My Life Shift: From Office Employee to Work at Home Mom

by norasun

Stay at home Moms spend a lot of time doing housekeeping so we’re always on the lookout for the latest gadgets that will make our lives easier.

I bought the Swiffer Vacuum after reading dozens of reviews, many of them saying that it’s really good for picking up Cheerios from the floor. And which toddler’s home isn’t always littered with Cheerios? After one month of using it daily, I’ve come to the conclusion that I love-hate my Swiffer vacuum.

10 reasons I love my Swiffer Vacuum:

1. It’s really easy to use. Even my 7-year-old daughter can use it.

2. It’s fun to use. The two girls sometimes argue over who gets to clean the floor.

3. It looks nice and sleek.

4. It’s light enough to carry up or down the stairs on one hand while balancing the toddler on my hip with the other hand.

5. It does pick up Cheerios easily, as well as crumbs, dust balls, spilled cornmeal and whatever small, dry stuff kids and hubbies can track inside the house.

6. I bought it for $11 less in Canadian Tire than it sells in the regular grocery stores.

7. It vacuums and dry-wipes the floor at the same time.

8. It swivels and can get into small spots.

9. Even though its juice has nearly run out and it’s about to go dead, it can still pick up dust balls.

10. It gets more dirt in less time and with less effort than I could with a broom and dust pan.

10 reasons I hate my Swiffer Vacuum:

1. It takes forever to charge: 24 hours before first use and 16 hours thereafter, and then….

2. … it stays charged for only about 10 minutes — not quite long enough for me to clean the entire house.

3. The disposable refill pads are wasteful. You have to toss it after one use. Why couldn’t they have made washable pads? I’ve decided to make my own washable pads to do my share to save the environment.

4. The filter needs to be replaced every 6 months. Why couldn’t they have made washable filters?

5. You need to drain the power before recharging, which forces me to clean the floor for 10 minutes even when I only wanted to clean around the high chair for 2 minutes.

6. It’s not inexpensive enough to buy another one so I can clean the entire house every day.

7. You can’t use it to wet-mop the floor. You’ll have to buy another Swiffer product for that. Ugh.

8. It doesn’t work on carpets or rugs. You’ll have to buy another Swiffer product for that. Uggghh.

9. It can’t pick up larger, sticky items, like pitted dates.

10. Like any other vacuum, it’s noisy.

So would I recommend the Swiffer vacuum? That depends. If you need to sweep the floor every day and can spare around $37, then go for it. However, if you haven’t been having any problems using your broom and dust pan, then you probably won’t miss anything.

If you found this article useful, please click on one or more of the buttons below. Thank you!

Save This Page on del.icio.us

Share on Facebook
Stumble It!

Photo by Bob Jagendorf

I have resumed reading The Girl’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business: Candid Advice, Frank Talk, and True Stories for the Successful Entrepreneur and now I realize that setting up a home business is more complicated than I thought.

I’ve been thinking of registering my freelance editorial business, mainly for the tax benefits. Even if I did it as a sole proprietorship there are still many business-like things to consider. For instance, I’ve just been reading the section about insurance and now know that I need to get at least three types of insurance: expanded health insurance (to supplement the provincial health insurance provided by Ontario); disability insurance (to help replace my income should I become too ill to work); and, home-business insurance (to cover the cost of my laptop and other home office equipment should they get damaged or lost). Whew!

And now that I’m about to get my certification in childbirth education, I’m considering registering that business as well. Then I would need even more insurance, such as general liability insurance - to protect me should, for example (and God forbid!) a client slip on the floor during a class, break her ankle and decide to sue me.

No wonder authors Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio called this chapter “The scary stuff: legalities, licenses, permits, financials, and funding”.

Now I have to buckle down and figure out a budget to cover “the scary stuff”, including fees for a lawyer, an accountant, and an insurance broker. I have to admit, this business of setting up a home business is not that easy.

At least I have this book. I’m the type of person who needs step-by-step instructions for the simplest things. And setting up a home business is far from simple.

If you found this article useful, I would appreciate it if you would click on one or more of the buttons below.

Save This Page on del.icio.us

Share on Facebook
Stumble It!

Photo by Tom@HK

Loneliness is a common experience for stay at home individuals. Even an introvert like me needs human interaction to stay sane and happy. And I mean interaction beyond one’s spouse or partner and children, especially if, like me, you spend the entire day with a semi-verbal toddler who always needs to be cleaned or fed.

Having spent 14 years in my last job, I made lifelong friends of my co-workers. No wonder I miss them terribly now even though I’m living my dream of becoming a stay at home Mom - especially after the little one is napping and I’m the only one stirring in the house.

It doesn’t help that I moved across the globe to become a stay at home Mom, and I’ve landed where everyone outside my family, save for four people (relatives), are complete strangers. It isn’t that simple for me to pick up the phone and call a friend. It’s expensive and we are separated by 12 hours’ time difference. Besides, the four people I know have full-time jobs or are in school and wouldn’t be home.

Rather than wallow in my isolation, here are seven things I’ve been doing and plan on doing, to ease the loneliness:

1. Get out of the house everyday.

Now that spring is here, I indulge in a daily walk every afternoon. I strap the toddler in his stroller and take in the fresh air and all the greenness for at least 15 minutes every day. It’s great for my body and for my mind. I always come home feeling refreshed.

2. Keep in touch, the high-tech way.

Most of my friends and family are thousands of miles away and it would be too expensive to call them often. Fortunately, we live in the digital age. Last weekend, we had a video chat with some good friends and boy did it feel good to hear and see them in real time. Technology rocks! We used Skype (with the friend who wasn’t using a Mac) and iChat (with the friend who was). No web cam? Instant messengers are the next best thing. And there’s always Email.

3. Minimize TV watching.

It’s easy for a stay at home Mom to get trapped into the TV viewing habit. After all, you can do household chores, entertain a toddler or even surf the Net while doing it. But I’ve noticed that watching too much TV leaves me feeling a bit depressed and detached. Besides, it isn’t good for my toddler (which I’ve been telling parents for a decade now while I was still in UNICEF).

4. Keep a positive attitude.

One of the things I learned from Flylady is to always smile, even if I don’t feel like it. I try to do this even when the toddler has just had a screaming fit, or when I’m worried that DH still doesn’t have a job. Somehow, it works. What we do on the outside affects how we feel on the inside.

5. Make new friends.

I have to admit, my older children are better at this than I am. In fact, their social calendars are filling up fast. I have the feeling it may be difficult for me to make new friends at this stage in my life, but I’m not giving up yet. I have run into parents of toddlers in the library and park. Maybe I’ll overcome my introversion and bring cookies to our next-door neighbor. Maybe.

6. Create or join a network of like-minded individuals.

I’ve got virtual networks on Facebook and Yahoo! Groups but I think a network you see face-to-face is better. As soon as we have a car I’ll join monthly meetings of the local La Leche League or maybe attend a knitting group.

7. Talk about it.

I write a weekly Email to my friends back home about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of immigrants in Canada. I began writing them when I was very depressed and homesick and thought we had made a big mistake moving here. Being able to express myself, even in writing, truly helps ease some of the pain. Talking to DH about my feelings of isolation also helps a lot.

Surprisingly, I didn’t find a lot of articles about loneliness in my favorite work at home websites. I did find these:

How to overcome loneliness when you work at home

10 tips for overcoming loneliness

6 practical and powerful ways to overcome depression

If you’re thinking of becoming a stay at home parent, seriously consider how you will cope with the inevitable feelings of loneliness.

Did you find this article useful? I would really appreciate it if you would click on one or more of the buttons below.

Save This Page on del.icio.us

Share on Facebook
Stumble It!

Thumbs-down by desi.Italy

Since my last post, I’ve moved halfway around the globe to Canada. I hadn’t anticipated the impact this would have on me physically and emotionally. I’ve only been able to do the most basic things to keep myself and my family functioning and blogging was all but forgotten. I realized that with the major changes in my life, I needed a home business that was really easy and took almost no time at all. And so I tried … paid surveys!

I signed up with Survey Club and almost immediately received an opportunity to make $4 by joining an online music club and then giving my feedback about it. The whole process took probably 20 minutes and the next day, I had $4 in my Paypal account.

Pumped up by this instant gratification, I did as advised and signed up for half a dozen paid survey membership sites — all for free. Actually, the advice was to sign up for at least 10, but I hadn’t had the time for it. Some sites require you to fill up voluminous pre-screening surveys — to place you in the proper demographic for the surveys. These take up a lot of time.

Six weeks later, I have made … still only $4 from the surveys! I have filled up dozens of them but all I got in return was the chance to win this or that raffle and to accumulate points. I have not won a single raffle. Neither do I remember what the points are for.

Meantime, I have found a website that will pay me $5 for a 250-word article. Takes a bit longer than answering a survey but I will definitely make more money than I have so far from answering surveys.

Perhaps I have simply signed up for the wrong survey membership sites. If you’ve had better luck from paid surveys, do let me know how you did it.

Photo by Scootie

I’m on Day 10 of my work at home project, the Thirty Day Challenge. I have identified one niche for internet marketing and am now writing three articles for it. I need another niche and fast! With our move to Canada one week away, just keeping up with the challenge is proving to be a challenge in itself. However, I have managed to join a team so I’m trudging along. Perhaps, as for others, it will be more like the Sixty Day Challenge for me.

So far, I have learned how to do market research on possible niche topics using Freewordtracker, Google and Google Trends. The techniques that Ed Dale and his colleagues teach are so simple but unintuitive that they’re so cool! And then Mike Stenhouse and Mike Mindel put these together in an amazing tool — Wordtracker GTrends.

The “golden nuggets” technique is used to “mine” for the ideal niche — one that has a lot of demand but little competition. You’ll have to go through the challenge yourself to fully appreciate what I’m talking about.

I got a bit sidetracked because I had misunderstood the bit about measuring the amount competition for a particular niche. Fortunately, I found some clarification in the Thirty Day Challenge forums, so I think I’m back on track to finding one more niche.

Just got an E-mail today from Ed saying that the Thirty Day Challenge has just produced another millionaire. Now that’s encouraging!

Watch out for my next article: How to avoid work at home scams, part 3. In case you missed the earlier installments, here are the links:

How to avoid work at home scams, Part 1: Do your research

How to avoid work at home scams, Part 2: Use only legitimate job leads

Photo by Panda0405

I’ve spent hours online looking for legitimate sources of work at home job leads. You know what? I was disappointed. Thousands of websites promise work at home jobs and home business ideas, but most of them make me suspicious. They make promises but show no accountability. Some sites didn’t even have an “About” page! Or it was buried too deep under all the advertisements!

I looked for websites that checked out job leads before posting them. Sites that charge a fee to access the job listings did not even make this claim. Unless they said so, I assumed that they did not screen the job leads.

So after days or research, I only came up with three websites that I feel confident enough to share with other aspiring work at home individuals: Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by peasap

I’ve joined the 30 Day Challenge! This is a FREE online training program on internet marketing. Ed Dale and his colleagues are teaching us the basics of internet marketing and the goal is to make at least $10 in 30 days! Ed is a casual and occasionally funny guy who seems to know what he’s talking about. I don’t know why the program is free — so far, Ed hasn’t tried selling anything to me yet (or maybe it’s in one of the Emails I deleted without reading!).

I’m only on Day 4, but I have already learned so many things. I have made a list of seven possible topics for a niche and will soon be doing market research on each of those topics. It’s very exciting! Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by ToastyKen

Have you ever fallen for a work at home scam? I have. Or rather, my DH has. And I was right there over his shoulder. We didn’t lose huge sums of money because we cut our losses early. But when you have three little mouths to feed, every cent counts.

So when I decided to become a work at home Mom, I promised myself that I would be more careful. I joined several work at home forums and discovered that there are ways to protect ourselves from work at home scams. This is a synthesis of the advice and information I received from the lovely women in WAHM.com.

Ask yourself three questions: Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Chaparral [Kendra]

Last week, I found myself unable to empty my email in-boxes (despite what I had learned from Getting Things Done). I couldn’t focus on anything; I would flit from one blog or website to the next and then to an E-book. I wasn’t making progress on my to-list. What was happening to me?

I found the answer after my mind had cleared and I sat down in a quiet corner with my copy of Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint. I had the plague also known as “information overload”. I had gotten seduced by the idea of having passive income through a work at home internet business. I wanted to learn everything right now. But as Yaro said, information overload makes you lose direction, forget your purpose, and keep you from working towards your goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by LapGP & SigOther

I’ve been looking for productivity tips for WAHMs who are taking care of young children. By young children I mean anywhere from newborns to about 4 years old, or children who are not yet in school.

I must say that I have been disappointed. I have not found any help at all for Moms like me who have to squeeze in some work while caring for one or several young children. General tips for home workers are simply not applicable to me: Set definite work hours? Close the door of your home office? Quite impossible! Read the rest of this entry »