What is the difference between a work at home job and a home business?

A work at home job is a job you perform from your home office. You may be telecommuting from a job that you previously did from an office. You may work 100% from home or have to drive to an office occasionally or to client sites at times.

You may work as a contract employee or a regular employee.

A home business is a business you run from your home office. You pay all the expenses associated with your home business. Sometimes your home business involves working as an independent contractor for another business but you may also have a network marketing business, website design business, affiliate marketing business, etc.

When should you pay for a work at home job?

Never is awfully close to the truth, but it can depend on how you’re defining paying for a job. It is acceptable to pay for a service such as Home Job Stop that helps you to find out about new work at home jobs, but you have to be careful that you pick a legitimate service. There are similar companies out there that do not provide current information.

A very few legitimate employers, such as Arise, have expenses associated with getting a job with them. Some expect you to pay for your own background check.

Never, ever pay to prove that you’re serious or anything like that. If a work at home job is suggesting that you pay anything, check them out extremely carefully before sending in any money, even just a few dollars.

How do you spot work at home scams?

Work at home scams can be easy to spot, but the can also be quite devious. I go into many of the more typical work at home scams on this site sometimes.

Some basic rules of thumb:

Don’t pay for a job, see above.

If it seems too good to be true it probably is.

No one is going to pay you $3000-5000 per month for part time, easy work. You earn that kind of money part time, it’s probably a home business and you’re risking some of your own money. And if they promise you that kind of money even for a home business they may not be trustworthy.

Understand what you’re getting paid to do.

Do not give out your bank account information until you know for certain you have a trustworthy employer.

Do not agree to cash cashier’s checks or reship products.

When in doubt, ask someone else, whether it be a spouse or the people on a work at home forum.

Are the jobs full time or part time?

Many work at home jobs can be either part time or full time. However, it can be hard to get work for all of the hours you sign up for in some jobs. It can take more than one job to get all of the hours you would like to work.

Customer service jobs, for example, typically pay on talk time, not scheduled time. That’s a big difference if it’s a quiet day on the job.

Many pay on production rather than hours worked anyhow. Be more productive and you earn more in less time.

Do I have to work a set schedule?

This depends on the job. When I worked in medical transcription I had to set a schedule for myself. If I couldn’t work it I needed to let them know. But I could change it around quite easily.

What kind of work can be done from home?

Just about any job that can be done on a computer that does not require face to face interaction can be done online. Data entry (real data entry, not the scams), customer service, computer programming, general, legal or medical transcription, administrative work, writing, accounting and more are all possibilities.

Will they train me?

Depends on what you mean by train you. Will they take someone with no job experience and train them to a highly difficult job? No.

Will they teach you what you need to know for the particular job you’ve been accepted for when you already have the background and experience? Yes.

Will they provide the equipment I need to work from home?

This varies. In many cases you are expected to provide your own computer, phone and internet connection. Some employers will provide equipment to you or have it available for rent.

Do I really need daycare for the kids?

That depends on what you’re doing, the age of your kids, when you want to work and other factors. Consider my recent post on using daycare when you work at home.

Some jobs require absolutely silent backgrounds. Customer service jobs, for example. If your kids are too noisy you can lose you job. Think carefully on the childcare issue.

One of the hard parts about being a stay at home mom is that you aren’t making money on your own. You rely on what your husband brings home. Sure, you say the money belongs to both of you, but there’s often that feeling on both sides that it isn’t quite true.

How do you cope?

1. Talk over your feelings.

Communication is important in any marriage. If you’re feeling as though you’re less important because the things you do raising your family at home doesn’t bring in money it can build resentment.

It can be a help to realize that you do make a financial contribution. You’re saving money on child care by being home with your kids. You’re probably shopping for bargains more. You’re probably cooking more meals at home and thereby saving on your family’s food bill.

It’s important that the partnership that is a good marriage recognizes both earning money and helping to keep the family’s spending under control are both important contributions. It can be hard to do that if your husband acts in any way as though you’re using “his” money, and if that’s the case his feelings need to be discussed also.

2. Decide if you want to earn money from home.

Some stay at home moms decide that they need a work at home job or home business so that they can bring in more money for their family. Sometimes it’s also necessary to the family’s overall budget.

Stay at home moms today are lucky in that they have so many ways to earn money from home, some of which are extremely flexible. It’s not just the traditional jobs such as running a daycare or joining a direct sales opportunity. There are customer service work at home jobs, online home businesses and much more.

There are a lot of risks to getting started working from home, and generally laws to be aware of. Make sure you learn about the common scams and don’t fall for hype when you’re picking an opportunity. Too good to be true usually is.

3. Be yourself and enjoy what you have.

Just because you’re suddenly such-and-so’s mom and you’re home all day doesn’t mean you lose your identity. Make time to be yourself.

Keep up your hobbies. You might even be able to get one or more of your kids interested in it. But don’t drop the hobby just because you don’t think you have the time or shouldn’t spend the money. Unless it’s really expensive or your budget is that tight you can probably find a way to enjoy your hobby while being with your kids.

Also read the kinds of books you enjoy. The Cat in the Hat is a great book, but reading any children’s book over and over will get to you eventually. Read something you enjoy. Let your kids see it. It’s a part of encouraging them to love reading too.

And remember that even when staying at home with the kids makes for a tight budget you’re lucky to have what you do. Many parents would love to do what you’re doing but just can’t afford to. It’s one of those jobs that even on a bad day, it’s pretty good when you think about it.

Finally, remember that being married, especially with children, does a lot to your finances no matter whether you work outside the home or stay at home. You most likely won’t have the freedom you once did no matter what you do. The needs of your family come first in most cases.

Getting work done is so challenging just now. Selene’s all the way up to walking while holding just one of my fingers in one of her hands, so you know I’m about to enter the toddler years. And she already gets into everything!

Makes working at home really interesting. And not just because I’m sometimes blogging while half asleep.

Blogging while Selene’s trying to pound on my keyboard is interesting too. So is preparing meals while she’s trying to eat whatever random something she pulled from an obscure part of the floor. So is trying to home preschool my son while she tries to simultaneously eat his papers and crayons.

It’s a good thing the benefits of this job are good. You don’t get such sweet smiles or sloppy kisses from just any job. At least I sure hope not!

Working at home with a crawler/soon to be toddler is an adventure. It doesn’t matter if you’ve done it before or if it’s your first time. Babies at that age are a challenge to the work at home mom. To the work at home dad too, for that matter.

There’s the interrupted train of thought when she start crying.

The messed up sentences as she pulls up on my desk and pounds on whatever part of the keyboard she can reach.

Taking a break from work as she breastfeeds.

Running to doctor’s appointments, dealing with the classes for the older kids, doing all the work it takes to keep the house running. And sometimes even trying to get to bed at a decent hour, hah!

Yet somehow it all comes together. There may be weeks where it seems like not enough gets done, but other times things run more smoothly.

There’s the fear of working too much and the fear of working too little.

There’s trying to decide whether to work or take a much needed nap when she takes a nap during the day after being up half the night.

There’s all the self questioning that all parents go through.

There’s that favorite pan lid, being banged on by that favorite wooden spoon.

Being a work at home mom is an amazing opportunity to learn just how much you really can get done. There aren’t many other jobs that can teach you to make the most of a few spare minutes so quickly, whether it’s a few minutes to play with the kids or a few minutes to just type something, anything up. Some days the pressure is amazing while other days things are so laid back you can hardly believe it’s real.

One thing I have to do periodically is revise my work at home schedule. My daily schedule changes often enough that I can’t stick with one for too long. Something happens and the old one quits working, and suddenly I’m scrambling to get anything at all done.

Such as right now. It’s a real push for me to get even half the work done I used to each day. A big part of that is having a very active 9 month old. It’s just not possible to care properly for her and get everything done in a day that I used to.

Add in that my husband now regularly has weekends off, when in all his old jobs he had to work most weekends. Complete change of routine there!

How Do I Change My Schedule?

Changing my schedule isn’t easy. It means changing habits too. I’m used to thinking of things in a particular way, and even when it’s not working I’m likely to keep thinking that way.

Fortunately, I have the previous schedule listing my various work activities already. Things such as blogging, blog commenting, article writing and so forth. If you want to work up a schedule, you need to figure these things out too, as well as about how much time you want to commit to each.

My goal has always been to get a lot of my blog posts written ahead of time. Something comes up I can still change the schedule, but I like to have posts done in advance. This hasn’t been happening of late because I used to do a lot of my blog post writing on weekends. That doesn’t work at all now. Too often we’re all but obligated to visit family or have some visiting us. It’s all not conducive to productivity.

This means I’m often scrambling to get something written. That’s not the way I like to write. So it’s time to rethink things.

Think About Productive Hours

I’ve always been a night owl. Mornings are not my friend. But at this particular point, nights haven’t been working so hot either. Something about a baby who doesn’t always sleep well, especially those nights when she decides to be bright eyed and bushy tailed and needy for four hours in the middle of the night.

Makes working at night a little less practical when I have to also get up in the morning to take my oldest to school.

So I also have to consider my next most productive hours. In this case, it’s defined as when can I get the baby to take a nap. Please? And then hope that it wasn’t one of the really tough nights where I’m considering a nap too.

Writing It Out

My schedule is one of the few things I do write or type out for my work. I keep going between typing it on a spreadsheet set up as a weekly calendar and writing it on paper. They both can work when I’m paying attention.

Writing it out helps by giving me something to focus on. I know exactly what I mean to be doing that day.

If I’m really getting going on a spreadsheet version, I can also add in the little things that aren’t regular enough for my regular schedule, but need doing on a particular day. That’s one thing I like pretty well.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3…

Any schedule I write is nothing more than a best guess until I’ve tried it out, of course. There’s no way to be sure what will work until I try to work that schedule. Often enough I have to refine things as I realize one day has too much or too little going on.

The good part about scheduling is that it keeps me from neglecting various aspects of the work I need to be doing. It’s easy to just write and write and write and forget to do any marketing. Writing’s more fun for me. But it won’t get me anywhere, or at least not very quickly if I don’t market also.

What about you? Do you schedule your work or just wing it as best you can?

The decision to work at home is one I’ve never regretted. It’s challenging, exhausting, takes up pretty much all of my spare time plus any other time I can give it, but it’s still a great experience.

I have to admit, though, the ups and downs can be pretty rough. Especially the financial ups and downs. But it’s all part of the game.

Dealing with the Financial Ups and Downs

I must say, the financial ups of working at home, and particularly of running a home business have been pretty amazing for me. I don’t just mean not paying for daycare, which would be a pretty big expense with 3 kids.

I mean the months where I get really good commission checks. Bringing in a really healthy check (by my standards) feels great.

On the other hand, those months where it seems like I can’t earn a decent check no matter what I do really suck.

That’s something you’ll face in most home businesses and many work at home jobs. It’s a reality.

Demand for your business goes up. Demand goes down. Competition comes. Competition goes.

For work at home jobs, sometimes there’s tons of work to be had. Other times things are just quiet. That was true even when I was a medical transcriptionist, and that’s a pretty high demand field.

If you aren’t ready for the financial ups and downs (especially the downs), working at home in any capacity is going to be pretty hard on you and your family.

Dealing with the ups is pretty easy. Just don’t overspend in the good times. You need money ready for those times when things aren’t so good.

Dealing with the downs is harder, especially if you haven’t prepared well for them. It’s easier if you have enough money to get by for a few months despite a low income.

But even with that, it’s going to be rough emotionally.

Dealing with the Emotional Ups and Downs

How you feel about working at home in part echoes how your income goes, but not entirely. You can get frustrated even when your income is great, and you can feel great about the work you’re doing even when it’s not yet bringing in any real money.

This is where you need family support. When things just aren’t running smoothly, you don’t want to hear “I told you so” from anyone. You want and need support.

Family’s the best place to get it, but you can also get great support from online friends. Just don’t let it lead into so much goofing off online that you don’t get any work done.

You can share your problems in your favorite forums. You can tweet about them, share with your Facebook friends, whatever and wherever you like to do to vent your frustrations.

Just don’t forget to share your triumphs too.

Enjoy the Ride

Working at home can be a roller coaster in so many ways, but you can’t let it get to you too much. Enjoy the good, deal with the bad and don’t give up. Believe in your ability to make it work, and eventually you will.

I posted last week on how many people set their sights too low when working at home. There’s a flip side to challenging yourself, of course, and that’s working too much.

This is a mistake you can make even if you haven’t set very high goals for yourself, and what defines it is quite vague. It much depends on you and the needs of your family.

Sometimes a particular schedule is just right, but then circumstances change just a little bit, and the schedule is overworking you.

This is something I’ve dealt with quite a bit lately. Having a new baby, moving, getting settled, taking my son to speech therapy, figuring out if we can manage preschool classes for him, taking my daughter to and from school… it all adds up and really makes for a more challenging schedule for me to work.

And so I work fewer hours on my business than I’d like because my family has a lot of needs right now.

I’m much prone to overworking, and I know it. I’ll stay up late even when I know the baby hasn’t been sleeping well and I’ll just be dragging the next day. It’s not the best of habits, really.

It doesn’t feel like overwork; I enjoy what I’m doing. But when I’m that tired later on, I know.

So how do you balance your ambitions with working an appropriate amount?

It’s not always easy. You need to pay attention to your own needs as well as the needs of your family. You don’t ever want to forget why you’re a work at home parent.

Make sure you take some time every day with your family. Eat meals together whenever possible. Play as a family before putting the kids to bed. Take a break with your spouse.

Sometimes, yes, you’ll overwork yourself by working more after doing all the fun stuff. That’s how it goes at times. Just don’t let overwork be your entire way of life.

Like many people, my big reason for starting to work at home in the first place was to be there for my kids. With three of them now, that reason only gets more important.

But I have to admit, dealing with a baby when I want to get work done is not easy. It’s been really tough lately to come up with enough hours to get even the minimum amount of work done I’d like to. Especially as she gets older, more mobile and more demanding.

Time was when I could sit her on my lap and still get a little bit done. That’s not quite so simple now. She’s bigger and much more interested in my keyboard and anything she can reach on my desk. Especially if it can go in her mouth.

Yeah. I pretty much need her naptimes to get anything done. And it’s still not easy many days then, as she’s not exactly a champion of sleeping through the night. Thank goodness I don’t have to drive to work that tired.

This is one of the times that it takes incredible dedication to keep going. Believe me, it would be much easier to just take off, but that’s not what I’m going to do, and if you’re in a similar situation, not what I’d recommend either.

When daytime naptimes don’t work for me, working at night after all the kids are in bed can. Other work at home parents prefer early, early mornings, a thought which gives me the chills. Really, really not for me!

But you do what works for you.

Work early in the morning. Late at night. During baby’s nap. When there’s another adult available to watch the kids.

You can even hire a “Mother’s (or Father’s) Helper” to just play with the baby as you work. I did this when I was a medical transcriptionist, and it was pretty helpful. You don’t even need your helper able to feed the baby or change diapers. Just play with the baby and let you know when something more is needed. Older siblings (where available) can also help.

I like to remind myself that this won’t last forever. That means enjoying this time with a baby and not letting it get me down too much just for being tired. And if the price for not losing a post to a baby pounding a keyboard is a little less sleep, so be it.

One of the challenges of being a work at home parent is setting your work hours. There’s a lot to balance when you have a family. You need to be there for them, but you may need to work more hours than can easily be had in the early morning or at night.

That’s not to say those aren’t appropriate work hours if you like them. I know I prefer to work at night, with the kids in bed and my husband off playing on his computer. I’ll sometimes take some time off to watch television with him, but mostly I try to be productive.

A lot of figuring out appropriate work hours is a matter of personal preference combined with family needs. If you love having your evenings open, you’re going to have to pick some other time to work.

But if you need to get a project DONE, you may have to add in some hours and lose some of the time you’d rather keep available for other purposes.

Working at home does often mean sacrificing some family time, and that’s a reality you have to deal with. It happens even if you don’t have clients and work entirely on a schedule of your own choosing. There will come times when you just really need to get something done on a tighter schedule than you might like.

Finding the right home business is wonderful, but it’s not an easy process. You may have to try a few business models to find the one that works right for you.

Trouble is, trying out home businesses can be downright addicting.

Becoming addicted to starting new home businesses is a great way to fail. You overload yourself and never really find what you excel at… or if you do, you don’t have the time to really do it right.

There’s a thrill to starting a new business. New products, a new topic to talk about, a different way to market. It’s fun, and I won’t deny that.

But having at least one business that you are succeeding at matters far more than the thrill of chasing after dozens of ideas. Without success, what’s the point of being in business?

Home business addiction can take a few forms. It might mean you jump from one opportunity to another in network marketing. It might mean you halfway launch a dozen websites, but never really promote any of them well enough to get anywhere (owning a dozen or more sites and running them well is another matter). It might mean buying into every grandiose product launch you read about in your email, spending thousands before you really understand what you need to learn.

Sometimes it pays to just stop. Take a look at where you’re going. Pick something to focus on. Quit trying new things and try to master one thing you know kind of well.

It may take time, and it may be hard to tell early on what business you are most likely to succeed in. You’ll learn more, however, by giving your favorite a solid try with as few distractions as you can manage.

I get a lot of people asking me how to get started looking for a work at home job. They know they want one, but have no clue where or how to start looking, even after finding this site.

So, short answer, take a look at the Work at Home Jobs section of this website.

Ah, but that’s not terribly helpful to those who really don’t know what they want to do. How do you get to the point where you can start looking for a particular work at home job?

1. Look at your expectations.

Despite the myths, working at home isn’t easy. So many people just want to be pointed in the right direction and have it handed to them, and that’s just not going to happen. When you want something in life you can’t sit around waiting for it to happen. You have to do what it takes to make it happen.

Expect to have to work at looking for a job. You probably wouldn’t get the first outside the home job you apply for, so why should you expect that for a work at home job?

Don’t assume that you’ll be making big bucks from a work at home job. That’s one of the big reasons people get scammed so easily. Visions of easy money make people lose all common sense. Many work at home jobs don’t pay spectacularly well unless it’s a more in demand and hard to find skill. And most home businesses can take anywhere from months to years to become profitable, IF they ever do… no matter what the hype says.

2. What do you want to do?

Just as in looking for an outside the home job, it really helps to know what kind of work at home job you’re looking for. What are you qualified for? Do you have any relevant experience?

It’s all well and good to say, “Well, I’d like to do customer service, or maybe data entry or even assemble stuff from home, just so long as I get paid.” That is, if you want to fail.

Don’t be vague. And don’t just think about the classic work at home jobs. There are a lot more possibilities out there.

3. Really look at your experience.

It’s extra hard landing a work at home job if you lack experience. There’s rarely any face to face training unless the company has strict location requirements.

Experience always helps. It doesn’t matter what kind of job you’re looking for. Employers love experience.

You don’t necessarily need the exact job title as the one you’re going for. Many jobs give you a part of the skills you need for the common work at home jobs. Just think about how many jobs have aspects that can be related to customer service, for example.

4. Work on your resume.

Now, the best resumes are targeted to the individual job, not just a generic resume for a particular field. But you should have one that is generally targeted toward what you’re seeking so that it doesn’t take too long to customize it for each application. You want to target it to each individual employer’s needs.

5. Work on your cover letter.

You may not always need one, but it’s good to have a cover letter available as a way to introduce yourself when possible. Don’t talk about wanting to work at home for more time with your family and that kind of stuff; it’s not relevant to potential employers, any more than saying you want to work to support your family would be for applying to an outside the home job.

Just as with your resume, have a generic one you can customize as needed.

6. Put a salt shaker on your desk.

No, you don’t have to do this literally. But when you’re about to start looking at work at home opportunities, you need to be prepared to take things with a grain of salt and a whole lot of skepticism. Probably go through the entire shaker pretty fast.

Work at home scams outnumber legitimate opportunities by far. I try to keep things clean here, but I can’t promise to get it perfect. And if you’re searching around and about the internet you’re probably going to run into a lot of scams.

7. Start looking.

With a good notion of the kind of job you’re looking for, it’s time to quit preparing and start looking. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t take action.

Don’t pay to apply for a work at home job. A very few legitimate companies charge applicants for a background check – only consider these companies if you really think you’re a good match and can risk the cost of the background check.

Once you’re applying, it can be quite the waiting game. It is not at all uncommon for work at home job hunts to take months, sometimes over a year. I’m not going to promise you an easy time finding a job. Lots of other people probably want the same jobs you do, and you can’t all have them.

It can pay off to apply to some employers every few months. Don’t overdo it or you’ll be an annoyance, but a time can come when sending in a fresh application is the right move.

Finally, if your family is desperate for money, do consider an outside the home job if that’s what you need to keep financially afloat. I see too many people saying they need a work at home job desperately so they can pay their bills. If that’s you, consider finding an outside the home job while you hunt for work at home.

You may have to work at night if you’re married and can’t afford child care. You may have to find a friend to trade child care with if you don’t have any way to pay for child care and no one else to help you.

If you need income be realistic about it and remember that you can find work at home later, without such extreme financial pressure. Desperation means you’re more likely to make stupid mistakes.