Need Work At Home Ideas

[margecat]

DH has taken another job, with a loss of 50% of his income. Long story...

I work full-time, but thought maybe I could do a few hours each week working to make some extra funds. I have a PC. I have no college degree. I am a library cataloger by trade, so I am good at detailed work and finding errors. I am good at crafts, though I'd prefer not to do that for a living. I'm thinking something using the PC. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[neely]

Have you ever considered digital calligraphy? When my kids were very young I did calligraphy the old fashioned way with pen, nibs and ink cartridges from home. I enjoy the art of calligraphy and still do it occasionally as a favor for close friends. However, there are various software programs to do it digitally by computer.

 

[Winchester]

Web sites? Blogging? (I think I'm a wanna-be blogger at heart) Book reviews? Copy editing?

Party planning? From what I've seen of your work, you would be excellent.

 

[Mother Dragon]

One thing I can tell you is not to fall for those work at home ads you often see. Thousands of people every year are duped by these ads. One is for stuffing envelopes for businesses. Businesses that need small quantities of envelopes stuffed do it themselves. Those that have a large quantity go to mailing houses or obtain envelope stuffing machines. They NEVER use home workers. Other schemes simply provide you mailing lists or ways to obtain mailing lists to sucker other people in, sort of like a pyramid scheme. Another one is medical transcription. Doctors don't need these people like the ads claim. They already have staff and now computer programs that do it. The ads want you to take an extremely expensive on-line course for a job that doesn't exist. The same goes for proofreaders. Self-publishers can't afford them and do their own. Real publishers now use software (which is sometimes purely awful).

If you are near a college and are a very fast and accurate typist who can also readily include formatted math and other symbols, you can sometimes make a little money typing papers for students. However, this is seasonal at best and can be a real pain in the patootis when you get a person who waits until the last moment and insists you produce their paper NOW. I don't know what the going rate is, but I think it's about $1.50-$2 a page. I may be way off on that, though. You have to factor in the cost of printer ink and wear and tear on your printer as well as your time. Sometimes you wind up making only a dollar or two an hour.

Don't even think of cake decorating unless you look good with no hair. People have no idea how much work goes into a beautiful cake and want to pay very little. Many home decorators find they're earning just a couple of dollars an hour, sometimes less, and working with incredibly demanding people. I tried it for a bit and gave it up. Transporting cakes is a nightmare, too. I had one slide into the spare tire. Fortunately I had extra icing and filled the hole in. I had to warn the caterer not to cut that part! Quoth the Dragon, "Nevermore!"

If you're in an area with a lot of pets, petsitting is good, but again, spotty. Ain't no way I'd do housecleaning, although it IS quite lucrative.

If you're creative at party planning, you might start with that. You have to build contacts with suppliers and be able to be creative in finding or creating items you need, but there can be decent money in it. You do need to be able to deal with demanding people, though.

Hope these answers help. Good luck!