homeschoolingincome.com » Other Opportunities

Tutoring Students For Extra Cash

Audrey — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:32:16 +0000

Image by foreversouls via Flickr

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?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes getting my two beloveds to finish their prescribed work can be a long, drawn out process. We have set work to complete each day, and while most of the time, it gets done without too much fuss and bother, sometimes we have those days. You know the ones…. everything is unneccessarily difficult and takes way longer than it should. Every homeschooling parent has them.

I’ve just been imagining how it would feel to finish the prescribed work with my own children, then spend another block of time in the afternoon helping another child with maths. I don’t think this would work for me. We do a few activities and excursions in the afternoon, and it’d be hard to fit in tutoring. Also, after winding down for the afternoon, I’d find it difficult to switch the old brain back on to give a student my best.

Also, what would my own children be doing while I was focussed on this other student? Again, it may be different if you have a larger family who could keep an eye on the young ones, or older children who could prepare dinner independently, but I’m sure my two would find something to disagree about.

If you really enjoy maths, and you’re skilled at teaching, this may be right up your alley. The expenses would be minimal if you’re using the Math-U-See curriculum anyway, you can purchase a workbook and test book for each student. One thing to be mindful of is where you’re going to teach. If you’re going to be at home, check your home and contents insurance. It should have public liability cover as part of it, but it may not cover a “business” relationship. If you’re earning money from having a student in your home for tutoring, you need public liability cover. It should be a tax deduction (check with your accountant), and you can factor the cost into your fees. However, it’s too risky to work without it.

Tutoring isn’t a bad option at all for earning some extra cash from home, but it’s not for me.

Can You Make Money With A MLM Home Business?

Audrey — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:25:29 +0000

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?

Multilevel marketing basically involves signing up to distribute a product, then recruiting other people to join your team to also distribute that product. The idea is you make a commission on any product you sell, plus you are paid a bonus by the company on any product that your recruits sell. It’s in your best interest therefore, to recruit as many people as you can.

In a sense, multi level marketing is just a form of affiliate marketing, but with the opportunity to earn more than just the commission on the sale of product.

So, is a MLM home business workable around your children’s educational needs?

In one sense, it can be. It can be as flexible as you want it to be. However, is it a good business opportunity for you?

One thing I found interesting about the audio I listened to, by the man with a successful MLM home business, is that he said it really doesn’t matter what product the company sells, it’s the business opportunity you’re looking to promote. That didn’t sit right with me. As I said in an earlier post on this blog, HERE, a legitimate business will be selling either a product or a service. Is selling an opportunity a legitimate business? I’m not sure.

Most companies do have a product range, but if it’s not an item you use anyway, or if the price is elevated to allow payment of downline bonuses, you could be spending more than you otherwise would for them.

The other things I’ve found about starting a MLM home business, based on my personal experience, is that you’re often required to invest in “training aids” such as books and CD’s, or attend seminars. You could be spending before you’ve even earned, and this doesn’t sit right with me either. I have been told that for some MLM people, selling training aids generates more income than selling product!

There may be companies out there which can provide you with a good MLM home business opportunity, and in fact, I’m exploring one now. If you’re going to give MLM a try, I’d advise you to follow the advice of my friend in the Warrior Forum – minimal start up cost, a product that’s competitively priced and you use already, a company that focusses on the product more than recruiting, and no pressure to buy training aids or attend functions or seminars.

Is there such a company? I’d love to hear your experiences!

Make Money From Crafts – Earn While You Play!

Audrey — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:46:29 +0000

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.

Firstly, you can sell on Ebay. The advantage of this is that Ebay has lots of traffic, so plenty of potential customers. The downside is that you’ll have lots of competition, buyers are looking for a bargain, and you’ll have to make enough money to cover their fees and your materials before you see any profit.

Another site where you can earn money from crafts is Etsy, which is a really nice site selling all sorts of home made items. Again, there are fees to contend with, but it’s worth a look to see if it will be profitable for you. Click on the image to visit the site.

A third way is to have your own website selling your products. You can do this with Vstore, which is completely free. I’ve briefly set up a store with this service, and it’s quite simple to use. The costs would be minimal, but you’d still need to promote your site and get visitors to make any sales.

A similar method of earning money from crafts is to have your own domain, install my old favourite, WordPress, then use an e-commerce plugin such as WP e-Commerce to manage your products. This plugin can be downloaded from HERE. I personally haven’t tried this method, only because I haven’t been actively crafting of late, but it would be my preferred choice. Although you’d still have to get traffic to your site, your shop would be on your own domain which always looks more professional. Also, you can have your email address yourname@yourdomain.com which also is very smart.

How else can you make money from crafts online other than selling?

You can create a niche blog around your craft, and sell advertising and affiliate products.

You can write “how to” articles and send them to magazines for payment. I have a good friend who is a wonderful scrapbooker, and she has been published several times in a national scrapbooking magazine.

You can create ebooks, online training courses or downloadable designs, depending on your niche.

You can sell craft kits or craft supplies online, but this would entail investing money in stock, which may not be an option for you.

I know yet another lady who is a scrapbooker and she creates layouts and sells kits online which contain the components to make the layout. It’s run as a “kit of the month club” which again is a membership type set up which gives you recurring income. The other benefit is that she only has to stock the materials to make one kit a month, so she’s not out of pocket much to start with.

The beauty of earning money from crafts is you are combining your hobby with your business, which can make it a lot more fun to put the hours in. However, if you sit down and work out an hourly rate, it may not be that high. You often have to look at earning from your craft as a bonus from enjoying your hobby. However, many people do make a decent amount of money from crafts, so it is possible.

Think about what crafts you like to do, and how you could earn a dollar or two from it.

Taking Paid Surveys To Help The Family Budget

Audrey — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:35:32 +0000

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?

Surveying the population is a great method of market research for a company. They can survey new mums to find out how much they know about their brand of baby food, and what they think of it. Because they can specify that only new mums complete their surveys, it can give very accurate results and can be quite cost effective.

These companies liaise with survey sites, who do the legwork – getting the survey participants, collecting the results and sending the data back to the company. So, to get started taking paid surveys, you need to sign up directly with these survey sites.

Some survey sites are free to join, and some will charge a yearly membership.Some pay in cash, and some pay in store vouchers or points that can be redeemed for cash and prizes. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully to make sure you know how you’ll be paid for your opinion.

If you’re just starting out, I’d suggest not spending money before you’re earning, so stick to the free site for now. Later, when you have some cash flow, you can think about joining a paid site, but check carefully and do your research to make sure it’s worth the money. Some say that the paid sites pay better, but I have no personal experience of this.

When you join a survey company, you’ll see they ask you several questions. This is to make sure you get surveys targeted to your age/location/interests. I’m sure a single male in his 60′s won’t have much to offer the manufacturer of baby food. Answer the questions honestly, because these companies are paying good money for your opinion.

Some other suggestions to help you earn more by taking paid surveys are:

Register with a few survey sites. The more sites you’re registered with, the more surveys you may be offered. It’s a good idea to set up a separate email address for your survey emails – you can do this for free with Gmail.

Do all the surveys that you are offered. Sure, they may not pay a fortune, but in most cases, they don’t take long to do, and it all adds up.

When you get invited to participate in a survey, do so promptly. Companies may only need a limited number of participants, so if you leave it too long, you may miss out.

I’ve included links in this post to a few survey sites that are well regarded and are free to join. They can be a good way to get started in this line of work. Click on the images to be taken to the site.

Although taking paid surveys online may not make you a fortune, it can certainly earn enough to help the family budget.I have one friend who regularly fills the pantry using grocery store vouchers. It’s also easy work, and very flexible. It’ll cost you nothing but a little bit of time to have a go.

Build A Membership Site For Ongoing Income

Audrey — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:16:01 +0000

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.

One common business model is a membership to an ebook or article site, where for a monthly fee, members get a certain number of articles to use on their websites, or ebooks to sell. However, you can create a membership site in just about any niche you can think of. I have a friend who has a child with food sensitivities, and has developed a huge library of hypoallergenic recipes. I think a busy mum would be happy to pay a nominal fee monthly for a tried and tested recipe once a week.

It’s an excellent business model because once you have sold your product to your customer, and you continue to provide good content and service, there’s no reason for anyone to cancel their membership. It allows you to leverage your time – you can create something once, and sell it over and over, with minimal ongoing effort.

What do you need to get started? Well, there are membership site programs which range in price from under $100 to over $1000, but it won’t surprise you by now to hear that you can in fact build a free membership site using WordPress.

You’ll need a domain, webhosting, and WordPress installed on your site. You can change the appearance of your site by uploading a new theme – there are lots of free themes you can find by searching on Google.

Once you have your theme, you can then install your choice of membership plugin – there are several to choose from.

The “Tech Guy Next Door”, my friend Sagar, has written a comprehensive and inexpensive report on how to set up a free membership site with WordPress. It starts with how to set up WordPress on your domain, and from there tells you exactly how to install the necessary plugins to have a fully functioning membership site in a couple of hours. He also spells out the really important part – how to set up the payment process. You can check out the details here: WordPress Membersite.

Once you have your site set up, and you have your content ready to go, you need to get traffic to your site. Yep, any internet business depends on traffic, and as we’ve already mentioned, there are lots of methods you can follow to do this.

Start thinking – what do you know, what are you good at, and how can you use it to earn ongoing income by turning it into a membership site. It’s not as hard as you think.

A Business Selling Home School Teaching Aids

Audrey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:24:25 +0000

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.

Firstly, let’s explore being a supplier of hard copy home school teaching resources. The advantage of this particular business model, is that you have access to the resources for your own family, and you can offer an honest review of the materials from your own experience for buyers. Also, many of the popular curriculum materials are well known, and it may be a bit easier to get traffic to your site.

The main reason I don’t recommend this way of setting up a business is that it is costly to establish. You need to have enough money to invest in getting your stock of home school teaching materials, you need a place to store them, and you need to insure them against theft or damage. Depending on where you live, you may also need public liability insurance to cover anyone delivering stock to your home, or your attendance at expo’s. You also need to be able to have your cash tied up for some time in stock which may or may not sell quickly.

If you’re going to set up a custom website selling your stock, it can also be expensive, unless you learn to do it yourself.

The second option is to sell home school teaching resources as a downloadable product. This is a much better idea on many levels.

Firstly, you may have created your own lesson plan or unit study for your family. It would be easy to package that up as a pdf, and offer it for sale online, with very little additional work on your part.

Secondly, the costs of running this business model are minimal, and there is no financial risk if an item doesn’t sell. You could conceivably sell from a simple wordpress blog with an e-commerce plugin, so the cost of website setup is also minimal.

Lastly, there are no insurance issues, stock storage issues, or cash tied up in stock.

You could even offer to sell lesson plans created by your friends, and take a small commission. This allows you to have a wider range of plans, without having to create them yourself. One very successful site that does this is Currclick.

The big challenge with selling home school teaching plans as a downloadable product is that you do have to drive traffic to your site to make any sales. However, this shouldn’t discourage you. Getting traffic is an issue for any online business. You may be able to get good quality links from other homeschool sites, and you can also put your site in your signature in homeschooling forums.

I think sellling home school teaching resources as a downloadable pdf is a really good sideline for any other home schooling business. It may not provide a huge income by itself, but the costs are low, and the effort to do so is minimal.

Selling Photos Online For Cash

Audrey — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:25:27 +0000

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.

It’s not too hard to get started selling photos online. There are lots of stock photo sites who will display your photos, handle purchases and downloads, and collect payment on your behalf. A Google search will uncover plenty of options, however my favourite sites are istockphoto and Dreamstime.

Have a look around these sites, and see what images are selling. Also, think about your hobbies and interests, and what images you could create around them. Where do you take your children on excursions – are there any nice landscapes, trees or wildlife there? As a homeschooling parent, you probably take lots of photos to keep a record of outings and activities. I’ve been keeping the idea of selling photos in the back of my mind while I’ve been out and about lately.

With both of these sites, you do have to be approved before you can start selling photos, so make sure you submit your best photos in your application. You may also be paid a little more for each download if your photo is exclusive to that agency.

When you take the photos, be sure to have your camera set to the highest resolution. Dreamstime want their submitted photos to be 3 megapixels in size, so check your pictures are the right size before you submit them.

How much money can you make selling photos online? Your payment depends on how many people purchase your image, so be sure you submit images of popular topics, and label your images well so they show up when people search for a particular term.

I don’t know much about this process, I haven’t yet tried it. I’ve registered with both sites, and I’m just choosing my images for evaluation, so I can let you know how it goes.

However, it’s free to register on both of these sites, and if you use a digital camera, it costs nothing for photo printing, so why not give it a go? The other beauty of this method is that your children can do it to. Can you imagine – your children earning their own allowance by selling photos online!! That’d be something to tell the grandparents.

Start A Photography Business From Home

Audrey — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:03:33 +0000

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.

Collect your best photographs of landscapes, flowers, wildlife etc. Make a point of taking a camera with you on all your outings and excursions with your family, and keep an eye out for good photo opportunities.

You are going to start a photography business creating products such as mouse mats, mugs, and travel mirrors with your photos, and then selling them. There are several sites that can help with this; I’m choosing two sites that I have personally tried to share with you.

The first site is Cafepress. At this site, you can create a store, upload a photograph and sell a variety of items with this image from your store. You then promote your store as you would any other website. When people order a product, Cafepress will print and ship it, collect payment and accumulate your profit. You can choose how much of a mark up to put on each product, and determine your income that way.

You can open a store for free with Cafepress, and although you can only upload one design, it’s a great way of trying out the process. You can also list your product on auction sites such as eBay, and only order it when it sells. Watch your listing fees though!

The second site I’ve used to start a photography business is Artsnow. This site also allows you to open a store for free, they have a massive range of products, and their prices are a bit cheaper than Cafepress.

One feature I really like is the option to dropship. You can create a dropshipper account (which has no shopfront), market your products online anywhere on the web (eg auction sites, your other business websites), and when someone orders, you just upload the order to Artsnow and they’ll print the product and send it to the customer directly. The dropship product prices are much cheaper than the shop prices, but there is a $19.95 charge per month for the dropship account. If you’re doing enough turnover, it may be worth it.

Either option is great for allowing you to start a photography business with no investment and no real risk. If you like photography, this could be a great way of combining your hobby with work, while not disrupting your children’s education.

Other ideas on how to start a photography business from home are coming soon!

Sell Your Expertise To Earn Extra Money From Home

Audrey — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:41:02 +0000

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.

The first site we’ll look at is Ether. This site allows you to accept phone calls from customers who will pay for your skills and knowledge. You will recieve an Ether phone number, and you can put that number on business cards, websites, or in signature file in forums and emails. There is no cost to sign up with Ether,but they take a 15% commission out of your earnings to cover their expenses.

How effective this is at earning cash while you homeschool would vary. I know my days are full and taking phone calls wouldn’t be easy, but after bedtime it would be more feasible.

The good points about starting to earn extra money from home with Ether are that there are no setup costs, you can choose when you want to work, and you can set your own prices. Looking at the Ether directory, there is also not as much competition as in Just Answer.

The main con that I can see is tthey pay you either by direct debit or check. Direct debit is only available in the US, and I know here in Australia, my bank charges a lot of money to cash a foreign currency check. So, if you live in the USA, this would be a very convenient way to earn extra money from home . In other countries, there are better alternatives.

The next website where you can sell your knowledge is eHow. This is a site where you can write and submit articles on how to do any number of things. If you’re not sure what to write about, there is a section where users suggest topics they’d like to see covered.

The more people who read your article, the more you get paid, so be sure to promote your articles as much as you can. There are guidelines on the site to help you do this.

If you use eHow to earn extra money from home , there are no costs to participate. It is also timeless – as long as your articles are on the site, you’re eligible to earn an income. However, if you earn less than $10 per calendar year, they do charge a $1 processing fee when they pay you.

Unfortunately, that at this stage, you can only join the Writer’s Compensation Program if you live in the USA.

Both of these programs offer flexibility and convenience and will help you earn extra money from home, but as with any opportunity, there is work involved.

Get Paid To Answer Questions

Audrey — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:47:11 +0000

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.

To become an expert, you will need to go through an approval process, which doesn’t take long at all. As a new expert, there are limitations: you’re limited on not only what questions you can answer, but also how much you get paid to answer questions.

It’s not going to suit everyone – you may feel you don’t have any expertise in any areas, but have a look at the categories. There may be one where you know enough to get paid to answer questions in that category.

I’m a veterinary surgeon, so the site works well for me.JustAnswer has generated up to $500 per month for me, as I’m now a level 4 dog and cat expert. Payment is made monthly directly into your paypal account, and it has never been late.

The good points – you can work anytime you are available; you can choose which questions to answer; depending on your skills you can be an expert in various areas which can increase your income; some questions can be answered very quickly depending on your area of expertise, so your effective hourly rate can be quite high; the company is very reliable in paying you, and you can keep track of your earnings on their website.

The bad points – the client has to accept your answer before you get paid and while most do, there are some who don’t; some questions are only valued at $9 or $15 so you can end up putting a lot of work in for up to $7.50; there may at times be lots of experts in your area online or there may not be enough questions for you to answer.

Overall, I think this is a good system for earning money online, and I’ll continue to get paid to answer questions as part of my online income. It’s not passive income, so you do have to work to earn, it’s not something you can set and forget. However, it’s no inconvenience to leave the computer on while I’m pottering around the house, and regularly check for new questions. You can check out JustAnswer by clicking here.