Ever wonder how things are made? Well, you can watch the TV show How It’s Made, or try seeing it in real life.

Many factories have free or low cost tours available to the public. There’s even a website, Factory Tours USA to help you find factory tours in your area.

A personal favorite is going to the Tillamook cheese factory up in Oregon. It’s a pretty simple, self guided tour. Sometimes they even have cheese tasting going on, and the ice cream shop there is dangerously good.

How does your resume look? Do family and friends as you to help them get their resume in order when they’re job hunting? Why not make a business out of resume writing?

Skills Required

The ability to write a great resume is the most obvious skill required. This includes being able to slant a particular resume so that it emphasizes the skills for a particular job, not just writing a generic resume.

You should also be able to write a good cover letter and maybe even help people learn how to hunt for a job. The more range you can offer job seekers, the more you can earn.

You will need to be able to draw out from people what their skills really are. Not everyone will be thorough enough in listing their skills in whatever baseline resume they give you. A good resume writer can ask questions to learn about more skills and maybe even experiences that should be listed.

Common Expenses

You’ll need your computer and internet connection, of course, plus Microsoft Word or other word processing software. These days a domain name and hosting are pretty much a given, as these will allow you to get clients from all over, rather than just locally.

You should also get business cards and flyers that describe your services so that you can target locals. The internet is a wonderful thing for home businesses, but that does not mean you should neglect the potential that local business brings.

Possible Income Streams

Your primary income will of course be your resume writing services. You can add in fees as relevant to writing cover letters and job hunt assistance.

You should also be aware that some job boards offer small commissions for people to post their resumes on them. While these affiliate programs won’t generate much, it’s a little something.

Recommended Reading

Resume Magic: Trade Secrets of a Professional Resume Writer
Cover Letter Magic: Trade Secrets of Professional Resume Writers
Start Your Resume Writing Business

I mentioned that Lenore Skenazy’s book Free Range Kids had come out recently. Well, I was quite delighted when Lenore contacted me and offered a copy of it to review. You’d better believe I was interested in having her send me a copy.

I just finished reading it, and I loved it. Thanks, Lenore!

I know it’s really hard to not be overprotective of your kids. There are so many people encouraging parents to be overprotective. But, as Lenore points out in both book and website, crime stats as a whole and against children are down to the 1970s levels. It really is NOT more dangerous out there than when we were kids. We are simply more aware of the dangers and childhood in general has been made so much safer that we get a little nuts about even the small dangers.

A very good point is that kids need to be allowed to take risks. Children grow up and become adults, and if they haven’t learned to be safe on their own before they grow up, how will they cope?

And then there’s “Stranger Danger”. A point made in the book is that kids are far, far more likely to be killed in a car accident than by a stranger. They’re also far more likely to be abducted by family than by a stranger. Yet which do we worry about.

Yes, it’s dreadful that it happens to anyone’s child, and a nightmare for the parents who must live through it. But the odds are much against it being your kids.

Reading this book gave me some great ideas. I loved the idea of a camping birthday party, which was mentioned as something one mom would only let her daughter do if she came along and they camped together in a two person tent. I’m pretty sure her daughter would have been safe with all the other girls and I think as soon as I’m insane enough to want to deal with a sleepover with a bunch of sugar crazed little girls I will have to suggest this idea to my daughter. Because I am not as concerned with whether or not it would be safe as I am with how much sleep I would get.

Just think back to the things you did as a kid when you  were 5, 6, 7, 8… a teenager… you get the idea.

Are you protecting your kids from doing the same, even the good, safe fun stuff? Why?

Free Range Parenting is not about letting your kids run wild and doing whatever they please. It’s about letting them do the things children have not only been allowed to do but been expected to do for generations. Giving your kids a combination of more responsibility and freedom is a good thing.

Even if you’re not sure that you’re up for a free range parenting style I encourage you to check Free Range Kids out. You’ll get some great food for thought about the many things you really don’t need to worry about, as well as some of the things you should be concerned with. After all, not every bit of protection you give your kids is unnecessary.

Many people think about product assembly or crafting when they start looking for work at home jobs. It sounds great, getting paid for your artistic skills.

Unfortunately, this is one of the most heavily scam-ridden areas of the entire concept of working at home. The number of legitimate employers in this area is exceptionally low. But people keep on looking because they’re comfortable with their creative skills and may even have real talent.

In general, if you want to use your crafting skills, think about starting a business selling your own products on Etsy. Your odds of making money are probably quite a bit better.

Qualifications/Training Needed?

This will depend somewhat on what you are doing. In general you will need good manual dexterity and an eye for detail.

Job Duties

Assemble products to the standards required by your employer. This may include sewing, gluing or other crafting skills.

This is where the big catch comes in for the classic scams . Working up to the standards is essentially impossible. Since you often pay for your supplies and will only get paid when your work is accepted, it’s easy to lose money and incredibly hard to earn anything worth the time you spent.

Equipment Needed

Depends on what you are assembling. A sewing machine if you do sewing, for example.

Where to Search for Jobs

Good luck! Legitimate jobs are very, very few and far between on this one. But if you must search, don’t call it crafting. Be more specific, or search for “artisan”, “seamstress” and the like. There may still be scams, but you’ve improved your odds.

Try job boards such as Craigslist and Monster, but be aware of the standard signs of a scam. Finding this kind of work takes a great deal of caution and skepticism so that you do not merely fall for one scam or another.

Related Scams

The majority of positions in this field have the potential to be a scam. Don’t pay to show you’re serious. Research any company you are considering contacting, especially before you send any money. A Google search on the company name plus scam should give you a good starting point; if not, start asking at the forum and see what others can come up with for you.

I’m pretty obviously a fan of stay at home moms. Wouldn’t run this site if I weren’t. It’s an important job and one I wouldn’t trade without a lot of pain. But I’m also not as insistent as some that moms should stay at home with their kids.

It’s a very personal choice to me.

Now if you change that to should a parent stay home with the kids while they’re young, you’ll get stronger agreement from me. I do think that when possible one parent or the other should be at home. But it doesn’t really matter to me which, so long as the one who can best care for the kids is the one doing it.

Yeah, most often that’s going to be the mom. But two of my sisters have their husbands as the at home parent, even when the kids were babies and breastfed. It took some extra work for them to pump enough milk for their babies, but they both did pretty well at it.

Now, take a book such as Dr. Laura’s In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms and I can see good and bad to it.

Yes, many stay at home moms do need support. There are many people who make it a harder choice than it should be. Even now I sometimes get asked about when I’m going back to work… despite earning a reasonable amount at home. Still haven’t reached my goals that I discussed back at New Year’s, but I’m always working towards it. I’ll get my income up higher on a regular basis yet!

I’m not exactly a Dr. Laura fan. She has some good points, but then loses me entirely other times, such as the time she scolded a mother for working 4 hours a week outside the home. That’s rather extreme. As I recall, the mom taught an exercise class of some sort. Not exactly the kind of thing that will traumatize a child.

Stuff like that is why I don’t listen to her show much. I prefer to relax when I listen to the radio.

I don’t consider working moms to be neglectful of their families. I’d better not – my own mother worked outside the home. Admittedly that was in part because my parents divorced when I was very young, but still she showed me that a mother can work outside the home and care very well for her family.

We were admittedly fortunate in our daycare and remained with one provider until my sisters and I were old enough to be home on our own. She was pretty nearly a second mom.

I know most daycare experiences aren’t like that. My mom was the only one of her friends who didn’t have to regularly change providers because their person quit.

With that kind of background I suppose that it’s no wonder that I support working and at home moms. It’s a tough world out there even when the economy is good.

In my opinion, stay at home moms should be praised. Working moms should be praised. Dads should be praised. Any parent who is doing his or her best to provide and care for their family deserves praise. No matter which way you go about it, it’s a tough, stressful job.