Please help - I need a job I can do from home.

[meanieleanie]

Sorry to abuse AIBU in this way. I have found out I'm going to lose my job soon.

For various reasons, I really need to find something I can do from home but I have no idea where to start or what I could do but really need an income of about £1000 a month.

My skills/interests:-

I have a law degree but am not a solicitor
I am good with data analysis
I like beauty and fashion
I'm quite shy when I first meet people
New places scare me but I'm getting better
I lack confidence
I'm good at writing/grammar
I'm not good at tech stuff

Any ideas whatsoever for some kind of self employment I might be able to do from home?

I’m afraid I don’t know how long it takes (not too long I think), but a friend of mine in your position did a course online to qualify as a bookkeeper and now does that from home - would that be worth looking into?

Good luck finding something

Proof reading services? I think there are agencies you can sign up with for that. I don’t know if it would get you £1,000 per month though.

Cleaning business

CQC inspectors are mainly home based I think.
Or could you try transcribing?

Do you need to be 100% at home or something where you can use your home as a base but visit people elsewhere?

Doubtless you’ll get lots of MLM opportunities spamming you but other thoughts if you’re able to retrain

Counsellor
Beauty therapy
Hairdressing
EPC Assessor
Web designer

Exam marking? A bit seasonal.

But I think legal proofreading would be good and possibly relatively well paid (as you would be able to offer specialist expertise). If you have data analysis expertise you may find something in statistical analysis/report-writing which can be done from home.

There were some at home conveyancing jobs advertised on the Mumsnet job board the other day - would that be suitable?

I do copywriting from home and earn £1000 a month most months and I'm not worknig anything like full time.

But it's not every month - there are peaks and troughs. December and August are always really slow. I won't be earning anything next week as I'm on holiday. Also it's unrealistic to think you could start copywriting, or being a bookkeeper or whatever else and get to a decent standard from the start, it takes times to build things up.

I sell women's clothing on eBay part time alongside my job and easily earn over 1k per month. Would something like that be suitable for you?

Piper how did you get started on the copywriting - was it an agency or a freelance site or something else? (I have started looking in to the idea a bit...)

There are quite a lot of online teaching English opportunities online to Chinese students. They seem legit and pay quite well. May be worth looking into though you may need to do a short CELTA course (4 weeks and approx £1k to do)

I've been doing it ages. I graduated in Economics and Mod Languages and worked for a while in marketing, then in finance before having my kids. I worked first for AQA which was a text question and answer service - people would text in "when is the last train from London to Manchester" and we'd text back with the answer. That died a death about 8 years ago when smartphones started to come in and the service switched from factual information to more of a rip-off chat service.

Then started looking for work on sites like Odesk (not sure if that exists any more), picking up work from mainly UK clients. Think my first job on there was for a guy in Bristol who was something to do with weddings - he wanted a spreadsheet with 250 licensed wedding venues in the south west with adresses, emails and so on. Also started picking up more writing work on blogs or website content.

Mostly get work these days through PeoplePerHour although I very rarely bid on new work. I have a few customers who use me regularly. Also work with a couple of local businesses to write their blogs for them and get a couple of hundred pounds a month work from a german-based site.

One golden rule I've learned over tyhe last decade - never have all your eggs in one basket. Various income streams so you're not left high and dry when a client ceases trading or decides to change focus.

I wfh doing a specialised form of writing, via PeoplePerHour and my own website. I earn well but it has taken time to build up. On a similar previous post there were recommendations for a company called Sensee (I think?) for at-home customer service reps. Worth a search.

I do a bit of writing for websites, data entry, Photoshop that kind of thing. People Per Hour is good to collect your first few regular customers.

However do be careful to get your quotes and contracts signed and agreed before you actually do the work, one of my first jobs was sorting some data entry of new products for a new website, I was asked to do a sample of copywriting the product descriptions and pop it into a file to import to their new website. I did the example, sent it off with my quotation for the work and asked them to sign and send back, bear in mind this was JUST for copy writing at this stage, they said great, signed the agreement for the initial copywriting work and sent it back, then said but can we have some samples of your Photoshop work, we also need all these photos resized and backgrounds altered (about 350). Now I'm a wizz at Photoshop can work fast so rattled through them, sent them back with my invoice and they said 'Super, thank you, brilliant work Ariela, we'll send you the rest of the copywriting info to work on later this month'. At the end of the month their receptionist was being evasive, no I couldn't speak to Mr Smith he wasn't there etc. By the middle of the following month I was getting concerned as there was no more work from them, then, they sent a letter cancelling the contract for the copywriting as it hadn't started, and they'd had a change of plan (obviously found someone cheaper). I started chasing payment for the Photoshop work and got a letter back saying that they had not authorised for the work to be done, it was not in the agreed copywriting contract and , basically, go whistle for the £. Mr Smith appears to have left. Would have tried small claims court but of course my quote for work and my contract signed by them does not relate to any Photoshop work.

What really rankles is I made a mistake on one of the photos, tiny but it is there if you know about it - I spotted it after sending the work off-and it's there emblazoned on the front page of their website, well it was till they changed to a mobile friendly version earlier this year but the photo is still on the product page. Yes, they used all my work on their website for free. Every photo even has the name I'd asssigned to each one.

So just ensure you do get signed agreements for everything before doing/submitting your finished work. Still rankles almost 10 years on.

Company secretary?

@piperpublickoccurrences

How do you get into copywriting ? I am really interested but no idea where to begin

Remote legal secretary or PA? My husband's business has a remote secretary I think she charges £800pm for the equivalent of 2 days a week. However she has lots of experience. You haven't said what your current and previous jobs are so it's hard to gauge. You might need to do some training if you are changing career. I'm a solicitor, and sad to say a law degree on its own means nothing (except for opening the door generally to graduate positions) unless you've been using it in some way (as paralegal, legal manager etc)...and with those jobs it would be impossible to work remotely. A soul destroying job but one you could maybe do remotely is disclosure review during litigation- they are normally contract based and not very rewarding.

When you say you need to work from home, exactly what do you mean? Can you not leave the house? Is that because of illness or children/caring? Or maybe not driving? How many hours are you looking for? Are you willing to train? Could you attend team meetings and study days?

My team all work from home but even with the lower grades there is a requirement to travel sometimes, to attend team meetings and training, there are meetings as part of their work and the occasional (once every three months or so) overnight stay. We require them to have childcare in place but do offer flexibility and allow juggling of hours.

Thank you for all ideas so far, I'm making a list!

I am a qualified company secretary too and that's what I've been doing for ten years. I didn't mention that because (1) not many people know what a company secretary is and assume it means I'm a secretary or typist and (2) I can't think of a way I can still be a company secretary and work from home as most large public companies requiring a co sec want someone full time, in the office.

How do you get into copywriting ? I am really interested but no idea where to begin

This is going to sound harsh but bear with me...

READ THE THREAD.

One of the key skills of being self-employed, not just as a copywriter is "nouse". Self-reliance, not expecting any hand-holding, not expecting someone to lay everything out for you in a step by step guide. You have to be persistent, tenacious and think laterally. Having the idea that doing something but having no idea where to begin is just not good enough - if you haven't even managed to start googling about copywriting or getting yourself onto well-advertised sites like PeoplePerHour to work out what it's all about, it's really not for you.

OP you obviously do know a lot about the opportunities for a company secretary, what about doing it freelance for small business clients?

Then I think your qualified to do anything secretarial or even move into office managerial type roles. I'm sure you could charge £1000 a month for 2-3 days a week, or more if you get a mix of clients (I.e. £800 each for 30 hours a month for 3 clients). There'd be less job security though as contracts could end at any time so maybe the mix of clients is the best approach. If you're business minded then @MrsAird suggestion is a very good one.

@MrsAird @Rach182 I think the issue is that small private companies are no longer required to have a company secretary. The routine work is minimal - a compliance statement once per year - and it's become easier for small businesses to do this work themselves. They don't need the help of a qualified chartered secretary with public company background to do this for them.

@CherryPavlova I can drive, can travel occasionally but need something flexible due to son's SEN. I work next to his school but am often getting called in etc so something where I can manage my own hours and work in the evening to make up time if I've had an appointment in the day, for example. What do you do?