Career from Home?

lmahoney79

I am a stay at home mother of one and I am looking to take an evening course to train in a new career for myself. But as I have my son to look after and couldn't afford a creche, I am looking to train in an area that will allow me to work from home. Has anyone any ideas what is a good work-from-home career? Does anyone work from home successfully?

Mr. Loverman

Have a look at http://www.freelancer.com

Most are technical positions, but some are writing and marketing.

Mrs OBumble

In-home childcare.

Other than that, IMHO, you need to look for some kind of self employment. No employer is going to hire you if they know you want to work off-site because you're caring for child at the same time as trying to work.

NeVeR

Can you Bake or Sew ?

My mother does both from home and makes a few extra €€

Also do you know much about computers ? You could take web design courses and offer a web design service.

wwrjd

i can second the web design service as a viable business. i am a freelancer who works from home. provided you have a computer, broadband and a fone (and the required knowledge of course!) u've enough to get started!

Moonbeam

childminding can be a good option.
You can earn 15k tax exempt per year and pay the minimum prsi contribution.
Insurance and registration is not crazily expensive and you can look after a few children at the same time.

I can not see many more options from home that do not involve requiring childcare,unless you do it while the kids are sleeping.

There are subsidised creche places for people on social welfare and low incomes to go back to work though.

lmahoney79

I am already a qualified web designer and do few jobs when they come in but the jobs are very few and far between.

NeVeR

lmahoney79 wrote: »

I am already a qualified web designer and do few jobs when they come in but the jobs are very few and far between.

I do web design as a hobby.. A few years back i needed extra money so I did a little local advertising.

1st: You must have a well designed site with portfolio etc

2nd: Design a flyer, I used print24.ie to print up 5000 flyers then me and my father went to industrial estates and handed them into a few places.

If you offer a good price you'll get loads of work, I offered the following

1 domain
1 hosting
3 page site ( they supply the content ) I used wordpress and nice theme
email addresses

for €149 ( the domain and hosting were paid by me for the 1st year then billed to the customer at €40 / year ) I already had 2-3 servers for my own domains so all i was really paying was for the domain renewal.

There was a bigger package with logo design and extra pages..

Also I changed for updates etc.. small changes i didn't change for but bigger ones where €20 - €50

to make a long story longer --- the little bit of advertising helped a lot and i'm sure it would help you... A lot of small businesses would love a website to show customers etc.

silvine

NeVeR wrote: »

I do web design as a hobby.. A few years back i needed extra money so I did a little local advertising.

1st: You must have a well designed site with portfolio etc

2nd: Design a flyer, I used print24.ie to print up 5000 flyers then me and my father went to industrial estates and handed them into a few places.

If you offer a good price you'll get loads of work, I offered the following

1 domain
1 hosting
3 page site ( they supply the content ) I used wordpress and nice theme
email addresses

for €149 ( the domain and hosting were paid by me for the 1st year then billed to the customer at €40 / year ) I already had 2-3 servers for my own domains so all i was really paying was for the domain renewal.

There was a bigger package with logo design and extra pages..

Also I changed for updates etc.. small changes i didn't change for but bigger ones where €20 - €50

to make a long story longer --- the little bit of advertising helped a lot and i'm sure it would help you... A lot of small businesses would love a website to show customers etc.

Nice post. Can you recommend a course? What's the learning curve like? I have good IT skills and have updated website content before but I've never designed a website. Does the customer provide all the images, branding and graphics?

How many hours a week do you spend on this?

lmahoney79

NeVeR wrote: »

I do web design as a hobby.. A few years back i needed extra money so I did a little local advertising.

1st: You must have a well designed site with portfolio etc

2nd: Design a flyer, I used print24.ie to print up 5000 flyers then me and my father went to industrial estates and handed them into a few places.

If you offer a good price you'll get loads of work, I offered the following

1 domain
1 hosting
3 page site ( they supply the content ) I used wordpress and nice theme
email addresses

for €149 ( the domain and hosting were paid by me for the 1st year then billed to the customer at €40 / year ) I already had 2-3 servers for my own domains so all i was really paying was for the domain renewal.

There was a bigger package with logo design and extra pages..

Also I changed for updates etc.. small changes i didn't change for but bigger ones where €20 - €50

to make a long story longer --- the little bit of advertising helped a lot and i'm sure it would help you... A lot of small businesses would love a website to show customers etc.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give that advice. I currently have a portfolio website and I have already had 5000 leaflets delivered but only got one response from them. I offer roughly same package

silvine

When did you deliver your leaflets?

Do you advertise much online?

lmahoney79

silvine wrote: »

When did you deliver your leaflets?

Do you advertise much online?

A few months ago now. I advertise on Facebook, Adverts and Gumtree

NeVeR

silvine wrote: »

When did you deliver your leaflets?

Do you advertise much online?

^^ Might not have been directed at me but i did this about 3 years ago. I've been in a full time job since then and had to stop.

silvine wrote: »

Nice post. Can you recommend a course? What's the learning curve like? I have good IT skills and have updated website content before but I've never designed a website. Does the customer provide all the images, branding and graphics?

How many hours a week do you spend on this?

I've been teaching myself for years using sites like vtc.com / lynda.com plus many more.

Back when i had time i would do tutorial after tutorial in photoshop / dreamweaver / 3ds max and then wordpress.

Today I would install wordpress* then upload a nice theme. I'd normally buy the theme from an online seller like codecanyon.net based on the project i was working on. Or yoothemes.com and adapt it to what i need. It takes a while to learn the stuff but I love that i know it now and can fall back on it if needed.

As for the customer I would normally ask them to provide copy ( text content ) and images. If they had no images i would source them and charge, They would normally have a logo, But if they didn't I would normally make a few samples and show them. if they like them I'd use it.


*= I would use wordpress as it's so simple and there are 1000's of themes and plugins for it. Plus i've been using it for about 3-4 years and know it inside out.

If you have anymore questions just let me know.

NeVeR

lmahoney79 wrote: »

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give that advice. I currently have a portfolio website and I have already had 5000 leaflets delivered but only got one response from them. I offer roughly same package

It is hard these days.. did you try industrial estates ? try find an area with start up businesses.. Or what i did a few times was find companys with really bad sites and make a quick mock up and email them a link and a pitch.. for a good price they will go for it.. All you've wasted is a little time and might get a return.

I know a trick for advertising on google ads.. not there content site ( google search ) .. but there network ( when people have ad's on there own sites )

You create banner images for all there sizes.. create a campaign with google and set your cost per click to something like 3 cent.. If works.. I've done it.. it's better then paying €1-€3 per click on there search site.. but granted the conversion is less.

I hated paying for advertising but sometimes it's the only way..

lmahoney79

Thank you for your ideas, much appreciated.

krissovo

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Have a look at http://www.freelancer.com

Most are technical positions, but some are writing and marketing.

Ok here is a little tip that can earn really big bucks and you do not need to spend hours and hours training in various products. Basically you become the middle man ( or middle person:P) and use freelancer to subcontract the work to a highly skilled designer in India, Vietnam or wherever you choose to subcontract but charge Irish prices.

You can add complex database driven sites, eCommerce, professional logo design all which can command big prices. A cool feature to offer clients is app design which of course you subcontract out;)

Use a platform like joomla for all your sites and you give your customer what appears to be a simple to update site but really it needs a lot of maintenance and repeat custom.

There are risks like scope creep and overspend but all in all its relatively minor once you get to grips with writing a complete and detailed design brief.

Before my new role I made a lot of money part time before I stopped but you have to be creative as many resources on freelancer are skilled but not creative.

NeVeR

krissovo wrote: »

Ok here is a little tip that can earn really big bucks and you do not need to spend hours and hours training in various products. Basically you become the middle man ( or middle person:P) and use freelancer to subcontract the work to a highly skilled designer in India, Vietnam or wherever you choose to subcontract but charge Irish prices.

You can add complex database driven sites, eCommerce, professional logo design all which can command big prices. A cool feature to offer clients is app design which of course you subcontract out;)

Use a platform like joomla for all your sites and you give your customer what appears to be a simple to update site but really it needs a lot of maintenance and repeat custom.

There are risks like scope creep and overspend but all in all its relatively minor once you get to grips with writing a complete and detailed design brief.

Before my new role I made a lot of money part time before I stopped but you have to be creative as many resources on freelancer are skilled but not creative.

LOL This is what i do now.. But i use odesk.com I find it much better.. I've spent about $6000 - $7000 with this this year and made about $30000. But it was taking to much of my time even with out sourcing. As i had ( have) a full time job.

Maybe i'll write a course on how to do it lol .

krissovo

NeVeR wrote: »

LOL This is what i do now.. But i use odesk.com I find it much better.. I've spent about $6000 - $7000 with this this year and made about $30000. But it was taking to much of my time even with out sourcing. As i had ( have) a full time job.

Maybe i'll write a course on how to do it lol .

Thats funny, my first year I turned over €32,000 and spent €6,500, I then went up to €64,000 spending €9,000 and last year I hit €70,000 but only did 9 months before I stopped and all while I had a full time job.

Share resources and write a book?

NeVeR

More share what I did and how I did it.

I wouldn't have the time to write a book... Although i could outsource it lol

Lunni

What are the tax implications of using sites like odesk.com or freelancer.com? That's what's been putting me off using them...or do you just not worry about it?

I'm looking for working-from-home type jobs myself, as a translator with good admin skills.

krissovo

Lunni wrote: »

What are the tax implications of using sites like odesk.com or freelancer.com? That's what's been putting me off using them...or do you just not worry about it?

My "books" were official after a couple of clients and I paid tax correctly all be it kind of like Google and minimal but perfectly legal. Most of my income drove business cost with little tax paid I needed a car, secretary, home office etc which killed most of the profit.

Lunni

krissovo wrote: »

My "books" were official after a couple of clients and I paid tax correctly all be it kind of like Google and minimal but perfectly legal. Most of my income drove business cost with little tax paid I needed a car, secretary, home office etc which killed most of the profit.

Ah OK...I wouldn't really want to register for tax as I'd have to do it in Spain (where I'm currently living) and that's a massive headache. I'm a full time worker and pay PAYE tax so not trying to milk the system, just want to make a bit of extra money and most of all, get some experience.

CatFromHue

krissovo wrote: »

Thats funny, my first year I turned over €32,000 and spent €6,500, I then went up to €64,000 spending €9,000 and last year I hit €70,000 but only did 9 months before I stopped and all while I had a full time job.

Share resources and write a book?

NeVeR wrote: »

More share what I did and how I did it.

I wouldn't have the time to write a book... Although i could outsource it lol

Why not outsource your current jobs too :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ

krissovo

CatFromHue wrote: »

Why not outsource your current jobs too

Or become a outsourcing consultant for a multi national outsourcing company

NeVeR

Thats the dream