Do you work from home?
 

Hi all,
I've been trying to find a job where I can work from, but most of my inquries seem to be scams. Does anyone know of a legitimate way to make money working from home? Thanks a lot for your help!;)

I own my own business and work from home. I also do some contracting on the side during the slow season and do that work from home as well. (Ok, actually I have an office for my business that I go to - but for all intents and purposes I can work at home if I don't have to meet a client.)

I think the first thing you need to do is determine WHAT you want to do. Do you want to work from home for another comapny? Do you want to own your own business? What, exactly, can you do? Think about the skills you have that you can use to get a job and then start looking from that direction.

Do think about registering with contracting and temp firms as well. Most of them require that you work on site, but you *can* find jobs that will let you work at home (or will let you work at home most days with maybe 1 or 2 days in the office).

I think just looking for *any* work at home job is where the problem comes in. Unless it's a job you want and can do, then you're going to find a lot more junk than real opportunities.

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One job that I think would be the easiest to start up would be child care. Dayhomes can be tough to find :)

But that all depends on your experiences with kids. Do you like them? Can you put up with whining? Can you have the patience to work with potty training? Working while sick? Early mornings? Outings?? Can you cook for kids (great websites with good recipes for children). Do you own pets? Do you smoke? This may become a concern for some parents.
Do you have children of your own? It would be nice for them to have someone to play with :)
Do you have CPR and First AID? Do you own a vehicle in case of emergencies? Can you find a backup sitter in case of emergency?

If you like to write, write children's books.

Don't use one of the scam artist companies, instead, go to your local book store. See who are the primary publishers of children's books. Write your book and see about getting published by dealing directly with those publishers. There will most likely be several "writer's guides" at your local library, which will include things like how to package your product, etc.

I'm in direct sales....so that might be an outlet worth looking into too! I do most of my work from home.... like setting up parties, hostess coaching, managing my team (or downline) and go out to do parties that last about 2-3 hours. I do about 3 a week.

I do medical transcription from home -- since my kids were born. I personally love the flexibility. Many colleges offer courses (I would stay clear of the on-line "opportunities")

I don't want to be a downer, but I have friends who ask me about it all the time and they seem to forget certain items:

There is no health insurance
There is no vacation pay
If your client has no work, neither do you
There are no days off for the most part

It is an extremely flexible schedule, which I love. Good luck to you :)

I read recently that cake baking/making/decorating has become a popular at home business.
I took cake decorating classes and really enjoy doing it, but I do not like the clean up of it :(
Plus, I'm not into customer service. If you screw something up then they're mad at you :(

The problem with cake baking is that if you're going to sell your product to the public, you need a health license. A lot of individuals who work out of their homes don't get them because it's hard to be certified by the health department when your commercial cooking is out of your personal kitchen. But if you don't do it and you get audited by the health dept, you can face a really hefty fine (10s of thousands).

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I work from home. there are hundreds of companies that hire homeworkers as employees and IC's. Right now I work with Cloud 10 and Westat. 20 hours with each company. go to workplacelikehome.com its a work at home forum, also there is wahm.com, another forum. they have tons of info on work at home jobs, the good and bad. also, this is a job list that is updated daily ratracerebellion.com I am NOT promoting this in anyway, but these are the sites that helped me, so I apologize if Im breaking any kind of rules. there are no fees of any kind on either of these. you just register with the 2 forums, like this one, and the ratrace is just a website. My only income is from my 2 work at home jobs.

Yea, I have a friend who was doing gourmet box lunches out of her home and she decided she'd better register as a business with the health dept. She hasn't ever been inspected though. But, after she did this, set up business bank accts., etc., no one called her to do catering anymore. Before that she was fairly busy. Just goes to show you how unpredictable working for yourself can be.

The lady that taught my cake decorating class told me that as long as she did cakes "by word of mouth" that she was ok to not register as a business. But, if she put out business cards, advertised, etc., she'd be subject to inspection. She made wedding cakes and cookies and I guess did fairly well.

My problem with making cakes, is that people don't want to pay you more than they can get a cake at WalMart or the grocery store for. I'd need more money for my time. Like I said, there's alot of clean up :(

I will be working from home again starting in August, as a Manager of Contracting for a large health insurance company.

Some companies post positions with the tag of WAH (work at home) or Telecommuning. They are out there. Good luck in your search!

Thank you all for your great suggestions. I am looking into some of them now.