Home Business Ideas for Mums

With childcare costs as high as they are working in the home is an appealing option for many mums. Unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous people promising unrealistically high earnings for home working jobs. To help you find an opportunity that really can earn you money from home we’ve put together 5 home business ideas for mums. These aren’t get rich quick ideas and all will take time to establish but, with hard work, can create an income.

Information products

Information products describes a range of products, usually online, that provide the purchaser with information they need. The products might be books, ebooks, courses or access to a library of resources via a subscription payment. The hard work is in creating the products or writing the book, once that’s done, the focus is on marketing them. This way you can continue to make money from them long after the initial hard work is finished.  If you’d like to go down the writing route, then you’ll need a publisher, there are some great publishing companies in Canada.

E-commerce

If there’s a product you’re passionate about then selling online could be for you. If you’re fairly good with a computer then there are plenty of packages that will help you to build an e-commerce site. You couldn’t also consider selling through another platform. eBay is a popular choice as is Amazon. If you’re selling something you’ve created yourself then Etsy can work well. Just bear in mind that all of these sites will charge you a fee for using them, usually a percentage of sales. If you plan to hold stock you’ll need some storage space, either at home or through a company. Alternatively you could look at drop shipping, where you take the orders and pass them on to another company to ship. Read about Mums who run e-commerce businesses.

Selling Private Label Products

Private label products allow you to buy a product and then add your own branding before selling it on at a profit. It can work well if you want to do something like start skincare business or a clothing business. Private label products can also be digital products like printables which eliminates the need to store stock.

Bespoke items

Bespoke items are one of the few things that small businesses can often do better than large ones. There are hundreds of items that can be personalised for buyers for example clothing, food items, gifts, stationery or furniture. Just be prepared to spend as much time Marketing the business as you do on the creative process. Check out our stories from mums who’s create bespoke items.

Blogging

Of all our home business ideas for mums this one will probably take the longest to build in to a profitable business. However if you enjoy writing it may be one of the most fulfilling. Bloggers make there money from advertising on their blogs. In some cases they will be given a product as payment for reviewing it, in others they will be paid either to write a post about something or to publish a post written by someone else. They also sometimes sell display advertising on the blog and run affiliate programs like Google Adsense. Read blogger KatyKicker’s story for inspiration or check out this fab course on how to get started as a blogger.

Virtual assistant

If you have excellent admin skills then you could put them to use to creat an income. Many small business owners prefer to focus on the core elements of their business and outsource the admin to someone else. This creates opportunities for people whose forte is admin. You’ll need a decent laptop and good broadband speed to make it work. Networking skills to help you find your clients. To the stories from Mums who have become VAs have a look at our business to business stories.

Other home business ideas for mums

We’re tried to stick here to home business ideas for mums that are fairly accessible to everyone but if you have a particular skill set you may well be able to make use of it at home. You may be knowledgable about something that you could teach. You could either do it by inviting clients to your home or via the internet. If you’re a coach or counsellor you could offer your services via Skype. Perhaps you could do something you’ve done before but on a freelance basis. Whatever home business idea you choose to go for, make sure that you meet the legal requirements by getting insured and informing the council, landlord or mortgage company if necessary.

Want to start a business but not sure which one is right for you? Check out this review of “How to Become a Work From Home Mum” a book with over 50 work from home mum ideas.

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Home business ideas for mums