Welcome back to the series, Things You Should Consider Before Starting To Work At Home.  Today we will be discussing the benefits of social media for WAHMs.

Are you tweeting?  Are you on Facebook?  Are you on LinkedIn?  Are you on Myspace?

Social networks are a great place to promote yourself or your business.

One of the biggest tools of your trade when you are working at home is networking.  You will be surprised at what you have at your finger tips.  It is said that everyone is six degrees of separation which means that you are at most six steps away from any person on Earth. Let’s think about how that affects you.  So if you are looking for a job more than likely you know someone who knows someone who could give you that step into the doorway. (more…)

Welcome back to the series, Things You Should Consider Before Starting To Work At Home.  Today we will be discussing what the difference is between being an employee or independent contractor.  This has been a question that has been debated for years.  In fact, I know of a few companies that have been challenged by their independent contractors who ended up as employee per the IRS.

The Internal Revenue Service uses three facts to determine the degree of control between an employee and an independent subcontractor.  They are:

1. Behavioral – Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the workers does his or her job?


2. Financial -  Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payee? (these include things like how the worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)


3. Type of Relationship – Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)?  Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

These rules were taken directly off the IRS site here.

Things about an independent contractor

• Pays their own expenses


• Operates under their business name or their own name


• Typically works by projects or on straight commission


• Has more than one client/employer


• Sets their own hours


• Does not receive training.


• Keeps business records


• Pays their own taxes

Things about an employee

• Has set hours


• Given training for work to be done


• Taxes paid by employer


• Expenses paid by employer


• Has an employee handbook which could be a job description, manual, etc.

I wanted to talk about these things because when you are first looking at working from home you don’t realize these differences.

Please stop by tomorrow for the final installment where we talk about social media and how it works for you.

Welcome back to the series, Things You Should Consider Before Starting To Work At Home.  Today we will be discussing what you need to have in your office to start working.

Have you considered what you need in your office yet?  If you had visions of you sitting on your bed with a laptop typing away or sitting on the couch while you worked in the living room, you might want to rethink that.  One of the key things to working at home and making it a success is to have a separate designated area for you to work.  I, also, suggest that you do not put your desk in front of a window that is just asking for trouble.

Things that I suggest that you have in your office are:

• A Door – this is one of the most important things to me.  When my office door is closed, my kids and family know that I am “working” in which case they don’t open the door.


• Desk


• Comfortable ergonomic chair


• Computer


• Fax machine


• Printer


• Phone


• Answering machine


• File cabinet

Business supplies (that you might want to have on hand)

• Pens


• Paper


• Printer supplies


• Paper – Notebooks, paper for the printer


• File folders


• Three ring binders


• Planner


• Stapler and staples


• Business cards


• Envelopes

Software:

• Depending on what you are going to do you need to have up to date software programs.

If you are thinking about telework, you might also want:

• A dedicated phone line


• A headset

Other things that you might want to consider:

• A separate checking account (if you are going to freelance or be a subcontractor)


• Bookkeeping books

I know this sounds like a lot of things to get.  I suggest that you watch for sales throughout the year and purchase them as you go.  Buy things as you can afford them by doing it this way you will not feel the financial crunch as much.  For instance, school supplies go on sale every year before the school starts.

Please stop by tomorrow for the third installment where we talk about if you are an employee or independent contractor.

photo credit: Vagabond Shutterbug

Welcome back to the series, Things You Should Consider Before Starting To Work At Home.  Today we will be discussing the pros and cons of working from home.   There are some really good reasons for working at home but there are some negatives as well.  You need to consider all of your factors when you decide to work from home.

Some pros are:

• No boss standing over your shoulder.  You are your own boss.


• No more commuting back and forth which will save you time.  Time that would have been away from your family.


• You can do more work in less time.


• You will save money on lots of things like clothing, gas prices, day care expense, eating out, etc.


• Your stress level is more likely to go down.


• You can schedule your own work schedule so you will have more flexibility in your life.  You can do more family things, attend more functions with the kids at school, take the kids to doctor’s appointments, etc.

Now for the cons:

• Stepping off the career path you were following.  If you were on the sold career track, you might not be if you go home to work.


• Not enough space to work.  You need a separate space to work to stay organized.


• Feeling isolated from the world.  You had the social side of things when you were working in an office with others.


• No one to structure your day which can cause you to be less motivated.


• More temptation to do things with the family versus work.


• If you take a pay cut to come home and work, who will watch the kids.  You can’t work and watch them at the same time.


• Being taken seriously.  Unfortunately, it is a factor in today’s society that people that work at home are not taken seriously.  People think that means you aren’t working.  You have to really set down rules about working.


• Longer hours in some cases. 

You need to know before you set off to working at home, how you will balance your work life with your home life.  It’s a hard balance but it is possible.

Please stop by tomorrow for the second installment where we talk about setting up your home office space.

photo credit: theivorytower

You made the decision that you think that you want to come home and work for yourself.  The reason that I said “you think” that you want to come home is have you considered all of your options yet?  I will be writing a series for the next few days where I will be discussing the things that you should consider before starting to work at home.

Things to discuss are:

• What are the pros and cons of working at home?


• What you need to set up your home office


• Are you an employee or independent contractor?  What are the differences?


• What are the benefits to social media for you?

Please stop by tomorrow for the first installment regarding pros and cons of working from home.

photo credit: whatleydude

Here’s a list of telecommuting jobs available for you to check out this week. While these have been researched and seemed to be legitimate work at home jobs you still need to be careful and watch out for scams! Just remember that you should NEVER have to pay someone to work for them! If someone asks for money that’s a red flag!

1. Web Programmer/Designer Needed


2. Title Examiner


3. Account Managers


4. Internet Marketing Sales Rep


5. Part-time Grant Writer


6. Google Apps Add-On Review Blogger


7. IT Geeks Wanted


8. Freelance Reports (Nashville)


9. Talented Online Writers


10. Crime Blogger NYC


11. WordPress Blogger


12. Writers – Local Community topics


13. Customer Service Rep


14. Weekend Breaking News Editor


15. Linux System Administrator

When considering working from home, you have to consider not only what you will be doing but how much you need to make to be profitable.  One of the hardest decisions, you can make is what you want to do at home.  Some jobs that you can do at home are blogging, customer service, data entry, marketing, recruiting, sales, telemarketing, website design, and so many more.

Here are some things that you must consider when making the decision to switch to working from home.

Is it something that you can afford?

When you start working from home unless you have a shoe in with your company or some other alley, you will be losing that stable income that you are used to having.  You will, also, lose that nice insurance plan you are on unless your spouse is carrying it for you.  (more…)

We all run into those moments when you are feeling overwhelmed with working at home.  I know that I just suffered through one last week myself.  This week things are going a lot better.  It is uncanny how usually when this happens to me, I will run across an article about the exact topic that I’m floundering with.

Stop over and check it out. Make sure to tell him that I sent you.