So You Want To Work From Home?

Working from home is more than the freedom to move and travel, and the ability to work in your pajamas.

Working from home can prove to be way more challenging than you imagine. You will need to:

• Stay Focused – It’s easy to get distracted when you telecommute. Distractions that just don’t exist at work are bountiful at home.
• Have Excellent Organizational Skills – You need to keep your desk neat and organized so you can do your best work.
• Be Able to Work Alone – You may find that you miss talking to people and the interaction found at a common workplace. Chatting through IM and on the phone is often how I find a healthy balance between having peace and quiet you need to get your work done and the much-needed interaction with others.
• Have Good Communication Skills – You need to be proactive about communicating all aspects of the job with clients. You will need to ask and answer any questions you or the client might have.
• Be Self-Motivated – You may be tempted to put off work and start working later than you should. You’ll need to keep yourself motivated. Give yourself monthly, daily, weekly, or even hourly goals if you need to.

Working from home is a hot topic and has been for quite a while. People often think of all the positives about working from home, but do not grasp the reality of doing it.

Searching for jobs that you could do from home used to mean scanning the Sunday classifieds for offers to get rich quick by stuffing envelopes. With today’s technology, that’s no longer the case. Work from home jobs have become extremely popular. From virtual assistants, bloggers, and social media managers, to support specialists, direct sales consulting, and data entry; work from home jobs are on the rise thanks to the internet, which has created opportunities that didn’t even exist just a few years ago. Over the next few weeks, Amazon will be hiring more than 3,000 customer service associates to work remotely in 18 states across the U.S.! Amazon customer service associates earn $15 per hour for 20 to 29 hours per week, though it may go up to 60 hours per week during large-scale events or peak seasons.

If you are looking to make an extra $50 to $500 per month, one of the easiest work from home jobs around is to take surveys. By taking opinion polls and answering questions about your shopping habits you can help companies improve products and target their audience better. Companies need to better understand potential customers so they ask questions to improve their marketing tactics. And, they pay survey takers via PayPal or with points that can be redeemed for gift cards for helping them do that. Two great survey sites to check out are Survey Junkie and Swagbucks (free $10 signup bonus).

We’ve all heard of rags to riches stories. People going from nothing to achieving incredible success beyond their own wildest dreams in a short space of time. From living out his parents’ basement to redefining the model of consulting, Sam Ovens, the millionare consultant, is one of those stories. If you’d like to start a profitable consulting business Sam Ovens’ online consulting program, Consulting Accelerator™, is an excellent way to make that dream happen. This isn’t the traditional form of consulting of designer suits and board rooms. Rather, it’s a new type of consulting that uses expertise to provide a solution to a problem. You pick your own niche based on your area of expertise. And, the 6-week intensive training program teaches you how you can use those skills to create a profitable, work from home business.

More Legitimate Work From Home Jobs Hiring Now

Here are some of the best work from home jobs to start earning money from home, on your own schedule.

1. Virtual Assistant Jobs – Commonly referred to as VAs often make between $35 and $50 per hour, according to Gina Horkey, a professional virtual assistant and work from home jobs coach at HorkeyHandbook. You can start by taking a training class that’ll teach you the common skills needed to become a virtual assistant.

2. Start Blogging for Money – Choose a topic that you are passionate about and start writing about it on a regular basis. If you are an expert in a particular area, starting a blog that focuses on it is a great way to teach people about a particular skill, entertain, or share about life experiences. Bloggers can make between $0 and $150,000 per month through a variety of different methods including, but not limited to: affiliate marketing, accepting paid advertisements, and by selling digital (or physical) products.

3. Work from Home Freelance Writing Jobs – You can hire yourself out and write for newspapers, large online publications, and even other blogs. These “writer for hire” jobs usually pay between $30 and $500 per assignment, depending on difficulty, the writers experience level, and the length of the material. Veteran freelancers can earn well over $1,000 per assignment. You can start by taking a course that teaches you the basic skills required to pursue these types of writing jobs. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll need to create a portfolio of writing samples that you can show to prospective clients. You may need to offer free work to clients to build up your portfolio. Once your portfolio is complete, you can find work on sites like Upwork and Freelancer.

4. Online Teaching Jobs – If you are a (licensed) teacher, you can now start teaching classes from home via Skype or pre-recorded sessions. The average salary for first-year teachers is $30k. K12 is one of the biggest providers of online teaching services and since you’ll be working with kids (even though it’s online), you still need to go through the typical hiring process for a teacher: background check, reference check, interviews, etc.

5.  Online Tutor – Teaching Chinese children English through VIPKID is one of the hottest online jobs right now. Tutors typically earn anywhere from $14 – $22 per hour according to their website.

6. Freelance Proofreading Online Jobs – Are you the kind of person who is great at identifying errors in printed content? If so, proofreading may be the stay at home job for you. According to Salary.com, the median salary for a freelance proofreader is $49,729 per year.

7. Direct Sales Consulting – One of the more common work from home jobs, known as multi-level marketing, has become extremely popular. Think of the Avon, Beachbody, Tupperware, and Thirty-One posts that you see all over your Facebook feed. Most of these programs require an upfront investment for purchasing your initial inventory.

8. Testing Apps and Websites – Similar to taking surveys for money, companies will also pay regular people to give feedback on their website and apps. You can test how it looks, how easy it is to navigate, etc… through Whatusersdo, Enroll, UserFeel, Analysia, TryMyUI and make $8 to $10 per test.

9. Web Design – If you know the basics behind web design, you can start offering those services to small businesses. In addition to emailing businesses in your area, Alignable and Upwork are great sites to find these jobs.

10. Do Local Odd-Jobs – Offering any skills that you have locally on Craigslist is a great way to make extra income. From running errands, buying groceries, doing yard work, there are all sorts of jobs on TaskRabbit, also.

11. Driving – Consider driving for Uber or Lyft. These ride-sharing apps are an excellent way to make money and meet interesting people in your town.

Just a few decades ago, the vast majority of work-at-home job opportunities were far from profitable. Thanks to today’s changing economy that’s no longer the case. Many can make working at home, work for them.