Setting Up a Mini-Office for Kids, and Get Your Work Done
Date: Saturday September 27, 2008Posted in: Working From Home, Working Moms
Why do moms work from home? Because we want to be home for our kids, mostly. Which means we sometimes have to work when our children are wanting our attention. I have the perfect get-20-productive-minutes-out-of-them-scheme: pull out their mini-office. Tell your child that not only do you have to work, you have a project for them too. Then pull out a box with their work in it. Here is a list of what we have in our box:
- washable markers
- free printables, coloring pages
- pencils
- old day timer
- stickers
- glue stick
- paper; white and colored
Here are some sites to get some free printables for your child’s ‘office’:
#1 Essential Item for Your Home Office: A DO NOT DISTURB SIGN
Date: Thursday August 21, 2008Posted in: Working From Home, Working Moms
I know you think I’m kidding, but I am absolutely not! This essential will help you get what you need completed and keep your family happy. How? It’s very simple. You get the sign, make one if you want, and show it to all those you love and who love you so much that they need your attention when you’re blogging. Then you tell them you are out-at-the-office when the sign is hung up on the door. You do not wish to answer the phone, you cannot help them with homework and they will need to learn to wipe their own butts until after the sign comes down.
The more you keep firm on these rules, the better your family will be able to handle your work schedule at home. Of course, there are a few rules for you to live by when the sign is up:
- Before you put the sign up, make a list of what you will be getting done while it is up. Touch base with everyone and let them know the sign is going up and approximately when it will come down.
- Put the sign up and work – be productive. Get through your list as efficiently as possible.
- If you are going to take a break, take the sign down.
- When the sign comes down, touch base with your family again.
Get your sign and look forward to more productive days!
How do you decide if working at home is right for you?
Date: Friday June 20, 2008Posted in: Working From Home, Working Moms
This is a pretty big question, because there are many reasons why people work outside of the home. I found in the beginning that working at home was the hardest thing I ever did. Sure, no boss to bug me, but the baby crying when I’m in the middle of any type of coherent thought that I need to type out, well that certainly is a different type of work stress, lemme tell ya!
Here are ten questions to ask yourself that will help you decide if working from home is right for you:
- Can you work with home life distractions?
- Can you take not having other people around?
- Are you ready for the ups and downs of your pay?
- Are you a go-getter?
- Are you organized?
- Can you multi-task?
- Can you stand your ground when people ask you to do other things because you’re ‘at home during the day’ and not ‘at work’?(this includes your spouse and mother)
- Have you ever pulled yourself up by your boot straps? Could you again if you needed to?
- Do you have your stress under control?
- Do you normally follow through until you reach your goals or do you give up easily?
The Cost of Mom Working Outside the Home
Date: Wednesday June 18, 2008Posted in: Working From Home, Working Moms
When you have a family, it costs money to work. doesn’t seem to make sense, but it does. And the amount is huge when you take all of the factors in. Some women take a good hard look at their budgets before kids and decided they are better off staying at home because their salary will not even cover the costs of daycare. Incrediable, isn’t it? In fact I know of a daycare worker who couldn’t afford to send her two young children to the daycare where she worked. That is crazy!
But our economy isn’t about to change and us meager middleclass moms, who everyone tends to quote in the media but not really give a damn about, are just going to have to live within it. To that end, I have decided to help you all add up the cost of mom working and see where it leaves you. This way you will be able to do a budget with your making money blog. We’ll look into how that works in another post.
Fold a lined piece of paper in half from top to bottom. On one side title it ‘Money Coming In’, on the other side title it ‘Money Going Out’.
Add up on the Money Coming In side: salary, bonuses, benefits your employer pays.
Add up on the Money Going Out side: daycare, lunches out, clothing and uniforms you wear to work(include shoes), gas and transportation to and from work, gas to and from daycare, and then the misc. money you spend on co-workers gifts and such.
Subtract the going out from the coming in and take a good look at the figure that is left. That is your first goal for your blog. That is how much money you want it to make if you are thinking about leaving your job and working from home.
A glitch: health insurance. If you are the one working for health insurance, keep your job. Young families need these benefits and health insurnace is too expensive. That doesn’t mean you can’t still work a blog and make a few extra bucks, but imho, health insurance is worth it.
I am going to be running out to a school concert and I do not have to clear it with a boss… I love working at home and online!! Anyway, when I get back I’ll be cleaning up all of the odd pieces left from starting yesterday around the blog. all the links that point to the template designer’s pages that should point to my own rss feed(leaving one credit to the template designer is enough). My other goal for today is to get adsense running and explain more about that. Let’s cross our collective fingers.
Update: All cleaned up! Now time to build…
When you work online, there’s an awful lot to do!
Date: Wednesday June 4, 2008Posted in: Building a Blog with Traffic, Working From Home
If you like to work where you do only one thing at a time, working online for yourself may not be the right type of business to start. The reason being is you have to do a lot all at the same time in order for things to go as smoothly as possible. Even then, it is doubtful anything will go smoothly. But one can dream!
The next thing to do after getting a registered domain name is pick a blogging software to use. I use Wordpress… love it. Now don’t go three to download anything if you can get it through your hosting service instead. Many hosting services offer to install wordpress through your control panel(cpanel). Check out the FAQ at the hosting service on how to do this, it makes things easy.
Next find a design template you like and install that. Once you have all that done, play with yoru blog a bit. Write about your day… weather is good here today… and feel good about it. You’ve gotten quite a bit done! yes, there is more to do, no money has been made yet, but you need to give yoruself a pat on the back every once in a while.
…there was mom. Through the years, mom created the home where all would dwell happily. These days she strives to bring home the bacon too. Sometimes she would think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have more bacon?” Yeah, it would. So, here she is starting a new venture because there has to be a way for a mom to make money online. And not only am I going to do it using this blog… I’m going to share how I did it step by step with this blog. Sharing all the trials and errors(I already have one!), and money figures with all who wish to see.
Stay tuned… Denise(mom)

