Before my first baby was born I had already decided I wanted to work at home. I found a company that said they would pay me to assemble jewelry for them. It sounded pretty easy. I was to order their package, they would send me the supplies with instructions and a video on how to assemble each one, I was to package them and ship them back to them once they each were assembled and then they would mail me a check for each pair. Well, it only sounded easy. I paid for the package, assembled each pair of earrings (24), packaged them and mailed them in and instead of a check I received a letter telling me that none of them passed inspection therefore I would not be paid for any of the work. It may not have been so bad if they would have sent the earrings back to me with the letter, but they kept them and I am sure sold them. If I had received them back then I could have sold them myself.
After that I tried Home Interior, but lost more money. Then Avon, Tupperware, Home Decor, SMC. All were disappointments for me. Finally I decided it just was not going to happen.
The day that I had to return to work was honestly the worst day of my life. I cried and held on to my baby girl so tight that my husband had to pry her out of my arms to take her to my mother-in-law for her to take care of her why I worked. I was only working part time the first two weeks back, and I was only going to be gone for four hours but it might as well have been forty the way it felt. I cried all the way to work, the whole time at work, and the whole way home. This went on for weeks, and even my poor husband was starting to feel the same way. He said that he felt so bad for me that he was almost at the point of saying he would work three jobs if he had to in order to let me be home with her. It was just not financially possible for me to be a stay at home mom. Between the fertility treatments, pregnancy, birth and failed work at home attempts we were not able to live off of one income.
Before my second baby was born my excitement was tempered with sadness because I knew how hard it was going to be to leave my baby with someone else while I went to work. Again, I searched again for work from home, thinking that maybe there would be something different out there this time. Again, I couldn’t find anything that would earn me a decent full time income and I believed I needed to go back to that outside job.
It was just as hard if not harder the second time around, because now I was not only leaving my new little baby in someone else’s hands, but also leaving my 22 month old. I would have to pry my 22 month old off of me because she had gotten so used to mommy being home for 16 weeks. Yes, the maternity leave was twice as long the second time because I also had to have back surgery right after the baby was born. The only difference with returning to work this time was that I was going back to a job that I did truly love. I still cried for weeks.
I kept up my work from home search, and finally found something while reading a magazine in February 2007. I was out of work again on medical leave, due to a hysterectomy this time. I was given a Home Business Connections magazine by a friend who brought me a stack of magazines to keep me occupied while in the hospital. When I was feeling a little better I picked it up and started looking through it. I read the article about Janie Jones and her family. She was telling about being a work from home mom, and how she did it. The more I read the more it sounded like something I would love to do. She was talking about how she worked with a company that provided health care benefits to people who could not afford insurance or were turned down for some reason or another. I could relate to this because my father and mother- in-law did not have any type of health care coverage because he lost his manufacturing job and had not been able to find work afterwards. My mother also was uninsured because she is a diabetic and has been one for most of her life therefore she is to high risk for anyone to offer coverage to her. I thought this would be perfect for me. If nothing else I could provide my parents and in-laws with health care coverage. I went onto her website and requested an interview. It was only a couple of days later when I received my interview. When the representative called me I knew she was really working from home because I could hear her baby in the background. There was a start up cost to pay, but I was shocked when she told me it was $50.00. I had searched and tried so many others and paid way more than that. Then she went on to explain that I would get a training package that had marketing materials in it and then I would also get $50.00 in vouchers to send in for additional sales aids plus there were free ads and flyers and things on our training site that I could use without having to order more. She gave me her website and I went online as soon as I got off the phone with her and signed up. She sent me the link to the training site so that I could get started immediately, and then in about three days my training package came in the mail. I did not wait on my training package to come; I started my training as soon as I signed up and started working the next day. I had my first business on the books in no time at all and it only got better. I now am waiting for the confirmation of my first promotion to be official.
In a couple of months I was able to quit my outside job and work at home for good. I am now able to work at home full time, and do not have to leave my baby girls with anyone else unless I want to! My girls and I are thoroughly enjoying our summer together for the first time. My oldest is now almost four and she keeps telling me she is so happy that I am home. My youngest has just now turned two and she is so attached to me now instead of Grandma. Not that I don’t want my children to be attached to their Grandparents, but I do not want my child to run to them instead of me. It would hurt me so bad when my child would fall down and get hurt and cry for Grandma instead of Mommy. It was like I was a stranger to them. I am so excited to be able to have this time with my girls, and am so thankful for that magazine article.
My days now start off with breakfast with my girls, checking emails while the kids play a little housework then playtime. I start work again after the girls go down for their naps and end when the wake up. After my husband comes home we all eat supper and then he gets to have some Daddy time with the girls while I put in another hour or so of work. We all take a walk or just spend some time outside together when I finish up, and then I put the girls to bed. Some days I do a little work on line after the girls are in bed and some days I just sit and spend quality time with my husband. I try and work only during the week, but sometimes that is not possible and I end up working an hour or two on the weekend. I would not go back to working outside the home though. It is work, but I know I am getting paid for what I do and not someone else. If I work at it I will be earning $100,000.00 or more in the next year and a half. The best thing about it is that I am earning a residual income therefore once I get to where I want to be I can stop working and keep earning that same income year after year. I can also will my income to my children so if something were to happen to me they can continue to receive my residual income without having to do anything for it. I also still have health care benefits for my entire household, a 401K, life insurance and discounts from many businesses such as Dell and Office Depot.
There are some struggles with working from home, but they are so few, and the good outweighs the bad 1000 to 1. It takes some time to figure out how to manage your time, and you can easily get tied up with household things and not work your business. Summertime is probably the hardest time to keep yourself on track. I find days when I just want to go and sit out by the pool and not do any work at all. The good thing is that I can now do that if I want. I just have to remember that I may have to work on Saturday or Sunday afternoon if I am going to do so. Things are so much more flexible and you have no one to answer to but yourself. If the kids are sick you can just take care of them and not worry about calling in sick and what the repercussions will be when you return to work. You have to make sure and let others know that just because you are home does not mean that you are not working.
If you are thinking about working from home and haven’t had the easiest time finding the right opportunity for yourself, don’t give up. You WILL find something that is perfect for you. Make sure that you research each opportunity that you think you may want to try because there are so many out there that will take your money and leave you with nothing but disappointment. Make sure the company offers you training and support because there will be days that the support is as important as the training.
Good luck in your search, and I hope that you to will soon have a success story to share with everyone.
Michelle Lein is a work at home mom who enjoys a work at home lifestyle as an Independent Business Owner with Ameriplan, a company that employs over 30,000 people that work at home. You can contact her if you’re interested in a work at home career similar to her own. For a list of more than 1000 work at home jobs that have already been pre-screened and certified scam-free by a reputable work at home company you can visit www.moneyfromhome.com.
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