To think I can't earn 50k working from home?

[3gorgeousgirlies]

Does anyone successfully do this ?

I'm after inspiration .

My DH does, but he has a professional qualification and 15 years experience.

I run a childminding business. I choose to be part time as I work 3 very long busy days. If I did have the stamina for full time (which I don't) my full time equivalent could be over £40,000 but not as high as £50,000. My earnings are very variable though. I've had times where I'm earning less than minimum wage and it takes time to get established.
Before children I worked in finance and earned around £50,000 which was part at home but also invloved quite a lot of travel. It was good money but in a soul destroying corporate world that I don't particularly miss.

I do, selling stuff online. But it took 7-8 years to get to that point and most people do not. I have as particularly driven, have a business background (two previous start ups, one successful and one not) and the early years were quite stressful with the hours required. But it is doable if you are the right person, although most people aren't.

Existentials comment is harsh but very true!

You'd need skills/qualifications to get a 50k job in or out of an office. What's your background?

Account managers and sales managers often are based from home but go out and see customers etc.

I earn more than that FTE and could work largely from home if I wanted, but I am qualified and experienced in a profession and work in consultancy. I also prefer to be in the office tbh, because it's more productive and stimulating for me and easier to maintain lines between work and home. There are also no jobs paying £50k+ and working from home which are compatible with having your kids around during the day - they need focus and commitment and for you to be available constantly during standard business hours at a bare minimum.

There are basically two ways of earning £50k working from home: be a very driven and successful entrepreneur and work your bum off around the clock, or establish yourself in a professional field with skills valuable and scarce enough that employers will pay £££ for them, which usually takes years of education + training + experience.

Depends what you want to do. I work as a writer from home - web content mostly. I am very part-time and do 10 to 12 hours a week which pulls in around £12k a year. If I scaled it up to full time of 40 hours a week, I'd be earning about that.

Also totally agree with Peachgreen, it's feast and famine. This week Monday and Tuesday I had no work on, had a slew of clients emailing me yesterday and now it looks like I'll be working the weekend. Freelancing isn't the way to go if you need the security of knowing exactly how much is coming in each month.

My daddy has worked from home for the past 20 years, he's a sort of journalist in a specialist field, he seems to do okay, he did though carve a very successful career in that field until his 40s so a lot of ground work went in before he was able to work from home, as children we didn't see him during the week as he was out of the house before we woke up and home after we went to bed. He works hard at home and still does 4 days a week 'in the office' (the office is in the grounds of my parents house so only a short commute!)

Depends on your definition of working from home...

The woman who runs the doggy daycare place I use makes more than that, but she obviously has to be outside the actual house, albeit on her own grounds, for most of the day

It wouldn't work if you want something where you are sat indoors all day

It's incredibly unlikely, and if you had the skills or possibility to do so you wouldn't need to be asking about it on here.

Harsh, but oh so true. To work for yourself from home you need gumption by the bucketload, a huge amount of tenacity, and resourcefulness by the tonne. You have to seek out work as it's not going to come to you, think laterally, research opportunities, network. It's not easy and there are a lot of people who just don't have the personality required to make it happen.

I could but I only want to work part time so I earn much less

DH earns more than that and works from home the majority of the time.

My partner does and my job involves about 50% time at home and I also earn over that too. We have separate home offices though!

Do you mean being self-employed? I work for the government, but I work from home. I earn $82K a year, which is about 62K pounds.

To work for yourself from home you need gumption by the bucketload, a huge amount of tenacity, and resourcefulness by the tonne.

Completely true. There are jobs WFH for other people which don't have the feast-or-famine aspect or the need to scare up business, but there again the key is going to be acquiring high-value skills and substantial experience, plus earning the credibility to be fully remote - and the downside to that is that you do often lose out compared to people who are physically present in the office, unless the entire office is virtual/remote.

I could earn more on a per-hour basis if I went self-employed, but I'd only be paid for a percentage of hours worked and would enjoy a nourishing diet of fingernail while doing the books and constantly scaring up business, so it ain't worth it to me.

There are plenty of jobs you can do from home just as well as you can do from an office, so if you can earn 50k+ in those professions from an office, you can do so from your home too.

A freelance designer working from home could earn a little less than that for example, and could know other freelancers in the industry who earn more than that (through more experience, better client networking, etc)

You do realise that you would struggle to work from home whilst caring for children at the same time? You would almost certainly still need childcare if you have young children.

To work for yourself from home you need gumption by the bucketload, a huge amount of tenacity, and resourcefulness by the tonne

I was going to disagree with you on account that I'm a lazy f**ker, but then I ended up agreeing with you about the seeking out work and networking stuff, and remembered I was working til 11pm most nights last week, and yeah, maybe I'm not as lazy as I sometimes feel when I'm eating Frosties and browsing mumsnet at 10.30am

I did a number of years ago working for a large company doing corporate sales. I managed a remote workforce and attended monthly management meetings in London. All done by phone and email - no face to face and in the days of dial up so no Skype! I agree wholeheartedly about the "no children"- I still took my DCs to the childminder every day.

I'm earning twice that now as a self employed consultant but I do visit clients now. I also do a bit of writing (technical stuff, not fun stuff) but I find that quite hard - until I have 30 minutes to deadline and then I can be tremendously productive! A lot of people tell me how they envy me being my own boss, when in reality I work for a dozen bosses now, who all demand a piece of me, often at the same time. I love it, and I'd struggle to go back to a "real" job, but was very close to quitting in the earlier days.

Why do you want to work from home OP? If it is because you feel it is an option that will fit in with children I would forget about it. Firstly, most well-paid jobs require concentration and that means you can't look after children at the same time whether you are at home or in an office. Secondly, by the time you have gained the skills and qualifications required to earn 50k/year you will no longer need a child-friendly job as your children will be a lot older and more independent.

If I worked full time, that's what I'd be on. Freelancer in IT.

I prob. should ramp it up a bit, to be honest.

If I was going to retrain to do something that earns lots from home, I'd be an accountant.

Could you get a £50k job working out of the home?

Agree so much with Tiramisu 's post. If you (or the person you are talking about) is mum to 3 and wants to work around them without significant child care costs then it's pretty hard - although not impossible if you have the right role and skills and experience. I work mostly from home, but the key parts of what I do are out of the house - whether that is meeting clients at external meetings or holding events.

Your thread title is interesting - it's phrased as a negative, so you're either believing that you can't do it before you even start trying, or you're looking for evidence and support against someone who is trying to peddle a '£50K lifestyle without leaving your house'

Why 50k specifically?