10 Best Reasons to Work from Home… But Why it’s Harder Than you Think

There are many benefits to working from home and it is a lifestyle many crave. Being able to work when you want, how you want and more importantly fit it around you rather than your company or boss all has an appeal. But I also want to share with you the other side of working from home to consider… it is definitely harder to motivate yourself at times too.

I will share with you 10 of the best reasons to work from home, but also a couple of factors to consider if you do.

I use affiliate links to support bestaffiliatemarketingtools.org, for more information click here.

You Control Your Schedule

Being able to control when you work has a multitude of benefits, I find myself more productive on an evening. But compare that to your normal job – a 9 to 5 job suffers with the commute; a flexible shift worker never knows their shifts too far in advance.  Working nights to earn extra money means you miss out on the family… the reasons are endless, and it can be much better for you if you planned your own schedule.

No Drive to Work

The amount of time we lose through the commute to work and then there is also the fuel savings.  Fuel is costing more allCommute to Work the time, especially with the push for electric cars and getting penalised for driving a diesel car.  You might be someone who goes to work via train, but the train fares are constantly going up with overcrowded trains a big problem.

It is no surprise that many of us are stressed before we even get to work, and we have the same joys to go through on the way home.

More Time for Parenting or Your Own Pursuits

One of the biggest benefits I have seen from working from home is spending more time with my family.  Being able to walk Will to school or take him to his Tae Kwon Do lessons is something I really enjoy and missed out massively with my day job.

More Family TimeThere are also the benefits for if he is ever unwell and cannot attend school.

But for many of you who aren’t parents, there is the opportunity to get back into a hobby or arrange to catch up with some friends without the normal barriers. I remember one Friday, my day job involved a lot of driving, and I was supposed to be meeting up with Friends and Family for a drink to celebrate a birthday – but due to a pile up on the motorway I didn’t get back home until 11pm and missed out on it.

It seems to be your hobbies or interests always take a backseat to the job, as it pays the bills and I get that – but working from home definitely gives you more freedom to pursue them.

Control Over Income

One of the key reasons why people do not pursue working from home is they worry that they will not bring in the same amount as their day job or having enough to live on.  But the advantages of a home business are it can allow you to earn what you are worth – and you will get paid based on what effort you put in and not whether a boss feels you deserve a pay rise.

As a business owner, you can set your own income goals and product/service prices.  You will also reap the rewards from the time and effort you put into your home business.  Plus most home businesses start as a side gig on top of a normal job, until you are ready to change that arrangement.

Tax Benefits

There are tax benefits to having your own business from home, you can write off equipment, supplies and even a portion of your home or car if appropriate. You can even claim a portion of utilities you use, i.e. internet or electric.

It is also worth pointing out that with a normal job you get taxed on what you earn.  In your home business, you can deduct your expenses first and only pay tax on your net income.

I would always advise you seek professional advice with this, but there are definite benefits.

No Work Uniform

Wear what you like… unless you have clients to see or are doing a skype call, there is no restriction on what you wear.

During the summer, you will not have to wear formalwear that bakes you when the heatwave arrives.

No Boss

There are normally a couple of reasons why we look for ways to work from home, sometimes it is to earn more money or pay off debt.  Or that your boss is not that great. Not all of them are a problem, but at the end of the day reporting to a boss doesn’t give you the freedom to push yourself into doing something or making decisions.

Feel a Greater Level of Satisfaction

Think of it with your current job, when you achieve something is there any recognition… does it mean that you can go home and feel motivated from it…

Everyday there is some level of satisfaction from starting your own business.  Launching your first product, launching a website, getting your first customer review.

Let’s be honest, you will never get the same level of recognition from your day job. Starting an online business and growing it to the point where it is helping people and creating income for yourself will be a much better place to be.

Learn New Skills & Grow as a Professional

To make an online business work and grow to that point where you can say goodbye to the day job needs some hard work and time spent learning some important skills. This will help your online business, but also help you grow as a Professional.

You will notice the tone I have taken with this post, the only real way of earning money online is by thinking of it as and building it as a business.

Building a business plan around it, having the mindset of it as a business and you will definite grow in an awesome way as a business owner. That is why I advocate to anyone the opportunities of starting a Home Business.

Start a Home Business – A Passion Becomes Your Key to Working from Home

This is the starting point for being able to work from home.  There are a couple of paths:

  • Creating & Selling Your Own Products – Many have started with this path, starting on eBay and building up a home business from there.  My wife traded her 9-5 admin job for this and now creates bespoke Wedding Stationary and ships worldwide.
  • Drop Shipping – Not everyone has their own products or the inclination to create them.  Drop shipping is an alternative where you sell products from a wholesaler. You sell them as your product and when someone buys something, you instruct the wholesaler to ship it direct to the customer.
  • Affiliate Marketing – This is my preferred method.  My wife is arty and very good at what she does, but I use Affiliate Marketing to bolster the earnings from the wedding stationary to allow us to work from home.  Affiliate Marketing is gaining a lot of popularity and it might seem like a difficult path to traverse but is by the far the best option if you are looking to work from home.  I suggest you read my guide on “How Affiliate Marketing Really Works?

I would to just spend a minute pointing out a couple of things for when you are searching for genuine opportunities to work from home.  Anything that tells you “You Can Earn Money Overnight with this System!” or promises you “You Don’t have to Do Anything!” are full of BS.  There are no magic-button systems out there that can allow you to quit your job tomorrow. (Sorry).  It took me 15 years with my (day-job) company to earn the salary I got to, there was no way a platform was going to equal that overnight – But if you are willing to put the time and effort in you can start to see rewards with an online business after 12 months.  Being realistic with our expectations is something I have learned a lot from on our quest to push the wedding stationary business and my affiliate marketing business.

Affiliate Marketing presents anyone the opportunity to work from home building an online business from something we really enjoy or even a passion.  I love helping people find that opportunity, but it could be in anything.  But I would be lying if it was easy (what is) and many stop before they actually start making money.

Some do not believe me when I say that I am earning money through Affiliate Marketing, but I am, and it gives me all of the benefits that are above and more.

With Gemma’s wedding stationary business, I utilise all 3 of the above business models to supplement the income from the wedding stationary.

A Few Watch Outs to Working from Home

I mentioned earlier that whilst there are many benefits to working from home, there are a few things that can make you less productive or even mean you do not get your business off of the ground.

Watch Out #1 – Distractions & Self Motivation

Whether it is your favourite tv show, social media or the washing up, there are a lot more distractions at home then you might think.  It might seem like the dream to stay in your PJ’s all day and having the mentality of “I’ll do it later…”.  You willDistractions - Social Media soon notice that you actually get a lot done at home, but not on your business.  Social Media can be a powerful tool to your business, but you can easily lose 2 hours just surfing Facebook and not having anything to show for it.

My first piece of advice for working from home is… Make yourself an office and organise your time.  I know this might sound like your day job and clocking on”.  But it will help you get into that home office mindset.  Even with my day job I was a home worker, and it can be so easy to sit on the sofa with the tv on, whilst checking emails.  You do not get a lot done.  Trust me, you are better having no distractions.

Watch Out #2 – It Can Be Lonely

When you finally reach that point where you are working from home and not having to get out of the house for work – you soon realise that you miss the social element of your old job.  Don’t be afraid to meet up with a friend for a coffee.  There are times with an online business where you might need to bounce an idea off, but if you aren’t interacting with anyone close this can be hard to do.  I have also found a friend is more likely to give you an honest opinion compared to some of the family.

Watch Out #3 – Managing Our Expectations

I know I have mentioned this before, but it is a really big one that can get us in the way.  If I just talk about Affiliate Marketing for a moment as a business model.  Most people get disillusioned with it after a couple of months as it hasn’t earned them any money.  But in everything I have ever read or done with it, you shouldn’t expect it to.  The main reason is the search engines are not really noticing your website until month 3.  So, they could be giving up just before they start seeing revenue.

eBay is really good for Gem’s wedding stationary, but there are fees.  But the website isn’t getting the traffic it needs to not do eBay.

Wanting to work from home can be such a powerful emotive thing that we jump into decisions that we shouldn’t really make, and it tends to end up costing you more money.

Making money online at home is really doable, but you need to manage those expectations.  I didn’t earn anything in the first 6 months with Affiliate Marketing, but I didn’t give up.  If I had, I wouldn’t be seeing the success that I am now.  It is really pushing forward with Gem’s business and I have a training platform and a great community to thank for those successes.

Getting the Help, You Need to Work from Home

There are watch outs to consider when starting out online, but the benefits definitely outweigh those.  I love being able to spend more time with my family, and I also help people who want to get started online too.

Starting out might seem daunting, but I can offer you help every step of the way and get you to the point where you can give up the day job and say you are a home business owner.

When I first started looking for ways to earn online, the one thing I noticed was the number of programs that were full of false promises. How can a system earn you that kind of money overnight with no work…? The answer was it didn’t, but you needed to hand over your credit card details first to find out.

I’ll admit, I got stung by a scam and got my fingers burnt.  I let my emotional side make the decisions for me and it didn’t work.  But it did lead me to a path that was genuine and offered me all the help and support I needed to start and grow my online business.

That platform offered training, expert help and support and the ability to launch my own online business with Affiliate Marketing.  But it offered so much more, and I have used a lot of the knowledge with Gemma’s wedding stationary business.  So whatever online business you are considering you can get the same help and support + I will personally help you every step of the way.

That training platform is Wealthy Affiliate.  It offers:

  • Training for every aspect of an Online Business
  • Websites & Hosting for your Online Business
  • Expert Help & Support from the Community
  • Online Training Platform where the Owners Get Involved
  • Personal Help & Guidance from Me

I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate to anyone who is interested in starting their own online business, and truly believe in them.  Here is my full Wealthy Affiliate Review, which I would advise you to read.

If you are really interested in building an online business to help you be able to work from home, then Wealthy Affiliate can definitely help. But I will also be on hand to help anyone in the community.  One of the things you will soon realise is, everyone is there to help each other including the owners.

If you want to take the platform for a spin, you can try their starter membership.  It is totally free and will not require you to enter your credit card details.  Just experience the premium features for 7 days and make your own mind up.

I would love to hear what you guys thought of my 10 best reasons to work from home or even the watch outs.  Are you thinking of starting out and not sure which way to go or have you found your own benefits or concerns when working from home?  I would love to hear from you – just leave me any questions or comments below.  I promise to come back to you ASAP and good luck with your pursuit of working from home.

18 thoughts on “10 Best Reasons to Work from Home… But Why it’s Harder Than you Think”

  1. Being your own boss can be pretty difficult especially for those who have a hard time working alone. Or those who have issues with time management. 

    Giving yourself a schedule definitely works and makes the process a lot easier.

    I do agree that working from home is really hard and can get really boring just sitting around at home all day.

    Reply
    • Hey Ty,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  It can be real hard work, but when you start earning with it, it makes all the difference.  But to earn money, you need to put in the time and effort.

      If you also pick a niche that you are really interested in, then you will find it isn’t as boring as you might think as you are researching a subject you already enjoy.

      A schedule is a great idea and being able to plan your day and week will definitely help.

      Thanks

      John

      Reply
  2. You give sound advice, John.  

    It is harder than people think when first starting out to create a sustainable income online.  And yes, managing my expectations was hard at first as I’d thought I merely had to put up a website and then sit back and watch the numbers climb.  So I appreciate your putting the message out that it is harder than one thinks.  But it is also a highly achievable ambition to earn a living from home and one well worth getting into once your expectations are managed – as your own situation  exemplifies.  With the right degree of awareness, programs like Wealthy Affiliate can be a huge success for anyone with ambition and willingness to work the lessons.

    Reply
    • Hey Cath,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  When your business starts earning money, all that hard works seems justified.  But it does seem really hard to manage those expectations when you are not seeing any results.  But again I stress, the search engines do not take notice of your website until about month 3 really and you need traffic to earn anything.  Keep going with high-quality content and it starts and then you know you are doing the right thing.

      thanks

      John

      Reply
  3. Hi John, excellent post, Thanks. Oh yes!  I’m enjoying all 10 of those.

    I really like that you balanced out your 10 reasons with those 3 watch-out’s. I can add one more to your 3, if I may? Working incessantly, not knowing when to stop. Do you also find you can get a bit carried away?  It drives my hubby nuts when I’m on the computer or smartphone during our down-time. Perhaps you find this one easier as you and Gemma are building your site together?  Do you have a cut-off time?  Do you have a special way of conquering work-life-balance?

    Reply
    • Hey Lauren,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  You are right, knowing when to switch off is a hard one, especially in the initial stages.

      We tend to like watching something together of an evening, so after Will is in bed we will spend some time together unwinding.  Organising your time well is a key one, so we take it turns to work on the business whilst entertaining Will.  He is on half term at the moment, so taking the time to spend with him is awesome and just means I do a bit more after he has gone to bed.

      But the key bit to that is spending time with your partner and family.  Do not neglect them for the business, work a way around it.  I found by breaking down the work, it is easier to do in segments.  So I might spend 30 minutes on keyword research, 30 minutes on WA, 30 minutes on social media.  These tasks are all easy to work around other things.

      The only thing I do tend to lock myself away for is – creating content.  You need this to be right for the reader, so I always do this when they are not around.

      thanks for adding your points

      John

      Reply
  4. Great engaging article and you are spot on with these 10 best reasons to work from home and also the things to watch out for. There are a lot of benefits but like anything, it will take a bit of time and to be focused before you start earning online. Once you do put the work in, it pays off no end. Wealthy Affiliate is a brilliant platform to build your own website and monetise it. It’s the best decision I have made joining. 

    Reply
    • Hey Eden,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  You have hit the nail on the head,  be willing to put the time and effort in and you will get the rewards you seek – Just not as quick as everyone seems to expect.

      Wealthy Affiliate is a great platform to learn from and getting the help and support it offers too is awesome and why it is our No.1 Recommended Platform.

      thanks 

      John

      Reply
  5. This is great! I work from home as an affiliate marketer too, and I think you are spot-on with everything here. I personally think the benefits outweigh the downsides, but the biggest factor to consider is that you won’t be making money right away in this business. 

    New people come to this business expecting to make loads of money quickly and get discouraged and quit. It’s a shame though because it’s such a great business if you can stay focused and patient! 

    I love that you’re using affiliate marketing to help your wife’s crafts sell on eBay! That’s so cool! How long has she been on eBay doing that? 

    Reply
    • Hey Christina,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  Gem has been doing it about 18 months now and it is going well.  Using what I have learned from Wealthy Affiliate has helped here target a larger audience, which is helping here achieve here goals of working from home.

      YOu are so right about the timescales, people expect to be able to make money from day one…  I personally think this is from so many fake programs out there telling people you can earn online overnight, so they naturally believe it is possible.

      Affiliate Marketing will lead to good and even great money online, but you need to work hard at it to get to that level and it can a while to get there.

      thanks again

      John

      Reply
  6. Hi John,

    I’m glad I found your article today, I was looking to read accurate information about why working from home is a good idea.

    I was talking with a friend who is currently working from home an she was telling me that she is doing good and she hope to do better next year.

    Your article makes good points of the benefits working from home has, and just thinking about winter in Canada makes me wishing to stay at home and make a good income from my own online business.

    I see you share the link to an option you recommend to learn about how to start an online business, thanks so much, I will take a look at it.  

    Reply
    • Hey Alejandra,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.   I hear it can get very cold in Canada?  Working from home brings a lot more benefits than there are drawbacks, but as long as you can stay motivated and put in the effort you will soon be able to manage your own schedule.

      Good Luck

      John

      Reply
  7. Your article has a wealthy of info. I have been looking for online adventure as I believe there are countless opportunities on the internet. Its like you were talking about how I am stressed always with my 9-5 job Working with someone following my back is disgusting to me. I am in the Police service in my country and I hate being told to keep my hair short, always wearing uniform and gumboots  etc, I don’t enjoy it even one second.

    I have signed up with the free starter course with Wealthy Affiliate, I will be looking into it for te next week and I will definitely upgrade to premium membership very soon if nothing goes wrong

    Thank you so much

    Reply
    • Hey,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  I can totally understand where you must be coming from with your day job.  There are aspects on any job that can mean you don’t feel motivated to turn up. 

      Wealthy Affiliate can definitely help you get started, but you will still need to put the time and effort into making it work so you can leave that job behind.  Use that to motivate yourself when your business is starting out.

      Good Luck

      John

      Reply
  8. I started with affiliate marketing about 4 months ago in earnest and seriously this time, I had tried it in the past but with a different approach of just advertising affiliate links etc with no real thought to it. Well I can tell you it did not work. Fast forward to now I realize it did not work because of what my expectations were. I did not treat it like a business for one. 

    Your paragraph on expectations hit the nail on the head!

    What is the best way that you have learned to managing your expectations?

    Reply
    • Hey Cathy,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments. Self reflection is the main reason I know about managing expectations, my first website didn’t work out and it was down to not following the training and trying to cut corners.  So I went back and started again, but didn’t chase the money.  Just focused on creating content regularly that helped people.

      That was the turning point, it sounds simple but it is that simple when you follow the right advice.

      thanks again

      John

      Reply
  9. Hey John, thank you for sharing the top 10 benefits working from home. It also provide you with financial, time and location freedom. However, the biggest challenge is to get out from your comfort zone. Initially, you have to do all the work by  yourself and get a lot of distraction from outside. You need to devoted a lot of time and effort during the startup. Things might went wrong for no reasons.

    All you have to do is you must have the right mindset and work hard to success so that we can reap the benefits later on. It’s lot more easy to get success with some training, expert help and support in your business.

    I would say Wealthy Affiliate is definitely the best place to start off.

    Best Wishes

    Nax

    Reply
    • Hey Nax,

      thanks for checking out my post and leaving some comments.  Yuu are so right about the mindset being key, if you can stay motivated and keep working hard, anyone can achieve the lifestyle they want working from home.

      thanks

      John

      Reply

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