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In today’s post: Maternity leave is a great way to start life with your newborn. But what if you’re not sure you can afford it? Here are flexible ways to make money on maternity leave.
Maternity/paternity or family leave is an opportunity for parents to start a new life and form strong bonds as a family. However, not everyone is granted paid leave. This can leave many parents with financial hardship during a time meant to be cherished.
The great thing about living with the Internet is how it’s made remote work and earning an income from home into an accessible reality for many, many people. So, I’ve put together this resource to help you find the best work-from-home job to sustain you through your leave. Check out my guidelines and handpicked opportunities below!
Step 1: Set Your Guidelines
When you’re on maternity or paternity leave, looking for work you can do from home – as well as ways to make extra money – it’s important that you establish the correct parameters for your search. Be honest with yourself: you’re going to be short on sleep and patience in a brave new world that refuses to recognize anything approaching a normal schedule. You also need to know how much support you can expect from your partner if they’re working outside the home during this period.
Recommended guidelines for your work-at-home job search:
- Look for a side hustle that empowers you to work at any time of the night or day. When you’re caring for a brand new human being, regular sleep hours become a passing acquaintance. Use that wakeful time after a late-night feeding to get a little work done.
- Look for a side gig that lets you choose your own hours. An inflexible schedule just begs to be broken when you’re on leave; you need something that will be as flexible as your baby’s whims. Find something that doesn’t require you to work set shifts.
- Look for a job that doesn’t require you to have a quiet environment with zero background noise. Your baby could wake at any time to cry, and you want to leave your options open as far as having a TV on for background noise (which can help soothe your tiny one to sleep).
- Look for a gig that is incredibly portable. Anchoring yourself to your home office desk isn’t ideal when you’re recovering from birth and/or on leave with your newborn. Find something that can be done on a laptop, at least, so you can work from bed or the nursery or the couch as necessary.
- Look for a job that can be accomplished in chunks. You’re going to have irregular interruptions when you’re caring for your new baby, so look for something where you don’t have to commit to long, uninterrupted stretches of time once you get to work.
Keeping these five guidelines in mind will set you up to succeed when you settle on a remote job. Now let’s look at some work-at-home jobs that fit!
1. Freelance Writing
One of the most flexible gigs is freelance writing. If you have any writing chops at all, it absolutely belongs at the top of your list. And the possibilities are endless when it comes to topics – a freelance writer can find work in almost any subject area. No matter if your passion is parenting, cooking, pets, or science – you can find available opportunities. There’s a significant variety in types of writing projects, too – you might specialize as a tech writer, excel as a grant writer, ghostwrite someone’s book for them, or even write copy for catalogs.
You can write whenever and wherever works best for you, so long as you make the deadlines that you set with your client or editor. And you’re free to either build your own client base from private referrals or work with a service that provides the content to their clients.
Check out my post “Freelance Writing Jobs for Beginners” for everything you need to know.
2. Blogging
If writing is your game, another consideration for you is blogging and monetizing your website with affiliate marketing.
As a blogger, your schedule is up to you. You can easily shift from changing diapers to writing quality content, day or night. You also have full control over your topic – and while writing about becoming a parent may seem like the most obvious choice as a blogger, it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to write about the newborn parenting experience if you don’t want to. You could just as easily write about affordable healthcare strategies, recipes for the latest diet craze, or even carpentry.
Whatever topic you choose to blog about, make sure to optimize your system from the get-go. When you have some downtime, make some notes on future blog ideas. Set yourself up to collect email addresses for a mailing list the right way. Immediately start placing ads on your site and setting up affiliate links for extra income. If you can work verbally, set up some voice-to-text software and outline, or begin writing your blogs when the time is right for you.
Just remember – it takes time and effort to make a blog work for you. Make sure to share your blog on your social media and share to gain more followers.
Click here to get started and be a better blogger. Making a lot of money on a blog in its infancy just isn’t necessarily logical. However, it can offer extra income during your leave.
3. Transcription
I realize the popularity of this suggestion will depend on whether you’re praying for silence once the baby’s finally asleep, or craving to hear another adult talk because you’ve been alone with the baby too long. Transcription is a good choice for making some money on maternity or paternity leave! This often winds up being an “extra money” job since most easily-available transcription gigs don’t pay the best rates and your work hours will be irregular.
When your baby still isn’t sleeping for long periods, work with companies that don’t have strict turnaround policies or that specialize in transcribing brief audio recordings. Once your baby’s starting to sleep longer or you have additional domestic help, you can work with companies that may offer better rates and require or pressure you to be available at certain times.
Haven’t transcribed before? Check out my post “23 Transcription Jobs: Work-at-Home Beginners Welcome” and this free transcription course.
4. Get Money Back
When you’re not up for much more than surfing the Internet or buying stuff from the seemingly endless shopping list for families with newborns, make your spending work for you. When you’re shopping online, always check Rakuten for an affiliate link so you can make progress on earning money back on your purchases. Or use a get-paid-to program like Swagbucks and click on their affiliate links whether you’re shopping at Walmart or Target or Kohl’s – you’ll earn points that can be converted into gift cards from popular retailers or PayPal cash later. Don’t forget to use Paribus, so you get the difference back on eligible purchases that drop in price right after you make them.
Also, does your family’s main credit card have a cash-back program? If not, consider switching to a credit card that does so you’re not leaving free money on the table. You may also want to consider apps that pay you when you run errands or go to the grocery store. Install Ibotta on your phone while you’re at it – every time you or your partner goes grocery shopping, make sure to check their deals so you can make money back on your grocery purchases.
Finally, you may be binging the heck out of Netflix in those early days with your newborn, but you’re probably not using that gym membership. Use Trim to do a check-up on all recurring subscriptions, then review them and have Trim cancel those that you’re not currently using.
And when you’re somewhat mindlessly surfing the Internet? Do some quick surveys, watch some videos, and even play some games on Swagbucks (`or similar sites like MyPoints) to turn that downtime into points that can later be redeemed for gift cards or cash.
5. Take Surveys
If you’re a big fan of online surveys, the good news is that you’re probably in one of the better demographics to qualify – when that survey is looking for consumers who are the decision-makers in their family with a certain level of income and a child. Keep in mind that this is another way to score some extra cash, and these opportunities can be a great way to utilize those short moments of time between feedings and sleep and appointments.
While any get-paid-to program like Inbox Dollars or Swagbucks will offer points for surveys, these are far from the only places to find survey opportunities. Check out some of the most-respected survey companies like Pinecone Research, GlobalTestMarket, or Harris Poll. Learn more about these companies and discover more in my post “10 Opportunities to Take Surveys for Cash.”
6. Get Rid of Stuff
This is something that you can get started on when you’re expecting by exploiting that nesting urge to clean and organize your home. When you’re preparing for your new baby, take the time to identify stuff you can get rid of. This is the perfect time to purge your wardrobe of clothing you no longer want, your closets of unused sporting or musical equipment, or your media collection of unwatched movies and unlistened-to CDs. And make sure your bookshelves aren’t still sheltering any old college textbooks! Set it aside so that you can exploit the many programs online that will pay you cash for your unwanted stuff.
Sell your gently-used clothing on Poshmark or eBay, and your college textbooks to Cash4Books. Your old media can be sold on SecondSpin or Decluttr – these are great options for your old smartphones, too. For even more ideas on how to monetize your home’s clutter, check out my “sell your stuff” tag.
7. Make Things
Get crafty with your available moments of downtime during your maternity or paternity leave – and sell what you make online! There’s a reason that a site like Etsy is so popular and has been around since 2005, and that Amazon is trying to get in on the market share with Amazon Handmade. There’s also a movement to support small business owners and independent artists who use their creativity to craft items as varied as quirky enamel pins to crocheted dolls or handcrafted soaps.
You can run your shop by creating and stocking products with regular updates on your storefront, or you can sell commissions by taking private custom orders with guaranteed customers. Determine which way you’ll run your business for yourself based on how long it takes to create your products or how extensively they can be customized. When your work is popular, you may have more orders than you know what to do with!
Are There Work-at-Home Jobs Offering Parental Leave?
When you’re expecting new additions to your family, it’s important to know that your workplace is there to support you. The good news is that more companies, from successful startups to huge brand names, are recognizing this need to invest in and nurture their people – so more companies are offering both maternity and paternity leave to their remote employees working from home. Yes, your work-from-home job can come with full benefits and paid parental leave, too! It’s a great time to build a work-at-home career along with your family.
Worldwide101
For those of you interested in virtual assistant positions, Worldwide101 is always looking for Executive Assistants to work with entrepreneurs, small business owners, and the rest of their varied clientele. They ask that you have a minimum of seven years of experience in administration, executive assistance, or related roles. Pay starts at $20 per hour and they offer flexible hours, though they’re only hiring in 16 states. Additionally, they offer paid vacation and holidays – and paid parental leave!
Now that you feel more comfortable keeping money coming in while you’re on paternity or maternity leave, drop into the comments and tell me how you plan to make money – and don’t forget to come back and share your success.
