Does anyone here make their money SOLELY from work at home jobs?

[CubaCat]

If so, please can I ask what you do - do you earn your income from one source or several? How many hours per week do you work on each job (if you have more than one source of income), and roughly how much do you make? Do you receive WTCs to help top up your income? Obviously ball park figures will do, I'm not after full financial disclosure!

I know that with WFH there's no guarantee of income and of course it varies week by week, but I'm just wondering if anyone else is solely WFH and if so, what kind of income you bring in on average? There's a very good reason I'm asking, I promise.

 

[alditoharrods]

Does it have to be solely? I make about 1,000 extra a month but that's on top of a full time job

 

[spike241]

I do, pretty much. I am a part time pet photographer but still building up the business so I can't rely on that. I also add my zoo photographs to stock sites (decent ones, not the ones that pay pennies) so editing takes up a lot of my time.

My main income source is uTest but it's been a slow start to the month so I'm trying to supplement that with anything worth doing: Neobux, GeoLotto, Prolific Academic and a couple of other half decent survey sites.

The absolute minimum I need to bring in is £400 a month but I've been getting £500-600.
I never got any work with Leapforce (different project to almost everyone else) and now my contract is up. A lot of people do very well with that though.

I'm 24 so no WTC but I think we'd be just over the threshold anyway as my partner works full time.

Hours vary. If I'm honest, I don't work as hard as I should. December-January I was probably working at least 30 hours a week (whilst listening to Netflix) but not sure I'm even doing 20 now.

 

[Jon]

i make enough that I could support myself just from my online earnings each month but as I have a full time job as well I guess I am out of the running on this lol

 

[rebeccajlsk]

Yep, everything I earn is from working from home. I earn via copywriting for other clients, blogging, surveys and apps

 

[CubaCat]

Thanks everyone. The reason I'm asking is I'm currently employed part time in an office and my job is workload-heavy, deadline-led and very stressful, to the point that I've been having panic attacks where can't get my breath. I sit at my desk and want to cry. It's having an awful affect on my physical and mental health and in short, I hate it . I'm juggling that with being a single parent and all that entails including stressing over school drop offs/pick ups/childcare that don't quite fit around my work hours etc, plus looking after elderly parents with health/memory issues and dealing with my own health issues (I have a long term chronic illness that's exacerbated by stress). I feel weak and stupid admitting this, but things are really getting on top of me. I'm at the end of my tether. I've been like this for a while, in fact I almost handed my notice in last November and even took it with me to work, but a friend talked me out of it.

I've just about coped since then but it's got to the point where I'm starting to think seriously about leaving and working the same or slightly longer hours from home. Obviously my concern is income, as like everyone else I've got rent and bills to pay and with WFH there's no guarantee of income. I don't want to end up exchanging one set of issues for another. I don't need to earn as much as £1000 per month, although that would be nice. ;D

[member=138]rebeccajlsk[/member] please may I ask he many hours you work per week and roughly how much that brings in? Do you have your own copywriting website or work via PPH or similar?

 

[katykicker]

I work from home. Two things. One I have a work-at-home full-time job and two I do lots of different sites.

I blog about it on my site but the basic figures for the last tax year were £25,000 ish from job and £17,000 ish from onlne stuff.

I've not got time for full details now but will be back later or tomorrow so can reply with any answers to q's.

 

[CubaCat]

Wow [member=920]katykicker[/member], you earn about £42k per year working from home?! That's incredible! How inspirational for us all to read that. I earn about a quarter of that in my day job, so if I could eventually match what I earn now that would be brilliant - earning £40k + would be amazing!

Are you able to say what your full time work at home role is and/or who you work for? The £17k from the other online work - what kinds of other work do you do? I can see how you'd be really busy (!) but if you're willing to give further details I'd really appreciate it. In the meantime I'm off to check out your blog for some inspiration!

 

[Jon]

If you can afford to it then leave work

If a job is upsetting you THAT much then I don't get what you have to gain by sticking with something that is upsetting you

If I had the time to just do "work from home" stuff and no job I could easily bring in £1000+

You will find that flexibility is key if this is a route you are wanting to go down

 

[katykicker]

Thanks [member=481]CubaCat[/member] I do ok

My full-time job I don't want to say the name of my employer. But it is irrelevant as it isn't a job that is available to sign up for on the internet or anything So no loss to anyone really xx

The other online work is a vast array really. Paid apps, website tests, offers, surveys, focus groups, paid tasks, mystery shopping, freelance writing. Most of the opportunities that I can talk about are already listed here and I have links to some of my favourite sites linked below in my signature on my website.

Most things I've sort of fell into over time. The 'real' job that I do from home is for a company I worked for a while back, when their budget was cut and they needed to make some changes allowing people to work from home was a great way to do this - and worked out well for me and the others who do the same role as me

When you start off things are slow, I'm sure [member=1]Jon@TheMoneyShed[/member] , [member=258]alditoharrods[/member] and [member=138]rebeccajlsk[/member] would agree with me. We all do similar things, some for the same companies, but we all have things that we've fallen into doing through various opportunities that might not always be widely available or advertised online.

There are lots of people sharing opportunities here. I would say rather than getting swept away with the money, that took me a fair bit of time to get into (and this last tax year was my best), I would say to find the opportunities that are going to work for you xx

I had a job I hated, two-three years ago, and quit. I had my lovely husband to pay all the bills though, so was easier for me to tell them to go fuck themselves

 

[rebeccajlsk]

Tbh my hours vary week to week. Until today, I've had my son at home with me full time so working has had to be done around him. Some weeks I can work 10 hours, other weeks more 30-40 - dependent on where I can fit it in. Now that he is at pre school four mornings a week, I will have more time to dedicate to work. I can bring in anywhere from £200 to £££ - all depends. I currently have an ongoing contract with someone that accounts for £100 every month - and am really going to miss it when it goes [member=481]CubaCat[/member]

I haven't got my own website for my copywriting work but I do have my media kit available on both of my blogs and I also have a Hire Me page on my personal finance blog too. I use PPH for a lot of work and have built up my Cert rating on there so seem to have a steady stream of work.

Hope this helps.

As [member=920]katykicker[/member] says, it will start off slow. Some of the things I am earning money for (sponsored posts through blogging) don't come for quite a while - I know Katy has just had some contact but that was without going looking - loads of people are starting blogs and begging for ad clicks (against the rules!) or sponsored posts which immediately puts them on the 'not to work with' list. Surveys are also slow burners but once you get into a routine of doing what suits you - then you will start to see the money come in

 

[Jon]

Aye like the tag team have said above it will start of slowly in terms of earnings but that is ok

It is ok because it will take a while for you to find what it is you want to do to earn the money from home

My journey went eBay > surveys > mystery shopping > 63336 > leapforce

Currently I do a mixture of many things but as long as I earn £600+ a month from Leapforce alone anything else I earn is a bonus.

Earning from a blog or site can take a lonnnnnngggg time so I would say you are better off starting by working for companies who offer work from home opportunities than trying to entirely go it alone

 

[Flitterbug]

Earning from a blog or site can take a lonnnnnngggg time so I would say you are better off starting by working for companies who offer work from home opportunities than trying to entirely go it alone

I agree, same with any arts/crafts venture - I tried both last year and didn't earn much at all, maybe if I stuck at them more then I would have got somewhere - who knows, but enough time passed earning very little that I found it too disheartening to carry on.

Starting at the beginning of April I signed up with two companies uTest and Leapforce (plus a little geolotto and prolific academic surveys) and earned more in a month than I had in the last year - approximately £190. I've done this by fitting it in around my 19month old and being almost 8 months pregnant, so have only been able to spend approx 10 hours a week on earning.

I imagine I could earn more than my previous job as a TA if I were doing utest and Leapforce full time.

Note: despite what I've said above I am trying something else out that is a little creative but only going to post about it in my journal if I have success with it lol

 

[Twiggy]

If my hours hadn't been restricted with leapforce for the time being then I would be able to earn a decent wage from home.

To claim WTC you need to be working 30+ hours a week, and they will top your income up to about £18k a year (last time I heard anyway, may be changed now, our household income has always hovered around that so never applied.)

It is probably worth even applying for a part time job somewhere else while you find your feet with online stuff - it sounds as if it's really affecting your health!

 

[Jon]

[member=277]Chammy[/member] got a job with netmums that is basically 100% work from home

 

[Chammy]

[member=277]Chammy[/member] got a job with netmums that is basically 100% work from home

Good timing that, just been having a catch up chat with my manager Talking about what plans she has for the boards which will hopefully lead to more work later in the year

All my income comes from home, it's not a huge amount apart from the next couple of months which I will be getting a full-time wage from Netmums but I don't have the worry of bills etc because my husband's wage covers all of that.

To claim WTC you need to be working 30+ hours a week, and they will top your income up to about £18k a year (last time I heard anyway, may be changed now, our household income has always hovered around that so never applied.)

For a single person it is 16 hours, couple 24 between them then there is a bonus for 30+ hours being worked BUT with the Universal Credit coming in to play self-employed people need to be earning at least minimum wage to be able to claim anything. I have a friend who is having to give up her baking business (she is bloody good too) because she doesn't earn enough to be able to continue claiming her tax credits. With 4 children to feed and a single mum she needs to put their needs first so is job hunting. Just be wary of that when it comes to WTC.

 

[SarahLu]

I also add my zoo photographs to stock sites (decent ones, not the ones that pay pennies) so editing takes up a lot of my time.

Do you have any more info on these sites [member=839]spike241[/member] ? I have loads of good photos of wildlife etc. from travelling I have done and have often wondered if I can make any money from them. (sorry to hijack your thread Cubacat!)

 

[spike241]

I'll PM you

 

[CubaCat]

If my hours hadn't been restricted with leapforce for the time being then I would be able to earn a decent wage from home.

To claim WTC you need to be working 30+ hours a week, and they will top your income up to about £18k a year (last time I heard anyway, may be changed now, our household income has always hovered around that so never applied.)

It is probably worth even applying for a part time job somewhere else while you find your feet with online stuff - it sounds as if it's really affecting your health!

Thanks [member=871]Twiggy[/member]. Why have Leapforce restricted your hours? I've looked around for other jobs and applied for a few but there's little out there. I'll keep looking in the meantime though. You can claim Working Tax Credits providing you work at least 16 hours per week but I think that increases to 24 hours per week for single parents like me once Universal Credit comes in.

[member=277]Chammy[/member] Do you actually work for Netmums? Are you able to say more about your role at all?

Having slept on all this, I've decided to really get stuck in to online earning and, rather than just quit my job immediately then end up on the breadline, I'm setting a date that I want to leave by - 31st December 2015. So I have just short of eight months to start to earn regular money online so that I can leave by then (at the VERY latest!). My job is deadline-led, so having a deadline to aim for means I'll put plans in place to (hopefully) achieve what I need to.

 

[Chammy]

[member=277]Chammy[/member] Do you actually work for Netmums? Are you able to say more about your role at all?

I am technically freelance and on a temporary contract, the temporary part being that as soon as our team has got through the required work I am no longer needed haha Though, my manager is trying to get funding for a project that will hopefully see me with more work come September.

My role is to go through the local boards and update or remove the listings.