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Great Moneymakers for Stay-at-Home Moms
August 18th, 2011 | 
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When most of us made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom, we definitely didn’t expect to have to “work” as well. After all, a mom’s job is never easy and a stay-at-home mom is the busiest of all—aside from the immense job of caring for the children, their needs, education, transportation and illnesses, there’s cooking and laundry, paying the bills, etc.
These days, however, moms have the added pressures of stretching their meager budgets even further, while frequenting yard sales and thrift stores for back-to-school items, and searching for recipes with fewer ingredients. They’re having to forego the things they love and deserve—like manicures, a new little black dress, a dinner out to wear it to, and real vacations (with or without the kids).
Moms take heart—there are actually a variety of ways to make money from home that don’t involve long-term commitments and let you scale your own earning opportunities to your needs and wants.
Blogging
Many moms start out blogging to share photos and anecdotes about the new addition to their families, only to quickly learn that they can earn an income by doing so. A strictly personal blog may not be an income-earning opportunity, but moms who are sharing interesting and informative content, such as tips for getting a newborn to sleep or reviews on popular parenting books may find that their websites are receiving more hits than they ever imagined.
Popular blogs can make money (this is called monetizing) by selling advertising space on their web pages, registering for affiliate programs that allow them to make money every time a reader purchases a product by clicking on a link on their blog, or writing reviews. You can even snag free stuff by offering giveaways and posting product reviews.
Babysitting?
If sitting in front of the computer several hours each day isn’t your cup of tea, maybe you would prefer to earn an income doing what you’re doing all day anyway. If you’re already changing diapers, rocking a baby to sleep, singing lullabies and reading “Goodnight Moon” relentlessly, why not add another baby into the mix?
So many moms who work outside the home prefer one-on-one care for their babies but can’t afford a nanny. If you could watch another baby while you’re caring for your own, you could earn some extra income, provide a constant playmate for your child, and get a sense of what it’s going to be like when your second baby comes around (smile).
If you’re not ready to take on the commitment of watching another baby every day, what about babysitting on the weekends or evenings? Parents in the neighborhood may welcome the opportunity to get an evening off, and the extra money may be exactly what you need to be able to stay home with your little one during the day
Freelancing
Whether you’re an artist, a translator or a writer, there are many ways to freelance these days without having to pound the pavement or even meet your clients in person. Many websites offer services that essentially connect clients with freelancers. To register with these websites it usually requires the freelancer to fill out some type of application, whether it’s providing a writing or design sample, or in some cases a portfolio.
Once registered, you can search available jobs and even accept them with the click of a mouse. Many are brief tasks that can be completed within an hour, so busy moms don’t have to commit to writing long documents or translating entire books; check textbroker.com to see about writing assignments and ways you can move into higher quality classifications and earn more money.
And More…
Some websites post tasks that pay pennies per assignment, but can be completed in minutes. “Crowdsourcing” sites like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and CloudCrowd pay you to complete easy tasks like summarizing or classifying websites. You don’t need any specialized skills to complete this work—you can accept one task or one hundred. It’s easy to jump on during nap time and edit a few paragraphs here and there, or classify a few photographs—and you usually get paid within a few days of the work being accepted via your PayPal account.
Once you have a baby, it’s difficult to imagine going back to work. For many moms it’s downright impossible, because the cost of daycare is more expensive than the amount of money they are bringing home. If you want to stay home and still earn an income, consider blogging, freelancing, or babysitting. A little extra work can bring in a lot of extra cash while you stay home to raise your children.
Photo courtesy of Flickr creative commons:Helping Mom with Facebook by Dan Harrelson/flickr
Francine Gomez is a career consultant and also enjoys giving people new ideas for ways to make money from home, like travel writing and usability testing.
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