The Planning Stage

Once I’ve decided that I wanted to work at home and be with my kids, I then sat down to work on the financials. How much do I need to earn to be able to sustain our family? Giving up my monthly salary would create a big dent on our budget. That’s where the cost of work has been most helpful. See, in the beginning, I thought I had to earn the same amount I was earning from my employment. But after realizing that there were a lot of expenses that I would be taking out of the family budget, it became easier to come up with a realistic target.

Armed with a target amount, I then made a list of things I could do from home. I bought reference books and read them from cover to cover. Honest! I still have a copy of 101 Best Home-Based Businesses for Women by Priscilla Huff that I refer to ’til now, and I spent hours searching the internet for business ideas and work-at-home opportunities. And for each idea that I came across, I made an assessment of my skills and capabilities. Can I do this? And the better question is, can I do this for a long time? Because of course, you would want to start on something that you can sustain. Something that you can stick with for the long haul. And then assess if you can afford the start-up. With me, I was hellbent on finding something that I could do online. And when I found one, I really spent time and money to prepare myself. I enrolled in a training program, invested on a high-end desktop PC, scanner, printer, pedal, headset, and just about any software that the training center advised me to have. And because I’ve already made financial investments, the more that I was motivated to make it work.

Now, investing on hardware and software for a work-at-home venture is different from having to pay money to get a job. This is another important lesson that I learned from the professional WAHMs that I “met” online. While looking for work-at-home opportunities, you will surely come across sites that promise you earnings in thousands of dollars, just by simply signing up with them and buying a kit to get started. Uh-uh. That’s almost sure to be a scam. Always remember that you don’t need to pay money to get a job. The only exception to this rule is if you are getting into a direct selling opportunity where you need to buy a kit to get started. And even in this venture, you are not paying to get a job, instead you are paying for an inventory of items that will get you started in the direct selling business.

In planning to become a WAHM, bear in mind that your chances of becoming successful with a tiny amount of work are slim to none. Starting a home office or business entail hard work, constant re-education, creativity, and more hard work. So if you have decided to be a work-at-home mom, be ready to roll up your sleeves and dig in.