Working from home is just about as flexible as you’re ever going to need nowadays. You can pack up your laptop and work in a coffee shop or your local soft play center. All you need is a few great ideas to get you started, and you can launch almost anything with minimal overheads and a few hours a week. Often it helps to have a degree in business, from somewhere like UAB to help you navigate the world of business.
Blogging
Blogging is big business now. Where it wasn’t considered more than a hobby a few years ago, now it is a legitimate way to make a regular income. There are bloggers out there who were able to give up work and go full time, and some of their partners gave up their job too. You will need to cover some necessary start-up costs – the domain name, hosting, some advertising here and there and occasionally you might want to invest in new logo designs and so on. Nevertheless, to begin, all it really takes is a few hours a week, opinion or something to say, and a computer.
Virtual Assistant
If you have a firm love for organization, you might like to put these skills to good use for someone else. Once again, all you need is an account on Fivver, Upwork or Freelancer and some hours to dedicate to your client. You might be asked to do some of the following things:
- Calendar organizations
- Research
- Travel Bookings
- Client Follow-ups
- Emails
- Customer Support
- Social Media Management
- Data Input
Just to mention a few. You can set your own hourly rate and go from there.
Making something
Making things like jewelry to sell online or at fares can be great fun. All you are going to need is the time to make it and the initial outlay is buying the materials. You can pick up a great starter kit on Amazon for about $12, and out of that make many different pieces. Even if you only sell a few you will make your money back and a profit. The cool thing about being creative is that is very therapeutic, great if you need something to help you wind down at the end of a long day or you love to work with your hands.
Copywriting
Every company on earth needs their own wordsmith. Someone who can spin his or her products into wordy gold with a few hours a week. It is worth noting that not all copywriting jobs are in advertising. However, you are more likely to end up in that field when you first start out. You’ll be spending your hours researching, writing, editing, proofreading and flicking through a thesaurus to come up with the best word alternatives.
Podcasting
If you have the gift of the gab, perhaps rather than use your skills to sell other people’s goods, you would consider a podcast – talking about things you love, again this works better if you have opinions on current events or something that other people would find informative or useful to know.
Going self-employed doesn’t have to involve your own office and significant overheads it can be as simple as opening your laptop.