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)

Me too. Apologies for my bosoms muscling their way in.
I need to re-read this for inspiration myself, in a bit of a funk about my lack of prospects.

Another idea I have, but not for me, more for the accountant/bookeepers. offering people a service to manage their personal finances. I personally am crap at this, and tend to bury my head in the sand. I would pay someone to come and initially sort them out, and then to manage them. The money I would save on fines and charges would easily pay for such a service.

Good idea recall: like home decluttering, but for your finances.

Yes,home decluttering can be good - from memory something like £600 a day..pause, ah am wrong - this one is £155 for 4 hours so that is more like £300 a day but still better than £6 an hour minimum wage - www.cluttergone.co.uk/Prices.html

There is certainly demand for concierge type services. Quintessentially was an initially a start up which did rather well.

Definitely a need for concierge type services if anyone's living somewhere like Brussels/Frankfurt/Paris. Thousands upon thousands of expats don't know who to call to set up cable TV and certainly don't want to sit and wait for an engineer to come and flick a switch.

What do you mean by concierge services? Like a PA?

X posted with Dolomites.

Is there much call for that sort of thing outside wealthy enclaves I wonder...

The point is you target wealthy enclaves whatever business you choose if you want money. Any service or goods which is aimed at people with no money is not going to make you very much. As you can hire concierges who operate from India (read I think it is Tim Ferris' book on the 4 hour working week on this) etc I am sure it can be done from a council estate in Scotland.

The principle is that people like I am have more money than time. So something that saves us time is hugely valuable. If I earn £240 an hour and you spend an hour finding a dress on line which I saw in a magazine at the weekend and get it bought for me, I might pay you £20 for that hour of your time because in that period I earned £220 etc etc etc

Even at cheaper levels takme any busy working mother or father we will all have a heap of jobs we don't want to do or cannot find time to do which prays on our minds. I dont' have too many as I keep on top of things and have children who work for me who do a lot of that stuff now but I have had periods particularly when we had small babies when I did. Someone comes in and say - tidies all your cupboards or buys all the school uniform for you. We found someone who would sew school unifiorm labels on an entire new school outfit for 2 chidlren one year for example. The concierge services will typically do just about anything you want them to do from finding you theatre tickets to sending someone round to tidy all your cupboards. They can be very useful. I used Quinessentially years ago. I remember they fixed up a weekend ski trip to Gstaad for my older daughter and me although these days the internet makes something like that pretty easy to organise yourself. Anyway it is just another idea. Ideally you get your customers to pay a monthly fee so they are always paying you.

Informative link Xenia Thank you.

I'm slowly learning that it is better to start a business and pitch higher than you may have initially thought yourself capable of i.e. Decluttering business to many, as opposed to a lone cleaner (although lone cleaner would be good for keeping cash flow revenues going)

Always pitch yourself higher: I recently started offering a service, and my local - well, competitors - were all offering at a top asking price of X amount (lets say £700). I thought, "No. I need more" so remembered, very vividly, the words of Donald Trump, from a documentary I watched who, in a falling market in his field (when everyone was asking for lower prices) PUT UP the asking price of what he wanted - and got what he asked for!

I did the same, took a risk (a BIG risk for me - failure was NOT an option) put my prices well over and above what others were asking...and people bit my hand off. Had to turn down many requests.
Soon noticed my competitors soon followed my suit.

Still - this is only keeping me treading water...

Goodness. That was a bit garbled. Am watching Midsomer Murders (that's my excuse)

I can't wait till my children can work for me!
Thanks bytheway1, that's exactly what I was planning a while ago. I'm going to register as a childminder and try to focus on children with additional needs so need to get back to it to start making contacts again.

I'm also looking into running a pre school activity class and thinking about how I can diversify a bit to tap into more of a niche market as there are more than enough activities to choose form locally. I'm not great at networking but can see that's what's going to further my income so have a lot of work to do.

This really is a fascinating thread. I've been lurking (and learning) all week, as I'd love to start working for myself. Like Condoleeza I did a degree in something that interested me without ever considering what my earning potential would be afterwards and after graduating I kind of fell into what I do now (work pt in marketing/advertising). I'm a lone parent and don't receive maintenance so really need to increase my income, however I feel like I don't have any actual skills or talents that I can utilise, unlike the really talented physios, lawyers, nurses, designers etc on this thread.

If I worked from home alongside my current job, I'd also worry about how it would affect the WTC and the bit of HB that I currently receive. I'd have no idea how much I would earn working from home in the future so wouldn't know what to tell the council/Tax credits people so they know what (if anything) to pay me for HB and WTC. I wouldn't want to have my benefits taken off me then not make any money from the home business, if that makes sense which it doesn't, even to me .

So my obstacles to earning additional income are 1/ no idea what to do (bit of a biggie, that one ), and 2/ how it will affect my benefits. Any advice gratefully received .

Come and join us on the entrepreneur's thread... But since we're pitching ideas for other people here, I've often wondered why local childminders and cleaners don't market their services more effectively and with more diversity to make themselves more money.

For example, for me as a WOHP, I have often had the need of emergency childcare, for those instances when the children are not so ill to need me at their side, but when we really can't get out of something at work. Someone doing babysitting/childminding anyway could charge a premium amount for this and marketed to enclaves of middle class women, I'm sure it could work...

I also don't think there are nearly enough mobile beauty/hair people who are of a high enough quality, and marketed properly in my area (tip: if you want me to buy your mobile services from a website, please post photos of your recent work!). I need you to come to my office, in my lunch hour; or come on Sat morning to do me and all the kids! I pay a lot for good hair and treatments but don't have so much time to go to the salon. But most mobile services are shite IME (and I've tried a few)...

Talking of concierge/child minding. I'm supposed to be away on business next week - the trip has been postponed a fortnight and it's totally fucked up our situation - my husband works shifts, he's out of the country with the other kid etc., etc. I would love to be able to call an emergency high-quality child-minder and say "I really need to drop him off at 5am tuesday week" or something like that. How about someone so reliable that you can call from the office and have them pick up the sick child from creche/school?

As far as working tax credits go, don't quote me on this but I believe if you "say" you work a certain number of hours on your business you're entitled to the full whack even if you're not making big money. Ask on mse for clarification.

Good idea Dolomites, MSE is a mine of information on WTCs etc - don't know why I didn't think of it myself . I think you could be right in that it's more about the number of hours you work, although I know that at the end of the tax year when you renew your WTCs you have to tell them what you earned the tax year just gone and they base your WTCs for the current year on your earnings from the previous year. I'm just unsure whether earning with my employer and earning as SE would makes things messy. Although I expect many people start out like that, doing SE work on the side while being employed. So much to think about, before I've even thought about WHAT to do.

I LOVE the idea of finding someone a dress they've seen in a magazine!

I'm not quite in a council estate in Scotland, but not far off. Tell me, does your ability to provide a good concierge service depend heavily on local knowledge? I'm thinking of things like restaurant bookings and theatre trips. Just wondering how the company based in India manage to make it work.

I did some PA type work a while ago, and do really enjoy problem solving for other people.

As a future childminder I'm taking notes! I've already wondered about offering more than just basic childminding e.g if I'm out running my own errands with your child then can I add a couple of your jobs to my list.

condy The same way everyone else does, the power of google and readying & analysing reviews. Along the shopping theme - I see plenty on mn of busy women with lots of cash but time restraints who are pregnant and want "the very best" but don't know what they should buy and certainly don't have the time to stand in the queue at Mama's & Papa's and argue the toss over a colour. A bespoke "let me get everything you need" service might work - e.g., after first finding out their favourite colours and perhaps even favourite shops you offer 2 travel-systems in 2 colours each - they simply tick the box. You place the order and arrange delivery. All she has to do is actually have the baby.

That's interesting, I'd have thought that reading google reviews was something that everyone could do, and local knowledge would be what people would be after. Just goes to show what I know!

How do things work legally with the 'shopping on behalf of someone else' idea? Would I pay and be reimbursed? Or do they hand over their card details? Just wondering about things like faulty goods, or someone just not liking something.

All very intriguing.

I think Konda's concierge work would need SoftKitty's advertising skills. In some ways advertisign is the key to it all, the best skill to have. Without anyone knowing you exist yocu an be the best surgeon or nurse or pilot in the land but the work will not pour in.

I am not sure about shopping for someone else. You can either be like Amazon - sell as dealer/principal/supplier - customer contract with amazon or else amazonmarketplace - (Amazon as agent in the middle contract of sale between seller of second hand books and ultimate customer). I would have thought if you were going to do someone's shopping you would send them a link. A few times I have seen something I'd like to buy, had a quick look on line not, found it and given up due to lack of time. Having someone who is able to find it woudl be great although I hardly spend anything and am not very consumerish minded so I am just about the worst person on a marketing list for tha tkind of thing - replace my knickers when the holes in them are large even by my standards rather than had 50 sets of pristine agent provocateur.

The other point I meant to make was on SoftK's which is a massive problem for people who want to do better for themselves but are on benefits. I have never had a benefit or a tax credit or even maternity pay in my whole life (although I have had child benefit) so I have never been caught in any kind of trap that if I try to do better for myself and my chidlren and work harder then the state takes money away from me. It is appalling how it is currently structured and no Government seems able to produce an answer.

I'm not even on full benefits - I don't get income support or anything like that - and it's hard enough for me trying to work out what the best thing is to do. God knows how people who are unemployed and on full benefits go about bettering themselves when they know they'll lose money by working, but (if they work for themselves) have no guarantee that they'll make much money. It's a difficult obstacle to overcome.

I thihnk most of the people ont he £1k a day and the entrepreneur threads probably live on their husband's income or already earn more than to entitle them to benefits so the issue has not come up yet but it is a big problem unless someone can be sure their business will from day one make than benefits are and continue to do so.

How do the unemployed do it? Some have to go on and then off benefits which is very difficult. Huge numbers just try the Ebay selling or whatever and hope the authorities do not notice and then once they are making a lot give up the benefits but that is illegal. Iaian Duncan Smith is trying to make the new universal benefit work better in this regard but I think it still takes a huge % of every pound earned. I suppose if a company earns the profits and the owner does not draw them out then that is not the individual's money. I am certainly not a benefits expert but you are only taxed on income you have. If you plough every penny back for 2 years and never take it out of a separate limited company it won't be your money as you have had no salary or dividends.

Great thread. Very positive.

So for someone who is a Mensa member but has few qualifications, what would be a good idea?

I have rambled on a lot on this thread. Did I suggest mensa members do best in business? You certainly need to be quite clever and my score was 158 at home and 152 in their controlled conditions. I would have thought having a high IQ is going to translate into more likely to bhe successful than someone with an IQ of say 80 simply because they are faster and know more and can think of ideas.

Most customers want things done on time and efficiently. You have to be fairly organised and bright to do that. Either if you are very clever get good qualifications which is why the children of the bright tend to get initial qualifications as lawyers, accountants, doctors etc as very few people are bright enough to get those, even if those people then decided to import pharmaceuticals or set up a facebook to make their money. That is more advice for our chidlren. For someone older you are probably better off just starting up some kind of niche business. I suppose if you are quite bright and can convince other parents of that you could set up a tutoring agency. This is one www.brightyoungthingstuition.co.uk/ which I think was a start up by new graduates. I cannot find the costs but presumably soething like £45 and hour and one would assume half goes to the agency - that is a total guess. In other words if you have a load of people under you like a pyramid - something I have never managed, more fool me, who do the work and you manage them and keep a lot of the turnover as your profit you tend to make more money.