A Strategic Roadmap for Making a Full Time Income From Home as a Mom

Do a search on Google or YouTube for “making a full time income from home” or something along those lines and you’ll come across a lot of low-quality content.

Articles will tell you that you can take online surveys, use “money-making apps,” and complete microtasks on sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk for 5 cents each. Those things can earn you a teeny bit of coffee money, but they’re literally never going to equate to even part-time job status.

Not sure about this?: Check out this video by Biaheza on YouTube where he uses money-making apps for 8 hours straight and he makes a grand total of $17.11. And the comments are littered with people who were very surprised he made that much based on their personal experience. You’d need to make $58 per 8 hours to be on track with what you’d make getting the federal minimum wage in the US.

Some lists related to making a full time income from home will even tell you that cash-back shopping websites are a good way to add to your income. Um… make it make sense. How does spending money and getting a small percentage of that money back count as a job? Yikes.

 

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How to make a full-time income from home: Suggested roadmap

The main reason that a lot of us end up taking online surveys and other bullshit like that is that we need money ASAP and have no idea how to earn it from home. We’ll accept horrifically awful hourly rates because we’re desperate to contribute to our family finances or we need an extra $25 for groceries that week.

Can I tell you something? I’ve been there. And it sucks. So I know that a lot of new work from home moms need a way to make some quick money and segue into making more money once you’ve got your immediate needs covered.

So, if you need to make money N-O-W but you also want to figure out how to start making a full time income from home, here’s what I recommend. First, find a way to make some quick money. This is going to be low-income potential stuff, though, so you want to move away from this quickly. Second, with any of your available 

 

Step 1: Find a quick-money method like writing for a content mill (This isn’t going to pay you much but if you need money ASAP, this is how to start.)

If you are someone who (like me when I started) would benefit from an extra $20-$80 per week and you aren’t concerned with how long it will take you to earn, there are a few ways to start making money pretty quickly. They aren’t as simple as taking online surveys, though, because that will honestly get you nowhere.

Disclaimer: If you can skip this step, I’m all for that. Because your hourly rate doing this kind of work is dismal. If you need the money and you don’t have time to start a business right now, then this is one of the best ways to make an income from home. If you have a skill that you can start using to freelance and get paid a better wage, please do that instead.

If you can’t skip this step right now, check out Textbroker and other online content mills. You will get paid $2-$20 per article you write here and they pay out weekly via PayPal, so you can have quick access to the money you’ve earned. I wrote for them for a few months before I felt like I was able to focus 100% on growing my first home-based business.

Textbroker is the one I have personal experience with and I never ran into a problem with them in terms of work or payment (aside from the fact that they pay so little for writing – you can get paid a lot more as a freelance writer, by the way.)

But there are other options if you want to take a look. Here’s a few other content mills, but I don’t have any personal experience with them so I can’t speak on what it’s like to write for them.

• ContentFly
• iWriter
• Zerys
• Skyword
• Word Agents

You’ll submit a sample article to the company or apply to become a writer there. Don’t worry about being an amazing writer, because these companies pay you next to nothing. That being said, you can make $20-$80 per week fairly easily using content mills and writing relatively simple articles.

As soon as you can shift your attention to freelancing and/or starting a home-based business, though, I recommend switching over to step 2.

 

Step 2: Start building your online business or working toward landing a remote job

These are ultimately the two main goals for work from home moms. You either want to snag a remote role as an employee with a company or you want to start and grow a business that you can run from your home.

 

Landing a remote job

If you are looking for a remote job, use this list of remote job boards to start stalking job listings. It’s also a good idea to create a portfolio website if you are trying to land a creative position – something to do with design, code, writing, etc.

If you don’t plan to create a website, you can use portfolio sites like Dribbble to put together a portfolio. You could even just throw together a folder in Google Drive or a presentation using Google slides.

Figure out whether you need any certifications to help land the job you want, get those certs if possible, and don’t stop applying to jobs that look like a good fit. Most importantly, add your best work to your portfolio and keep that thing up to date.

Admittedly, landing a remote job is not my area of expertise, but there are online communities dedicated to this. Check out Skillcrush and Remote How for some awesome tips on how to land remote jobs.

Further reading: List of the Best Remote Work Blogs

 

Starting a business from home and/or freelancing

This is the area that I can give you the most help in because I’ve done it myself. I want to be upfront with you – I don’t believe in network marketing/direct sales/MLM at all. I think there are tons of ways to create a legitimate business that YOU OWN that you can run from home.

Here are some of the ways you can do this:

• Freelance work. You offer a service of some sort (I do web design, for example.) As a freelancer, you’re an independent contractor and you are technically a business owner. You set your prices, choose your clients, and you’re in charge of your schedule.
• Running an online store. You offer digital or physical products that you sell in an online storefront. An online shop usually has bigger startup costs (unless you’re dropshipping or selling digital products) so if you need to make money right away,I’d encourage you to start freelancing or open a local home-based business while you’re building up your shop to get some cash flow in sooner.
• Blogging/podcasting/YouTubing. People really do make full-time job money from these things – I promise I’m not bullshitting you. The thing is, it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to get to that point. And for that reason, most people don’t stick with it for long enough. If you want to do this and you don’t have years to wait to make money, start freelancing or doing something else while you build your blog or YouTube channel.
• Social media influencer. Please don’t roll your eyes at me, but this is also a legitimate thing. For a while now, businesses have been starting to realize that leveraging influencer marketing is giving them a higher return on investment vs. other advertising methods. It can also be lower-cost than other forms of marketing, so it allows smaller businesses to take advantage of influencer marketing and gain the same benefits that bigger brands do. Again, becoming an influencer isn’t something you can do overnight, so if you want this, I’d recommend building it up on the side as you freelance/start another home-based business.
• Starting a local home-based business. Opening a local/home-based business that may or may not involve leaving your home occasionally is another option for you. Some of these require small amounts of childcare, which I did not have in the beginning, which was why I started with freelance work. Here are some ideas for local or home-based businesses that you can start: In-home daycare, photography, reselling thrifted items online, crafting/creating and selling in local markets, etc.

So, yeah! Once you get to the point that you can focus on growing your own business, literally any of the options above are legitimate ways of making a full time income from home.

My biggest piece of advice here is to really go all in on ONE of these ideas. If you’re someone who needs to make money immediately but your dream is to do one of the things that take a while to get going (like becoming an influencer or blogging), my top recommendation is to start freelancing right away with one of these freelance business ideas or something similar and to build up your blog/YouTube channel/social media on the side.

That way you can get some money coming in first so that you’re not stressing as much about bills as you work on your big goals.

 

Recap on how to start making a full time income from home

This is all just my recommendations based on my personal experience, but if you’re starting out on this path then this is that I would do:

1. Start working a crappy, low-paying gig like writing content for Textbroker to cover any immediate money needs.
2. After a few weeks of that and you feel more ready going for longer-term goals, start freelancing so that you can set your own prices and earn more money. (Do not subject yourself to step 1 longer than you have to!) Here is a list of recommended freelance skills to offer as a service provider. You
3. If you have a goal to start your own home-based business, an online shop, a blog, YouTube channel, etc. then start building this up on the side as you freelance. It takes up to a few years to make one of these your full-time income, but you can do it!

 

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