Working from home can be wonderful. It’s your chance to spend time doing something that you love. Earning your own money, setting your own hours and making something for yourself. It can change your life, giving your freedom and flexibility as well as an amazing sense of pride.
It is of course hard work. Starting a business is always difficult, especially if you have little or no experience in the field you are hoping to move in to, or have other responsibilities to take care of. To run a successful home business, you need to give a lot of time and effort and be willing to make other sacrifices and fully commit yourself. You may even need to spend some start-up money or take out a loan. It isn’t something that you should rush into without consideration.
But, if you do want to work from home, it can be well worth it. Starting your own business from home is much simpler than it used to be thanks to the internet and digital media and setting up systems like an e signature service can save you a lot of time. If you’ve already got an idea of what you’d like to do, do some research, find out what you need to get started and go for it. But, if you think you want to work from home, but you’re not quite sure what you’d want to do, here are some ideas that might be worth considering.
Tutoring or Consulting
If you’re particularly knowledgeable, talented or educated in a particular area, you could make a career as a tutor or a consultant. If you’ve had a job in business, consulting could be an excellent choice. So many people are looking to start up on their own and willing to pay a consultant to avoid the pitfalls of starting a business.
You could start by applying for some freelance work and advertising your services on social media or in local community centers and other public spaces. If you find there is a market for your services, you could build a website and print business cards and flyers to bring in more work.
Catering
If you are a keen cook or baker, you might enjoy working from home as a caterer. Occasion cakes are trendy at the moment, and a lot of people are making an income baking them for people they know.
Others are starting a catering business, supplying food for parties and events. If you plan to cook in your kitchen, you’ll need health and safety and food hygiene certificates and inspections. Have a look online to see what you need before you get started.
Selling
When it comes to starting a sales business at home, you have multiple options. It’s certainly something that everyone can do. To start with, you could spend time decluttering your home. Selling any unwanted items on eBay or Amazon. This is a straightforward way to make some extra cash, but not a long-term business plan.
If you want to carry on selling, you’ll need more stock. You could buy wholesale, and sell things on. Or, you could create your own products or sell your crafts. If these do well on eBay and Etsy, you may want to consider starting an e-commerce store and adding more products to your portfolio.
Blogging
Blogging can be a fantastic business. Gone are the days of bloggers messing about on Myspace. Now, bloggers can build huge sites with thousands of subscribers and views. They can build trusting relationships with their readers and have a real influence on them.
With so many blogs out there it can be hard to stand out enough to make it. But, with time, effort and hard work you can make money as a blogger working with brands, hosting sponsored content, advertising and from affiliate marketing.
If you want to start earning money as a blogger, it’s a good idea to start your blog as a hobby alongside your current job. Then spend time growing your blog and learning more about the industry before taking the leap and becoming a full-time blogger.
Personal Trainer
If you’ve got a keen interest in fitness, enjoy exercise and know a lot about health, starting a training business could be right for you. Just like consulting or tutoring you can advise on and offline, picking up clients when you can.
It’s a good idea to develop your knowledge so that you can help your clients. But, remember you don’t need to be super fit to train. You just have to know what’s needed to improve someone’s health and fitness and help them to meet their own goals. You may also need liability insurance to cover any accidents while training.
Cleaning
People are often willing to pay for services that they don’t like doing themselves. Or that they don’t have the time to do well. Cleaning is one of these things. Working parents, other home workers, the elderly or disabled are all groups that will happily pay to have their home professionally cleaned.
Cleaners often provide their own supplies, so spend some time building up a little stock and practicing your skills. Other services like cleaning you could provide include:
- Home moving
- Packing
- Ironing
- Laundry
Writing
When we’re young many of us dream of becoming an author and writing the next Harry Potter. Most of us give up when we realize how hard it is to get published and make money writing. The world’s a little different now, however, and most people can start a business as a writer.
You could write a book and self-publish on Amazon. Or, you could write content for blogs and magazines as a freelancer, or create an online course that people have to pay to download.
Childcare
If you are home looking after your kids, you may want to start a childcare business and make money from looking after other children too. You’ll need to make sure your home is safe for children, go on training courses and gain certification to get started.
