Earning Money While Homeschooling
Whether you’re looking for a little extra spending money, or are trying to earn a full living while homeschooling, it can be tricky to manage any sort of work while trying to be a teacher too.
I personally am the main bread-winner in our house, and do so by working from home while also doing the homeschooling. My wonderful husband does most of the farm work, and the household chores so I can focus on school and work. It’s an odd balance but works for us. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on making money while homeschooling, based on what I know.
This is going to be more about ways to make money, rather than how to manage time and stay organized. All I can say about time is that you need to be realistic. If you are trying to teach multiple kids that all need your attention, you probably aren’t really able to launch a business or anything intensive. Anyway, here is how you can work from home:
Sell Stuff
I see tons of homeschool parents who sell products as a way to make money. It seems easy enough and often takes advantage of well-known brands and products that “sell themselves”. Avon is a classic one, though today we see product lines like Scentsy, and doTerra oils. Many people who write articles on how to make money will promote these things, hoping that you sign up with their names to earn them more commission. I’m not doing that 🙂
The problem with sales overall is that you tend to try to sell to the same circle of friends over and over. Earnings tend to flatten out after you’ve sold your wares to everyone you know. I have more to say about these, but will leave that for another article.
Child Care or Teaching
This can be a great option because it can piggy-back on things you are already doing. Adding one or two extra children can bring in some significant money and possibly even make your own child-care easier by providing a handy playmate for your own kids.
Writing
This is what I do (I technically refer to myself as a freelance online content provider), and I write articles for clients that pay me and I also write material for my own sites that earn me money via ad revenue. Though similar, they are two different income tracks.
The first one is pretty straightforward. I use a site called Upwork.com to find clients looking for articles written. I bid on the job, and if I am selected, then I write the content to get paid. It’s very straightforward, thought Upwork take a hefty chunk of each job (it’s free to use otherwise). It is a bidding system, and people who offer to do the job cheaper can often win out. Have a good selection of writing samples in your portfolio and decent projects can be found. I find that one downside is that I have to deal with someone else’s timetable and it doesn’t always fit with my schedule. My daughter works independently most of the time, so I can make it work.
Which is why I also work on my own websites, because that allows me more flexibility to work when I have the time. I have about a dozen right now (including Skip the School), and utilize Google for my ad revenue. Using a Google Adsense account, I can just paste code into any of my pages, and it automatically generates relevant ads based on the keywords it picks up on the page. When people click, I earn a few cents. It’s not a lot, but a busy page can rack up a bit of money over the course of a month. I also have an affiliate account with Amazon so I can earn a small commission when I sell books through links on my sites.
The big benefit of this approach is that I can fit my writing time into whatever spots I can, and don’t have to worry about deadlines. Be warned, it can take months (years!) to build up an audience and decent search engine placement with independent sites.
This is really just a quick overview of some money-making options, which hopefully has helped you. I think I will try to organize a few more of my thoughts on this and maybe put a longer ebook or series of articles together to help homeschoolers bring in a little extra money while they school.
