SAHM And Making Extra Money

I babysit and get paid by the state along with co-pays from the parents. I am registered with the local Child care information services (CCIS). I am allowed up to 3 kids. It doesnt pay a lot but it helps with that little bit of spending money.

What can you do? What can you make? What do you have that someone would pay for?

If you know how to sew or if you enjoy ironing, you could earn extra money doing that. I have a neice who has the gift of cleaning. She makes extra money cleaning houses. It does take her out of the home but she is able to make some extra pocket change from doing that.

I used to do income taxes.
My grandmother sews, does needle point, and knits.
A friend of mine makes jewelry. Another sells hand bags and other accessories.

You have to figure out what you can do and then if that could make you some money from home. You could also consider watching children during the off hours in your home. The children would be spending most of their time sleep.

baby sitting, pet sitting, running errands, house sitting, crafts like scrapbooking, photobooking, light DIY, like hemming, re-upholstering/ refinishing, planting, cakes for occassions, house cleaning/ re-organizing, decorating are all short term gig type projects that can bring in some extra income.

Figure out what works for you and your family and good luck,
F. B.

This is an oft-asked question. The short answer is there is no short answer. If your goal is to have a little spending money, you might consider making something and selling on etsy. Or selling things you no longer need on ebay. Or finding a job being a dog walker or similar, where you can take the kid for a stroll, too, depending on the client. Or babysit. Or perhaps run errands for an older person.

I am a WAHM. I found my job on hiremymom.com and a friend of mine is a virtual assistant, also from a job posting on the same site. Many contract jobs have zero stability, and zero benefits (other than working from home). Until this year, I paid all my own taxes and had no health insurance offered by the company. Companies often contract out things they don't want to do themselves and it can be a struggle to work a hard document while juggling the kids. Long-term, I would not be able to do document editing if DD was not in school or in some other kind of care. I would not be able to easily do phone customer service with Dora on in the background. I saw 2AM many nights while doing technical documentation. My friend's job ebbs and flows, depending on the client. Her children are in school and she spends a lot of time researching the market (because that's what she does) and distilling information for her clients, as well as managing schedules, travel, etc. at all times of day.

I feel fortunate to have found this gig, but it took several tries and this type of job is hard to come by unless you manage to ask your old company for flex or something. Many of my technical documentation jobs were via the old company, but when they needed me to be in meetings, I had to stop, because of inadequate child care.

You can of course look into Mary Kay or Avon or similar, but most people have limited patience for such things. I might go to one "buy my stuff" party a year, because I really don't like them.

It does not hurt to look. But take some time to think about your budget and realistically how much you want to earn and how.

ETA: I've never had a bad experience with MLM as it was noted in an answer above. I do hate it when I am recruited and someone pushes sales of things I don't need. As for any food supplement, I go by my Dr's advice over any salesperson's advice. My gist with MLM is that they
prey on people to recruit so the recruiters numbers and commissions increase. Many people get sucked in before they realize any personal expense and inventory they have invested. Then the new recruit realizes how they now have to recruit people under them in order to increase their earnings. I respectfully disagree with the poster who continuously throws my name in the fire as a MLM hater. If it is your type of business you love ... Go for it and I wish you success! It's just not my type of business.
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Original response listed below:

I am sure you have seen all the recent postings on this issue. If you do a search, you will see many of the same responses.

With all due respect, no one will pay you to stay home with your children.

Those who work from home and have children are required to have children in some sort of child care program because you cannot efficiently be productive (even part time) for an employer and manage your children. Maybe if you work all night when children are asleep that is an option but very unlikely.

Those who do work from home have earned that privilege due to demonstrating self motivation and self discipline to their employers. I do work from home running a business with my husband and there is no way I could do my job with children under foot. One mistake could cost us thousands. It is the same with other professionals who work from home.

You do have some options... what are your strengths? Your background? Depending on your past training and background maybe you could tutor students academically or musically. STILL... your children would have to be out because you devote that time to your student.

Babysitting is always an option. Sell things you no longer need online. If you are crafty, sell your crafts online. Of course, there are the MLM and Direct Sales options and you will be recruited for those with this post... if you go that route you need to be a strong sales person. MLM's don't do well in my area because we got sick of all the parties and such. There is just so much of a certain product you need. However, if you love that type of thing and have the time to devote to recruiting, parties and such as night, best wishes to you.

It also helps is you to be a smart shopper. I am not saying couponing and running all over town wearing out your car and wasting gas to grab a deal. I am talking about commons sense shopping. Determine your needs vs wants and cut things out that you truly do not "need".

Best wishes!

My background was retail. So the things I did while I was a SHM, was dependent on if I could have a relative watch our child (no cost). Do you live close to relatives willing to watch your child once a week? Or I would work on weekends and my husband watched our child while I worked

I would help when big shipments came in. I would design front windows. I helped them when the were short an employee because of vacations. (this was preplanned) I helped with special events.

Or I would help out a business by picking up items bringing it home and then delivering it back to them. But remember I had been in retail with these companies for years. so they trusted me.

I helped friends clear out their homes and then helped them sell items. Or helped them with their garage sales (on the weekends). I would check in on the elderly for their families.

I was a personal shopper for people that just did not have time or did not enjoy shopping. They gave me a list of people and a description, sizes etc.

At one point I was a personal cook for a man and his daughter. I would prepare a fresh and healthy snack for her when she got home and then their dinner to be reheated each work day. I prepared this food in the morning and dropped it off at his home each day.

I helped people throw parties, These were children's birthday parties, cocktail parties, Christmas parties, Office Parties.

I pet sat, by just feeding and watering their pets 2 times a day at their homes. Brought in their newspapers and mail and made sure the house was ok.played with the pets, Walked the dogs.

I would be a person that could wait and meet workmen who would be going to homes to work on whatever the owner needed done.

I gift wrapped. I decorated peoples homes for the holidays.

I now have an actual business doing all sorts of services, of course our daughter is now grown up.

What can you do?
Then offer it as a service or a product.

When my kids were little and my husband was working days I had a job in a grocery store a few evenings a week. I got out of the house and away from the kids, and got discounts on groceries. Then I got a job working in the child care at a YMCA. That was great because I was able to bring my kids with me and I got a great discount on our family membership. When my kids started school I also started doing before and after school child care in my home, so I basically got paid to have my kids friends come over and play every day!

Sell Mary Kay, do home child care, Slumber Party (Adult toys) items, Mellaluca, Pampered Chef, any sort of thing where you can do online book parties and perhaps a few home parties every now and then. My niece sells Mary Kay and does quite well, she's never had a party in anyone's home, just online orders. She also works full time at a real job too.

You can take in ironing, sewing repair, hemming garments and other simple things, doing floral decor/crafts for decorating homes, crochet or knit items, and other hand made items.

My sister makes kids garments and sells them on Etsy, she clears over $10K per year.

There are MANY things you can do at home and make money.

NO COMPANY is going to pay you anything to sit at home with your kids.

You have to choose, have enough money to provide needed things for my family or stay at home and do without a lot of stuff.

Working at home is just that, WORK, not babysitting your kids and drawing a paycheck. This question has been asked and asked and asked almost every day. You will have to put your kids in full time child care all week long because no one will pay you to watch your own kids. Child care is by the week, most do NOT do part time care, they need pay each day because they have just a certain amount of slots and they can't pay their bills and staff to be there if they don't have that amount of pay each day.

If you want other answers use the search above and see what others have said.

I found a great job with my local newspaper working as a staff/writer reporter. My past journalism experience was only in high school and college, but I've always loved to write, so the editor gave me a chance. I'm going on two years and cover a variety of events. Many are children's events so I take my 3 kiddos with me and then write during naps, evenings, etc. If you have some basic writing skills, and have a local paper, it is worth looking into. It has turned into much more than I first expected. From here I found a job with a publication company called N2 Publishing. I manage all the content for two local magazine and do this almost entirely from my home. It can be crazy at times, but I have 3 young children and make this all happen with very little childcare help. We need the extra money, so spending it on childcare doesn't make sense from us. Hope this helps!

Updated

I found a great job with my local newspaper working as a staff/writer reporter. My past journalism experience was only in high school and college, but I've always loved to write, so the editor gave me a chance. I'm going on two years and cover a variety of events. Many are children's events so I take my 3 kiddos with me and then write during naps, evenings, etc. If you have some basic writing skills, and have a local paper, it is worth looking into. It has turned into much more than I first expected. From here I found a job with a publication company called N2 Publishing. I manage all the content for two local magazine and do this almost entirely from my home. It can be crazy at times, but I have 3 young children and make this all happen with very little childcare help. We need the extra money, so spending it on childcare doesn't make sense from us. Hope this helps!