Are There Any "Stay at Home" Jobs That Do Not Require You to Sell Something?

Updated on September 04, 2012
I.M. asks from Arcadia, CA
14 answers

For the last few years I have been in search off and on for something that I could do for money from home. As being an at home mom has always been my dream. I have always worked full time outside the home, except when I was on Maternity leave, and them I had no choice but to go back to work afterward. There is nothing that I could do for my current job at home.

I have looked into many things like Melaleuca, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, ect, and have even tried some of them. In all fairness, many of these companies have great products that I still continue to use today. But the job of being a consultant/sales person is just not the job for me. I have also looked into doing online jobs, but after researching them, they all seem to be scams.

When I was growing up, I remember hearing about legitimate jobs like data entry or doing things on the computer for companies and that they would actually pay.

I know this is a stretch, but do any of you mamas know of any jobs like this or where I would begin to look?

Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

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L.A.

answers from Austin on

I have a friend that tutors. She was a teacher and loves math.. She tutors all ages. She helped our daughter with all of her advanced math in High School..

Even when our daughter was about to take the SAT, we called up this woman to help our daughter with Algebra, since she had last taken algebra in 9th grade.

She charged $45 - $60 per hour..

I used to grocery shop and cook for a single gentleman with a teen daughter. They were very healthy eaters, so I would prepare a snack for the daughter and dinner for them. I would drop it off in the morning, Monday - Thursday.. They would microwave it.

Of course you could also pick up children at school and keep them at your home until their parents pick them up.. Set it up where they have a snack, you help them with their homework and they can play the rest of the time.

Lots of parents would love this.

Or you could pick up children and take them to their after school activities..

Are you crafty? You could make somethings and sell them on etsy..

do you sew? You could do custom sewing for people.. Sewing is a dying art and people pay big bucks to have things sewn for them.. Children's costumes.. etc..

6 moms found this helpful
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S.B.

answers from Kansas City on

Most of those jobs are going to be jobs where you're established at a job and they decide you can work it from home. My husband can work from home occasionally, which is helpful if our dd gets sick and can't go to daycare/school. But it's difficult, because it's not easy to concentrate on work when you have a small child running around, and anyone who is going to pay you to work from home is going to expect that the majority of your time is taken up by the job they pay you for.

Have you thought about running an in-home daycare? Taking in a couple of kids a week could help you out, or you could offer before and after school care, I pay a center 75 dollars a week for that, but they have to take my dd to school and pick her up.

3 moms found this helpful
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S.H.

answers from St. Louis on

inhome daycare will provide you income. :)

The +: you're home before/after school for your kids. You're home on school vacations. You are providing a much-needed service. & you feel a lot of love (& a small amount of angst) each day....& the love/trust is the winner.

The -: you have to work during school hours, & are unable to attend school functions. You have a houseful when you'd like to do something with your own kids during vacations. No employment benefits whatsoever. & your Social Security is based on your adjusted income (after expenses) which sucks....a big price to pay for low fed/state taxes.

Been doing the inhome daycare for years now. Had planned to end this year, but the job market in our semi-rural area totally sucks.....oh, well.

2 moms found this helpful

T.F.

answers from Dallas on

This type of post is here regularly and you'll be hit up by the recruiters of the MLM's to sign you up.

If there was a job for stay at home parents to earn money and watch their children, don't you think everyone would be doing it?

Yes, there are jobs you can do. You must think outside the box. What are you good at? Babysitting, tutoring, work PT outside the home when your spouse can watch the children, multiple income streams.

Typically, a company will not start you out as a telecommuter position because you have to prove yourself. Working at home is something for those who are driven, self motivated and self disciplined. If you have children, they will need to be in childcare while you work. No company wants a rep to be on the phone with children or pets in the background.

We do work from home running our company. There is NO way I could do it with a child under my foot. One mistake can cost us thousands and thousands of dollars. I have to have my financials correct and be able to focus on the job at hand.

So yes, think outside the box, find your niche. Research the past questions on here that are here almost weekly and see if something triggers an interest.

Watch out for scams, they are all over the place preying on people like you who want to work from home.

2 moms found this helpful

T.S.

answers from San Francisco on

There have been "work from home in your spare time" scams for decades.
If that was even an option we would ALL be doing it.
The best stay at home job for moms with young kids is child care.
Everything else requires you to be focused and have a need for a babysitter anyway. No employer is going to hire you if you have kids to watch while you are working, the kids (of course) take all of your attention.
I've had a few friends work PT evenings and weekends at Target and Starbucks when their kids were little. It helped with extra money, no childcare costs (since dad was home) and they actually enjoyed getting out of the house, you may want to think about that :)

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R.J.

answers from Seattle on

Tons.

Mostly specialized. IT, Arts, CPA, Counseling, Massage, PT, Childcare, Writing, craftsman (furniture building, metal work, etc.), mechanics, teaching/tutoring, etc.

The thing is... the VAST majority of these jobs are otherwise known as "self employed".

An employer looking to hire entrylevel people for xyz positions has very little reason to hire someone to work from home. An employeer looking for someone to cyber commute or who doesn't really care if their employees work from home &/or operates largely with 'flextime' (much more common) isn't looking for entry level people, but specialized professionals.

So if your current field isn't big into flextime/cybercommuting (IT, I'd say is 1/5th to 1/3rd working from home... but most people prefer not to, even when they can)... and you don't want to be self employeed... your options are slim.

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A.V.

answers from Washington DC on

You can look at past posts on this topic, but look at odesk.com, biztant.com and hiremymom.com. You still need to evaluate each job and make sure they are legit, but especially biztant and hiremymom do a first screening for you. I got 2 jobs (including my long term one ) on HMM. Most are just a project at a time, though. Good luck.

FYI Freshbooks.com is free invoicing/timekeeping system. And you will need to get set up to pay your taxes quarterly, which is 40-50% of your take home (consult your accountant).

I will also caution that it can be hard to work even PT with kids in the home. I am putting DD in half day preschool in part for my job and in part for her to have interaction with other kids. This past year I have struggled balancing the two.

1 mom found this helpful
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K..

answers from Phoenix on

The high paying data entry jobs simply don't exist. You also can't work from home and expect to also have your kids be around, bugging you & making noise. If this dream job was available, we'd all be doing it!

If you don't want to sell a product, you would most likely end up doing some type of customer service/call center job at home. Or, you'd have to have a specific career where contract/at home jobs are plentiful. Large companies do have remote positions, but you'd probably have to work your way into those & already be established.

I did at home reservations/sales for U-haul a couple years ago while I was a SAHM. The money was okay, but you could set your schedule. I would still have to work when DH was home. We didn't get holidays or weekends off, which is why it didn't work for me. The key is that if you are responsible employee, you will HAVE to still have child care. It's like doing a job in an office, but at home. No noise is tolerated. In retrospect, I would've been happier doing an out of the home job, part time.

Try www.wahm.com, or http://www.workplacelikehome.com/ to start out.

1 mom found this helpful

J.W.

answers from St. Louis on

Any jobs like that pay by something. What I mean is say you have to enter demographics, they pay 10 cents a demo which unless you can type 100,000 words a minute equals 3 dollars an hour. Sometimes less.

I can work from home but I don't, I don't feel I am productive. That is the thing though, I am a professional, I have a masters in accounting and IT. I already have a job where I am responsible for my productivity. No one is going to pay well for job they have to motivate the productivity and allow you to do it at home.

I guess the big question is what do you or did you do. Is it something that can be adapted for home. If not there is no way you can make bank and work from home.

S.M.

answers from Columbus on

I used to do Melaleuca, and I currently sell Mary Kay, and I know a lot of other moms who work with some kind of direct sales: Tupperware, Lia Sophia, Thirty One, Pampered Chef, and so on.

My neighbor does data entry from home, and she makes pretty good money, but she had to pay for her own training. My BIL started a training program for medical coding but he quit halfway through because the distance learning was too much red tape for him.

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L.S.

answers from Spokane on

The one that I know of is medical transcription. You need to take some courses - most are offered on-line. Then you can get hired by a firm or a specific doctor's office and work from home.

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M.K.

answers from Dallas on

www.ratracerebellion.com is a free legit website that lists work at he jobs that are real. However a lot of the jobs are customer service so you will need a quiet work space which means your child will need to be in daycare or watched by dad or whoever while your working. If that is not an option then I agree with the posters. Babysitting. Even after school care will bring I'm some money. Good luck!

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J.W.

answers from Detroit on

I work outside of the home, but I have a friend that doe medical transcribing. She had to be trained, but I don't know what it involves. She used to do it at night when her son went to bed, but now that he is in school, I am sure she does it during the day. The thing to remember is, it is still work and so you have to be very dedicated and focused. I know it is so easy for me to get distracted and find a million little things to do around the house! I am not sure I could do it when the laundry was calling my name! LOL

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T.L.

answers from Los Angeles on

I know a few people answered child care. I often see help wanted posts around Palos Verdes where people are just looking for someone to pick their kids up from school and drive them to day care or soccer practice. I don't know how much it would pay, but if you have a big enough car for your kids and someone else's kids, that might be something to look at.
You could post it on local church boards and day care center boards.

And you COULD try posting on church boards and community boards that you are willing to data entry. I know I am personally sitting on a bunch of stuff for our business and really SHOULD hire a mom to do data entry for me. But we are on such a tight budget right now because I went thru an extended illness a few years back, that I can't afford to hire someone. But I'm sure there are people out there (especially in wealthy areas like Palos Verdes, hint hint) that will hire a dependable mom to do something like that for them :)

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