How might I earn £1000 a month working from home?

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Hello, i wondered if any of you had any ideas about how I coud earn £1000 a month working from home?

I have spent 20 yrs working in the health service as a nurse then counsellor, just gone back after second lot of mat leave and realised I am done with the nhs, after child care I bring in £1000 a month, so I figure if I can earn this at home, I will be able to stay at home until kids in school. Any ideas ladies? (Working as private counsellor not an option at the moment as we don't have enough space)

BAHAHA!!! My thoughts exactly Dolomites!

In fact, I was thinking about the poor builders and the accumulated smell from the urinals. Urgh!

It wasn't a massive hope or expectation, just one of my random ideas so I am not really upset about it. It could have been fun, however. If I really wanted to do it I would scoure London for lots more and write to every council I suppose.

FF, don't really want to say what I do. We did say earlier on the thread that most women who earn a lot are not usually thnose setting up businesses (although a few do succeed that way like the the lady who set up the White Company and others like that) but those who gained qualifications in things most people cannot do. If your skill or knowledge is very rare then people pay a lot to hire you. So if you can be world's expert in the locatino of oil in Siberia or the best female heart surgeon in England or the only person who arranges ethical foreign surrogacy or whatever interests you then I think women earn mroe. That is why if teenage girls can qualify into something where most people cannot because they will not even pass the exams that helps. One of my daughter's friends has trained to be a pilot. That is much harder to do than become an air hostess so not surprisingly the pay is higher etc etc.

FatFaced
I'm an accountant. I happen to know what Xenia does and know that the "barriers to entry" to get where she is are even higher than in my game.
She (and I) have both taken shed loads of exams and done CPD for 20 years to be able to earn an excellent wage. She works a lot more hours than I do and has, as she said, carved her niche. I'm still working on mine.

For the main thing I do, yes but ther eis nothing special about my daughters and me that others who are bright enough to pass exams cannot do. even the soft factors like you fit in and get work if you speak in a particular way or dress in a certain way are not that hard to emulate if you want to be in a particular field which requires it. The lavatory conversion to flat/house idea though I have had to shelve. What a pity. We could have had a mumsnet party there when it opened. I was going to call it The Lavatorium It will have to join the piile of Xenia glorious failures and there are many.

I'll join you on the lookout for whacky buildings to convert - I've got my eye on a telephone exchange ....
that just happens to have five acres and amazing views as well as being an interesting building. As soon as BT decide to sell it ......

I think people really into this (and it can be quite fun) have to spend a lot of time looking out for the right place. My random request was obviously not the right way to go about it although I had a bit of fun last week taking photographs of the lavatory concerned. I wonder what people though I was doing (it has lovely railings) which must have survived the WWII tearing up and melting down for weapons of metal railings around the UK.

Tuscany £281k very old hamlet including church in today's Telegraph, set in 65 acres
www.casatravella.com/listings/property/1257/

That'd be a great project. Not sure about logistics ,but that is where research, research, research comes in to play.

It needs someone time rich to partner up with someone finance rich.

Gosh this thread is still going! I'm going to jump back on as I am feeling decidedly ground under right now. Well done everyone.

Good. On the Italian village it says in the newspaper with 52 acres but the ad says in 52 acres but I assume they are included. I am not at all sure these conversion of old villages in Italy projects make much money.
www.telegraph.co.uk/property/9555310/Property-in-Tuscany-six-of-the-best-investment-opportunities.html

They describe an American lawyer who has spent an awful lot doing another one up www.telegraph.co.uk/property/9554987/Property-in-Tuscany-transforming-Italian-ruins-into-idylls.html

The English have always wanted land and country. The continentals seem to want to move into cities and live even with familes in flats. It seems to be a personality difference.

I know a fair bit about Spain, and where it is certainly true that we value age and beauty, they value modern builds and praticality.

Yes, neither is right or wrong, just different and I think one survey found Italians spending 25% of net income on clothes, whereas I suspect English families would be happy to wear fairly old clothes until they wore out as long as they had enough to pay the mortgage on a house with a garden.

I can't imagine the Italians "embracing" the likes of Primarni either - although I think local wages come in to it too. An Italian friend was holidaying with his family in Puglia and they wanted to take him clothes shopping and were showing him the "really high quality and special" shoes in the 40 euro category...

The above conversions might well seem a "snip" at UK prices, but they're still expensive locally (although most italian property is) - I'd also be wary of buying property in any country staring down the barrel of political and financial turmoil. Which leaves us Switzerland. E.g., the Greek government has just started levying enormous taxes upon property owners, I wonder if the Italians might go the same way.

Anyway, as someone who's owned a house in a country where I didn't speak much of the local language I can tell that it's a choice between being a huge PITA or a huge cost. The minute they find out you're British they assume you've got money to piss up the wall. I questioned an invoice about my electronic gates and the bill went from over 400 euros to 120 in 5 minutes with no explanation. I still don't know what that was about. Everyone tells you to get an English-speaking lawyer - but nobody warns you about the bizarrely antiquated banking systems or such rules as "legally you can only pick olives on Tuesday" - that's (probably) not true, just an example of some of the nonsense I've come across over the years.

I'm going to mark my place here as I lurked on the last thread and found it very motivational.

I had 3 epic fails in a row last year, then DH had an opportunity with his career entailing lots of working away and we decided I'd take a career break until next year in order for him to pursue it (just to clarify - he did the same for me 3 years back when DS was a baby and it's all part of our Big Plan). However, because I stepped away at a low point my confidence has been really shaken. It's been brilliant to remind myself that failure is normal and not to take it to heart. Actually it's motivated me to work on a tiny project that I've had in mind for a while. Exciting stuff.

Yes, neverquite, often people's success comes out of failure and someone on a fairly dull secure job for years with no hopes of more money loses it and that is their chance to set up in business and earn a lot more. Sometimes you need to take risks. I just agreed this morning (before 7am on a Sunday) to do something with someone in Iraq where I suspect they might not pay but I will make sure I don't do too much so the risk is limited.

Of course the age of your children make a big difference. One reason many women are so much happier and rested in their 50s/late 40s is they don't have small babies waking them. If I went back 10 years ago at 8.30 on a Sunday I would have gorgeous but demanding cute little twins needing me every second. Today none of the 3 boys is even up yet so I get so very much more done.

(Yes, my folly of the Tuscan property is just that (or even the London lavatory conversion plan) - not something I would do or anyone should except for fun if they have a lot of spare money, good loc al contacts and speak the language and they know the likely risks. My island in Panama was never and will never be to make money; just for fun).

Perhaps the maternity leave break will give you time to make those plans. Sometimes people are so mired in every day rushing to put on the washer, collect the children, do their work that they cannot stand back and think I work very hard for the minimum wage; could I work a fifth of the time for much more money? You need a bit of time and space to make plans like that. I read the Tim Ferris 4 hour working week book on holiday this summer www.fourhourworkweek.com/

It would not suit me as I enjoy my work as much as anything else I do just about so I don't have any aim to minimise it down to hardly any hours but it would suit a lot of people.

issimma I started as a freelancer and also underpriced myself! It wasn't that I didn't think I was worth more, I think it's more down to being risk adverse (I knew I'd get clients if I underpriced, therefore the risk was smaller).

Xenia - you are so right. I sort of fell into self employment and most of my successes were the result of some sort of 'failure' further back down the path. I was lucky in the past that my failures always seemed to come alongside greater successes (eg I'd tender for 3 jobs, lose 2 but get the one I wanted). I learnt some wonderful lessons from the failed projects I did embark upon, probably more so than from my successes.

Exactly. And then because I didn't feel I could turn work away I'd run myself ragged doing it all and not devote enough time to my other projects. This will change!

Initially I charged hourly or daily but found that a job rate worked better (for me and client) on projects where you could measure the outcomes in some way. Many years ago someone warned me that the problem with freelancing is that, regardless of how much you charge, you can only sell each hour once. On a job rate you are rewarded for your speed and ingenuity by being able to, in essence, 'sell' the hour again. That's the theory anyway. Also, on one job I had to sift through a huge amount of data before I could get started. Because I had quoted on a job rate I felt comfortable in subbing this out to someone else (who I knew from experience would do just as great a job) and spending my time more profitably.

Always a difficult balance and sometimes the low paid or no paid things I have done have pleased the person so much more well paid work has then flown from it although earlier this year I said I would only do certain work abroad if the pay were doubled (as it takes twice the ime of the UK work) and that felt in a sense like burning pound notes. Let us hope I do not regret it.

I have work I do for free or for a pittance - BUT it gives me a head start on access to other lucrative work

DH and I have a policy of going out for dinner once a month to our favourite restaurant and have the set menu.
We then brainstorm what has happened, what is happening , what will happen, what might happen, what we want to happen and generally "strategy plan" for each of our jobs
and then we take turns to put the bill through our businesses (legal 'cos we are each others' company secretaries!)

That sounds a good plan although I don't think any business entertaining/meals at all is tax deductible by anyone except the staff Christmas party as long as you spend under £50 a head.

In a sense it's a bit like young people volunteering and being an intern and I did some work at university for nothing which helped my CV. It also builds people's experience and some work I do for nothing is part of a formal scheme to help the poor etc.

Obviously you cannot do too much of it or you starve.

This is the most interesting thread on MN for a long long time.