Many people who want to work at home are looking for something flexible. They picture being able to grab the kids from school, hit the gym in the middle of the day, or meeting up with friends. The disadvantages of a flexible work at home job aren’t fully considered. This can lead to problems at work as reality sinks in.

The simple truth of the matter is that even flexible work at home jobs rarely give you complete freedom to work when you want. There will be online meetings scheduled, for example. You may need to coordinate with someone on a project. There will be days when your flexible schedule isn’t so flexible.

Employers that let you work at home with a flexible schedule will have the same requirements of you as those who insist upon a regular schedule. They’re just more relaxed about which hours of the day you get your work done.

Your Employer Isn’t The Biggest Challenge – You Are

The worst of the disadvantages of flexible work at home jobs have much more to do with the employee rather than the employer. To put it simply, it’s hard for many people to keep to an appropriate work routine without a regular schedule.

That’s all on you as a flexible work employee. If you can’t handle the work required without someone else telling you to work certain hours, the job will not work out for you. You must prepare for productive work each day.

A flexible work at home job isn’t like high school or college where you can try to get the whole project done the night before it’s due. It wasn’t a particularly good idea then, but it’s an even worse idea in your job. Most projects at work are far too complicated to be done so quickly.

This is why no matter how flexible the job is, you should give yourself a regular work schedule. Don’t take advantage of the flexibility by working different hours every day unless you have a reason to keep changing. If you don’t work fairly regular hours, it’s much too easy to work too few hours overall.

Employers Aren’t Entirely Off The Hook

Much as the employees create many of their own problems with flexible work at home jobs, many employers create problems as well. They may expect “flexible hours” to mean that employees are available, practically on-call, at any hour. If that wasn’t in the job description, it’s a problem.

A good employer understands that giving employees flexible hours to get their work done doesn’t mean the employees have no lives of their own. To the contrary, employees usually seek out flexible work hours so that they can live their lives while earning a living. Employers must be realistic about how many hours a week they expect employees to work, and how much needs to get done during those hours.

Other employers have difficulty trusting flexible work at home employees. How do they know you’re productive and not goofing off? They need to track what flexible employees are accomplishing so that they know things are going well.

Communication Challenges

All work at home jobs have some communication challenges. It can be difficult keeping everyone up to date when you aren’t talking face to face. Tools such as Slack make this much easier, but it doesn’t suit everyone. Combine that with the many kinds of work at home schedules, and it can be difficult to keep up with each other.

Flexible hours make this into an even bigger disadvantage for people who work at home. Scheduling online meetings that everyone can attend becomes more difficult. You also can’t rely on the person you need to communicate with being available right when you need them.

Good employers will have plenty of options for keeping in contact, no matter how flexible your hours may be. A part of your learning curve may be learning how to keep up with everyone using these tools. Communication within remote teams has improved so much in recent years, but not every employer takes full advantage of the possibilities.

Friends And Family

Your friends and family can create their own disadvantages to your work at home experience, especially if they know your hours are flexible. Many will mistake that for you being available to them at any time.

They might think you’re available to babysit their sick child so they can get to work, or watch for a delivery while they’re at work. You’re home all day – why can’t you help them? Don’t you care???

If you have a flexible work at home job, teach your friends and family that there are limits to that flexibility. You will need to set many of those restrictions yourself. It may take time to teach them to respect your work hours just as much as they would respect the work hours of someone working outside the home.

The Fun Distractions

When you work in an office, coworkers and coffee breaks are acceptable distractions, within reason. When you work at home, there are quite a few more distractions that most people wouldn’t dare pay attention to in the office. Sometimes these may seem like they’re perks of working at home, but they’re as likely to be disadvantages.

Some people like to binge favorite shows on Netflix or other services, for example. It’s easy to get into the habit of streaming a show while you work. What many people don’t realize is how much time they lose to watching their shows rather than focusing on their work.

Kids and pets are fun distractions as well. One of my cats loves to get on my lap if she’s cold. She also sits on my head and chair headrest if she’s playful. It’s pretty distracting sometimes, even when it’s fun. Kids bring in homework questions or just want company.

Have a plan to deal with these fun distractions. Take advantage of your flexible work at home job, for example, and schedule yourself around when the kids may need you.

When you decide to work at a flexible work at home job, make sure that you’re ready to deal with the advantages and the disadvantages, especially the ones you have control over. If you aren’t committed to making the time for your work, the job won’t be a good match for you.

The hardest part of looking for a way to work from home is to dodge all the scams. Today I decided to let you have a little fun while doing so. I’ve set up a work at home scam bingo card for you to play with.

As you go through the various opportunities, see how many spaces you fill up, just as with regular bingo. Not every job that has one of these symptoms will be a scam, but they’re definitely at a higher risk.

How do you win work at home scam bingo? By avoiding scams, of course!

Sadly, there are many more ways I could have filled these squares. But it’s not a bad way to get started.

More Tips To Avoid Work At Home Scams

Knowing the obvious signs of a work at home scam is the first step in avoiding them. It allows you to rule out a lot of things with relatively little effort. I’ve written a post with more details, The Work at Home Job Seeker’s Guide to Scams, which can help you learn more about many of the common work at home scams.

New work at home scams appear regularly. Some are new twists on old scams, while others are so tricky that they’re hard to spot.

Some email scams, for example, so closely mirror what you would expect to see in a legitimate offer that you might miss that the domain linked is entirely wrong. Gmail is pretty good at filtering these out, but some still sneak through, and other email providers may not filter them either.

I’ve shared some of the scam emails I’ve received through the years. If you have Gmail or another email provider that lets you look through your spam emails, you might find some amusing scams in there too. Be very careful of any links in these emails, even if it sounds good to you. They were filtered for a reason!

I like to have a bit of a sense of humor about scams. It’s frustrating that so many people lose money to them, but making a game of it, such as work at home scam bingo, makes finding them a lot more fun.

As many families struggle financially, more and more stay at home moms are getting serious about earning some money. But when you start looking, it seems as though everywhere you look are work at home scams. Where are the stay at home jobs for moms that are not scams?

They’re out there. They’re just hard to see through the haze of work at home scams. As technology has made it easier to allow employees to work remotely, more companies have included it as a possibility. Some companies are entirely remote now.

Stay At Home Jobs For Moms

Just because they’re all around doesn’t mean it’s easy to get a stay at home job or to earn any sort of decent income from home. It’s difficult for most people. It’s a lot of work added to a busy lifestyle.

That’s especially true when you have small children. They can limit the jobs you can do from home because they’re noisy and need attention.

If you haven’t really looked at stay at home jobs for moms, you might be surprised at how many there are. I used to do medical transcription at home until this site took off well enough that it wasn’t necessary anymore. Medical transcription is still out there, but it has changed since my time!

One of my sisters did software development from home for a while. The work at home lifestyle didn’t suit her, so she returned to the office, but many other software developers enjoy working remotely, and her current job allows her to do that sometimes.

And don’t forget the stay at home jobs that many people think of when first considering the option, such as data entry and customer service.

Some stay at home jobs will require that you get some training on your own. Medical transcription and medical coding do, of course. Software developers either need to have gone through college or have such a good portfolio that they interest employers anyhow.

If you’re considering data entry as a possibility, I would suggest looking more toward general transcription. Legitimate data entry jobs are few and far between. There are more opportunities with general transcription. You don’t have to have as much training as a medical transcriptionist, but if you want to improve your chances, I suggest you get some general transcription training so that you know what you’re getting into. This course gives you a free sample so you know if you like it before you pay anything.

For any home based job, make sure that you can meet the qualifications for your workspace and noise levels. Some require that you work regular hours and have no background noise. Others only care that you get your work done. Most are somewhere between. Your situation must match your employer’s requirements, or you won’t keep the job for long.

You can find a lot of stay at home job leads on my job board. I can’t guarantee 100% that there are no scams, but I try very hard to keep them off the job board. Do your due diligence as you look for jobs, and you should be able to weed out scams wherever you search.

Become A Freelancer

Offering your skills as a freelancer takes some work, but it’s something many of us can do and doesn’t involve paying someone for the business opportunity. It does involve risk. You have to check with your city hall to see about home business licensing and business name requirements. You have to set up bank accounts. Then you don’t know when you’ll get your first jobs. And there’s always the worry about how good a particular client will be about paying you.

All that is still usually faster than landing a job working for one of the usual stay at home jobs. Get good at it, and it’s more profitable as well.

You might be amazed at how many opportunities there are for freelancers. You can do freelance bookkeeping, writing, programming, marketing, website designing, graphic design, or be a virtual assistant. Just look at your skill set and figure out a way to offer your services to local businesses or to businesses online.

There are plenty of traps to fall into as you get started, however. The most common is to set too low a price for your services. That may not get you more clients. That may get you clients who are looking for cheap but still want everything they’d get for a higher price. It’s better to set your prices based on what you need to earn for your efforts.

Start A Home Business

Want a stay at home job that doesn’t involve getting scammed? The simplest way to do that is to go into business for yourself. And it’s really not that simple.

Blogging is a very popular home business, and with good reason. Costs are low. There are lots of bloggers out there trumpeting how much money they’ve made blogging. Plus you get to write about things that interest you.

While I strongly recommend blogging, I’m not going to pretend that it is always easy going. Sometimes it’s rough. Most bloggers do NOT earn thousands of dollars per month. Many don’t earn that much per year. I can teach you to handle the basics of blogging, and you may be surprised at how simple some of it is.

Some parts of the learning curve will be difficult, depending on your comfort with the technology. But once you get things going, it’s a nice business. Just give yourself time so you don’t get frustrated that you aren’t earning the same money as other people are. It’s a business. There are no guarantees.

You could also set yourself up to sell products you’ve made on Etsy, write books to sell on Amazon, sell physical products on Amazon or eBay… the list goes on. If you want a really traditional home business, you could even start a daycare.

Whatever home business you start, make sure that you keep it legal. Get your business license and business name registered. See if your particular business model has any other legal requirements to deal with, such as collecting sales tax. Skipping the legal side of things will give you huge headaches later on.

Requirements will depend on where you live, so there is little specific advice I can give here. Check on your local city and county websites to find out what you need to do. SCORE.org may also be a help.

Remember The Scams

Don’t get overconfident as you look at stay at home jobs. You don’t want to fall for a scam just because you decided that this time you didn’t need to do a little extra research.

The main times to be careful are when you spend money and when you share your personal information.

The quick and easy way to spot stay at home job scams is when they promise too much money for too little effort. Home business scams can be more difficult to spot, but if it seems as though they’re promising more than they can deliver, they probably are.

Read reviews – not just the ones they share on the site, and hopefully not just reviews from affiliates trying to earn a commission. Seek out negative reviews. They’re often far more informative than any glowing positive review. At the very least, you need to know that not everyone succeeds in every opportunity.

I’ve written a lot about work at home scams. You may want to read The Work at Home Job Seeker’s Guide to Scams as a quick start to understanding what’s out there.

Avoid “SHINY!” Syndrome

The last trap many people fall into when seeking ways to work at home is to jump from opportunity to opportunity. The next opportunity always sounds so promising, and if you aren’t seeing enough results with what you’re doing right now, it’s very tempting to make the switch.

Don’t. At least not that quickly.

There are times when it makes sense to try out a new opportunity. But too many people spend money on one thing and then another, and then another. They never give any of the opportunities a fair chance.

That’s how you end up frustrated and feeling that all stay at home jobs are scams. Maybe you fell for some scams along the way also, but maybe some things you just didn’t give enough time and effort.

The only time you should buy something for a home business opportunity is when you’re ready to make use of it. Don’t buy for later. You’ll forget about it and the money will be wasted. Bookmark the interesting stuff you might want to try later, and go back to it when you’re ready. You’ll be amazed by how rarely that happens.

Sometimes the best thing you can do to find a stay at home job is to make your own opportunity. It won’t always work out, but it’s amazing when it does.

Have you been considering working at home in customer service? It’s a very popular option for people who want a home based job. It’s perceived as an easy, almost anyone can do it job. Perception isn’t the same as reality, however, and many people find the requirements more difficult to meet than they expected. Do you have what it takes to work at home in customer service? Here are some of the things you need to know.

Are You Qualified To Work At Home In Customer Service?

It’s true that you may not need a lot of experience to work at home in customer service. There are a number of companies that hire agents for entry level jobs. A few are LiveOps, NexRep, Talk2Rep, and [email protected]. You can learn more about these companies by checking out my entry level remote jobs post or by visiting the company job pages to see current listings.

Even entry level jobs have certain expectations, of course. They generally require at least a high school diploma. They may require a certain typing speed. You must also be computer literate. No employer will be willing to teach you the basics of using a computer that you should already know before applying for a job that mostly uses computers.

Other companies expect you to have customer service experience already. They don’t want people who are unfamiliar with the work. These jobs may pay a little better. It’s something to keep an eye out for as you build experience if your current job isn’t paying enough.

Some jobs will only be available to people who live in certain states. This can have to do with taxes or legal reasons. Other times they may expect you to come in for training at a certain location, and so need you to be local, even though your work after training will be done at home.

Have A Quiet Space To Work

Failing to have a quiet enough space to work is one of the big reasons customer service work at home jobs don’t work out. Employers check for background noise on your calls sometimes.

This means that if you have a baby or child who might start screaming for you while you work, you probably won’t last. Same for if the dog barks or the cat is noisy trying to get your attention. Noisy neighbors or someone coming to the door may be a problem as well.

Customer service is one of those work at home jobs you really cannot do at the kitchen table unless you’re home alone.

Some employers may expect you to have a door you can close to respect customer privacy. Most customer service agents handle at least a little private information, even if it’s just customer contact information.

Honestly, the requirement for a quiet workspace may be even more stringent than what is expected of people in some call centers. You’ve probably heard plenty of background noise when talking to people who work in call centers.

Of course, those are all sounds that go with a call center, not a person at home. Companies don’t want customers to know that their employees work at home, as some people regard that as less professional.

Have The Right Equipment

Good equipment is a must to work at home in customer service. Not only will it make your job easier, it may help keep the background noise out of your calls.

But before that comes the right internet and telephone connections. Most remote customer service jobs require a wired connection, both for your phone and for your internet connection. This improves the security of the connection, which protects customer privacy.

Your internet connection must be high speed, usually cable or FIOS. Wifi, satellite internet or cell phone data connections are not good enough. If you can’t connect to your router through a wired connection, you won’t qualify for most of these jobs.

Depending on the employer, you may use a VOIP connection through your computer or need a wired telephone connection. You may need to get a dedicated line through your telephone provider. This line cannot have call waiting or any other feature that might interfere with your ability to take calls for your employer.

To go with that, you will need a wired telephone headset. Some employers will prefer specific models, and it’s best to check with them before buying something. Most will insist on a noise cancelling model, so that very few background noises will make it through to your calls. It probably won’t fully cancel out a screaming child, but may help with other common background noises.

You can buy some models locally, but for a wider selection, Amazon.com is easier.

And of course, your computer must be current enough. Once in a while you will find a job that requires an older operating system, but most prefer a very current version of Windows. Some employers cannot accept applicants who use Mac OS.

Know How Flexible The Job Really Is

Many people want to work at home because they want flexible hours. It’s nice to be able to work when the baby goes down for a nap when you’re a new parent, or between other activities of your day. That’s not how it always works, however.

Most employers will expect you to set a schedule. You may have to bid for schedules each week and be expected to stick to that schedule. In other words, you can’t schedule based on how that particular day is going. Employers need to know that they’ll have coverage for incoming calls at all times.

If you have a set schedule or bid for a schedule, stick to it. Adherence is one of the big ways employers evaluate remote employees in these kinds of jobs. If you’re always late to your shift or quit taking calls early, they will notice and mark you down for it.

Some will expect you to work within normal office hours, while others are open 24/7/365, and expect you to be available for night and weekend shifts. Depending on the best hours for you to work, this can be a good thing. College students, for example, may love that they can get work hours after classes are out for the day.

If the job is more flexible about when you work, the availability of work may depend on call volume or by who signs in first. Just because you’re available at a particular time doesn’t mean work will be there waiting for you.

Understand Your Pay Rate

Many customer service work at home jobs pay on talk time, rather than hourly. This means that if you aren’t on a call, you aren’t getting paid. Obviously, this sucks if you have a shift that gets very few calls, but you have to sit there waiting.

Other positions may pay hourly.

Some customer service jobs may offer commissions or bonuses, especially if you’re expected to upsell. This can be a big help if you do well, but don’t assume that you will get top commissions right at the start. When considering your base pay plus commissions, it can be safer to assume you’re near the bottom so that any extra is a bonus, not something you’re relying on.

Understand Employer Expectations

Make sure you understand what your employer expects you to do. This goes beyond merely sticking to your schedule.

Many employers, for example, will train you on a script. On some jobs, part or all of the script may be a legal requirement, not just something your employer wants you to say. I had to deal with that when I worked for the phone company many years ago. While many parts of the calls we could be flexible, there were certain things that absolutely had to be said in a particular way each and every time.

Employers may expect you to try to make a sale on every call. This is a real pain when you’re dealing with a customer complaint. Once again, speaking from experience. There are times when you can resolve a complaint with a better product, but other times the attempt at a sale will only annoy the customer, and you know it will only annoy them, but your employer will expect you to do so anyhow. Having to make sales can be fun on the right calls, but there will be times when you wish you could just handle the problem without the pressure to sell something at the same time.

Beware Of Customer Service Job Scams

There are scammers who set up job listings that claim to offer customer service jobs from home. Make sure you don’t fall for anything too easily.

As with any other work at home job scams, there are some key things to look out for.

The first thing is to see how they’re contacting you or want you to contact them. You’re best off applying directly through the employer’s website, or through a link their website directed you to. It’s not at all uncommon for employers to have one job board or another handle job applications.

If the job contacted you or you found the job listing elsewhere (even here), look into it carefully. Make sure it’s the real thing before you apply.

Big warning signs include being directed to apply on a different website or being requested to send your application to some Gmail or similar address. Very few real employers have applicants send in their information that way.

Another warning sign is when the pay is too good to be true. Scammers rely on greed or need overtaking common sense. If the pay is oddly high and the interest in your qualifications is minimal, it’s most likely a scam and you should skip it.

If you have any doubts at all about a work at home job, research it before you give any personal information. It’s better to take a little extra time with these things and be safe rather than fall for a scam. Falling for a scam will take up a ridiculous amount of your time dealing with the aftermath, not to mention any money you may lose to it.

Expect Your Job Hunt To Take Time

Very few people find a work at home job of any sort right away. It’s no different from searching for any other kind of work in that respect. Just think about how many people you know who have searched for a job outside the home for months with little or no success. It’s no different when you’re looking for something to do from home.

Except that there are probably fewer jobs and more people applying for them. Most home based jobs are open to people in many states, and may even be available worldwide. You aren’t just competing with your local workforce for these positions.

Take Your Work At Home In Customer Service Job Seriously

Once you’ve landed that work at home in customer service job, take it seriously. You need to be every bit as professional as you would be if you worked in their office.

Adhere to your schedule, as mentioned before. Be professional with the customers you’re dealing with. Demand that family and friends respect your work hours.

That last may take some time, depending on how your family and friends view work at home jobs. Some have a lot of trouble taking them seriously. But if you are strict with them, they will learn eventually that they can’t expect you to drop everything with your work at home job any more than they would expect someone who worked outside the home to do that.

If you aren’t sure that your family will handle it, practice before you get started. Tell everyone you’re doing a practice shift, go into your home office, and do something on your computer. See if they can leave you alone and keep things quiet enough.

Talk to them after about what went right and what went wrong. This may help you come up with a plan for when you’re really working. Getting off to a good start is the best way to ensure that you keep your new work at home customer service job when you get it.

What do you do when you work at home, but you don’t want to work AT home on a particular day? The coffee shop is the traditional answer for many people. You get your coffee, you get your wifi, and a little bit of socialization. So long as the coffee shop doesn’t mind you hanging around, it’s a pretty good deal.

But have you considered a coworking space? It costs more than going to a coffee shop, but it has a lot of advantages too. Let’s take a look at a coworking space vs. coffee shop so that you can decide which is better for your needs.

The Coffee Shop

Coffee shops have long been the choice for teleworkers who need to get out of the house for a while, but want to keep working. The free wifi and easy access to coffee and snacks, makes it a highly appealing place to work when you don’t have to be glued to your home office.

Even if you don’t chat with other customers, it’s a little bit of human contact, which many work at home parents need. You can even bring your kids if necessary, although bringing children means you probably won’t stay to work as long. Coffee shops aren’t made for little kids to sit around at very often, and there’s only so long that their tablets can keep them well enough behaved.

On the minus side, you’re taking up space the coffee shop may need for other customers, and they may not like it if you stay too long without additional purchases. Most people recommend that you make a purchase every couple hours at least.

You shouldn’t make a lot of phone calls or do other noisy work while working in a coffee shop. You’ll annoy the other patrons, and it’s rude. These are things you should be doing elsewhere.

Meeting quietly with a client or coworker at a coffee shop isn’t too bad, so long as you aren’t disrupting the other patrons, and you have each purchased something.

A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t be louder than the other patrons. If the shop tends to be quiet, your phone calls will be more resented than if there are a lot of people already chatting. Of course, a louder shop also makes it harder to hear the other person on the call, not to mention the background noise they may get. There’s a balance you should find.

Above all else, respect that the coffee shop is a business, and you’re using their facilities.

The Coworking Space

A coworking space costs more to use than a coffee shop, but it has a lot of advantages. It can be worthwhile to use one at times. Some work at home employers offer a stipend to use a coworking space.

The first thing to do when considering a coworking space is to see if they offer a free one day trial. Many do, and you should use it before you consider whether you want to use the space more often. This gives you a chance to meet the other people who use the space. You’ll get a feel for if the culture there is what you want. They should at least offer a tour if they don’t have a free trial.

You might be surprised by how affordable a coworking space can be. I took a look at the website of a local coworking space, called The Orange Space. I’m not going to quote prices, as these vary so much from coworking space to coworking space. A day pass may not far off from what you might spend in a day at the coffee shop. Coworking spaces may offer part time and full time memberships available too. If you used this kind of space regularly, it could come out cheaper than going to the coffee shop.

Plus this one, at least, includes coffee and tea. You’ll have to bring your own snacks.

Costs will vary quite a bit depending on your area. I saw prices ranging from $12 for a single day pass, up to the $500 range for a dedicated, full time desk. Prices get higher if you need a space for a team, but I considered what an individual might pay. Several places had monthly plans starting at $100 per month, which is very reasonable. A few go higher for individuals than $500/month, but those are in expensive areas.

You definitely don’t want to bring your kids to a coworking space. It’s a professional space, and the other people working won’t appreciate the distraction, even if the kids are mostly good. Many coworking spaces do not allow children at all.

A few coworking spaces offer childcare as well, which is great if that’s a problem you’re facing. It costs extra to use the childcare, of course, but if you need that help it’s a great convenience. Collab&Play is one such company.

The great part about coworking spaces is that everyone else is there for the same reason – to work! While you may chat with the other people working there, you all have the goal of having a productive day. Still, coworking gives you a great chance to network and connect with other remote workers in your area.

Which Is Better?

When considering a coworking space vs. coffee shop, it may not be clear which is better for your needs.

If your use will be rare and you don’t care about networking with other professionals, you may as well stick to the coffee shop for those days that you need to get out of the house. Libraries may be a good choice too.

On the other hand, if you like getting out of the house to work often, and enjoy the ability to network with other professionals, go for the coworking space if it’s in your budget. Take a look at the ones available in your area, and try out the ones that look good to you. See if they’re a fit. So long as you don’t need anything fancy in your coffee, many of them include that. You won’t even miss out on your caffeine.

These aren’t your only choices for places to work when you work at home. You have a lot more options. But both coworking spaces and coffee shops are popular due to the advantages they have to offer.