Why Be A WAHM

I've changed homes

2008-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

My new home is An ATC Addict. I hope you'll join me there.

It's a busy life...

2008-10-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

...but it's also a good life. I wouldn't trade working from home for anything. However, there are days when I do wish that I were a bit more motivated.

One of the areas in which I wish I was much more motivated in has to do with my desire to put things up for sale on Etsy. For the life of me I can't get anything done to sell on this site. I'm not sure that it's a motivation problem. I have been doing a lot of needlepoint but just not getting anything done for on there. Either I end up giving the stuff away or using it myself. Not that this is a bad thing or that I HAVE to have the money from Etsy but it sure would be nice.

So, who has any tips for getting items ready for on Etsy? I'd love to hear them.

Transcription Work

2008-10-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

I recently got a promotion at mTurk. I know that this may sound weird to some of you but let me explain.

I've been doing transcription work for Casting Words for a few months now. I started out being only able to do some of the very low level transcriptions. However, I was also able to do some of the grading work. I actually enjoy doing that type of work and so I did a lot of them. I'm not sure what took place or how but now I'm able to do the Express Transcription Hits as well. These are more complex transcription hits and so they pay more money.

Needless to say, I'm really happy with this promotion! I've been doing about one of these hits a day for $5 for about 45 minutes of work. While there are many more that I could do throughout the day, I'm happy with $150 from this type of work alone each month. Of course, I also am still doing the grading and some other types of hits from other requesters. This adds up to some decent income, especially since I'm getting the gift certificates, which means I get products without having to pay taxes and thus make more money that way as well.

For me, all is well at mTurk. What's been your experience?

A couple of fun things for you this morning...

2008-09-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

I've found a couple of really fun things that I wanted to share with you.

First of all, Entre Card Slots is now giving away advertising on his site. All you have to do is win it by spinning the slot machine. I won twice in a row this morning and so I have 2 ads running there. Considering how popular his site is, it should bring me a little bit of really nice traffic at least. You may want to check this out for yourself!

Secondly... Speaking of slots, I found a really neat, fun way in which to win free Amazon gift certificates (and other goodies too). If you would like to have an invite simply leave me a message with your email here on this blog and I'll send one out to you. If you're worried about spam bots finding you, remember to write your address as: susy AT comcast DOT COM As I think I've said before, Amazon is great for a lot of things besides books. I know a lot of WAHMs who use these gift certificates to get things like diapers for their little munchkins.

Phone Work

2008-09-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

I found a phone job that allows you to log in and out when you want. You work as a polling agent for the Merriman River Group. It's only through Monday and I started Wednesday. I enjoy jobs like this that allow you the freedom to work when you can. What I'm finding that I don't enjoy is phone work. I don't know if I'm just not social enough for this type of work or it's the fact that it's hard to find enough quiet time to make it truly profitable... Whatever it is, I'm glad that I don't do it full time. I'm not sure how some WAHMs manage to do that. Even so, I'm still hoping that there will be more work available after Monday. I like making $12 an hour as it keeps you wanting to work when everyone is rude and hangs up on you. Anyhow, that's why I'm so late with blogging this week - that and I have a broken ankle which simply slows everything down. Have a great weekend everyone!

mTurk

2008-09-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

I must say that I'm really loving mTurk!

When it comes to web sites that will allow you to work whenever you want, they're at the top of my list. While there are a lot of people who complain that they only pay a few pennies here and there, I must say that those pennies really do add up. I have made a decent amount of money there this month.

Another nice feature about this web site is that while this site will transfer your money to a bank account, it's much easier to use it right on the Amazon.com web site. Now, why is this a nice feature? Well, simply put: This acts in the same way as gift certificates. It is important to understand that you do not have to report your earning of gift certificates to the IRS. For this reason, all of the money that you earn from mTurk also does not have to be reported to the IRS. Therefore, you are essentially working "under the table."

You may be worried about what you can actually get from Amazon since you probably associate them with books and magazines. However, their site is filled with many more things as well. They also have clothes, toys, cleaning products, beauty products and many other things as well.

This web site has a good name for itself too. It's directly affiliated with Amazon and so you know it's legit. Plus it's been around for quite a while now. So, all is good and in my opinion. That is why I say that this is a great egg to have in your basket.

ChaCha Ching

2008-08-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

OK I've added another egg to my basket and I'm loving it! I got hired for the ChaCha expeditor role and while it doesn't pay a lot of money it's so easy for what it does pay. I'm really glad that I gave ChaCha another chance. You see, a while ago I thought badly of them because people were making it sound like you had to be chained to their web site in order to make any money. This is SO NOT TRUE though. In fact, I've gotten a lot of other work done while still being able to make money from ChaCha because they have a system where their web page pops up in front of your face whenever you need to do your job. So, in the mean time, I've been able to read my email, look at various forums and even do EntreCard. While it takes a little more time to do these things, who's going to complain when they're able to make money at the same time? Certainly not me, especially since I get to make my own schedule too.

EntreCard

2008-08-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

I am in love with the traffic that EntreCard is providing for my blogs. However, I was starting to think it sure was difficult to find web sites and get credits. Thankfully, I found 2 great things:

EntreCard Slots. I've yet to win on this more than a few credits but those are free credits that I didn't have to do anything for. Plus, since it only takes a few minutes, I find it worthy of my time.
The EntreCard Generator. I just found this and while you still have to manually click on each card but it will help you in finding sites to click on. There are 30 groups of 10 web sites all with EntreCards on them. You click on a group and they all open so all you have to do is click - no more manual searching for web sites :D

Have you found any other great EntreCard tools that you find useful? I'd love to hear about them!

"Eggs In Your Basket"

2008-08-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

This is a term that I've picked up on while poking around and looking for jobs on WAHM.com It simply means how many different jobs you work to make up your WAHM income. With that in mind, I thought that I'd share my eggs with you in case you may find them helpful. I decided a week or two ago that I'm not writing for clients anymore - while there's money to be made, it's just too much hassle and doesn't fit into my schedule. I had to prioritize and my daughter's homeschooling had to come first. With that in mind, I went searching for places where I could work without having to be under such pressure and while being able to work when I could. These are the eggs that I'm now working with, hopefully they'll help some of you:

Etsy. I've decide that I make so much needlepoint that I really should sell some of them and make some money. I've been told that this is the place to sell these designs. So, I'm working on getting some stuff made to put up on there soon. I've also made a blog to help promote it when I do.
I'm working on monetizing my 6 blogs. I mainly plan on doing this through creating ebooks to sell on LuLu.
I'm working on getting enough credits on EntreCard to be able to sell some of them off on eBay. Even without selling these credits, it's still a good idea to use this system to bring traffic to your blog.
I'm using Pay Per Post, Social Spark and Shared Reviews to also make money on my blogs.
I usually don't do PTC but I am doing Comfortable Income and making around $5 per week which isn't too bad. It'll pay for something, I'm sure, without taking much time.
I've placed some articles up for sale on Daily Articles and while they won't sell overnight, they are things that I've enjoyed writing or had on my hard drive collecting dust. So, I may as well get paid for them. I have also created a place to market the articles that I sell here as well.
I also write for TextBroker whenever I have a few minutes. These articles are quick snippets that don't take a lot of time as long as you're writing about something you know about. They do pay on time and they do not take any PayPal fees which is a definite bonus.
I've found a site that should be opening soon that will have you doing data entry. It's called Pix Profit.
I do mturk, which is a web site that is ran by Amazon. While a lot of these "hits" (what they call jobs) don't pay much, if you take your time to look around you'll find some that pay rather decently. (I'll do a more in depth post about this site as soon as I get a pattern down to share with you.)

I'm still searching for more "eggs." Do you know of any that I haven't listed here? I'd love to hear about them. Thanks!

Sunday Morning Link Love...

2008-08-24T06:38:00.001-07:00

I'm sure you'll find some great new blogs here that you'll love visiting:

I'm sure you'll find some great new blogs here that you'll love visiting:

World of Mom
Drizzly Blog
WICBlog
Green 'n' Pink
Reading Writing and Reloading
Feelings Just Are
Not Just In Your Head
Kateedyd What?!
Mommie’s Marbles
Confetti by: Kateedyd
Pure Jade Home
Luxury Lifestylez
The Fuzzbutt Files
Kimmi's Krazy World
My Weekly Beef
My First Steps With Jesus
Good News
I Love my 3 Boys
Secola‘s Space
Left Hand in Right Mind
Thrifty Mom Ramblings
Tupperware
My So Called Blog
Remotely Mommy
Vibrant Healthy U
Photos For The Fun of It
Nusring Home or Home?
The Art Of Criticism
World of Homemaking
Mix World
Have Your Health
Money Relations
A Christian Marriage
That‘s What I am Talking About
Spiritually Grounded Mind
A Break From Parenting
Florida Travel Spots
All in a blog
Blog About it
Different World
I feel like a woman
Easing Chronic Pain
Momas Life
Bahama Berry
Wah and Loving it
My Big Fat Battle
Liz’s So Called Blog
Secret Thoughts and More
Kathleens Brand Buzz
The 40 Life
Photos for the Fun of it
The Geeks Girl
NES Nintendo
The Mighty Scribbler
Domesticated Diva
A little bit About Nothin
The Cajun Blogger
Wahm Adventures
House of Bargains
Coodas Corner
My-Junk-Drawer
Fat Girl Goes Fit
Mommy Mias World
Vanilla Country Store
Thrifty Thoughts
Godly Woman
My Special Place
Work from Home Options
The work from home blog
Women Of Faith
Cypress TX Mom
Momas Life
Success Factors
Savvy Business Moms
Here On Columbia Avenue
Da Boss And Bryguy
4 Cats Make Me Crazy!

WAHMing is GREAT!

2008-08-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why I love being a WAHM is that whenever you grow tired of one type of job there are always others waiting. This is something that I'm going through right now. I have grown tired of writing for clients who think they "own" me. Although I love writing, I hate clients and I hate being scheduled by them. For this reason, I've decided that my WAHM adventure (as I like to look at it) is about to change again. Obviously I love writing but I want to write when I want to write and do what I want to do when I want to do that. I have found that this is possible with blogging. I have found that it is lucrative for me and yet I can spend hours off playing or goofing around and yet my blogs are still there making money. I know that there is a lot that I've yet to show you about monetizing blogs but I'm slowly getting rid of my clients. Once I do that, watch out world here I come... and I promise to share a lot of great information with you as I do get going.

A Rare PTC Opportunity

2008-08-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

I usually don't recommend PTC (paid to click) programs but this happens to be one of those rare times. This program has been recommended to me by someone that I trust. It also pays a good amount of money for each ad or email you click through on. I wouldn't say that you should do this only but it never hurts to have some extra "eggs" in your basket as a WAHM.

August 21: Just updating to say that this PTC does not send out a lot of clicks each day so make sure that it is just an additional thing you do. I have made $5 since signing up, which may not sound like a lot but it'd buy a loaf of bread and some eggs for dinner some night. Not bad for really easy work, in my opinion.

Increasing Blog Traffic

2008-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've really been working on marketing my blogs lately, but not nearly enough. Nevertheless, I seem to be finding new goodies to share with you. One such "goody" is called Entre Card. It is essentially a blogging network. What you do is spend some time looking at other bloggers web sites and marking that you have done so. In exchange for this other blogs will check out your blog too. I've found that this has helped me get into some other blogs' blog rolls while also blog rolling some new blogs myself. Whenever you visit blogs you also earn credits that can be used to purchase advertisements on other blogs. There are also forums that you can join in, but I haven't done so and have still been reaping benefits from Entrecard. If you choose to use this community, you should check out the short training manual that will definitely help you to get started.

Guard your time

2008-08-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

It's really difficult as a WAHM to guard your time wisely. Yet, whenever you don't do this, you will find that you are running around in circles because you're always behind. I feel that this is what I've been doing this week. I've spent a lot of time with friends, taking care of myself and otherwise simply not working enough... I've let life get in the way and this is not a good thing. I'm learning the importance of setting up boundaries and sticking with them. Without doing so life just seems to take on a life of its own and you'll never getting anything done. At least that's the lesson that I've learned this week.

A great way to monetize your blog

2008-08-09T11:44:00.001-07:00

I just found out about this program today but know for sure that they pay. You don't have to have a lot of traffic on your blog or worry about your Google PR to take part in this program. So, if you want to be a paid blogger, I highly recommend looking at this program...

Stat Counters

2008-08-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

After spending some time reviewing and comparing 3 stat counters for on this blog: StatCounter, SiteMeter and Google Analytics, I've finally decided to go with Google Analytics. I wanted something that was truly free but truly good. This seems like it is difficult to find as both StatCounter and SiteMeter charge you once you reach a set number of hits to your web site, I guess they figure that by then you should be making money and they should be able to take their fair share. I honestly wasn't interested in sharing my hard earned money with either of these places, especially since Google Analytics offers you the very same features for absolutely free. I guess you could say that made my decision really easy. Now we'll have to see how well it really does work :-)

Blogging

2008-08-08T14:03:00.001-07:00

Blogging is a very lucrative way of making money working from home. However, if you're like me, you probably won't have any problems with creating a blog. The problem comes whenever you're trying to bring a swarm of traffic to your blog to get it buzzing. It is for those of you who are in the same boat as me that I make the following list. This list includes ways of bringing traffic to your blog:

Make sure your links point to your blog - like I have to fix mine on WAHM, Digital Point & Twitter
Make sure that you use social networking web sites and that you link to your blog on them - The ones I use are Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, MySpace.com, Xianx.com, GospelShout.com, MyChurch.com, Blessed.com, Christian Church and Friendster.com - Be warned that social networking does take a considerable amount of time so if you find something isn't working for you, move on. I'm still testing out these sites.
If you are a member of WAHM, check out this thread to exchange links with others. Here are some other link trade threads on WAHM that I just found: Teresa's, Marrid's & HappySAHM
Make a link to your blog in your email signature for each email account that you use (I know I have 3 of these to fix LOL)
Here is a list of blog directories to submit your blogs to.
Digg
Stumble Upon
Del.ici.ous
Yahoo's My Blog Log
Technorati
The top 55 places to submit your blog's RSS feed
Only Wire
Find topics on Yahoo Answers for on your own blog.
My Yahoo
Make a list of 43 things you want to do and make sure to use your blog's URL in it.
Cool Site Of The Day
My Blog Log
Blog Catalog
Reddit
Spicy Page
Link & Blog
Blink List
Blogger Party
Blog Rankers
Blog Rankings
Blogarama
Globe Of Blogs
Top Blog
Pick A Fig (Something that I just found that's for Christian blogs)

I'm also looking into blog carnivals, blog memes and blog webrings yet and will let you know when I find out more about these.

I'll also let you know when I find out more about each of these aforementioned web sites. I've only had time to research and create this list for you today but I'll let you know more as I go. Hopefully this has been helpful though. I'd love to hear from you when you try one of these methods as I'm still searching for a really good stat counter for on my blogs. (Anyone know of 1?)

Ohhhh the life of a WAHM LOL... I wouldn't trade it for the world :-) Would you?

Why Be A WAHM

2008-08-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have often asked me why I've chosen to be a WAHM. While I know that everyone has their own reasons for this, mine is so that I can stay home and homeschool my daughter. As a single mom I don't think that I'd be able to take such an active role in her life without being a WAHM.

Take a moment to think of why you are a WAHM ~or~ why you want to be a WAHM...

Whatever reason you may have given for this, in this blog we will discover a multitude of ways to be a WAHM; a multitude of reasons to be a WAHM; and a multitude of great advice along the way as well.

Welcome to Why Be A WAHM!!!