The two most common New Years resolutions every year are to lose weight and make more money, and I’m sure this year was no different!
However people are starting to realise that its enough to have a great income and more people than ever before are resolving to find a way to escape the ‘reins’ of their job, get out of the ‘rat race’ and find a way to generate an income whilst enjoying a flexible home-based lifestyle.
With a home based business you can achieve all of these things and create a fulfilled, balanced life with a decent income and time to spend with the people you love, although it might not help your achieve your ‘weight loss’ New Years resolution!
Working from Home – The Options
The first thing to decide is whether you want to start a flexible home-based business, become a freelancer or virtual assistant or get a home based job.
Work from Home Jobs
Although these are getting more common, there are not that many jobs which are 100% home based . Employers are starting to become more flexible and will often allow part of your working week to be completed from home, but you will need to come in to the office for meetings. There are a few call centres who hire home based employees. These will be advertised in the jobs section of your local newspaper.
Avoid companies who promise to find you home based jobs in return for a fee.
The major downside of a home based job is that you still have an employer, are not able to choose when your work and cannot control your earnings or build a residual income.
To enjoy the benefits of a flexible work from home lifestyle the next two options are recommended.
Become a Freelancer or Virtual Assistant
For many people this is the ideal stepping stone before starting their own home based business.
As a Freelance or Virtual Assistant you complete projects for individuals/companies all over the world who need a particular task completing. This could be admin, writing articles/web content, design, marketing or a range of other activities.
As the internet continue to grow there is more demand than ever before for freelancers, and often no experience is required.
It’s a global market place, which means you can pick up work from clients all over the world, however this also means there is global competition with people from cheaper developing countries who are eager to pick up work.
Find out more here…
Home Based Business
If you want to really experience the benefits of working from home, I recommend starting your own home based business.
The main advantage of a home based business over the other two options above is that you are creating a business which provides an opportunity of residual income (pays you even when you are not working) and in which the income potential is unlimited (you are not limited by the number of hours you can charge a client for)
There are a range of things you could do from starting an online business, tutoring, child-care, starting an eBay business, selling products by mail order/online or turning a hobby in to a business.
Creating a website and making money online is one of the most popular and potentially lucrative (although it does take work – so avoid any ‘push button systems’ which promise quick profits).
Find out more about making money online here.
About Tom White
