Mommy, Come Home: What are Your Talents?

 

Even after you’ve taken a Leap of Faith and have decided to embrace a simpler lifestyle to stay home, an extra income may still be necessary.  Sometimes it’s not needed for survival, but it’s nice to have a little money just in case or for special treats. 

When we made the decision for me to stay home full-time, we did so without considering any extra income sources.  We wanted to thrive on my husband’s teaching salary alone.  And we did.

However, I have experimented with a few ways to earn money from home.   I’ll tell you more next week about what I have done and do now to earn a little extra cash, and how we manage that money. 

For now, I want you to visit Joy.  I’ve bragged on Joy before, but let me be perfectly clear:  when you look at my site, what you see is Joy’s design.  I do the writing, but she has done all the pretty stuff. 

Here’s what Joy has to say about using her talents to create work-from-home opportunities.

…I really wanted to stay home with the baby. By that point, Jeff and I had gotten used to living on two salaries (can also be read as spending two salaries), and we’d already managed to make some poor financial decisions which had gotten us into enough debt that it made it pretty much impossible for us to live on just Jeff’s income. The problem was we had always planned to have kids, but we’d never really made plans for having kids — for me to be able to stay at home with them…

…When we moved from Alaska to South Carolina when Jaden was 9 months old, Jeff and I determined that I would not work outside of the home. One way or another we’d figure out a way to make it work. At this point, it was still not possible for me not to work at all; I was just going to have to find a way to work from home…

…Brief stints as an Avon representative, day-care substitute and home daycare provider all ended nearly as soon as they began…

…Unfortunately, my income from piano lessons has not always been sufficient to help pay all our bills (especially over the summer when I have fewer students).  So over the last couple of years I’ve had to explore additional means of working from home…

…Blog design hasn’t become a steady stream of income, but I’ve been able to earn at least a little through something I really enjoy, and that’s what I had been looking for all along…

..What is so curious is that when I was intentionally searching for other ways to make more income from home, I couldn’t find any. It was only when I concentrated on doing something I really enjoyed did that happen. My interests became my source of income…

Head on over to Joy’s place to hear the rest of her story and to catch a glimpse of some of the other blogs she has designed. 

I plan to share more about my at-home income stream (trickle?!) next week, but what about you?  Have you found a way to make some money (little or much?) from home by using your talents and interests?  If you have an online at-home business, I’d love to highlight it in an upcoming post. 

This post is linked to Frugal Friday.