Being a stay at home mom is a big job. Most stay at home moms not only take care of the children but also keep the house running smoothly and do so much more that I can’t even list it all here. I know, I am a stay at home mom, and it seems like my jobs are never done.
Even though, you are a stay at home mom, doesn’t mean that you didn’t wish you had some income you were earning. It could be because your family really needs some more income coming in or it could be the independence that income provides you or you might want to feel more value with the pride that earning an income can offer.
How to be a stay at home mom and make money can be a bit hard to figure out and confusing how and where you can create that income. Again, I know, I have probably searched around for over 1 1/2 years trying to find something that would work for me. With this article, I want to give you some insight on what I finally chose and how it might also be a path for you as well.
What Moms Need From Online Work
When I first started looking for jobs that I could do from home or online work, I thought “How hard can this be to find something.” I have a college degree, and many years of work experience and I felt I had skills where I should be able to easily find something.
I was mistaken, it is a lot harder than I first thought. Between the jobs that seemed like scams (and there are a lot of them), to the equipment I would need for online jobs, to the commitment to certain hours, I couldn’t find anything that seemed like it was honest work that I could do around my family responsibilities.
Flexibility – This might be the most important factor that a mom needs when working from home. That is why you are looking for a job from home, you have lots of other responsibilities that you are taking care of. You might only be able to work an hour here or there. If you have a sick child, you might not be able to work at all for the day.
No Costs Involved – If you are looking to earn money, you don’t want to have to spend money to get that job. I can’t tell you how many jobs I came across where you would be required to spend a bunch of money to be able to have “said” job. These would be the type of jobs that I consider to be scams.
Earn Actual Money – Believe it or not, depending on how much research you have done prior to finding this article, there are many jobs that appear in searches for moms making money from home where you don’t actually get to earn real cash. Maybe they think moms aren’t looking to make a difference in the family’s income, but I would rather not get paid with gift cards. Sure I’ll take a gift card at times, but I wanted to earn actually money that could be spent anywhere of my choice.
If you are interested in earning gift cards, you can take a look at my review of Swagbucks here.
Things To Avoid When Searching For Online Work
- You have cash payouts to start the job. You might have to purchase products ahead of time or other things for the job.
- Scams. Many times, scams will state there is a limited amount of spaces so you must act now, or show a clock counting down for how long you have to make a decision.
- Seems too good to be true.
- Having to provide them with information that doesn’t seem appropriate for the job. Examples: credit card information, driver’s license number, etc.
Consider Building Your Own Website To Earn Money
After all my time searching how to be a stay at home mom and make money, I finally landed on creating my own website. Now that decision didn’t come easily either. I searched “how to create a website” and “how people where making money from a website” and “what do I need to create a website.” (As you can see, I did a lot of research to get everything figured out.)
And even with all my research, I almost got scammed on my first go around. Luckily something didn’t feel right before I got too deep, and quickly exited.
Let me share some of the things I learned with all my research on why I thought building a website was a good path to take.
- Flexibility – This is what I needed the most, and building a website can be done whenever you have time.
- Freedom of being my own boss.
- Value and pride
- Income
How Do You Make Money From A Website?
There are several ways you can start earning money from a website once you have your website up and running. I will discuss just a few of them here for you to see examples of what you might do to earn income.
Affiliate Marketing – This is when you are providing your readers with solutions to their problems or questions through the information you present on your website. An example of this would be if you have a website that is focused on “Indoor Activities For Kids”. Within your article, you might have some games that you recommend, and if the reader goes off to the link you provided and purchased that game, you would earn a commission. (This is a very basic description just to give you an idea how it works. If you have more questions, please let me know and I will give you more detailed information.)
Drop Shipment – You could get yourself set up with a supplier of a product, write articles and when the readers decide to purchase the product, they would be purchasing it from you after you mark up the original price. You would pay the supplier for the product and the supplier would ship it directly to your customer. No required inventory for you, and your profit is your markup.
E Books – You could write your own “How To” books and sell them through your website.
These are just a few ideas of how you could make money from a website. The possibilities are only limited by your dreams.
At a later time, if you enjoy building websites, you could sell your services to local businesses for developing their websites.
How To Start Building A Website
Now if you are thinking, “I’m not sure I could build a website,” you might be surprised how easy it actually is to do. When I started building a website, I had no special computer skills or special writing skills. Heck, my degree is in Economics, that is no help with any of this.
The first articles that I wrote, I was afraid to even let my husband read them, because I didn’t think they were worthy for outside eyes to even see them. Believe me, it just kept getting easier and easier the more articles I wrote.
So, with me having no prior skills or experience I had to find some training to get this website rolling. That is when I came across an article about Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate was developed for anyone who is new to building websites and want to learn how to do it, but many experienced and successful people also use their platform.
They provide you with everything you need for building a website which includes training, 2 free websites and all the tools you need for your website. The reason that I chose Wealthy Affiliate was because it is FREE to join. I was tired of feeling like I was getting scammed with everything I wanted to try.
When I joined Wealthy Affiliate, they never asked me for anything other than my email address. I didn’t have to provide a credit card, and I could immediately start training on how to build a website. Within 5 days of joining their free program, I had a website up with 2 articles published on the internet, and I hadn’t spent a penny.
There is so much that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, that it would be hard to list it all here. You can take a look at this Wealthy Affiliate Review to see the training and all that is included with this program.
You can remain a free member for life if you like, but if you are loving the program and decide you want to keep growing your business, they do have a Premium Membership as well that provides you with even more tools for success.
Take a look around Wealthy Affiliate and see if this is what you have been looking for.
Final Thoughts…
Building a website is how to be a stay at home mom and make money online. It allows you the flexibility to work when you can, and when you are busy with family, you don’t have to work. It is honest work that you can be proud of and help give you added value and earnings for independence.
A few things to note about building a website are, this isn’t a get-rich-quick program. It will take lots of work and time to start seeing some results. But you also have to remember, you are building a business and a foundation of a business that you can receive rewards for many years to come from your work today. How many times have you searched a topic and you are reading an article from 8 to 10 years ago. Those are all websites that are still earning income even though they did the work years before.
So where am I exactly with my website??? It has been just about a year ago since I started my first website. I currently have 2 completely different websites and over 140 articles published on the internet. Am I rich from it yet? To be perfectly honest, not yet, but I do have earnings every single week from my websites and I have no doubts that I will earn a very reasonable salary from all of my efforts. Every week I am seeing incremental increases in my earnings.
I hope you check out Wealthy Affiliate to see if it is what you have been looking for.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will get back to you.
Some of the links within this post are affiliate links of which I might receive a small compensation from sales of certain items.
Firstly your title immediately grabbed my attention, stay at home Mom’s don’t get the praise and recognition they so deserve, its a very demanding and rewarding job in so many ways. I often compare keeping the house while the kids are awake to shoveling in a snow storm LOL.
I spent many hours doing surveys thinking it was actually going to amount to something and disappointingly enough it did not…so many hours wasted.
Wealthy affiliate sounds like an honest way to make money at home, but how long does it take to start earning money?
I love your comparison between keeping house with kids around to shoveling in a snow storm. I know that exact feeling. I too have done the survey route, put in tons of hours and thought I was going to take my really big gift card to the store with my family and get something cool for all of us. That never happened. I was putting in 6 hours a day on surveys and it still never amounted to anything and I would rather be paid with actual money and not a gift card. A gift card feels like a token jester to me.
Building a website takes time and a lot of work. Depending on how much content you are creating and the quality of content will make a big difference to how soon you will start seeing earnings. Some will tell you that it will take you about 3 months, some will say it will take about a year. I personally started earning around 6 months, but it was hit and miss at first. Once I got over 100 articles published, I started getting a lot more traffic and started earning money every week, and really most days of the week.
There’s a lot of sound advice here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a fake countdown timer.
And you’re right, building a website is in my opinion the best way for people to earn money online. People just need to be patient and consistent when it comes to building out their sites.
I would agree that building a website does take time. It is no different than starting a new business. You will need to put hard work into it and keep working at it.
Tell me about it. Being a stay at home Mom is no joke! I know for a fact that I want to be independent. And every woman who has some money that she generates is always confident. Imagine the stress of having to approach your partner for money even for your personal use!
Do you have a time table to follow or strict routines to follow so as to stay on track while working from home? I ask this because it is so easy to get distracted working from home.
I have already checked into the Wealthy Affiliate Program and I must admit that I am loving every bit of it.
The hardest part of me being a stay at home mom was not having my own identity and my own paycheck. It many times seems that our job or career becomes our identity, and when people would asked what I did I felt less than whole. That is right, but how I personally felt. Having the opportunity to create my own website and earning my own paycheck has helped in so many ways.
I do recommend that you set some goals when you are working for home, otherwise it is easy to get distracted and not achieve the success you were hoping for. Set your goals for the week at the beginning of the week, since you should know what you have on the schedule for that week. Some weeks you might have more time than others, but set your plan up and try to stick to it. The plan could be the amount of time each day that you commit to your work, or it could be the number of words you write each week, whatever plan you believe you can achieve. Do over estimate your goals, because if you don’t reach your goals, you might become frustrated and give up. Make realistic goals for yourself.
Hi Marla
When I first started off in building a website, I didn’t have a single clue on how to go about it. My husband had introduced the idea before I got pregnant and I haven’t looked back since.
You’re right to say it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme as it does take a time, effort and patience to see your business grow and flourish. I’m not making millions (yet!) but I can still see the potentials of earning a decent income at home.
Thanks for the post and all the best in your ventures.
Teresa
It would be great if getting rich could happen quickly, but there is a lot of pride in the fact that it is something that you created completely by yourself, and when you get to a point that it starts generating an income, the excitment is even better than when I used to get a steady paycheck at a regular job.
In this day and age more and more Moms are looking to earn extra income, many go back to work but I applaud any Mom who starts their own business from home whilst still looking after their family. I think you have chosen wisely with your choice of creating a website and using methods like affiliate marketing to earn an income. A true inspiration for others to follow suit. I wish you continued success.
Thank you Martin. Affiliate marketing is a great option for any stay at home mom to help earn some income. It offers the flexibility that a mom needs to work when she gets a small break in the action and it can help make them feel good about themselves as well. I hope more moms take a look at creating a blog as an option to making money at home.