How I Gave Up Looking For Work To Work from Home and Make Money

I didn’t always work from home. In fact, up until a year or so ago, I was among those who envied folks who could get up in the morning, grab their coffee and sit down to work. Don’t get me wrong. I had a job that I loved, writing grants for a local charity, but there were certainly mornings I’d have loved to stay in bed an hour longer and work an hour later. Like a lot of people, I dreamed about having my own business where I could work from home and be my own boss, but it was just one of those ‘in the back of my mind’ type of dreams.

Then, three years ago budget cuts at the state level forced me out of a job. Faced with a 30% reduction in their own budget, the homeless shelter for which I worked could no longer afford to pay a grant writer. After ten years of steady employment, I was jobless.

Even then, though, I didn’t consider a work from home job a viable option. After all, I’d heard that most of those ads for working from home were nothing more than scams. I started sending out resumes, going on job interviews and collecting unemployment compensation. Every day started with checking out the job listings on half a dozen employment boards online, sending out resumes, calling local businesses with employment ads in the newspaper. Even though I often saw help wanted ads and work from home business opportunities, I passed them by because I believed what I’d heard about most work from home opportunities.

For two years, I made a career of finding another job. Seriously – I spent two solid years sending out resumes and going on job interviews while living on savings and unemployment compensation. Friends kept asking me if I’d considered taking a work at home job, but every one that I investigated seemed to be just one more scheme to get me to send them money for something I could do myself.

And then one morning, after reading yet another ‘Thank you for your time and interest in our company’ letter, I stumbled across a short ad on an online discussion board. The post was looking for freelance writers to work from home writing short articles on various subjects. “Why not?” I thought to myself. “What have I got to lose?”

The answer was nothing – nothing to lose and a whole new career to gain. Answering that post was just the start. Within a month, I was making as much money doing work from home each week as I had when I was going into the office every day – without ever leaving my living room.

There are dozens of work from home opportunities available if you know where to look for them. You’ll find online job boards, freelance services for typing, medical transcription, data entry and writing. There are work from home jobs available for sales, advertising, home services and personal assistants. All you have to do is find them.