I need to work from home. What are my options?

[lilyka]

I need to quit my job.  I have no time for my family.  My ex husband is always jerking around with my visitation.  My job is hard physical labor and it is making me sick and unable to function.  I never have two days off in a row, never have a Saturday off and rarely get to go to church.  Unfortunately, I am old, not too pretty and despite being quite intelligent I dropped out of college for domestic life and find myself completely uneducated.

My kids are older so I would have 40 to 60 hours a week to dedicate to my job, can work regular hours without int interruption, meet with clients, take phone calls etc all without worry..  I am looking for a real job that I can have a flexible schedule with and work from home (in in and out of the home). I am willing to go to school for it and/or invest some money.

I am not looking for things like surfing for change, blogs or crafting my way out of debt. (I have an etsy job that provides some nice change when I have the time to focus on it but I am not deluding myself. I know I will never make $300 a week and that is what I need).

So what sort of job could i train for or what kind of business could I start?  I already have a job that keeps me from seeing my kids, is thankless, pays poorly, makes me miserable and where I have to wear a stupid uniform.  Those are all things I want to get away from. I don't mind working nights and weekends from home but just want the freedom to go to church and to my kids school stuff.

[Purple Sage]

I work from home for Lionbridge.  http://en-us.lionbridge.com/global-crowdsourcing/jobs/internet-assessors.htm  (They do say it's a temporary position, though, and I'm coming up on my one-year mark so I might not be with them much longer if they decide my time is up.)

You can only work up to 20 hours a week, and the pay is $14.50/hr.  That would be the minimum you need, but you'd have plenty of time for a second job.  There's a thread on here somewhere with more info, if you're interested. 

[wendyland]

I work at home as a computer programmer.  My company is ok with me working flexible hours as long as I am still getting my work done.  It would take training and is sometimes hard to get in the door with little experience.  I do the old timey type of programming, but I see ads for freelance web developers all the time in the paper. 

[Jael]

Before I share some options with you, I first have to tell you that I disagree with your self-assessment. If you're the one in the photo wearing black, then you are wrong. You are quite pretty! And old? Where? I expected to see a gray-haired granny, which you, my dear, are hardly. ;)

Anyway, there are a number of things you can do. I always recommend freelance writing, because it's a great way to set your own income and really get paid what you're worth. I make between $11 and $75 per article that I write (was making as much as $150 per article before the recession hit). If you're interested, you can see the thread I posted last week on how to get started.

Also, there are other work at home jobs that offer a decent wage such as transcription jobs, call center jobs or virtual assistant jobs.

Avon and Mary Kay are also pretty good hustles if you are disciplined, organized and good with people.

Other options that you may want to consider are online tutoring, starting a housekeeping service, selling on eBay or selling websites to local businesses. There's a good discussion on the Warrior Forums about selling websites even if you have zero experience building sites. Basically, you'll outsource the actual work to a designer while you collect the cash. Here's the discussion if you're interested.

What are some of your hobbies and interests? Perhaps you can turn one of those into a job. Earning a living wage (or even an above average one) is possible while working from home if you know what you're doing and can avoid the hucksters that only want to make money off of you. My advice is to study the industry in detail, ask lots of questions, thoroughly investigate every opportunity and be very careful about who you spend money with. Also, plan on having multiple income streams, at least in the beginning, so that all of your eggs aren't in a single basket.