Tag: Making money online

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5 Effective Skills to Build a Freelance Career In 2022

In 2022, freelancing is one of the most lucrative ventures you can embark on. However, the market size is already quite a huge pool of extremely talented professionals in every sector, making it apprehensive for new entrants. If you’re wondering whether or not you can still hop on to the bandwagon and build a freelance career, the answer is a resounding yes. Here are five skills you need to build if you want a solid career in freelancing.  

Freelance Career

Skills to Build a Freelance Career

Writing and editing

Today, copywriting and editing are two of the highest-selling talents that you can monetized across several industries. However, there not everyone is a fantastic wordsmith from day one. You can also build writing skills in the work every day. Start by writing 300 words daily on an application like Microsoft Word and build it up. Another skill ancillary to copywriting and editing is how to use Office 365, which is a staple among expert freelancers. Sometimes you may come across unforeseen glitches like editing errors, but helpful sites like https://setapp.com/how-to/fix-office-365-mac-editing-error can assist you to fix it immediately. This way you also save time and consulting fees from technicians while becoming self-sufficient. Once you learn how to navigate it, you can create amazing copies that represent brands.  

Use online courses to upgrade your skills and start your freelance career

Once you have decided which skill you’d love to turn into services or products for your clients, it’s time to refine it. Often, our communication or marketing skills become rusty. Or, you may want to freelance in a completely new set of skills such as application designing. Research free courses that can teach you skills such as coding, content writing, and DIY creative crafts to build your freelance career. 

Build an impressive portfolio

A freelancer needs to find a customer base, but the challenge for new freelancers is often winning new clients over. Well, here’s a method that helps! Your potential customers need to see your offerings before they take up your expert services. This is why you need to build a winning portfolio. Take the time to work on some independent projects that you can proudly showcase on your website and portfolio.  

Find your ideal clients

The power of the WWW is such that you can reach out to people across the globe to opt for your business. As freelancers, the sky is the limit regarding the number of clients you can entertain. However, finding the right match is a bigger concern, which you can easily filter. Use professional gig sites to search for people seeking your expertise and filter them accordingly. 

Build an impressive pitch

Speaking of a pitch, you need to keep working on your selling plot so that it stays fresh and personalized at all times. Create a basic structure that you’d follow, but don’t let the language stay static. Instead, do your research to modify your pitch as per your prospect’s pain points and offer them tailored solutions. 

Wrapping Up: Building your Freelance Career

Knowing that you can build an incredible pool of skills is a great motivator to work towards financial independence. The current decade of 2020-2029 is one of the best times to monetize your talents and make a living out of them through freelancing.

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Finances freelance writing Work From Home

4 Things That Might Be Getting in The Way of Your Freelance Writing Career

Freelance writing can be a varied and enjoyable career. But if you aren’t approaching it in the right way, you could interfere with your chance of success. If you want to be successful, you’ll want to be aware of what might get in the way of your freelance writing career. Here are some examples that may apply to you.

Freelance Writing Career
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What’s Getting In The Way Of Your Freelance Writing Career?

Self-Doubt

Many writers suffer from self-doubt and would say it’s something of an occupational hazard. If you know that you tend to doubt yourself considerably, you want to look into this to ensure that you are changing it. That might be easier than you think, but the point is that you are working at it every day. Try to recognize negative self-talk and work to prove yourself wrong. Often that is enough to start boosting your career.

A Cluttered Mind

If you struggle to get many words down when you sit down to write, then you might have too cluttered a mind. It could require that you empty your mind a little. You can clear your mind in several ways. First, look at how you feel when you sit down to write. If you have lots of intense emotions that get in the way, you might want to deal with them using the accepted DBT method or a similar alternative. Then you can keep your mind on track to write well.

A Lack Of Discipline

One of the difficulties of freelance writing is that you have to have a lot of self-discipline. Until you have developed that trait, you might struggle to make it work for you. Not having enough discipline will mean that you don’t get much done. Do whatever it takes to keep on working at it, and you’ll find the results can be profound.

Freelance Writing Career
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Poorly Defined Audience

Finally, remember that you need a clearly defined audience if you hope to sell your writing effectively. To define your audience, you have to have a good idea of what kind of niche you write in. It should be something that you are completely and utterly passionate about. As long as you write about something you care about, you’ll find that the career develops naturally.

Your Freelance Writing Career

As a freelance writer, you must realize what you do that interfere with your success. Develop good habits and address issues immediately. Then, you can have a successful freelance writing career.

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Adulting Finances For the Home Home How To Life

3 Ways Decluttering Your Home Can Make You Money

decluttering your home can make you money

Clutter can be a problem for any household, and there are many reasons you should clean it up. One of the most convincing reasons is that decluttering your home can make you money. Whether you need a bit of cash to help pay your household bills or you’re looking to sell a collection of things that you know are worth a lot of money, decluttering can be a surprisingly good way to make money.

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How Decluttering Your Home Can Make You Money

1. Decluttering Means Spending Less On Storage

Since you won’t have to continue buying things to store your items, decluttering can save you a ton of money. Whether it’s buying new shelves, storage boxes, or renting a storage space, you won’t have to do as much. If you spend too much money on storage furniture and other random items, decluttering will decrease those expenses.

Make the most of your storage space and don’t keep adding more shelves and cupboards to your home. Get rid of unwanted clutter, and you won’t have to spend so much money on storage furniture.

2. Unwanted Gift Cards Can Be Sold

When you received a gift card in the past, you’d have to use it before it expired. These days, you can sell Target gift cards and gift cards for other major brands such as Walmart and Apple.

It’s surprisingly painless, and you don’t need to invest much time into the process. You just give the code to the service, and they’ll check that it’s real. Then you get credited the money in your bank account.

If you declutter your home, you might find old Christmas and Birthday cards that still have gift cards in them. It’s not the most likely situation, but it’s still possible. More likely, you might find gift cards tucked away that you forgot about. Plus, you won’t feel obligated to buy more things that you don’t need for your home with a gift card.

3. You Can Sell Electronics That Still Work

If you’re like most people, you probably have a fairly large collection of random electronics, cables, and other similar items. You might have old smartphones that still work or even an old games console that you don’t use anymore. If you have no use for these items, you can sell for extra cash on eBay or a similar website.

Make sure you look at the value of these items before you decide to sell them. The items can be worth quite a bit of money, and it’s essential that they’re valued correctly. When they are valued correctly, you can get the most money possible.

If you are listing similar items, you can match the prices. On the other hand, with things like an antique or old collectible, you might need expert assistance.

Decluttering Your Home Can Make You Money

If you have clutter around your home, you could be missing out on an earning opportunity. You can declutter your home and make money at the same time. Now that you know how decluttering your home can make you money, you can get started right away.

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Adulting Finances Home How To Life

The Ultimate Guide For Working From Home: 9 Realistic Tips

Working From Home

Even before the pandemic, more people were deciding to work remotely. Working from home is ideal for better family life or to say goodbye to the commute. Remote work is appealing for lots of good reasons, but it has its challenges, too. You can master it, though, with this realistic guide to working from home.

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

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Tips For Effectively Working From Home

Whether you work remotely a few days a week or full-time, it’s important you are set up to be productive. Setting up for productivity includes having a workspace with the right technology, a way to handle disruptions, and a schedule that works. Here are a few of the best strategies and tips to be successful as a remote worker. 

1. Know The Ground Rules

If you’re still working for a company rather than for yourself, check whether you have to stick to a nine-to-five schedule or whether you can have more flexibility. Are you allowed to work on public WiFi? Which tools will you need, such as Zoom, Slack, or Microsoft Teams for video meetings or group chats?

If you are working for someone else, it’s important that your employer clearly lays out the ground rules and makes sure that you have the right equipment. Some of the equipment you might need includes a reliable laptop, network access, passcodes, and instructions for safe remote login.

Do some trial runs of your set-up, and figure out any problems that might impact your ability to work. If you work for yourself, you might need a lot of these same tools anyway. 

2. Set Up A Functional Workspace

Find somewhere to work in the house by trying some different ways to convert a spare room into an office. Not everyone has a home office, but you need to have a private, quiet space to work. If you can, separate your work area from your personal space. Use that space only for work, not other activities. 

3. Get The Right Internet Speed

If you have children, their internet habits could slow down your speeds. Sitting as close as you can to the router can help, or you could swap to an ethernet connection. You might need a dongle to do this, as most laptops don’t have ethernet ports anymore. You’ll also need an ethernet cable to connect your computer to the router. 

4. Use Phone Apps

If you need to make calls, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Whatsapp all let you call over the internet. These apps can be used globally and are inexpensive. If the person you’re calling is on the same service, it’s free. 

5. Minimize Distractions

If you have a loud dog or a noisy neighbor, buy yourself some noise-canceling headphones. If your children are at home and you don’t have childcare available, take turns with childcare with your spouse. This might mean you have to talk to your boss about adjusting your working hours, though. 

If you need some activities for kids that are stuck at home, check out this post: 15 Ways to Keep Kids Busy at Home

6. Plan Extra Social Interactions

Some people like working alone, but even the biggest introverts can start to feel lonely after a few weeks. Be prepared for this to happen.

Try to schedule some time to connect with the outside world, at least occasionally. Consider a lunch date, a phone call with a friend, or an exercise class after work. 

Tips For Finding Balance While Working At Home

Being your own boss, setting your hours, and working at home has some definite benefits, but it comes with some drawbacks too. Whether you’re telecommuting or self-employed, there are some tips to manage a healthy balance. 

7. Stick To Your Work Schedule

Everyone that works from home will deal with some lack of understanding from other people that think working from home isn’t really working. You must set your working hours, stick to them, work during these hours, and not let anyone interfere with that. 

Homelife comes with its own distraction that can soon eat up your important working hours and put you behind on important projects. Along with typical interruptions like vendor calls, accidents, or child needs, there are some personal boundaries that will be pushed too. 

Your family must understand that you can’t help them during the workday or stop and talk on the phone. Setting these limits can be hard if you have children at home. However, your children seeing you work on something you love can be a positive influence on them for their futures. 

8. Beware Workaholic Tendencies

Flexibility and efficiency are two of the biggest reasons that people want to work from home. Additionally, they long for the possibility of shorter hours because you can accomplish more without being interrupted by emails or daily staff meetings.

Sometimes the extra flexibility can be too much of a good thing, though. When your office is always there and you have a deadline looming, it can be hard to leave work alone. Many people that work from home find themselves logging more hours, not fewer, and working at night and on weekends because they struggle to ignore their work. 

Many remote workers do manage to keep a five-hour day, but this might not mean that they work less. Hours are usually calculated as ‘billable hours‘. This means that for every hour you spend on a task you charge for, there’s lots of time spent doing admin tasks that you can’t charge for. 

9. Don’t Bet On Saving Money

Without a commute, lunches, and the cost of office clothing, you might think working at home will save your budget. However, other costs can come up.

The expense of setting up an office will include laptops, internet services, a printer, cell phones, business cards, web hosting, software, and more. You can’t use your existing equipment for your business if you plan to claim the full cost as a tax write-off. Personal and business purchases must be kept completely separate under tax law. 

For example, you can only deduct your home office if you’re a freelancer or a contractor. You can’t deduct non-reimbursed work expenses if you’re an employee, including deducting for a home office. This makes it even more important to try to get any extra costs covered by your company. 

Check what is allowed before you try to deduct half of your mortgage or your office rent. There are very strict limits on what can be claimed as a tax deduction on your tax return. You can deduct valid work-related expenses, but only the percentage that is actually used for your work.

If your internet is used by your children and spouse, or even by you for non-work-related reasons, you can’t deduct the whole cost. You can only deduct the estimated portion that is only used for work. The same is true of bills, utilities, and office supplies. 

If you’re an independent contractor, you will also need to pay your own social security tax and payroll taxes. This means that a sole proprietor won’t see particularly major cuts on their tax bill. 

Working From Home

If you work from home, you already know the perks and the downfalls. People that don’t work from home don’t always understand the details, but you must stick to your schedule anyway. Use these tips to stay focused and to make working from home an enjoyable, efficient experience.

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Easy Stress-Busting Tips Every Work From Home Mom Needs Now

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Being a work from home mom may sound like the ideal solution to earn money while raising your kids. However, as any work from home mom will tell you, it is not always as idyllic as it sounds.

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While working from home does allow you to enjoy flexibility in your day, it can leave you feeling like you are trying to do everything at once. You may feel as though you are not giving either your home life or work life your full attention. This can leave you feeling stressed out and emotional.

To make working from home efficient for you and your family, you need to find a way to ease the stress and strike a better balance in your life. If you are wondering how you can enjoy the benefits of working from home while minimizing stress, you should find these tips helpful.

How a Work From Home Mom Can Make It Work

Perfect Your Workspace

Perfecting your workspace is an essential ingredient for working from home successfully. If your work setup is not suited to your needs, you will feel uncomfortable, and it will be impossible to be productive. 

If you can, try to create an area of your home that is dedicated to work, so that you can give your job your full attention.

This space should be as quiet as possible and away from the constant interruptions of your kids. If that isn’t possible, simply make sure your workspace is efficiently setup and allows you to develop a nice work flow.

Use headphones to minimize the sounds around you, or learn to tune them out when necessary. Plus, make sure your kids don’t mess with your setup or touch any of your work supplies.

Take Regular Breaks

While it may seem like a good idea to just plow through your work and get everything done as fast as you can, this is not necessarily going to make you more productive. Failing to take regular breaks can make you less productive rather than more. So, you may find that you are putting in lots of hours but not making as much progress as you would like to.

When you take a break, you are allowing yourself to clear your mind and then return to your task with a fresh outlook. This can be hugely beneficial, especially on more taxing tasks.

Plus, by taking regular breaks, you will find comfort knowing your kids don’t need anything right then. This will help you focus on your work rather than wondering what your kids are doing or if they need help.

Minimize Distractions

When you work from home, distractions are everywhere. It is so tempting to get sucked into chores when you are supposed to be working. When you have kids at home with you during the day, it can be even harder to resist this temptation. If you have five loads of laundry waiting to be washed, dried, and ironed, you may be tempted to crack on with this before you get started on your work.

However, once you start on your chores, you may find it difficult to slip back into a ‘work mindset’ and focus on your job. Wherever possible, try to ignore the laundry basket calling to you and, instead, use your work time just for work.

This will likely mean setting up your work from home space in an area where you can’t see the chores that need to be done. Then, you won’t think about them as often which will make them easier to ignore.

Don’t Be Afraid to Use Childcare

Being distracted when you are trying to concentrate is hugely frustrating. Even simple tasks can take ages to complete when you are repeatedly distracted.

With little ones at home, the chances of being distracted when trying to work are pretty high. You may find yourself struggling to get any work completed at all while the little ones are running around asking for snacks.

Using childcare may seem to go against the reasons why you chose to take a work from home job. However, there will be times when using a preschool daycare provider is a necessity. This doesn’t mean you have to use the service often, but it will be nice to know that you have the option.

Having a childcare provider on standby for when you need them is a wise idea. You can turn to this option for those times when you need to attend an important Zoom call or if you have a deadline fast approaching. There is nothing wrong with seeking childcare help when you need it.

Of course, with Covid-19 changing things constantly, it is important that you select a daycare that is staying open during these challenging times. If your children are grade-school age, many daycares are helping students complete their virtual school work, too.

Set Up a Work Space For Your Kids

If you find that your kids want to be right next to you all day, then make that work for you. Teach them how to be quiet while you are working, and teach them to work, too. Set up a space close to you that they can use as their dedicated work space.

Include a surface big enough for activities, a comfortable chair, and any supplies they may need. This includes pencils, crayons, markers, paper, etc. I did this for my daughter, and I included this awesome Lego desk organizer. She was so excited to build her own, and she uses it nearly every day as I work.

They will love sitting next to you as they work, and you can teach them some good habits along the way. With virtual learning being the norm right now, this can be a great option.

This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

Stick to Regular Hours

When working from home, it can be hard to create a separation between being an employee and being a mom. With no physical barrier between your working life and your home life, you can unintentionally merge the two. You might find yourself working at all times of the day and night to keep on top of things. 

Creating the separation between your career and your personal life is essential, however. It is much easier to achieve if you stick to regular working hours. Setting a boundary and working only until a specific time means that once your time is up, you can stop thinking about work and focus on your family.

Learn to Switch Off

Switching off is something that many people find hard to do. It is essential, however, if you want to reduce the stress of being a work from home mom. Giving each aspect of your life your full attention and focusing on one task at a time is the best way to do this. It should help your stress levels to drop dramatically.

This doesn’t mean to only learn to switch off “work mode”, either. During important work times, you have to learn to switch off “home mode” or “parenting mode”, too. If you find that you can’t do this with your kids in the house, this is when you should highly consider childcare a couple of times a week.

work from home mom, tips for working from home with kids, work from home with kids, virtual learning and working from home, how to work from home when you have kids

Finding the work/home life balance is incredibly hard for parents. Now that being a work from home mom is becoming more normal, it is even more difficult. It is SO hard for moms to switch off “home mode” or “parenting mode”, even when their job is incredibly important to them.

Keep in mind that being a work from home mom won’t become easier overnight. As you work on these tips, it will take time to find the routine that works for you.

These tips for work at home moms will help, however, and they will get you started on a stress-free situation. Are you a work from home mom, and when did you become one? If you have any additional tips to add, leave a comment and let me know!

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How To Do Right By Your Family

do right by your family, making long-term decisions, help making decisions, family decisions, big changes for families

Making long-term life decisions can be a very tough task, no matter how old or experienced you may be. Life is unpredictable, and 2020 is perhaps one of the crowning examples of that. However, it’s important to figure out how to do right by your family by coming to the best decision.

These long-term decisions could be anything from where you should live to where you should send your children to school. Even though making the decision might be stressful, it’s important to do it in the right way.

If you find yourself in a situation where you know you’ll be taking care of your parents as they age, have a discussion with your partner and parents to determine how to approach your combined futures. Caring for older adults in the same home may require moving to a new home or using a company such as Home Elevator Service to install an elevator in your existing home to help with mobility and independence. Regardless of what you decide together, communication is essential.

You can’t simply do what other families are doing. Remember that what is right for most people may not be right for you and your family.

While this article may offer insight and give tips, you still have to figure out for yourself what is best. You can only define that for yourself, but the following principles may help you along the way.

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How to do Right By Your Family

Consider all Options

Determine which risks are involved with each decision. No matter how small the risk is, each decision you make carries one. Then, you have to consider how those risks might express themselves and how you can limit them.

If you can achieve that way of thinking, then odds are you’ll be more forthright in coming to a conclusion.

What’s Right For Them Now, And In The Future?

It’s important to consider what might be right for your family now and in the future. Those two things aren’t always so apparent. However, thinking along a timeline can help you make those decisions.

Perhaps you might wish to move but if you wait a year, you can have better options. Maybe waiting a year will give you a chance to find a good school for your kids.

It could be that you wish to move to a rural area, but when your children become teenagers, what if they need to find a job? Questions like this can help direct your actions.

Consider Your Finances

When you are trying to do right by your family, you have to think financially, too. After all, you have to be able to support them.

Maybe you could consider debt discharge with DTSS Restoring America’s Freedom. This could help cut back on monthly payments.

Additionally, you may want to consider finding a new job in a new area. If jobs are hard to come by in that area, you can consider making money online. You could start a blog, find freelance work, or find other remote jobs.

You can’t wait until after you’ve made a long-term decision to think about finances. Whatever is the best way forward, planning financially will help you. You have to be able to balance that alongside your perspective timeline.

Staying Unapologetic About Your Choices

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions for all families. What works for your family may not work for another. This is why it’s important to stay unapologetic about your decisions, and instead focus on what’s right for your family.

Studies show that families who stop comparing themselves to others tend to be happier. By staying unapologetic, you will be able to avoid the comparison trap. When you begin apologizing and explaining yourself, however, it can make you feel differently.

do right by your family, making long-term decisions, help making decisions, family decisions, big changes for families

Balance Needs, Priorities, And Benefits For All The Family

To the extent that you can, it’s important to balance the needs of all of your family members. Perhaps you wish to move to an area near a brilliant art school, but it requires an hour’s commute to reach anything else. This will be inconvenient for you, and can also cause problems for your teenagers.

Maybe you’re considering a move, but the unpredictability caused by Covid makes it best to wait. Whether this is due to a lack of job prospects or concerns with schooling, it is important to consider.

Another priority to consider is your extended family. If you are close to them, consider how often you would be able to see them. This could be an important factor that should be discussed.

When you balance the needs of your family, you can come to the best compromise. You may not be able to make everyone happy, but it’s important to consider all aspects.

Remember That You are Doing What is Best

Be confident in your ability to do right by your family. As long as you follow these tips and consider all aspects of the decision, you will be just fine. It’s normal to question yourself but, at the end of the day, know that you are doing your best.

do right by your family, making long-term decisions, help making decisions, family decisions, big changes for families
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Different Businesses and Online Money-making Ideas You Need to Know

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In this guest post,Valentina Wilson explains different businesses and online money-making ideas.

Valentina is a writer and blogger who specializes in personal finance and positive change. Valentina has a master’s degree in financial journalism and seven years of experience in personal banking and believes that small behavioral changes are the key to achieving financial freedom. Check out her blog, Best Debt Consolidation Blog, https://www.bestdebtconsolidation.org/blog/ and follow her on Twitter:@valentinailson https://twitter.com/valentinailson

Due to this corona virus pandemic, the unemployment rate is growing fast. The vast numbers of pay cuts and job losses have created a financial crisis among people. It is true that due to this pandemic, the economy is going through a rough phase and it is the consumers who are suffering from financial problems.

But, to survive in this difficult situation, you have to find different income sources. Most people are trying to look for a secondary source of income so that they can repay debts on time and protect their credit score. Many students are in knee-deep debt due to having no jobs out there. However, there are options to consolidate student loans. Also, Govt. help and an extended payment policy that can help.

According to the experts, you can consider some part-time jobs or businesses to manage your financial life.

According to the experts, you can consider some part-time jobs or businesses to manage your financial life. Online money-making opportunities are widely available, too, if you know where to look.

Home-based businesses, weekend businesses, or jobs can support you by providing extra income that can be utilized in living a peaceful financial life.

Here you go:

Weekend business ideas:

●       Baby-sitting-services

If you have very small kids and you take care of them, taking care of another child along with your own will not be very difficult for you. This service is also very cost-effective as your customers will have to come to you. This will save on your fuel expenses too. In most cases, the parents of these children have their food packed and you will just need to feed the child. However, even if they do not provide you with that then you can make a little extra food at home and feed them that. You may even take additional charges for providing food. You can pay daily, weekly or monthly fees depending on your needs.

●       Cooking classes

If you are good at cooking you could give cooking classes at home. These classes are a very convenient option as you can limit the number of classes based on your needs and you also get paid on the spot.

●       Have  a yard or garage sale

You can also organize a yard or garage sale to sell unused or mildly used items. This can be done at any weekend to get some extra bucks.

different business ideas, online money-making ideas, how to make money online, corona virus, covid-19 financial hardship

Home-based business ideas:

●       Rent your garage home to earn money

If you have space in the garage, you can rent your garage to earn money out of it. If you have a big house and one part of the house is empty, you can rent a part of your home. This will be a great source of income

●       Sell homemade products

You can sell homemade baked goodies. This will be more convenient for you if you have older children at home who can help. In a few main festival seasons, the demand for homemade goodies such as cookies and cakes rises. This allows you to get money by sitting at home and baking.

●       Be a financial coach

During times when there is too much financial uncertainty, most people are looking for someone to fall back on. If you can become a financial coach, you can help people make better financial decisions and thereby make money. You can give an ad for this and open a financial class at your home premises.

You can also create a financial website of your own so that people can have the option of signing up with you and clearing their financial doubts.

Online money-making part-time jobs to earn extra money

●       Start freelancing

If you have the skills to write, you can sit at home and with the help of the Internet, you can do freelancing. There are various freelancing jobs available on the Internet. You just need to choose the right one for you. While choosing any freelancing job, you also need to make sure that you get proper remuneration. Freelancing helps you earn good money in the comfort of your house.

●       Get paid with social networking websites

Different social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter help you earn money. They have become very popular these days. Such social networking websites need more members to join them. In return, they pay their new joiners and also pay them if they post any messages.

●       Get money to read mail.

You get paid just to click on the email and then close it. Every day, you receive paid emails in your inbox that have links to different websites. These emails help you earn money when you view them for just a few seconds.

●       Get paid for data entry

There are many types of data entry jobs available on the Internet. You just need to enter basic data information into these data entry jobs. You can earn good money with the help of data entry jobs.

●       Get paid for participating in online surveys

Online surveys are good ways to make money with the help of the Internet. While conducting online surveys, consumers’ feedback is very much essential. Those who participate in these online surveys are paid some money by the survey companies.

●       Be a social media marketer

Nowadays social networking websites are very popular and you can also carry on social media marketing about your website so that you can earn extra money. Create a profile on any of the social media websites and increase your network and friends so that you can easily boost your profits by boosting the traffic to your website.

●       Become an online content writer or blogger

Another online money-making option is to become a content writer as this way you can nurture your writing skills as well as earn money at the same time. Get in touch with a webmaster that can provide you with enough projects where you can show your expertise in writing and earn online cash. What you need to remember is that you have to do complete research on what you’re writing. You also need to be able to write unique content for their website. You can also start online blogging to earn money over time.

different business ideas, online money-making ideas, how to make money online, corona virus, covid-19 financial hardship

Lastly,

we all know that due to a rapid increase in the price of basic amenities due to the COVID pandemic, life has become very difficult. It has become difficult to pay for basics, that any luxury is way beyond reach. Thus, a single earning member family structure can not quite provide much economic stability in today’s scenario. 

So, both husband and wife must contribute towards the budget of the family. But if you want to be at home and also want to work from the comfort of your home, then there are many ways in which moms at home can make money. Also, if you have no job right now, you can easily embrace an online money-making opportunity. 

However, in any circumstances, you should never give up hope. If you have no income and you are unable to manage any job, you can ask for GOVT. grants and financial help.

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Family Activities For the Home Holiday Home How To Organization Our Family Parenting

Achievable Goals For The New Year

Achievable goals for the new year

The New Year is already here, and I just sat down this morning to figure out my New Year’s Resolution. I wanted it to actually be achievable goals for the New Year. It was a tough call because I can honestly say I won’t be going to the gym every day (or even once a week… I have 5 kids LOL), I also won’t ALWAYS eat healthily so I’m not going to restrict myself there, either. Every resolution that I considered just didn’t seem right. 

I instead thought about what areas of my life I wanted to improve in, and things that I wanted to learn about. It seemed that everything I desire fits into two categories:

  • Finances
  • Home improvement
  • Routine
  • Family
achievable goals for the new year

Why This Didn’t Work For Me

Instead of heading into the rest of the year with vague resolutions to improve finances, improve our home, and focus on family, I decided to make a list of how I can accomplish all of those things.

I didn’t go overboard. There are so many more things I could have added to my list, but I wanted to start with an achievable goal. I figure that I will be more likely to follow my goals through when I actually have a goal that seems possible, instead of a vague idea to work toward the goal.

I didn’t want this: Spend more time with family.
Instead, I wanted something specific: Dates with kids weekly.

Then, I even went further into it and wrote:

“Dates with kids weekly. One kid each week, rotating schedule. After 5 weeks of individual kid dates, one big family outing. Then start over.

Not all of my achievable goals for the New Year were that long, either. That was probably the most complicated one. (List of all 10 of my goals for the New Year will be listed at the end of the post).

Later tonight I plan on sitting down and making a concrete schedule of dates with the kids. I may make and print out a calendar of the whole year and write it on there. Then I can put it into a binder so that the kids can always look and see when their next date is.

achievable goals for the new year

Plus, it might be fun to put a memento from the date in the binder afterward. Then, next year on New Year’s Eve we can look back at all of our date memories from the year.

I wanted to figure out a plan to implement each of the things I wanted to achieve. Once I narrowed it all down and wrote out my detailed list, all of the fun ideas came naturally when I began typing up my plans. The “date binder” was one of those that just came as I was planning.

So – back to the achievable goals for the New Year. Instead of just choosing one or two vague ideas of which areas I wanted to improve in, I came up with 10 smaller achievable goals.

10 Achievable Goals For The New Year

achievable goals for the new year
  1. Follow chore/payment chart (blog post about that is coming soon so check back!!)
  2. Start seeing a larger increase in the savings account.
  3. Hire someone to do the yard work. (so serious. we can never keep up and I’m sick of stressing about it.)
  4. FREAKING LAUNDRY. (and yes, this is how I wrote it on my list. I guess this one might be vague but I will be typing a schedule for everyone in the house to follow.)
  5. Dates with kids weekly. One kid each week, rotating schedule. After 5 weeks of individual kid dates, one big family outing. Then start over. (We have 5 kids, hence the 5 weeks. If you have less/more, adjust the number accordingly).
  6. Crunch numbers for vacations for the year before January 14th. Come up with a savings plan and a plan of when to make payments by February 1st.
  7. Post a new blog post 1 time per week.
  8. Make $150 on TextBroker every week.
  9. Lose 40 pounds. 10 pounds every 3 months. First goal: Lose 10 pounds by March 1st.
  10. Buy “clutter baskets” for each person in the home. Put anything they’ve left lying around the house in those baskets and distribute accordingly after school.
achievable goals for the new year

Final Thoughts On Achievable Goals For The New Year

All 10 of these goals are achievable goals for the new year. I won’t have to make a HUGE change in my lifestyle, I’ll just have to plan a little better and look for ways to cut costs while also making more money. Plus, I just need a plan to contain all the freaking clutter that my family accumulates each day.

I never follow through with my New Years Resolutions because I never come up with a list of ways to actually accomplish my goals in life. This time is different.

It may sound crazy to have 10 New Years Resolutions, but if they really are achievable goals for the new year, you can hit your goal sooner and see all the progress you have made. Plus, when you do accomplish one, you can come up with an even bigger goal next time.

Did you set any goals for yourself for the New Year? Tell me about them in the comments!

achievable goals for the new year
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How To

How to Start a Blog in 3 Easy Steps (and what to do next!!)

how to start a blog

Have you ever thought about starting a blog, but you just didn’t know where to start? Maybe you know where to start, but you don’t know what to do next? If this is you, I’m here to tell you that it’s not as hard to start a blog as you may think… you can start a blog in 3 easy steps. I’m serious.

Whether you want to start a blog to have a creative out, to promote a business, earn an income, or to meet others who share your interest, everyone starts in the same place. You have to figure out how to start a blog before you can move on to your reason for blogging.

Figuring out how to start a blog can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin, but I’ve done the research already and want to share with you how to start a blog in 3 easy steps!! Taking it one step further, I even included tips for what to do after you start a blog.

**This post contains affiliate links, which means that I will receive a commission if you click on a link and make a purchase. This is at no additional cost to you, it only helps me keep my blog up and running. I fully back the products that I recommend.**

How to Start a Blog in 3 Easy Steps

1. Decide what you want to blog about.

You can’t blog about everything, so you’ll need to think about what you’ll primarily be posting before you start a blog. My blog is primarily about parenting and marriage. Those are two vague topics, but they tell my readers what they can expect to find on my blog.

Keeping my topics a little more vague (but still making my general topic obvious) gives me the freedom to post ALL things regarding parenting (crafts, parenting tips, kid-friendly recipes, activities, etc.) and not just one parenting topic. Same with marriage… I am able to post whatever I want about marriage and my readers know to expect that, but at the same time, my readers also know they aren’t going to find a random book review thrown in because the topic of my blog isn’t books or book reviews.

2. Choose a blog name.

Obviously, before you start a blog you have to decide on a name. You need a name picked out before you start a blog because you’ll need your name to be on your blog and in the URL.

Since I blog about parenting and marriage, my blog name was easy for me, Mom Wife Wine. Simple, catchy, and it helps prospective readers know what to expect when they come to my blog.

You can make your blog name whatever you want, but it helps to come up with a name that will allow people to get a small feel of what your blog will be about.

3. Set up your blog.

Honestly, out of the 3 steps to start a blog this one might be the easiest. It can be hard to decide what parts of your life you want to blog about, and it’s even harder to come up with a blog name, but setting up your blog is SO easy. This is where you actually start a blog.


You could always start a free blog, hosted by a website like WordPress or blogger, but it can be tricky to do it that way. I’ve heard many bloggers say that they won’t even read a blog if it isn’t self-hosted and they can see this by looking at the blog link. If your blog name is followed by .wordpress.com or something similar, it is clear that you are using a free blog service.

Just for the record, I do read blogs that aren’t self-hosted, I just know lots of bloggers who won’t.

Another reason using a free site can be tricky is because it’s hard to monetize your blog that way, and the hosting website can shut your blog down for any reason, without warning, and you could lose ALL of your content.

It was an easy decision for me, but only after I researched SO MANY web hosting services. Once my research was complete I knew that BlueHost was definitely the one for me, and I was confident in this decision.

Some of the benefits of Bluehost include:

  • Free domain
  • Free security technology
  • You can install WordPress to use with Bluehost with just one click.
  • Low prices
  • 24-hour technical support

I think it’s important to emphasize that Bluehost is so inexpensive, which was important to me because we only had one income at the time, and the quality is top notch. More than a year later, and I still love it.

I have never had any issues with Bluehost and I’ve found it SO easy to use. I’ll literally never change to anything else. WordPress is really great, too, so it’s awesome that you can install it so easily with Bluehost.

Once you’ve gotten to this point, the rest is easy. You simply choose your Bluehost package, and then Bluehost will walk you through the rest of the setup. I don’t know if other web hosting websites walk you through the setup, but I know Bluehost does and it was so easy.

***Important Note*** Do not make your blog “live” right away. I’ll get to that more in the next section, but you need content first.

****CLICK HERE TO START A BLOG WITH BLUEHOST****

how to start a blog

What to do After You Start a Blog

So you have now created your blog, but the next steps can be a little daunting as you’re getting everything going. It doesn’t have to be, though!! Take it one step at a time and work your way through the list until you’ve got everything done. Some steps take longer than others and that’s okay!

1. Design your blog.

Some people pay for a cute layout, but there are free ones available and are pretty easy to find. I use a free layout myself that I found on WordPress, I just created my own logo using Canva and made some minor changes to the rest of the layout. Your blog should look good and the layout should be easy to navigate if you want viewers to return.

2. Create content.

This is obviously the most important step when you are just starting your blog (or anytime, for that matter). I mentioned in the previous section that you should not make your blog “live” right away. I say this because if a visitor comes to your blog and you only have one or two blog posts, they aren’t likely to come back again.

You want to have AT LEAST 25 blog posts on your blog before you go live. This gives readers many posts to click around on and decide if they want to come back and read your new stuff later on.

3. Promote blog.

You want to start promoting before your blog even goes live. Set up a Twitter account, Instagram account, a Pinterest account, etc., and start gaining followers and hyping them up for your blog release.

Twitter is my favorite social media platform because you can get lots of support from other bloggers on Twitter. I get the most views from Twitter and Pinterest, so I focus on those areas more than the other.

Before you go live, start making connections on social media. Make friends who are interested in your blog topic, write tweets with “sneak peaks” about your posts, and post a countdown to the day your blog will go live. Work on building followers on social media and the views will start coming in as soon as you go live.

4. Go live!!!

Make a big “event” out of this on social media. Tell everyone how excited you are and ask them to check out your blog. Be active during this time so you can interact with new viewers.

5. Get more traffic.

After you get your initial traffic from social media, you’ll need to start branching out and finding new sources of traffic. You can do this by writing guest posts for other bloggers or by increasing your following on social media. Make awesome graphics for Pinterest, because lots of traffic can (and will) come from there. You can start an e-mail list to help increase your viewers, too.

6. Monetize.

So, this is the last step because, in order to make money, you have to have consistent blog views. Once you think you are ready you could start monetizing through affiliate sales (like Amazon) and Google AdSense. I’ll be writing a separate post about monetizing (and what to do next) at a later time, so sign up for my e-mail list if you want to be notified!

Other Thoughts On How to Start a Blog

And, I guess you could count this as another step to both lists; you have to constantly learn. You should always be researching ways to improve your blog and grow your following.

There are blog courses available online, or you can just do your own research to figure things out if you prefer. It is always nice to have a mentor, however (someone who has been blogging longer and has already done all of these things), and you can likely find friends like this on social media. You can ask them questions and get advice from them, which will save you time and frustration.

Final Thoughts On How to Start a Blog in 3 Easy Steps

I hope this guide has helped you and given you some peace of mind with your blogging adventure. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section. I reply to all comments and would be more than happy to help you in any way that I can.

I mentioned a mentor of sorts before and, if you reach out to me, I’d love to help you along the way! If I don’t know the answer I can help you figure it out! 

how to start a blog how to start a blog how to start a blog