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Our Debt Free Family

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3 Ways to Make Money From Home

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Imagine no longer having to wake up at 5am by the annoying BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of your alarm.

Think about what it would be like to set your own schedule and not have to work the normal 9 to 5, or more often these days, 7 to 6?

Am I right?

What if instead of getting stuck in rush hour traffic both on your way to work AND on your way home from work, your commute was as short as walking from your bedroom to your home office?

Let’s talk about making money from home!

Whether you’re home with little ones (like me) or simply prefer the convenience of working in your pajamas on your own schedule, as technology advances, securing a work at home position is becoming more and more appealing and more and more attainable.

Today, I’m going to share three ways that you can bring home the Benjamins without leaving your home.

A) Find a Work-at-Home Job

From nurses to call center agents, transcriptionists and even teachers, there are growing opportunities to work from home for a reputable company. Companies like BabyCenter, 1-800-Flowers, and even the Hilton, will pay you to work from home. You may have to stick to a certain schedule and follow the rules of the company you work for, but you’ll have the convenience of working in your own home.

B) Become a Freelancer

The sky is the limit when it comes to the type of jobs you can do as a freelancer. You can be a writer, graphic designer, virtual assistant, or video editor. Whatever skills you have, you can use them to create a side income or even a full-time income. With freelancing, you are your own boss so it’s on you to find the work, but when you do, you usually sign on for one project at a time. Check out websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Hire My Mom that can help you find projects or ongoing positions. If you want to get out of the house, consider becoming a Tasker for TaskRabbit, where people can hire you to hang pictures, do their grocery shopping, or even stand in line.

Imagine getting a ding on your phone, and someone wants to pay you $25 to drive them to the airport! Well, you can make that happen by becoming a local driver for Uber or Lyft and get paid to drive people around town. And don’t forget about Craigslist! As you likely know, Craigslist is a free forum where millions of people post items to sell, places for rent, and job opportunities. But you can also post on Craigslist if you’re looking for work. List your skills and specifically what type of work you’re looking for, and you might be exactly the person that someone is looking for! It’s completely free, and free is definitely worth a try!

C) Become an Entrepreneur

Becoming an entrepreneur is only limited by your creativity. It’s similar to freelancing, but entrepreneurship is where you focus more on creating a sustainable business rather than performing one-off projects. For example, as an entrepreneur, you can sell new or used physical products, on websites like Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, or Etsy. You can either create the product yourself or sell an item you purchased for a higher price. If you find a company whose products you love, you can often get them at an extreme discount or even for free by selling the products to others who may love them just as much as you!

Do you have a message that you want to share with others? Do you have something you can teach others how to do?

1. You can sell digital products, such as eBooks or online courses and programs. It’s now easier than ever to become a self-published author by uploading your eBook to the Amazon Kindle store and gain access to their hundreds of millions of customers. Alternatively, you could potentially charge higher prices by selling the eBook on your own website.

Websites like Udemy and Teachable, make it easy to create and sell self-study online courses. You create the course, customers purchase the course, and you get paid.

2. In line with that is to become a coach or consultant. Do you have a skill that people keep asking you to teach them or help them with? Are you an expert in marketing, gardening, nutrition, or fitness? If you make it known what you can help people with, you can find clients that will pay you to coach them. For example, my husband and I paid off $120,000 of debt in two years on a single, middle-class income, and now people pay me to help them create and implement their plan to get out of debt!

3. And there are millions of bloggers, podcasters, and YouTube sensations who make a full-time living by sharing their message on the Internet! Usually, they earn money from advertisements or sponsorships, but they may also use the other strategies that I mentioned to create multiple income streams.

 

Gone are the days where the only way to earn a paycheck is by trekking to an office building across town, working for someone you don’t like with people you don’t care for.

Today, there are more opportunities to work from home than ever before. If you long for the convenience of working in your pj’s or you just want to bring in some extra income, then I encourage you to explore some of these options.

 

Pre-Baby Debt Update

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We have less than two weeks before our baby arrives and things are falling into place. As mentioned in some of our recent posts, the main focus for us has been saving and preparing for the new arrival. That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped paying off debt by any means, but it hasn’t been a hyper-focus of ours in a few months. We are preparing to shift our focus back to paying off debt. Before we do, here’s a quick snapshot of where we stand.

Where We Stand

This year has brought some MAJOR changes for our family. First, my husband started pursuing a new career. He is freelance writing for several websites and is doing a phenomenal job!  He has quickly caught up to my salary with what he is able to produce each month with his writing, which is fantastic. This takes a lot of the financial burden off of us and will make it easier to pay off debts and reach our goals.

Speaking of debts, it has been a while since I provided a numbers update. Here’s where we stand:

  • Credit cards: $451 – This will be paid off in full soon.
  • Collections: $1,213 – We are working on getting these removed.
  • Car loans: $16,398
  • Student loans: $24,185

We are continuing to take the federal student loan payment break during this time. Once payments resume, we will attempt to tackle that debt in a similar way that we plan to pay off the car (see below).

Plans for the Coming Months

There are some things changing in our finances over the next few months. Of course, we are having a baby. So, household expenses may be a bit higher than they have in the past. Additionally, we will need to add our little one to the health insurance. We are also looking into purchasing life insurance just in case something was to happen to one of us.

On top of those additional expenses, our rent is also going up by $110 per month. This is to renew it another year. If we were to renew for two years, it would go up another $140. Neither of us wanted to make a two-year commitment to renting here, so we are going with the one-year renewal. So, our rent is going from $1,495 to $1,605 (plus the $25 pet rent). Hopefully, within a year, we will have some savings and enough debt paid down to look at buying a home.

Our car payment is another big monthly expense we are hoping to trim down. The car still has under 75,000 miles and we will drive it for several years. However, the $488 monthly payment can be crippling. So, we are hoping that my hubby’s additional income will help us pay it off sooner. We hope to double the monthly payment and get it paid off within the next year or so.

Outside of that, we are going to continue trucking along our financial journey with our new baby. We can’t wait to keep you updated on our progress!

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