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Being a homeschool mom is a position that comes with a full schedule and daily challenges; contemplating a work-at-home career on top of that can feel impossible. I hear you! But then I think of that Walt Disney quote: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” The truth is that there are plenty of work-at-home jobs that can fit into the bits and pieces left around your busy homeschool schedule – some of them are fun, some of them could include your kids, and all of them can bring some money into the household. Let’s check out 8 of those flexible job options!
1. Become a Blogger
One of the most flexible options when it comes to a schedule, blogging is not to be overlooked for the homeschool mom! Build your blog over a weekend, and get started! You can write posts before lessons, during lunch, or after classes are done for the day. You can respond to email or do social media maintenance while the kids are studying or before bed. And you can jot down notes on what you’d like to write about next whenever the ideas come to mind – using a tool like Evernote on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the waiting room for an appointment, getting the car serviced, or waiting for the kids when they’re at practice for sports or music or other pursuits – you can access all your notes, wherever you happen to be.
You can even create a blog about the homeschool practice if you’d like your blog topic to fit in with what you do, but you shouldn’t feel limited in your topic – especially if you’d like to explore a hobby or other passion and prevent yourself from getting burned out on homeschooling.
Ready to jump into blogging? I have resources for that.
2. Create Homeschool Courses & Resources
One fantastic method for earning an income while working from home is to set up streams of passive income: products you’ve created and put up for sale online, so sales can happen without your continual input. You can even make homeschooling your kids work for you while you educate your children by creating homeschool products like courses and materials! Create workbooks, worksheets, study guides, or even a syllabus of material to cover for other homeschool families – and then offer these materials for a fee through your website or a site like Teachers Pay Teachers. You don’t even need to spend much in the way of production costs since you’re creating all the content, though you may wish to contract with a freelance editor and use a service like Fiverr to find someone who can make a great cover and/or do the layout. Then simply sell the materials as PDFs, ebooks, or even sell hard copies through Print-On-Demand (POD) services like Lulu.
3. Make Other Stuff
If you’re crafty with your hands, starting a small business to sell what you create is also a great opportunity. You can work around your children’s coursework and you can even get them involved along the way, teaching them how to craft, encouraging their creativity, and showing them how a business operates firsthand. You can knit scarves, crochet dolls, make candles, create soap, craft jewelry, sculpt art, design coloring book pages, and so much more. The limit to your creativity truly is your imagination, as long as you have the will and the way to turn that creativity into something tangible!
Just set aside a little time each day to create – which is something we should incorporate into our kids’ daily lives, anyway – and see what you can make to sell on Etsy or similar sites. Pick up the other business details like listing your items for sale and mailing packages to customers in the morning, when running other errands, and in the evenings.
4. Do Direct Sales
Becoming a direct seller for a company like Stella & Dot (or Mary Kay, Avon, etc.) is an option that scales well depending on how busy you are at home – and it has the added bonus of getting you out of the house to socialize with other adults! You can spend a little time earning a respectable side income and scale it up to a serious money-making business after your kids graduate. Choose the products you’re passionate about – from natural cleaning products to chocolates to unique jewelry – and get started. Schedule parties for whenever you have the time (you can even host many online these days), and immediately start working on your downline. (That means recruiting and mentoring others for your direct sales company.) With some opportunities, such as Barefoot Books and Fundanoodle, you may even be able to get your kids involved and teach them business skills along the way.
5. Be a Consultant
What topic or practice are you most experienced in? Are you a whiz with social media, an incredible marketer, or an expert in child behavior? Perhaps you’re really good at homeschool or have a deep understanding of SEO or can kickstart a company’s business development plan before you even get your shoes tied in the morning. Whatever it is, if you’re an expert in something, you can probably sell your services as a consultant on that subject. If being a consultant and doing business consultations over the phone or online when you have the time sounds like your speed, check out Udemy for some great courses on how to start consulting. (Simply search for “consultant.”)
6. Do Customer Service
Customer service never sleeps, so there’s room for a customer service career even while you’re also educating your kiddos from home. Some companies need representatives working late hours (or very early hours) depending on whether you like to go to sleep late or get up extremely early. All you generally need for this position is a quiet home office, which we’re sure you have – every homeschool needs a workspace free of distractions to keep children on task while they’re having lessons. You also definitely need high-speed Internet access to make this work, and some companies will require that you have a landline as well.
Just make sure that you pursue a position with a company that can work with your schedule. Alorica at Home and LiveOps may be good choices, since they regularly work with college students, family-first folks, and the retired – groups of people who generally have schedule restrictions that the company accommodates. A homeschool mom certainly fits in!
7. Be a Working Artist
Pursuing a creative career is another excellent choice for the homeschool mom! Whether you’re a visual artist (e.g. painter, sculptor, or photographer) or prefer to work with words as a freelance writer, you can pursue your art in your downtime. You’re already an expert agenda-builder between scheduling homeschool lessons, extracurricular activities, and necessary errands – finding slices of time each day to create should be well within the realm of possibility. (And remember what Walt Disney said about the impossible!) Use naptime or lunchtime for blocking out a sketch or scene, and then spend some time once everyone’s in bed (or before everyone gets up the next morning) to continue work on your latest piece. When you have something to sell, just make sure you shift some time into selling it or setting up your next piece.
8. Become a Social Media Manager
In today’s online business world, there are tons of opportunities to become a social media manager! One great thing about social media management is that you can block out a month’s schedule for your client all at once (and schedule it in advance using a service like Buffer or Tailwind), then spend specified hours on social media maintenance and interaction throughout the week – specified hours that fit in with your homeschool life, of course. You can research the material needed for social media content here and there during the day, keep your notes organized on Evernote, then pull it all together when you have an evening or morning to dedicate to your work. Use tools that analyze audience response to build reports for clients and guide your future social media material, then spend an evening hour here or a morning hour there capturing viral moments or doing personal outreach. Just make sure you don’t take on more clients than you can handle!
These are just a few of the great part-time careers you can swing while being a homeschool mom; all that’s required is some creativity and clever use of your time. And really, Walt Disney was right – it is fun to do the “impossible!”