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Since the shutdown in 2020, more and more people have been trying to find ways to work from home. Some people were blessed enough that their in-office jobs allowed them to work remotely. Other people had to become a little more creative.
If you are a stay-at-home mom or want to be a stay-at-home mom, you may be looking for ways to work from home that don’t require strict hours or any time away from the house and your children. Today, I’m sharing a list of 20 ways to work from home.
I have personally tried some of these, and I am doing some of them now. Others, I have researched and/or know people who have done it. Just keep in mind that none of these options are designed as “get rich quick” ideas or ways to replace a current income overnight. There is work involved, but these ideas can work and have worked for many people.
Before you read any further, this post is longer than most of my other ones, but it is packed with information.
If you have questions about any of these, please write them in the comments. I would love to help you find answers if I don’t know them already.
Definitions
Before going into the list of ways to work from home and earn money, I want to define a few terms for you. I’ll define them for the way I will use them today.
Active Income
You work consistently on a regular schedule. Typically, if you aren’t working, you aren’t making money.
Semi-passive Income
You work consistently, but it’s not always on a regular schedule. If you do the upfront work, you can make money when you aren’t working. However, it is not a do it once and continue to make money without working anymore.
Passive Income
You do a lot of work upfront. Over time, you do less and less work because the completed work continues to make money for you. There is little work that has to be completed on a regular schedule.
20 Ways to Work from Home
Print-on-Demand (POD)
This is a semi-passive form of income. The best part about this is that there is very little start-up cost to it. You don’t have to hold inventory either. It makes it easy to work from home without cluttering your home. You create designs, list your products, and your print provider creates and ships your products for you. Your jobs are designing, listing, and customer service.
In order to begin a POD business, you need design software. I recommend Canva. There are free and paid versions. I currently have the PRO plan, but I use it for everything. It’s where I design things for my Etsy store and social media. All of my blog graphics are created in Canva as well. They have so many templates, and it’s so easy to use.
You also need a print provider. The two top choices for most people are Printful and Printify, but there are also others available. This is where you choose the items to put your designs on. They have everything from wall art to shirts. They have clothes for all ages and styles. You can also create stickers and phone cases. Just decide on your products and upload your designs.
One other thing you will need is a place to sell your items. I suggest starting with Etsy. It has built-in traffic, and if you want to later, you can move to your own website. Plus, Etsy is cheaper than starting and building your own website in the beginning. If you use my link in this post when setting up your new Etsy shop, you and I will both receive FREE listings from Etsy.
You will have to do some marketing on your own for this business. You can do that through your email list, if you have one, or on social media. I am working on creating my email newsletter, and you can sign up for that here.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you share products or services from a company, and when someone uses your link to purchase, the company pays you for sharing.
Probably the most commonly used one is Amazon. It’s true, when I share links to anything on Amazon, they are affiliate links. The product doesn’t cost you anything extra, and Amazon sends me a small commission (once it builds to a certain amount) for referring others.
Many places have affiliate programs; you just have to search for them. There are some websites that have a lot of stores or services together on them.
You can share your links on social media and in emails. You can create pins on Pinterest to share links as well. Just be sure to read the fine print on any agreements before sharing links.
You can combine this form of income with many others, like blogging or YouTube.
The best part about this is that your link lasts forever. Once you post it, when someone finds and clicks it, you get paid. That makes this really passive once you have posted the links. There is also no upfront cost or inventory with this type of income.
Share products that you use and love. I enjoy doing this because I can share my Canva, Etsy, and Amazon links when I am talking about products from any of those places. I love that I can work from home or anywhere by just sharing my links. For me, I’m always looking for cool new things on Amazon, so that is by far the easiest.
Create and Sell an Online Course
If there is something that you know how to do and others want to learn it, you can make a course about it. There are places like SkillShare, Thinkific, and Teachable where you can plan and host your courses.
Just so you know, you don’t have to be a “guru” or expert in a specific field. You only have to be a step or two ahead of the person you are teaching. Check out those sites and look at the courses available. Then determine what you could teach.
For a course, you need to be able to record and edit videos. You’ll need to make the printable or digital resources to go with it, like a workbook. Then you have to market it.
Once you have started selling it and have marketing in place for it, it becomes more passive. Yes, you have to do customer service and continual marketing, but the work of the course is complete…until you update it with new information.
Become a Virtual Tutor
This is an active income source. You find clients and set appointments with them. Then you meet with the students (could be individual tutoring or groups). You can work with students of any age.
I have actually looked into doing this. The sites I have considered are Chegg, Wyzant, and Tutor.com. I have not weighed out all the differences and pros/cons. Once I make that decision, I will update this.
Babysit
If you are a stay-at-home mom, you could possibly watch another child or two (depending on your situation). Babysitting is not just for teenagers on weekends anymore. A lot of moms watch other children to help their friends/family and to be able to stay home with their own children. If you love children, this is a great work-from-home opportunity.
Check with the people in your circle to see who may need childcare during the day. You never know until you ask, right? You could also register with Care.com to find people in your area who need childcare.
Sell Items You Don’t Use
Let me start by saying that you should begin with your own items first. Then, you can ask family members for permission to sell their things. Don’t grab other people’s things and sell them if you aren’t willing to part with some of your own things too.
You can sell on Etsy (if the items are vintage/antiques). Facebook Marketplace and eBay are also good ways to sell. Just for fun, you could have an old-fashioned yard sale one weekend.
Flip Items
If you are good with your hands, you can often find items that others have discarded on the curb or while shopping at your local thrift store. Take them home, clean them up, and give them a makeover. Then you can list them for sale online.
If you record the process to show the before and after of it, you can use that to promote it on social media like TikTok and Instagram.
This is an active form of income, but you can do this while you are home with your children. Depending on how old your children are, they may be able to help you.
When you are looking around for items to sell that you don’t use, consider the possibility of flipping them into something better before selling.
Pet Daycare
This one may sound funny, but you can watch other people’s pets while they are away at work or on vacation. You have to check the regulations in your area about doing this, to make sure that you don’t do anything wrong, but if you like animals, it would be simple.
Virtual Assistant
When everything shut down in 2020, more and more jobs became virtual. Administrative assistants who never imagined being able to work from home were sitting in their comfy chairs completing all their daily tasks.
This is an active source of income, and you should do your research before jumping in. However, you can work remotely. Sometimes the schedules are flexible.
Monetize Your Crafts
If you are a creative person who makes items, you can sell those. As with POD, I suggest starting on Etsy. Do your research on Etsy SEO, and make good listings. Etsy will help you send you traffic to your store.
This is semi-passive because you have to keep the listings up to date, make products, and ship them. However, if you love what you are making, this would be a good way to make some money from it.
Remote and Freelance Work
There are many websites that you can check out to do remote work or freelance work. Be sure that you keep up with your tax information (and I am not a tax professional). If you are doing contract work, you will have to take care of your own taxes.
Check out Fiverr, Upwork, PeoplePerHour, Remote.co, WeWorkRemotely, and FlexJobs for more information about freelance jobs and remote work. I have hired people from Fiverr, and I have worked on Upwork. Both are user-friendly, and I liked the experience.
Sell Stock Photos or Videos
If you are good with your camera, you can take videos and pictures to sell. There are websites like iStock, Shutterstock, Pexels, Pixabay, and Getty Images where you can sell your photos and videos.
Check them out to see what is on there and if your style matches. This isn’t exactly working from home because you have to take pictures and videos, but it is work from just about anywhere.
TpT (formerly Teachers Pay Teachers)
If you are a homeschooling mom, you are probably creating resources for your children to use for their lessons.
You can list and sell them on TpT as digital files for other homeschool moms or public school teachers to find and use.
Teach on Outschool
On Outschool, there is a list of courses that are needed/wanted/requested by people. You can probably find something that you want or love to teach.
According to my research, you choose a topic. Set a price. Choose the days/times your course will meet. Decide on the number of students allowed in the course. Teach.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I am considering it for Fall 2023 when classes start back. There are a few things on the list that I know I can teach.
Outschool helps you to market your course, but you can do your own marketing as well.
This would not be passive income like creating an online course because you would have set times to meet with the students, but it would be a good source of income.
Blogging
If you haven’t noticed, you’re reading my blog. Thank you! I appreciate it.
Blogging allows you to write about what you know and love. You can help others, as I hope I do. This is a great way to work from home (or anywhere).
As your blog grows, you can get sponsors for posts. From day one, you can use affiliate links in your posts. You can use your blog to sell your own products and services–like courses, Etsy products, or tutoring.
I use Siteground to host my blog, and I love it. It was easy to set up my WordPress blog on it after I watched a few YouTube videos.
This is semi-passive because you do need to have content consistently. However, once it’s out there, the posts and links are live forever.
Sell Digital Products
Digital products are great because you don’t have to keep inventory. The start-up costs are very low.
You can use Canva to create your designs. The best place that I have found to get fonts and graphics is Creative Fabrica. There are some free designs but to be sure you have the POD (commercial) license, you can purchase the subscription plan.
Once you have created your designs, you list them on Etsy and market them. This is mostly passive once you have completed the designs.
Digital designs mean that the person who buys them will be the one to print them. You can create greeting cards (just think of the occasions), wall art, SVG files (to cut with Silhouette or Cricut machines), fonts, invitations, everything needed for a wedding, and so much more.
Social Media Manager
In this position, you will handle the social media accounts for clients. Clients may be churches, small businesses, or organizations.
You will take care of their posts on all their social media outlets, reply to comments, and handle customer service. You will also answer direct messages (DMs) and emails, possibly.
It is possible that you will be in charge of creating videos for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok for the clients.
This job has grown in recent years because most companies, people, and organizations have realized that they need a presence on social media.
This is not a passive income job, but it could be very flexible work for you to be able to work around your family’s schedule.
I use Metricool to schedule all of my social media posts. There is a free program, but after a couple of months, I figured out that I needed to be able to post more every month. Plus, with the subscription, I can have more accounts. That would be great if I were a social media manager right now.
Work from Home Companies
There are a lot of companies right now that are looking for people who can work from home. Unfortunately, these are not usually very flexible. Most of these are customer service, but you may find other things as well.
Here are the companies I discovered during my research:
Hilton
Amazon
U-Haul
Kelly Services
Stitch Fix
Concentrix
UnitedHealth Group
Anthem
Sutherland Global Services
I have not worked at or for any of these companies. Just be sure to do your research before you begin a job with them.
Freelance Writer
If you are like me and love to write, you can find writing jobs online. Many times these are flexible, but as always, do your research.
Check out these sites for information:
Upwork
iWriter
Constant Content
Verblio
Text Broker
I have only used Upwork, and I enjoy being able to pick and choose what I write about. If you do not go through one of these sites, you will have to find your own writing jobs. That may be a little more difficult.
Freelance Editor
Writers need good editors. You can use some of the sites listed above to find editing jobs as well.
However, again, if you don’t go through an established website, you have to find your own jobs. You can do that on social media, email, and your own website, but it does take longer.
This can sometimes be a flexible job, depending on the writer for whom you are working.
Conclusion
That was a lot of information. If you have any questions at all about any of the possible jobs I included to work from home, please leave them in the comments.
If you know of other jobs that are available so people can make money while they work from home, please leave those in the comments as well.
Thank you for staying with me through this long post today. I hope that you gathered a lot of information.
If you try one of these and it works for you, come back and let us know. I’d love to celebrate with you.