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I recently read the resource directory that was issued by Australia’s Home Education Association. It’s a great little directory, with links to resource vendors, curriculum and support groups. Certainly something worth hanging on to.

One advertisement caught my eye.

We use the maths curriculum Math-U-See and it works fine for our family. The distributors of Math-U-See in Australia were advertising for people to tutor other students using their curriculum . The idea is that you tutor school children to improve their maths, using this curriculum.

This is obviously a good way to get their product noticed by the general community, but is this possibly a good way of earning a few dollars doing what we do every day?

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I think just about everyone has heard the term “multi level marketing”, also known as MLM or network marketing. It tends to raise very strong feelings amongst people – some are convinced it is a scam, others believe it to be a legitimate business opportunity.

I’ve been thinking of this over the last couple of days, having been involved in one or two MLM companies. I was listening to an excellent CD by a very successful network marketer, who spoke glowingly about the opportunities that a MLM home business offers.

Not long after that, I read a post in the Warrior Forum, by a marketer I have quite a bit of regard for, who said essentially there’s no such thing as a good MLM home business.

Who is right?

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Lots of homeschooling mums have a craft they enjoy as a hobby. It’s often their “downtime”, or relaxation, after spending their day teaching their children.

Many people make money from crafts by taking their creations to a market or fete, and selling them from a stall. That works well, but it does take precious time away from your family. How do you fit a craft business around homeschooling your children?

It’s not too difficult to see that you can make money from crafts such as sewing, scrapbooking, and jewelry making. In fact, many crafts can be turned into a profitable sideline business, that not only can work well around your children, but can also allow them to participate and learn business skills in the process.There is a more convenient way of selling your crafts, and that is selling them online.

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Many people earn a few extra dollars by taking paid surveys online.

This would be very easy to work around your family, and with many surveys don’t take long to complete, it’s possible that this is a good income generating opportunity for homeschooling parents.

Can you earn decent money by taking paid surveys, or is it a bit of a scam?

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One feature of earning an income from most websites is that when your customer has come along, made their purchase and and received their product, they may not feel the need to return.

One way of making repeat sales to the same customer is by building a membership site.

Basically, this is a subscription based site where people sign up and are charged a fee on a regular basis, commonly monthly. In exchange, they get access to information or products.

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One popular business option for home schooling families, is selling home school teaching aids and curriculum material.

There are a couple of ways of doing this – each one with its own advantages and disadvantages.

You have the option of selling tangible resources, such as textbooks and reference books, both online and at home schooling conferences. Alternatively, you can sell downloadable products online.

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As a keen photographer, I love to turn my passion into pennies. As we’ve already mentioned, most photography businesses aren’t really compatible with homeschooling children.

There is another way of earning from your photography that will allow you to work on your business while you homeschool and in the evenings, and that is stock photography.

Stock photography is basically selling photos for publishers to use in their books, magazines or websites. You would be surprised at what will sell – scenery, food, pets and animals are popular topics. You can also include photos of your children or yourself, which can be purchased for use on family type sites, however I’m personally not keen on having my children’s photos able to be used anywhere for a dollar.

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If you’re good with a camera, there’s no reason why you can’t start a photography business from home. When I say this, I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought it wasn’t a good idea at all. Photographers have to go and take photographs of people – portraits, weddings and other occasions. Don’t they? Well, yes, but that doesn’t fit in at all with staying at home educating your children.

Fortunately, there are a couple of options which will allow you to start a photography business and earn an income around the needs of your children.We’ll look at one method in this post, and further methods over the next few days.

This method isn’t difficult; in fact if your child has some photographic ability, this could be a step into business for them too. You can also start a photography business like this with a good compact camera – there’s no need for expensive digital SLR cameras.

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If you are an expert in an area, or even just very knowledgeable, you can sell your expertise online and earn extra money from home that way.

We’ve already looked at Just Answer, but there are a couple of other sites that operate in a similar way.

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I’ve been spending a bit of time on a website called JustAnswer. Basically, it’s a site which liaises between the public and experts in various fields.  A person will ask a question on the site, and nominate an amount they’re willing to pay for an answer. Various experts, including doctors, lawyers, dentists and veterinarians, will answer that question, and if the client accepts it, the expert will basically get paid to answer questions. There are categories for lots of areas of expertise, including mechanics, teachers etc.

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