Home-based Business | BizSieve.com

Best At Home Businesses For Stay At Home Moms

It’s tough these days to make all the ends meet in our financial lives. With everything becoming more and more expensive, and many employers actually offering pay cuts instead of pay raises, more and more families are requiring two incomes to stay above the financial waters. As a mother, however, you may desperately desire to stay at home with your children. Well, you can. Now, there are jobs for stay at home moms, but for the purposes of this article, I would like to focus a few home-based businesses that you can start with relative ease.

The first one is day care. Now, I’m not saying you need to do an overhaul of your house to convert it into a modern-day day-care facility. Simply watching a few children every day can easy bring in hundreds, even a few thousand dollars a month extra. Day care is very expensive, as you know, so if you’ve earned the trust of parents with young children, you can easily persuade them to allow you to take care of their children instead of some day care. You could charge dramatically less than the average day care, and still come out way ahead.

Another great opportunity that few moms consider is to be a freelance writer. You don’t need to be an experienced writer; you just need to have some knowledge in a given topic. Companies like About.com will allow you to write on topics at your leisure and pay you well for it. This is a great business to start because the work is provided for you, and you can do it whenever you like.

Now, as I mentioned, there are jobs for stay at home moms which you can certainly pursue as well, but being able to have your own business from home will allow you to have the maximum amount of flexibility to tend to the needs of your children and your home.

Start a Home-Based Business

Starting your own home-based business can be a fantastic opportunity. You have the chance to work for yourself, make all the decisions and major calls, and maybe even choose your own schedule to watch the kids while you’re working from home.

However, with the power and perks of a home-based business often comes responsibility. If this responsibility is not handled properly, it could land both you and your business in hot water. There are plenty of legal ramifications to consider with such an operation, and being prepared can help you avoid potential issues that could be costly both in time and money.

Legal Operation

One of the first things you’ll likely have to consider in a home-based business is whether your operation is indeed legal to operate. Many locales have a variety of zoning laws and restrictions. Even certain housing developments, apartment communities or condominiums may have guidelines governing the operation of a home-based business. Therefore, it is important that before you make any sort of sizeable investment to get your business up and running that you make sure you are in compliance with area zoning and business operation rules and requirements.

Insurance Needs

A home-based business can be convenient in that it allows you to work from the privacy and comfort of your own home. However, this also means that customers and clients may be coming onto or into your property on a regular basis. A simple trip and fall by a customer on your property could result in a lawsuit. By having the necessary business and liability insurance paid up and in proper coverage amounts, you could be better protecting yourself legally when it comes to the possibility of injuries or other issues that might occur upon your property.

Employees

Insurance can also be important if you are planning to have someone other than yourself working in and around your home. While many home-based businesses are sole-proprietorships and don’t have to worry about employees, should you have someone working for you on the premises, it can be critical that you take this into consideration when it comes to your policy.

It is also critical that you know and understand the state and federal laws governing employee/employer relationships in order to avoid lawsuits pertaining to discrimination, harassment, and other workplace violations. You can check with the SBA (Small Business Administration) or your state government to learn more about the rules that apply to your home-based business, ask questions or get advice.

Taxes

While you may have done your personal income taxes in the past, starting a home-based business may make tax season a bit more difficult. Not only might you have personal income taxes with which to deal, but you could have business taxes as well. If you have employees or are planning to delve into the realm of business deductions, property tax deductions for a home-based business, and similar tax areas, you may want to consider seeking the advice and assistance of a tax professional. Having your tax issues squared away can help keep you out of legal hot water when it comes to you and your home-based operation.

Billy enjoys informing his readers of their legal rights as US citizens. He can help if you are looking for a criminal attorney in Houston that will fight for your legal rights as an individual. If you have been arrested for assault, then a Houston assault lawyer is available to protect you against any un-just accusations.

How to Become a Freelance Writer

Have you ever wondered where all of the information on the internet comes from? The information on the net is called internet content, and someone has to write it; that someone can even be you. Freelance writing is a fun and interesting career or sideline, depending on how good you are at it and how much time you want to devote to it. One of the biggest advantages to it is how few the tools are, and how small the investment is, that you need to get started.

Computer

This is a given, of course, but you do have to have a computer that is speedy and powerful enough to process your documents efficiently. If you have to spend half of your time downloading and uploading documents, or getting “hung up” because of a sluggish computer, even as a part timer, you will not make enough money to make it worth while.

Word processing program

Almost any word processing program can be used to write, but if the one you are using is not compatible with the most popular programs, you may leave yourself out in the cold. There is a lot of competition in the field, and if a site owner wants to buy your material, he will be quickly dissuaded if he has to go through too much trouble to do so. There are plenty of other writers using Microsoft Word.

Internet access

Slow dial up connections will not only slow you down when you need to transmit your texts, but navigating on the sites where you will find your writing assignments will also be slow and tedious. Time is money, so you have to be prepared to quickly review and bid on interesting projects.

Decent writing skills

The first three ingredients to being a freelance writer can be bought, but writing is indeed a gift. You must have a good command of the English language and a real desire to write and an enjoyment of the writing process. Most good writers are avid readers and learn a lot through their reading. You can improve your writing skills by studying some writing guides or even taking a writing course, and you should have a usage guide (Fowler’s is the bible for most writers) that you can refer to when you are unclear about how a sentence should be constructed.

Great imagination

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Unless you intend to concentrate on technical writing (which can be a lucrative niche if you have a strong specialty), you have to let your imagination run free and be able to call upon all of your life experiences, shared histories with others, and perhaps even a bit of fantasy. You may want to make sure you have the highly developed imagination before you invest in the computer and the high speed internet access.

Before hiring a freelance writer, or agreeing to work as a writer for a new employer, you may want a criminal background check. Both parties involved can save themselves time and problems by doing this one simple task.

Image: ElvertBarnes / Flickr