Top 10 Work at Home Jobs: Inspiring Ways to Make Money From Home
A comprehensive list of the top 10 work at home jobs, which enable thousands of students, work at home moms and retirees to make extra money from home.
June 7th, 2010 by Becky Turner
The Top 10
Work at Home Jobs |
In the last decade, new technology has produced an explosion of work at home jobs.
This has changed the lives of many thousands of people looking to work from home - usually stay at home moms and dads; military spouses who have to move every few years; people with disabilities; and students and retirees looking to supplement their limited income.
But this surge of home-based jobs has been more than matched by internet scams. In fact, it's thought that only 1 out of 60 so-called work at home jobs are real; the rest are complete scams designed to extract a fee then leave you high and dry.
So you have to be extremely cautious when seeking out ways to make extra money from home. If you are pursuing work with an employer, make sure you research them thoroughly and check their trading history and reputation. If you plan to work for yourself - congratulations! You are discovering your own entrepreneurial spirit...
Top 10 Work at Home Jobs
The following top 10 work at home jobs shows both sides of the fence. Whether you choose to have an employer or not is up to you - both have their merits depending on your skills and experience. The benefit of any work at home career is you have certain freedoms that an office worker does not. Reclaiming that freedom is the first step in evolving your career.
#1 - Child Care Provider
This is a great work at home job if you love kids and are at home most of the day. My mom offered child care from home for 10 years. She focused on babies and toddlers since she got to keep them for the whole day. Older kids need to be dropped off and picked up from school, and you don't get paid for the hours in between. You can expect to earn $8-12 per hour - per child - so if you take on several kids it can be a really nice earner for doing something you love. It no doubt helps if you have had children of your own, and you may need to take a first aid course plus other certificates to call yourself qualified. The best way to find new clients is word of mouth and advertising online and with local businesses.
#2 - Virtual Assistant
This is actually a very broad job title, but a virtual assistant is usually an admin helper who works purely off-site using the internet to communicate. For instance, we hired a work at home mom to be a virtual assistant for our Mixed Martial Arts clothing business, MMA GEAR. Working entirely independently, she monitors website orders and payments, manages our stock, organizes customer deliveries, and handles customer queries. The training for this job was minimal and she earns a fixed fee per order.
To connect with businesses in your area who are looking for stay at home assistants, visit The International Virtual Assistant Association. With jobs ranging from general admin to technical support, you can earn $15-100 per hour depending on your skills and experience.
#3 - Caterer / Specialist Baker
Do you love to cook? Then why not make extra money while you're at it? You can set up a small scale catering business from home, preparing foods in your own kitchen and supplying them at local events like birthday parties, weddings, funerals and corporate functions. In this way, 90% of the work can be done while looking after the kids. You can also connect with local bakeries and cafes, supplying them with niche products like novelty cup cakes or themed candy. Homemade foods can have huge appeal and with low initial overheads it can be profitable from the get-go.
#4 - Accountant
If you are a financial whiz, you can start your own one-man accountancy firm and offer to do the taxes of local companies and individuals. This is a very flexible home-based job and there will always be demand for your services as long as you don't price yourself out of the competition. While this job requires training and experience, there are very few set-up costs and the earnings potential is considerable.
#5 - Translator
If you are fluent in a second language, consider a work at home job offering translation services. Many companies seek translators via the internet so your potential client base is huge. And this is a growing industry; The US Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the demand for translators will increase by 24% during the 2006-2016 decade. Thanks to globalization, the need for translation services is huge, and this is pushing up pay rates in management, scientific and consulting arenas. As a work at home translator, you can earn from $21-57 per hour. Comprendez?
#6 - Medical Transcriptionist
You will need specific training to become a work at home medical transcriptionist, which involves typing up dictation from doctors. This can be difficult when the doctors have difference accents, mumble, eat, drink and even hold conversations with other people while they are dictating! Nonetheless, once you get over that hurdle, transcribing medical notes can be very interesting and experienced folk command $20 per hour for what is essentially a minimum stress, receptionist type role.
#7 - Website Designer / Developer
Of all the work at home jobs being advertised on freelance job boards, website designers and developers are the most in demand. This is not something you can fall into overnight, though, and you will need proper training and experience to get serious work. As a website designer you should be well-versed in programs like PhotoShop and DreamWeaver, and fluent in the languages of CSS, HTML and PHP. Web development uses more intensive programming and is more mathematical than creative. Pay rates for this niche vary considerably depending on your experience, but once you know your stuff you can earn seriously good money.
#8 - Writer / Editor
While the print industry may be stagnating, the internet is more than making up for it with opportunities for online copywriters, editors and proofreaders abound. While you don't necessarily need any formal training to be a freelance writer, you do need an excellent command of the English language. For online articles, you should know all the basic principles of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Your online client base is global and pay rates vary considerably depending on experience - from $5 for a simple blog post, to $500 or more for complex technical or feature writing.
#9 - Professional Blogger
If you can write well but don't want the hassle of dealing with clients, considering becoming a professional blogger. This is not a new idea; there are well over 100 million of blogs in existence. But only a fraction of those generate real traffic, being run by people who are committed to blogging. Countless blogs are started with the best intentions but dwindle within weeks when they don't generate any traffic. A professional blogger knows how to write well, research in-demand topics, perform keyword optimization, identify good passive income streams, and gets to work at home while they're at it. While Career Evolution is a website (not a blog) it is the closest item in this list that matches my current occupation. I earn passive income by writing about topics I find interesting, like lucid dreaming and natural vision improvement. Big thumbs up.
#10 - Affiliate Webmaster
This is a rapidly emerging work at home job that is being made accessible to anyone by simplified technologies like Site Build It. An affiliate webmaster is anyone who sells affiliate products on their website. If I were to recommend a book on Amazon in this article and you bought it, I would earn 5% on the sale. That is what makes me an affiliate webmaster. You can make extra money from home with all kinds of affiliate programs (associated with just about anything you can buy on the internet) and collect commissions via your website, professional blog or even through online marketing systems like Google AdWords. This is an excellent way to be your own boss - and earn unlimited income while you're at it.
Final Thoughts
I truly hope you're inspired by this list of top 10 work at home jobs, which were aimed to cover quite a range of employed, self-employed, highly skilled and general roles. But if nothing here takes your fancy - don't give up on the idea of working from home. There are many, many more niches to be explored. Your #1 tool for researching stay at home job opportunities is the internet, so keep an open mind, watch out for scams, and focus on making your work at home dream become a reality.
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