Guest Post: How to Earn Passive Income At Home

Nearly everyone has the desire to earn extra income, I know that I did. My situation was probably similar to many of you. I was the stay-at-home and take care of the house portion of our large family. While I did not mind staying home each day and watching my husband go off to work there were a few things about having a job that I missed like earning money and feeling like I was contributing financially to the household. However, with a brood of children, I knew that the cost of day-care would not be worth my going to work outside the home. Instead my husband and I started researching ways for me to earn a few dollars on line, just to keep me a little busy.

If you want to work from home you first have to think about what it is that you are good at, in my case it was writing. Even though I stay home now I used to work and had a Master's degree so I knew a little bit about writing. There are tons of ways to earn money on line if you want to write, web sites like Elance, Textbroker, Ezine, and HubPages are great places to look for work or to post articles that you have written. In my case, the first job a found was from a webmaster looking for someone to write a blog about different reality based television shows. All I had to do was watch the programs and then write an interesting and opinion filled recap of the episode.

This first job was not at all difficult, but it did require a lot of time. Between watching the actual episodes and then writing the article I had to spend a lot of time on lock down in front of the television or computer screen. The lucky thing was that I could record an episode, and watch it late at night or during the day at nap time. This allowed me to continue taking care of the house and the family while still earning some extra money. This job was a great way to get my feet wet and learn a little bit about Internet writing. I did not make a lot of money at first, but that was alright with me. What was more important to me was to make sure that this was something that I actually enjoyed doing and to find out if I was any good at it.

If you are thinking about taking on an at home job I suggest following a similar path. Others might suggest that you throw yourself whole-heartily into your new at home job, but I prefer a more cautious approach. I went into my online job search expecting nothing. Even when I got a job, that only paid about $50 a month at first I knew that there was a possibility that it would not work out and that the pay was not going to be very much. I even referred to it as my "shoe money" so that it never was considered part of the family budget. In the end it turned out that I was pretty good at writing so I started taking on other writing jobs that I found at the previous mentioned web sites and eventually left that low paying blog job in favor of higher paying gigs.

You might be reading this thinking that you hate to write so maybe earning passive income from home is impossible for you. However, there are loads of at home income options that do not require you to write one single word. You can also do customer service from home. This is especially great for people who crave interaction with others. With these jobs you simply have wait for calls to come in from people placing orders for items or looking for customer service assistance. All you usually need is a reliable Internet connection and a phone line to get started in this lucrative field.

Data entry is another way to earn extra income and requires neither great writing or customer service skills. While this type of work can be a little bit repetitive it also has the benefit of requiring no special skills and allowing you to work whenever you want. Much like writing articles you can set up a schedule where you work in their early morning hours before the rest of your household gets up, after they go to bed for the night, or any other time of day when you can get an hour or two to focus on your work.

In my opinion, the best part about earning passive income from home is that you get to decide when you work and how much you work. If you want to add a little bit to the household income you only have to work a little bit. But, if you decide it is time to start working full time you can do that too, the choice is completely up to you. Just remember in the beginning to be both patient and cautious.

Be cautious about working for just anyone that you meet on line. Make sure that the person or company whom you are doing work for is reputable. Trust me, there is nothing more discouraging then not getting paid for a job. However, if that does happen do not give up, those who do not pay are truly the exception and not the rule.

Also, be patient. Do not start out expecting to make a hundred dollars on the first day or even in the first month. If you are writing, be willing to write a few things for a low price in order to build a strong reputation, once you have that you will be able to command higher rates. No matter what job you choose to do from home you will quickly find that you can earn a lot more money in a much shorter time then you ever anticipated. Before you know it you will be adding to your household income and feeling great about your choice to work from home.

About the Author
Timothy Ng is an experienced personal finance writer, specialising in credit card comparison. Check out his guide to best credit cards where he will step you through the process of finding the best credit card.