to think there must be ^something^ I can do from home?

[PaellaUmbrella]

Work-wise I mean.
DD is coming up to 2 now and I would dearly like to keep being a sahm, but we're struggling on DH's wage alone.

I don't have a career as such to go back to, so going back to work would probably involve call centre work/ retail/ something equally soul sapping for minimum wage. Which of course would also need to cover childcare.

So what I would really like to do is work from home - is it naive of me to think there is something I could do? I'm not creative, so setting up a cottage industry making things isn't going to happen. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent and articulate - I did sign up to one of the article writing websites, but the work there was very thin on the ground and it soon became apparent that you'd struggle to make a living from it.

I only need to make a few hundred a month, a little part-time wage, not looking to become a millionaire...

Do any of you work from home and if so, can I ask what you do?

I'm a foster carer. Obviously not something you do just for the income but giving up my job to do this was my best life choice ever.

I have a friend who makes a fortune e baying. She buys sale stuff, boot sales etc and re-sells on e bay. She is chomping at the bit to get to the Boots and Clarke's sales this week.

Have you looked at any of the 'party plan' businesses? I do Phoenix Trading, I know Virgin Vie have shut down now, but I think Body Shop is still going. Although parties are often the best way to make money with these things, with many of them it's possible to sell in a lot of other ways, with a great deal of flexibility. I suspect that if I'd started when my kids were very young, then I wouldn't be doing the part-time office job but would be doing it on a bigger scale than I currently have time for!

proofreading etc - is not something you can just pick up - publishers use experienced people that have been in publishing for years.

think what the market for work is in your area - babysitting, ironing etc - yes boring but easy, profitable, stressfree. Some charge £10 an hour for babysitting round here. Not bad really!

sorry if that was negative! I worked in book and mag publishing for years and got 5-6 cvs a week from people wanting to do proorfreading - we simply used the editors in the office or experienced freelancers

Most exam boards need you to be a qualified teacher to mark exam scripts, in addition the work is exremely seasonal (e.g. during exam season only!) and averaged out over the year it wouldn't come to many hundreds of pounds a month :(

I also would live to know what Lovely sells to turnover 40k - sounds amazing. However obviously you need to invest money on buying things to sell in the first place. I mean, I know I don't have enough in my house to sell that would allow me to list six things per day.

Laurie is your friend a business seller? Does she specialise or just sell bits and bobs that she knows will make a profit?

Friends of mine (a couple) were ebay sellers for a while.

To make money out of ebay, you should sell whatever you know the value of. My friends were already market traders (electronics) so they already knew where to get stock and the likely value of those kind of things. They did OK out of it AFAIK. But that's not to say electronics is the way to go - if you do it, go for what you know about.

Beware, if you do become a pro ebay seller, your whole life will become about packing stuff! Getting the P+P right is essential apparently.

Also there are tax implications which people often forget about I imagine! If you're just selling odd items on ebay, that's one thing. But if you're actually doing it as a business I expect the tax people will want know about it!

If you're tech-savvy could you maybe look into something in more depth e.g. Web design, Excel VBA programming, whatever floats your boat and then set up as a freelancer.

How about photography? a friend of mine works from home as part of a photography franchise and earns enough to keep the wolves from the door

As another poster said though, working in Tesco for minimum wage is just a route in - once you're in you can apply for internal vacancies and work your way up if you wanted, using your degree and previous experience as levers.

Dog sitting starts at £20 per dog, but you do need to have insurance, and be a competent trainer, and be prepared to walk for at least four hours a day.

It won't bring in a fortune but I do survey websites and mystery shopping. 20 minutes here and there doing a survey is easy to fit in the day, especially when I'm online anyway. I don't make loads but I always figure something is better than nothing.

Ironing?

I work from home for a direct selling company. Not sure what I'm allowed to post here- so if anyone would like any info please pm me.

Proof-reading and exam marking is skilled work. I don't want to pee on your parade but I do get a bit when people assume work done from home is automatically easy work, or easy to come by. It's not. I'm a copywriter but I had ten years' experience before I became a freelancer. And I wouldn't have attempted to have gone freelance while my DS was at home.

I also don't wish to pee on parades either but can I suggest that it helps to actually be a photographer before you attempt to earn money from it. Also, many of us who are professionally trained and qualified as photographers (with the many thousands of pounds of kit that's necessary to work professionally AND the Press Cards!) don't always find that money drops off trees either

How about doing comping? Entering loads of competitions per day.

I do this win quite a lot of items/vouchers

You'll have to share your secret then doughnuts, I never win anything!

2madboys - off topic but what happened to Virgin Vie at Home ?

I'd say evening babysitting. There must be a demand for a sensible mum to babysit - card in a few shop windows but no other outlay.

WilsonFrickett Oh, I don't assume that proof reading or exam marking is easy - just that theoretically, I believe I am capable of it. I know it's not easy to come by either (hence posting on here!) - I did actually look into copywriting and proof reading a while ago, but it seemed that it would be a case of paying to train in it, and then competing against people with proper experience such as yourself. I figured there wasn't a hope in hell of me making any money so didn't pursue it.

Stuntgirl how many competitions do you enter? It's a numbers game really; I'd say I enter upwards of 500 competitions per week - around 2 hours per day. I get a good amount of wins, some bigger, some smaller, but they all add up and they don't cost me anything other than an hour and a half of my time in the evenings when I'm watching tv anyway.

Five hundred a week . Wow, that's dedication! Where do you find out about all these competitions, if you don't mind me asking? What's the best prize you've won?

Inspired by this thread I've had a search around and found about ten items to eBay. Even if they all sell I won't get much but it's a start.

The only problem with entering competitions is that all these companies then have your details and you get bombarded with crap for the rest of your life!

This is an up and coming company. If they don't have many agents in your area you could be onto a winner. I met the woman who owns it a year or so ago and she was lovely.

Not from home but if your OH only works day times would promotional work be an option? I sell shots at the weekend and make a nice few extra quid. If you're good at it you can make £100+ a shift.

DizzyZebra, how do you get into doing something like that? Do you have to register with an agency?

If you work evenings or weekends you will have to work fewer hours got same money due to no child care. It's a no-brainier.

Or start your own biz.