Working from Home - Ideas anyone?

[Ninaok]

Good Morning All.

My baby is now 6 weeks old and I am loving spending every minute with him. :)

I am dreading the time when I have to go back to work and leave him in someone elses care. :(

I have thought about working from home for a long time - does anyone have any ideas or know of any companies that use home workers?

Thanks in advance.

What kind of work are you interested in doing? Speaking from personal experience, it's very difficult to do a proper job and care for a baby at home at the same time. Especially if you have to speak on the telephone much! If you start looking around now you may be able to find a really lovely registered childminder or nursery and feel happier about the prospect.

I'm in this position. I don't want to leave my last ever baby with anyone else but we can do with the money.

You can do paid surveys from home. They don't pay much and you have to do a lot of them, but that £15 M and S voucher can come in handy.

You can do mystery shopping too- this has been very handy for me. They pay about £10 a visit but this varies wildly and sometimes payment involves buying goods which they reimburse you for.

I also sell on ebay. All of this I do whilst my DS2 has his 3 hour nap. I know I'm lucky-a three hour nap!

Pros- flexibility and independence, time with DCs.
Cons- its doesn't pay megabucks.

Agree re mystery shopping and surveys. Not a substitute for a job but can completely fit round your baby for a bit of extra cash

Ooh, where do you sign up to be a mystery shopper or fill in surveys for money?! They never offer me money when they stop me in the street; I would be more inclinde to answer their questions if they did

try a quick google search, there are millions out there! I can recommend the following for internet surveys:

Toluna
Ciao
Valued opinions

For mystery shopping try:

Retail Eyes
GFK
Grassroots

Like I said, its not a salary but its money for jam and you don't need childcare.

sorry if i sound very silly but what is a mystery shopper? what do they do exactly?

These jobs aint going to pay the bills, sorry and I dont know anyone who lasts more than a few months.

Mystery shopper is phoning up companies and pretending to show interest in their product. eg when I worked for a BMW garage we had to be on our toes for the MS, but you knew as the questions were very scripted. You then report back to head office with full description of the customer service and product knowledge. Surveys - how annoying and will drive you made after having the phone slammed down. I hate them!

I've seen similar posts over and over again and there is no answer. I work for my husband at home and beleive me its harder as the children have to behave when I am desperatly trying to make very important phone calls and use the computer.

You havent said what you are qualified in, yes some people work from home but usually qualified in a field and you have to be extremely focused and motivated.

I imagine there will be a time when you will feel desperate for the adult company and so many mums enjoy getting back to it. If not why not part-time? You get a good wage and plenty of time with your child. Even evening work could be considered.

i checked toluna and retail eyes
one does not seem to get paid really
you get points to enter a lottery contest on toluna. So you may easily end up filling reviews for nothing
one of my acquaintances is a freelance PA
she does phone calls and administrative work in the evening for a business man. I guess one needs to know a bit about business software and some accountancy

I work from home and I use childcare. There may be short periods when you can work from home with dcs, but it doesn't last long. Particularly once they're on the move.

It's incredibly frustrating and stressful trying to finish something when you're constantly being interrupted - every 5 minutes or so.

Have you considered working evenings/weekends? I used to earn about £600 - £700 per month doing care work during evenings and weekends. I did two 12 hour shifts per week - one at the weekend and one on a day during the week when my mum came to look after my baby. It was pretty tiring though.

Once my dc got to about 3, she really wanted to make friends and partake in lots of activities - so pre-school/nursery was a natural progression and I went back to admin type work.

Childminding is another option?