Any ideas for working from home? What can I do?

[BoredSAHM]

I have been a SAHM for 3.5 years and will be until my 19mo is ready for full-time education. I love being a SAHM and wouldn't consider going out to work yet unless I absolutely had to financially.

However we are struggling financially lately and I am also feeling quite lonely and undervalued. I miss having something really purposeful and quantifiable and - well, PAID really . I see a lot of MNers posting about working from home and wondered if anyone had any ideas. I would consider anything really, as long as it brought in a bit of extra money and could be done at home. I have 4 A-grade A levels, a degree from Oxford and am pretty articulate. I have had quite a lot of experience in admin/secretarial/customer service/low-grade office jobs (was ill after uni and did a lot of temping). I know my way around a computer and can type well.

Any thoughts would be very welcome. TIA:)

[BoredSAHM]

.

[SenoraPostrophe]

what do you want to do? there are lots of freelance careers you could go for but all would be hard work at the training/setting up stage. apart from maybe journalism

the problem is that many people who work from home do something that they used to do out of the home. I was freelance programmer working from home - I didn't do that before but dh did and I wouldn't have been able to do it without him.

[Greensleeves]

How do you become a freelance journalist then?

[SenoraPostrophe]

I was joking about journalism not being hard work. basically you either have lots of contacts or you are very lucky from what I gather.

[motherinferior]

I don't think you can work from home and combine childcare at the same time.

Am a journalist by the way, courtesy of four days a week in which DD2 is with her childminder.

[Blandmum]

I worked from home as a medical information officer for a large Pharaceutical company, but would echo what others have said....you can't work and mind the kids arethe same time.

I did work from home, but dd went to nursery for the hours that I worked.

[motherinferior]

You could, arguably, do something like editing (for which you would have to train) in a regular evening slot and/or child's naptime but (a) you would have to guarantee that slot and/or naptime (b)you would have no life whatsoever and therefore your batteries would run down (c) you would have to have a regular flow of work which could be fitted into, say three hours a day.

[BadHair]

I posted at tedious length on another thread last week about being a work from home secretary.
Link \link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1375&threadid=168595&stamp=060429162501#3521435\here}.

[TaiTai]

I'm a freelance journalist, although haven't done any for a while but am about to get back into it. It is hard; I didn't have any contacts and had to make my own luck - namely by perserving and 'chasing' the features eds with my ideas each month or so until I managed to get the ed on a day when the idea was pertinent or they had space for it (i.e. if it's a health topic, they might have already decided on their health topic for that month.


Bored SAHM, I'm having a think for you.

[TaiTai]

i do agree, btw, that you cannot work from hom when the kids are there. I've recently put dd in a nursery one day a week - will be more once I'm hopefully earning more - so I can get back into freelance work.

[motherinferior]

Hard and dispiriting, I find.

[thirtysomething]

there are some good distance editing/proof-reading/journalism courses which theoretically prepare you for working from home. What subject are your qualifications in? Lots of people I know tutor A-level students during the day when they have free chunks of study time and it can pay pretty well, plus be fitted in around kids' nap time.

[TaiTai]

yes, it is hard and dispiriting. If you're starting from scratch after having kids and only have a certain amount of time in which to do it, it will be especially dispiriting.

In an ideal world, what type of work are you interested in, BoredSAHM?

[MissChief]

gosh, Bored, I'm thinking with yr qualifications you could aim for more than admin stuff!
How about doing exam paper marking from home - related to yr academic field? Or could you set yourself up in some kind of free-lance role (no idea what -think of yr strenghts/skills/experience etc)

[NotQuiteCockney]

SP - how did/do you find freelance programming work? I used to program, in the City, and sorta fancy going back to it, but not the same hours and insanity again ...

[SenoraPostrophe]

NQC - dh used to do temping/contract work as a programmer and then used the contacts he got from that to go freelance. I took on his spare work and we've both been building it up since.

what languages do you do?

[MeAndMyBoy]

Hi we - Me and DH, run a home business which works around my existing commitments - have a 3yr old DS and work part time in an office. We are expecting the business to support me giving up work in september. You put in as much time as you have - I have been running the business in the evenings only for about 8mths. If you want a bit more information please get in touch the email is shapeworksuk at yahoo dot co dot uk

[NotQuiteCockney]

SP, I did C, C++, Java (among others). Unix mostly. Not very GUI.

I used to work in investment banking, though, and they like to have you there, iyswim. I did ask around a bit after proper freelance stuff, but nobody really bit.

[SenoraPostrophe]

sounds fun!

funny - actually he started doing investment banking stuff too, but via an intermediary company. must have been lucky. I'll let you know if I hear of any C/Java stuff - we do mostly VB and web stuff though.