How to Make Money as a Stay at Home Parent & Actually Fit it Around the Family

Most of the posts I see when you start looking for ways on how to make money as a stay at home parent give you an endless of list of ideas that are not really going to make you a lot of money or fit around being a stay at home parent.

We know that your time is at a premium and being able to make money needs to be able to fit around your routines and the routines of your children.  That is why we are not going to bore you with a list that includes filing in surveys or stuff like that (Which will earn you pennies at best), we are going to show you a much better way of making money and it is the way we make money online fitting in around our lives and our 7 year old son.

I am guessing that as you are a stay at home parent, you are having to rely on only 1 income and are looking for ways to supplement that income to make life a little more comfortable.  That is the situation we were in and instead of going down the normal routes of filling in online surveys for a couple of pence a time or selling stuff on eBay, which only lasts while you have stuff to sell, we went an entirely different route and that is the route we will be sharing with you today.

Time is at a Premium for a Stay at Home Parent

There never seem like there are enough hours in the day and I am sure kids find a tidy clean room as a challenge to see how long it takes to get all of their toys out and make the room look a complete mess again.

Don’t get me wrong, but I always seem to be clearing up after Will and running around to get him to all of his after school activities which have definitely multipled as he gets older.  There is tae kwon do, beavers, football skills and swimming.

There is also the old debate about paying for childcare or caring for them yourselves, but it all costs money and the schedule of a stay at home parent can be quite hectic, even compared to someone who holds down a full time job….

It never seems to stop, and now we are into the summer holidays it brings with it the challenge of keeping him entertained.

We honestly appreciate what the schedule of a stay at home parent can be, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own aspirations of doing something that can give you a real purpose and make you some money on the side…

Why Waste Time on Small Change?

Look, there are definitely ways of making a small amount of money online doing things like online surveys or getting cashback when shopping.  We talk about that more in our Swagbucks and Prolific Surveys reviews.

Whilst these are valid options, my thoughts would be is if you were looking to know how to make money online whilst you are a stay at home parent, I am going to go out on a limb and say “you are looking for a way to make money to”:

• Support your partner with the finances
• Earn money at home rather than getting a part time job
• Easily fits around your schedule
• Make sure your time isn’t wasted
  

We get it, my full-time job was a regional role, I could be leaving the house at 5am and not returning until 6pm or 7pm and that made it almost impossible for Gem to fit a part time job around that kind of schedule, when it wasn’t a fixed shift pattern.

Gem had to be around to take Will to school and part time jobs that fitted in and around school hours were simply not there…

Then we found an option that not only allowed us to fit it in around our busy lifes, but it also allowed Gem to pursue her interest in arts and crafts (she runs a online wedding stationary business from home now).

By exploring this option more, it meant I could also start working on a way to escape that regional job that took up all my time.

The business model we started looking at, learning and putting into action totally suited our aspirations of working for ourselves, becoming our own bosses and feeling like we had achieved something.

It totally works around our busy schedules, it works around Will, we get to see him more and it can also lead to you feeling like you have something with a real purpose and something you can do when the kids have flown the nest.

But don’t think this is something that is just for when you are a stay at home parent, if you take the right action and put the time in you could be building something that means you will not have to go and get a job when the kids have flown the nest.  The decision we made was the best one we could take and means that you can become your own boss and work when you want, how you want, and the bonus is you will be doing it in a subject you actually already like.

What Happens When the Kids Aren’t Around?

You might be looking for a way to make money know whilst you are at home with the kids, but what happens when they are at school, or at college or don’t need a chaperone all of the time and you start to find you have more time on your hands but are not too sure of what you can do with yourself and the prospect of going back to work might scare you…

This is why we are not suggesting you waste 3 hours of your time to fill in a couple of surveys that might earn you a couple of quid.  We are suggesting you start something much bolder and can lead you to your own way of making money from something that you already know a lot about or even love.  This is about turning a passion into a money making opportunity

You can still fill in a few surveys if you want to make some small change, Swagbucks is a good option to do this.

But we are thinking bigger than just a few quid on a survey site, we are talking about something that could lead you to a 4-figure salary a month

Do You Want Something with Some Purpose?

When Will came along, it changed our philosophy on life?  Our jobs regularly meant we were spending 60-70 hours at work and at the time it didn’t really bother us.  We both worked for the same company, so saw each other at work and would get back at roughly the same time except for the odd late night and could fit all the activities we wanted to do around them…

And Then Will Came Along…

That schedule didn’t work any more.  We wanted more of a home-life balance and so we both started working on a way out.

A way to spend more time at home and watch Will grow up and be around to watch it because kids grow up so fast, you can blink and miss it!

We started to look for ways we could earn money online, I am quite techy and Gem is not but we were both able to embrace a way of making money online and it started with a passion that Gem had.

Gem loves arts and crafts and by learning from our top recommended training platform, we were able to build Gem an online wedding stationary business that makes money.  She has some of her own products on there, and we also make money from promoting other people’s products using a method called Affiliate Marketing.  We will touch on that shortly.

It is not an easy route, the easy route would be to fill in some surveys and earn maybe a dollar/pound.

I am not saying the route we took to make money at home is easy but being able to be around for the kids and make money is a much better option than spending hours at a job that we didn’t enjoy and not seeing him at all.

But it cannot be just something you pick up… you need to have a purpose to your reason to want to make money online.

That purpose could be to stop that need to go back to a work environment you do not want to go back to.

• It could be a purpose to help people
• Or it could simply be to keep your mind active

Depending on the age of your children will be a factor, when Will was little watching Peppa Pig on repeat, it did my head in and the common escape is to just go on social media.

We waste so much time on social media, and if you actually look back – what have you achieved for that?  You have been nosy into other people’s lives for half hour, but I could have written an article in that time.

Browsing through social media is not going to help make you any money nor is it going to make you feel good, because of some of the stuff spread on it.

We decided our purpose would be to spend time investing in ourselves.

We spent the time we had; however short it might be in learning valuable skills that led to a fantastic way of making money online.  Whilst the aspiration was to generate sales through the wedding stationary business, there was another route we also talk and we have never heard of it before, but now we find it is by far the best option for anyone looking to make money online and that is through Affiliate Marketing.

Start Investing Time in Something for You…

All of that time you might be spending on your phone either on social media or looking for ways to make money online, could be better spent actually learning an effective way of making money online and learning some valuable skills.  We chose to build an online business; we now have 2 online businesses that are both making money online – the first one is the wedding stationary business and the second is this one. Both are using Affiliate Marketing to generate sales.

But even if you are not sure about starting up your own affiliate marketing business, you could still learn some fantastic and valuable skills that will allow you to offer your services out as a freelancer and earn money for doing stuff for website and business owners.

Both Affiliate Marketing & Freelancing are much better options for making money online than online surveys, or learning how to invest in the stock market, etc.

The routes are different, but the skills you can learn are the same.

My point is that the training platform we are introducing you to will lead you on a path to a much better income route than any of those survey sites or anyone trying to convince you cryptocurrency or binary options are worth your time and money.

Harnessing Affiliate Marketing to build an online business in any subject you want will give you a great purpose, it will fit in and around your home routine, still give you a way to be around your children and will still be there when your kids have all grown up and left the nest.

If you go through the training and decide not to launch a website, but use the skills to offer yourself out as a freelancer, you are in a much better position to make money online and I mean real money.

Think of it this way, Will has just turned 7..  By harnessing affiliate marketing, we are able to see much more of him and earn money from helping other people learn about and start their own affiliate marketing businesses.

We will also be able to use that money to take Will on holidays and special days out, because the earning potential of affiliate marketing is much more than any survey site could offer.

Once Will is old enough to chose his own path, and he is not around or even moved out.  We will have an online business that means we can still enjoy our time working from home, we might even go travelling but we think it is the best decision we have ever made…

I will admit, it will not bring you money straightaway.  But when you see affiliate marketers earning 4-figure salaries and even 5-figure salaries each month from affiliate marketing, don’t you think that getting started with a proven training platform could lead you down the same path those guys are?

All you need to do is remain consistent with learning and consistent with taking action.

How to Make Money as a Stay at Home Parent – Affiliate Marketing

Before we get into the training platform we recommend, we want to make sure you have a full understanding of what affiliate marketing actually is.

The reason is, there are plenty of platforms out there all claiming to be there to teach you affiliate marketing, but when you get into them, they are either:

• Offering out-of-date techniques that are only going to harm your chances
• Not Affiliate Marketing at all, but are all about recruiting new members (MLM)

We always recommend you do your research before taking the plunge into anything and as these types of platforms expect you to hand over money before you even get to see what they are like you fell pressured by their sales pitch to sign up and then feel like you are trapped.

Our top recommended platform has a free starter membership that requires no credit card details!  You get to fully explore what they are about and the training they offer, without feeling committed…

So, what is affiliate marketing???

What is Affiliate Marketing & How Does it Work?

If you are like me, you had never heard of affiliate marketing until we just mentioned it a few moments ago.  Whilst you might not have heard of the term, you have probably been involved in it and might not have even noticed.

You see, it can be really expensive for businesses to do ad campaigns and there is no guarantee that they are going to actually bring any custom.  That is why businesses tend to use affiliate marketing, because the risk isn’t there.  They only pay out when a customer’s makes a purchase.  The best example we can use is when Amazon launched as a book store.

Everyone these days has heard of Amazon, but when they first launched, they were a small business without a huge marketing budget.  How could they get more people to buy books?

They offered a program where their customers could earn money if they introduced a new customer to buy a book from Amazon.  It is a referral program.  Every time someone got a new person to buy a book, they earned a commission.

So, instead of paying millions of dollars on advertising campaigns, they rewarded their loyal customers with a commission every time they got someone else to buy a book.

Amazon only paid out that commission if someone bought a book and the new customer could benefit from doing the same.

Fast forward today and Amazon’s affiliate program (called Amazon Associates) works off the same idea.

This innovative idea from the guys behind Amazon allowed them to become the world’s largest marketplace and that same premise is what affiliate marketing is based off, except in the online world.

Now, Amazon sells pretty much anything and that is where the opportunity lies. You could turn any hobby or interest into a full-time income through signing up with affiliate programs and promoting products and services tied in with your hobby or interest.

The possibilities and opportunities are endless, no matter what your interest is you could turn it into a money making business with the right support (which we will share with you shortly).

If we go with one example that would be relevant to you is, a niche related to parenting. Let me ask you a question and feel free to write your response in the comments below, have you used to google at all to find out the answer to a question that was related to an element of parenting?

Below are some examples I found during some research of questions, other parents are asking:

• The age where my baby can start eating baby food
• Baby food for babies with allergies
• Best food processor for baby food
• Baby milk that is closest to breast milk
• Local baby classes

Those are just a handful that are related to baby food and baby milk, plus a local baby class.

But if we think about that as an opportunity where your experience is going to help a new mom or dad, the list of opportunities will run into the thousands of ideas and new parents or soon-to-be parents are searching google constantly to find out the best answers for their babies.

Think about older children, then the search changes to the best bike or best laptop etc.  Information about video games and whether they are appropriate to their children.

When these parents type that question into google, where do you think they are likely to land?

That’s right, a blog that has someone who utilising affiliate marketing is but also helping people with answering their questions.

Let’s pick one from the list above and we will go through the stages needed to get started, we are going to choose the “best food processor for baby food” so that is our niche.

We are going to focus on offering helpful guides all around baby food and then include some product reviews (with affiliate links) for food processors that are available on amazon.

That way we become the authority on food processors and baby food.

Now, to put that into context just by typing in food processor in Amazon there are 2000 items in that category.

I know we are going to be doing a little more digging about which are the best for baby food but the point is there is a huge opportunity to review some products (you will not need to buy them to do a review) and then sign up with the affiliate program and if someone lands on your blog and reads your review and agrees with your assessment and buys a food processor through your link, you are earning money!

Let’s break that down into the steps you need to go through

Step 1 – Choose a Niche

We have used food processors for baby food, but this could literally be anything.  You might not want to even venture into anything to do with parenting and use it as a bit of an escape… we are all different and that is the great thing about affiliate marketing, you could use anything.

I could have chosen Wedding Photography or Star Trek, but the point is you choose something that you are not going to bore of.  You are going to need to research that niche, you are going to need to be able to offer help to others in that niche.

If you picked digital cameras because the commission on them is high but didn’t even know how to use a DSLR camera properly, how are you going to make sales???

The other piece of advice is do not pick a niche just because someone has told you it is profitable.  Any niche can be profitable, if done correctly.

But a blog with helpful and insightful posts with an owner who has identified and targeted a target audience (the training will help you do this) in a niche you love and could write about for years to come will be much more profitable than picking something that you think is profitable, but get stuck after only 10 articles which you are kind of copying from someone else’s blog.

Go with something that you love and enjoy; it will definitely help keep you inspired until the money comes in

Step 2 – Build a Website

This is the step that most people go “I haven’t got the technical skills to build a website!” But let me stop you right there, building a website these days is so easy that anyone can do it and I mean anyone!

In fact, you could get your own website in just four easy steps and have it up and running in just a few minutes.

Once you have your niche, the only decision you need to make before building your website is picking a domain name and then seeing if it is available.  Our top recommended training program, not only includes training on all aspects of this but they also give you 2 free websites with a free starter membership and they also host the websites, so all you need to do is see if your available domain name (website name) is free and then register it.

Just by going through these 2 steps and the training that goes with it from the guys at Wealthy Affiliate, you will be surprised at how far you have come to earning a decent wage from the internet.

These are just the foundations for a money-making business online and we haven’t even got to the point of creating any content.

But I promise you that anything you think is difficult within this process, it is not.  You just need the right guidance and support, which you get in abundance from the community at Wealthy Affiliate.  You will also benefit from my personal help and support every step of the way, from choosing a niche, choosing a domain name or thinking of ideas for creating content, we will be there to help you.

Now that we have a website built, we need to get going with gaining an audience using a free technique called SEO.

Step 3 – Gain an Audience

Now you have a website, now what?

We need to bring some people over to your website to be able to promote affiliate products to you.  There are a few ways of doing this, but we are going to focus on an option that doesn’t cost you anything.  The one we recommend you start with is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

In simple terms, we are going to target low competition keywords that help us get our website to the top of the search results on Google, Bing & Yahoo.  They own 99% of the online traffic, so we need to put our blog at the very top, so that when someone comes searching for information relating to the niche you chose in step 1, they find that your blog appears at the top so they can come and visit your website.

If we don’t do that, then we cannot get any people on your website.

No traffic = No Sales!

So, how do we do this?  Is there a special trick you need to know or anything?

Well, the simple answer is yes.  But not in the way you think, the special trick is to “Help People”

The best way you can get your content to the very top of the search results is by targeting the right keyword and then offering a detailed and comprehensive guide related to that keyword that helps the person get the answer to thier question.

Google loves quality content.

Think about how search engines work.  You typed a keyword into the search results.  You are asking a question or looking for help.  Google tries to put the best answer to your question at the very top with the hope that you click that website and find the answer you need.

Let’s use an example, you type into Google “Best Food Processors for Babies”

Which result would you like to find from the options below:

1. A blog about food processors but nothing relating to whether they are good for processing baby food
2. A blog about food processors for making baby meals, but it lacks any real depth to their answers, and you will need to go away and do more research
3. A blog that offers in-depth guides into anything and everything to do with food processors for parents wanting to create healthy meals for their babies. Tips on keeping the food processor clean and in tip-top condition, etc.

Hopefully, you are thinking option 3 is the better option?

What you want to create is a website that people will want to come back to, not everyone is going to buy something from you on the first click and the training at Wealthy Affiliate will help you target customers that are at different stages of the customer purchase lifecycle.

You will have people who are not ready to make a purchase and are just looking for ideas, then you will have people who are almost certain on which product they want to buy but want to confirm their decision.

You will learn to write posts targeting all areas of the customer purchase lifecycle, but what is important that you understand that you are there to help people and not sell to people.

People do not want a pushy sales pitch that just tells them to buy something.  They want help to understand what the best option is and why you feel it is the best option and learn from you with some how-to guides.

Don’t be put off by this step, many people look at this and think “that is a lot of work” and if I am honest “It Is!”

But it was the best decision We made a few years ago and I love helping people and that makes writing articles or creating videos much easier to do.

But without the right training, I would say that it much harder to achieve success because you will not be following a step-by-step guide that has a proven success rate.

But following a step-by-step guide and creating an online business in a subject you actually enjoy, makes it so worth it and it becomes enjoyable.

Don’t worry if you think your writing isn’t very good, the beauty of a blog is that you are not writing an essay for an examination board.  You are writing as you would talk to a friend.

You articles might struggle for word count at first, but the more you do it the easier it will become.

Back when I started, I would struggle to write a 1,000-word post and now I find that this article at this exact point is 4,100 words long and I am still not finished.  It comes with practise and making sure you are fully relevant to who will be reading it.

But as you write content that targets the right audience with the right keyword (all with support at every step) You will find that you will start getting an audience.  People will be visiting your website and then you are ready to start introducing the stuff that will lead to sales…

Step 4 – Get Sales

There is an important reason why the money-making point is at the end, affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme.  You will not be earning money within a couple of hours, regardless of what any other website might tell you.  Anyone who tells you, that you will be earning money from affiliate marketing straightaway is lying to you and are only after your money.

It is possible to start making money with affiliate marketing in about 3 months with the right training, but that will depend on your niche and how competitive it is.

Once you have traffic coming to your website, it is time to start signing up with affiliate programs and writing some product reviews on your website.  Product Reviews are good at targeting those who are in the “ready to buy” stage of the purchase lifecycle.  They are checking out whether it is the right product and if you can write an awesome product review that answers all of their questions and cover both the good and the bad of the product and include an affiliate link to that product on a website they will trust (we recommend amazon to new affiliate marketers) then you could start getting commissions from these sales.

As you build an authority in your chosen niche, your audience will grow, and your sales will grow with it.  All you need to do is keep writing content that helps your readers, cover all aspects of the customer purchase Lifecyle, write product reviews and by following the right step-by-step guide you will be earning a lot more than any survey site you might be tempted to waste your time with.

Fitting This Around Your Family

I know this might seem like a lot of work and you might be thinking how can I fit this in and around the family and everything I need to do at home. I get what you are saying, but when you sit down and actually think about the amount of time we might be wasting instead of taking action then you will soon find you have plenty of time to build yourself an online job.  Even if you spend 30 minutes a day learning and then 30 minutes a day taking action that is 7 hours a week.  Make that 2 hours and then you have 14 hours, which is about the same as a part time job.  But there is no travel to consider.

The time you have will depend on the age of your children.  Will is at school, so we get loads done in the day whilst he is at school.  Back when he was a toddler, he would have a nap and I could get an article written then.

It isn’t necessarily about the time you have, but how productive you are in that time.  But if I compare an hour completing a lesson on Wealthy Affiliate to an hour completing surveys;

I know which would have been the better option!

Conclusion

I am not saying this option is necessarily for you, it does involve a lot of work and effort.  But I do think that if Gemma and I had not explored this option, Gem would have had to go back to her day job when Will started school.  That job took her an hour to get to work and hour to get home.  She was leaving the house at 7.30am and not returning until after 6.30pm five days a week.

That meant we were spending more money on childcare, because of the way my job works and that means we would never have seen Will!

There are pros and cons to whatever decision you make, but the reason I didn’t waste my time writing about surveys or selling stuff on ebay is I don’t see them as a great return of income for the work you have to put in.

eBay is great if you have a way of replacing your stock and keep selling.  But I recently sold a batch of stuff on ebay, and when I worked out the time it took to put the stuff on eBay, how much postage was going to cost and then getting to the post office to post it.  I worked out I could have written probably about 50 articles in the same time.  50 articles that could earn me residual income for years to come.

Surveys will cost you more in time than anything else and are not worth it and unless you actually have money to invest in these share options, etc. in the other posts I don’t see how that is actually going to help you.

Affiliate Marketing is a great option and it also means you can get started for free.

Wealthy Affiliate offers a comprehensive training platform that will take you through every step needed to get started and a free starter membership will also give you 2 free websites.  There is no catch, there is no credit card required.  They do offer a premium membership, but that is not pushed on you and is there ready for when you are ready to take the plunge.

But I am hoping I have given you a good overview of what opportunities affiliate marketing can bring you as a stay-at-home parent.

I know you might be thinking how will I have time to do all that John? But let me share with you how I got started:

• I started exploring affiliate marketing in 2016, so Will was 4.  I had a full-time job taking up 60-70 hours a week and yet I was still able to get started.
• I was using my down-time at work to do some research
• When Will had gone to bed (and typically Gem had to) I would write an article?
• I would watch one of the live training videos at Wealthy Affiliate whilst preparing a meal
• I cut out the amount of time I was spending on social media (it is surprising how much time this takes up)

There is always time to do something if you really want to do it.  If I added up all the time, I spent looking for ways to make money and if I had put that time into just getting started with affiliate marketing, I would probably be a year ahead of where I am not.

The only decision you need to make at this point is, do you want to learn more about Affiliate Marketing and Wealthy Affiliate?  If you want to learn more, I highly recommend you read up on Wealthy Affiliate, here is a link to our Wealthy Affiliate Review.

This is also a complete guide to affiliate marketing that will fill in some of the blanks.

But building your own money-making affiliate marketing business will also give you something else, besides the money – More time with your children.

It will also help fill the void as your children grow and start to want to spend less time with their parents.  It will happen I am afraid.

Will was out the front playing football with his friends the other day, so I went out with a garden chair and did some keyword research whilst watching him play football and being ref, lol

Hopefully, you have found this guide useful and maybe found an option that could work as a stay at home parent.  If you still have any questions or have any experiences you want to share with us, please write them in the comments below and we will get back to your as soon as we can.  Whatever you decide, we wish you all the best