your boss cuts your hours and you’re paid hourly, you know you’ll earn less, but for the most part there aren’t a lot of surprises.

Run a home business, on the other hand, and your efforts do not always correlate with what you earn. Sometimes earnings drop for no reason that you can see.

It may be that all your clients just happen to not need you right now. Or maybe the search engines aren’t favoring your site just now. Or you need to tweak your marketing copy.

There are a lot of possibilities out there, and you don’t have direct control over many of them. All you can do is keep working and try to bring the money back in.

Pay Attention to Taxes

It’s vitally important that you pay attention to what you are paying in taxes. When you are self employed you are responsible for all your taxes and Social Security payments. If you earn enough, you have to make quarterly payments. Paying them off each year on April 15 is not good enough… unless you enjoy paying penalties.

The dates can be a bit tricky until it becomes routine, as they do not exactly coincide with business quarters. April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15 of each year are the important dates to remember in the United States. If they fall on the weekend then it’s the Monday after.

It’s a great idea to talk to a tax professional about your situation. Much better to have some idea of what you need to do right now than to wonder what went wrong as you try to file your taxes. If you can find one who specializes in home business and self employed people, so much the better. They will better understand your needs.

Retirement Account? What Retirement Account?

It’s easy to not think about retirement when you have to do all the planning on your own. This should be as important to you as saving up for your quarterly tax payments. And you do have options to plan on your own, no employer account required. You can do a solo 401(k) and/or SEP-IRA, for example. Research and decide what will be best for you.

The Health Insurance Blues

I’m lucky. My husband has a job and so we have health coverage through that. I don’t have to find it on my own.

Not every home business owner has it that easy. If you need to get health coverage for yourself and/or your family on your own, be prepared for the expense and figure out what is best for your needs.

When my husband lost his job earlier this year, we were very tempted to go without as he hunted for a new job. The COBRA ran about $1200 a month, which is painful. But just to be sure, we stuck with it.

Considering I got pregnant during that time, I’d say it’s a very good thing we kept ourselves covered. You never know what will happen in life. Finding some sort of health coverage, even if it’s just for emergencies can save you a lot of money if that emergency happens.

Have you run into other financial hazards working at home?

While driving my son to speech therapy 3 mornings a week, I keep hearing this ad for Blue Hippo, a company that is targeting people who have too poor of credit to get that utterly vital laptop. They really talk it up.

Drives me nuts.

Typical offer for people who have poor credit; they don’t care how poor your credit is. They say they will get you that laptop. And in my area they’re even offering a free MP3 player and digital camera to go with it, which I find hilarious. I’ve bought cheap ones of each for around $10 around Christmas last year. They have a ways to go to impress me.

Basically, you make a down payment and 13 weeks of payments before you get anything. By the complaints linked above, getting what you paid for is at least sometimes problematic, so I thought about other ways people could get a laptop if that’s what they really wanted.

Freecycle

Maybe a long shot, maybe not. No doubt it would not be a new machine, but if you just need a basic laptop you can ask. Someone might have one they want to get rid of.

Craigslist

I checked the listings in my area, and there were a variety of laptops available. If you’re paying for something you have to be careful about what you get, of course, but there were a number of cheap laptops listed.

Saving Up

Should be obvious, but to some it isn’t. Nice part is that if you save up you can get a new machine or one that has been refurbished, depending on your needs.

According to Wikipedia, to get the Blue Hippo computer it’s $99 down and $39 a week for 13 weeks. If you can stick to that plan you’ve saved up $606. You can get a laptop from Amazon in that price range. You can find them from Dell™.

Honestly, it just drives me nuts seeing something like this that takes advantage of the desperate, who, if they could make those payments could just as easily save up for a laptop on their own, and not pay an outrageous price.

Do Without

And you really can’t forget the option to simply do without if things are all that bad. How many people really, truly need a laptop computer? They’re nice… I really want one myself. I was having some serious laptop envy during BlogWorld. But I do not, repeat, do NOT need one badly enough to spend the money.

There are some people who can have a greater need for one, such as college students. It’s not an utter necessity at most colleges, even if they are getting to be more common.

That’s the part of the ad that drives me the most nuts in a lot of ways. They’re trying so hard to make it seem like lacking a laptop is a major impact on your life in general. It’s not. It can be an inconvenience for some lifestyles, but really, how often do most people pull a laptop out of a bag because they really need to use it? Not just for fun.

This post is a little off my usual path, but not completely from my point of view. I’m just seeing an ad that is targeting people who don’t have a lot of money, which is common for stay at home parents, and pointing out the ways around it. Seems reasonable to me, and the occasional rant feels good.

It doesn’t get much simpler. Head outside and watch the sunset as a family. Especially if someone notices you’re having a particularly beautiful one.

I suppose you could also watch the sunrise, but only if you’re enough of an early bird to not mind getting up so early. I’m not.

You can generally do this from home. You can do this on vacation. You can drive someplace that has a really great view just to watch the sunset.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that this was inspired by my 3 year old being very excited about seeing the sunset last night. It was very cute.

I saw this tweeted by eMom about PETA trying to get Ben & Jerry’s to switch to breast milk for their ice cream. Obviously just another publicity ploy, which is about all they ever seem to accomplish, but for once I’ll take the bait.

A stupid notion at best. You just have to look at how hard it is to get human breast milk for babies in NICU, and how many mothers struggle with production anyhow to realize that this is ridiculous.

Hey, I’m pregnant and planning on breastfeeding. Of course this idea annoys me.

So far as I’m concerned, there are very few uses I would allow my breastmilk to be put to. The first is obviously to feed my child. As I have so far always been one of the lucky ones able to produce excess, the rest I hope to donate to a milk bank so that it is available for babies who need it.

Not for ice cream.