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.
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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 all
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.
There 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 will
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.
onto a website to learn about something or get help and is happy to see low quality content.
