Are you a stay-at-home mom that would like to earn an income? With 30% of mothers choosing to work inside the home, the availability of flexible and fast-earning freelance jobs has had to increase to meet demand. This article will advise how to prepare, search for and find the best legitimate freelance jobs as a stay-at-home mom.
For many moms, staying home is more cost-effective than returning to work. With childcare costs increasing by 63% in the US, returning to work full-time can cost more than becoming a stay-at-home mom. Remote jobs are ideal for stay-at-home moms, allowing moms to earn an income without worrying about childcare costs.
Many moms would also love the chance to stay home with their kids. Remote work provides huge flexibility, allowing moms with babies and infants to work while their kids sleep. It also allows stay-at-home moms to work around older kids’ school schedules. Remote work is ideal for women with kids of all ages looking to earn a flexible income.
The first part of finding online work as a stay-at-home mom is consolidating all your skills, experience and certifications into one place. You can then use this to apply for jobs, start to secure clients or set up your own freelance business. Once you’ve got a handle on what you’ve got to offer, you can also set realistic freelance rates. 
Read below for a more detailed breakdown:
Consolidating your skills is about gathering your skills, accreditations or work experience and showcasing it in a way that appeals to clients or employers. You’ll want to build a resume, portfolio and website showcasing everything you’re great at.
Your resume showcases all your work experience, skills and accreditations in one place. Creating a resume is the best place to start if you’re looking for remote work with an employer. When you want to start your own business as a freelancer, your resume might be a website portfolio showcasing your projects and current clients.
Once you’ve got your resume or portfolio together, it’s time to start looking for a job, and the best place to start is by registering on job sites. When setting up a profile on job sites, fill as much out as possible to make it easy for recruiters or employers to find you. Setting your job profile to ‘public’ will also help speed up the job hunt unless you want to leave your current job and need your search to be private.
You can search traditional job boards like CareerBuilder, Indeed, or Monster when looking for flexible jobs, but this can often be time-consuming. The smarter way to search is to look at flexible or remote working sites like:
These job boards can help you find remote full-time, part-time, or contract-based roles to help you land legitimate and fast-earning jobs for stay-at-home moms. 
Setting your freelance rates helps you determine how much you’ll get paid. Setting your rates according to your skill level and, most importantly, what you’re happy to get paid is essential. Review your skills and your list of services, and set realistic freelance rates for each task. Research other freelancers in the field on sites like WeWorkRemotely.com to see what others are offering.
Multiple sectors offer a range of jobs for stay-at-home moms. From teaching to translation, many choices exist for moms looking for remote working opportunities.
Freelance writing is a broad role that can be used to set yourself up as an independent trader, work at an agency, or apply for a full-time remote position. You could be writing resumes, drafting copy for a website, or ghostwriting someone’s lifestyle blog. 
The advantages of freelance writing are numerous: as long as you have a laptop and the internet, you can start whenever you want. The limitations of freelance writing depend on your skill level, as you need to be a good typist and writer to start charging higher rates.
A Virtual Assistant provides organizational and administrative skills for clients. You might book travel, manage a calendar and answer emails or the phone. The advantage of working as a virtual assistant is setting your hours and hourly rate. However, as a virtual assistant, you must be highly motivated to source new clients and gain an appropriate understanding of their business.
Online tutoring is ideal if you have a particular skill that you can teach to others. You can choose between teaching adult learners or kids and monetize whatever skill you enjoy. For example, you could teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL), math, or science skills. The downside of online tutoring is that your work often extends beyond your core hours, as you must prepare lesson plans, learning material and homework.
Online coaching is a way of teaching online skills that go beyond traditional educational topics. You might be coaching your client to improve public speaking, build a CV, learn how to interview, or develop a hobby. Online coaching can include career coaching or personal and life coaching. 
The drawback of online coaching is that you must understand and reach a range of people across multiple sectors and personality types. This can be hugely interesting but also requires a lot of patience and background research.
Social media management refers to handling a client’s social media channels, including sites like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter. Social media management is ideal if you have grown your follower base or have done this for customers before. 
The benefits of social media management are that you can schedule posts in advance and therefore have great flexibility. However, your clients will expect you to demonstrate concrete results in growing followers and creating engaging posts.
Transcription is listening to voice recordings and converting them into written documents. As a transcriptionist, you might be required to do this for legal, medical or business-related documents. Working as a transcriptionist is lucrative but requires substantial training and patience.
Translation requires taking a document in one language and translating it into another, capturing the original text’s meaning, tone, and writing style. Translating is ideal if you are fluent in two or more languages. Many translators have had years of training, and some clients require texts to be submitted within a short deadline, making translating a pressurized field.
Online surveys are questionnaires that can be filled out via a form. Stay-at-home moms can join panels like Swagbucks or LifePoints, and answer questions from their laptops or phones for financial payouts. 
 
The biggest benefit of online surveys is that they can be done anytime and require little to no skill level. The largest downside is that payouts are traditionally very low per survey, and you can also get screened out if you don’t meet their criteria.
A great way to start a business is by selling items online. You can make and sell your items on Amazon or Etsy or set up your eCommerce store using resources like the WordPress Woocommerce plugin or sites like Shopify. You could also use techniques like affiliate marketing on your blog or website to sell other people’s products or services.
The drawback of online selling is that it usually requires items and some initial set-up to manage. Once your eCommerce site is automated and running well, you can make money while sleeping without investing too much time in the business.
Anyone can start a blog, but it requires a little bit of planning before it earns money. Pairing a creative enterprise with a blog, like writing a book and blogging about the topic, is a great way to monetize and sell. Affiliate marketing is also a good way to make money from your blog; you write about or endorse your affiliate’s product and profit off a percentage of the related sales.
The benefits of blogging are that anyone can start a blog, it is flexible, and it can even be scheduled in advance. The drawbacks are that converting into a fully paid enterprise will take a little time and planning.
Data entry clerks add information about a particular product or subject into a spreadsheet. Freelance opportunities like this are often posted on sites like Upwork. They usually require a basic knowledge of Excel and typing skills to complete. The drawback of data entry freelance roles is that they usually are required within quite tight deadlines. 
Are you a stay-at-home mom with graphic design skills? As a freelance graphic designer, you would work with clients to design illustrations and images. You will often do this via dedicated computer software and sketching tools. The benefits of being a freelance graphic designer are that you get to monetize a skill. However, you will still need to invest time in building your own business, which could be time-consuming.
Pet sitting is the dream job for stay-at-home moms that love pets. Pet sitting requires you to babysit someone’s beloved dog or small animal for a certain period. You’ll likely need to take them for walks, feed them and generally look after them. It’s a great job if you love animals but it requires substantial dedication and time. If you or a family member are allergic, it’s not the right job for you.
Freelance customer service roles can be contracted, like virtual assistance or full-time remote roles. If your job is more like a Virtual Assistant, you’ll often need to act as a virtual front-of-house for smaller companies, helping customers who have placed orders or are having issues. To work in Customer Services, you’ll need to be comfortable talking to people and be patient when dealing with customer complaints.
If you’ve already got coding skills in HTML, CSS or JavaScript, freelance web design can be a great job for stay-at-home moms. As a stay-at-home mom, you could invest in an online coding course like SheCodes to develop your skills. Web design is a great business for those who enjoy coding, but it will require you to develop and hone the skills before starting work.
Do you enjoy planning events, staying on top of trends and bringing people together? Event planning might be the ideal job for you. Event planners put together everything from grandma’s 50th to large corporate events. On average, event planners earn nearly $50,000 annually, making it one of the best-paid jobs for stay-at-home moms. One of the only drawbacks is you might need to travel to events, which might be difficult if you have young children at home.
A matchmaker is someone who enjoys pairing up friends and making connections. You will be tasked with finding out what your clients are looking for in a relationship and helping them find a match from a database. Matchmaking can be done from home but requires time and excellent communication skills to understand your clients and their needs.
 A brand ambassador sells products or services for their clients on social media or via email. This could be your ideal job if you have a background in sales, marketing or retail. Brand ambassador jobs are usually in high demand around the holiday period and are perfect for stay-at-home moms as they can be done from home. However, they are often paid on commission and fluctuate throughout the year, so it might not be great if you’re looking for a stable income.
Proofreaders and editors carry out different jobs to freelance writers. They are often required to proofread or edit a writer’s work before publication. It’s an ideal job for stay-at-home moms with an eye for detail and a good grasp of grammar. It is often paid per article, but you may find a full-time role by looking on Indeed or FlexJobs. 
Do you have an eye for taking photos? You could consider becoming an event photographer or directly selling your photos. Photographers are in high demand for events like engagements, weddings, or family shoots. You could combine your photography skills with videography to sell your skills as a package to people after an event. This role may not be suitable if you cannot travel, as you’ll often need to attend in-person events.
Are you great with children? Why not consider looking after other people’s kids simultaneously as your own? Working as a childminder is a great idea if you’re already staying at home with your children. You’ll need to obtain a childcare license and potentially some additional qualifications. This might not be your role if your own little darlings are demanding enough.
Bookkeepers track finance and income for other businesses. They might be responsible for managing and sending out invoices or managing sales or purchase ledgers for organizations. It’s an ideal role for individuals with experience in accounting or finance or if you are prepared to gain the necessary qualifications.
An online stylist is like a virtual personal shopper. Individuals can submit their body shape, style preferences and what they want to dress for. A style consultant can then advise on color pairings, a capsule wardrobe, or specific clothing for an event. This could be the perfect job if you have a real eye for design.
A content manager is a role that combines freelance writing, editing and social media management. Clients will approach you to manage the content generated for their business. You could be managing a team of freelance writers and editing their work, creating content briefs, and even helping to produce vlogs and podcasts. This job is ideal for someone skilled at freelance writing, editing and social media management.
If you’ve worked full-time in a particular role or sector, why not consider offering the same services as a freelancer? A freelance consult is a broad term for anyone qualified to advise businesses on departments like marketing, finance, or sales. You might go in and provide those services directly as a freelancer or advise on how to improve their existing departments.
Inside sales is the process of developing leads, new partnerships and business for a portfolio of clients. If you have sales experience, this could be your ideal role. Leads could be built via emails, calling, or online research. These roles can often be tied to commission and a basic annual salary.
Are you handy with a needle and thread? You might want to consider working as a seamstress. A seamstress will tailor, repair and design clothing for clients. Customers will drop off items for alteration or provide you with a design and sizing, and then you can sew and alter them according to your schedule.
Jobs for stay-at-home moms are great as they allow you to leverage the benefits of working from home. You can enjoy the following:
Remote working allows you to eliminate commuting time and spend the time you want with your kids and loved ones. See your kids grow up, switch off after work and spend more time doing the things you enjoy.
You can usually fit most remote work around school pick-up and nap times, making it ideal for a stay-at-home mom. Finding a job that allows you to move around the hours of your day can also allow you to respond flexibly to unexpected emergencies, like if your child is sick.
Working remotely eliminates expensive childcare or the stress of finding family members to look after your kids while you work. Childcare is a huge barrier for women looking to return to the workplace full-time, and remote working removes this as an obstacle for stay-at-home moms.
Working at home with a baby does require some planning. Here are some times for working from home with a baby or infant:
Most importantly, try not to beat yourself up when working remotely with a baby. There will be times when you won’t be able to do everything you want to.
Ultimately, there are jobs for stay-at-home moms that provide flexibility, work-life balance and the opportunity to avoid childcare costs. If you have a baby, be kind to yourself and schedule time as much as possible. No matter the age of your kids, there are writing, design, sales and media jobs that will allow you to earn a decent living while raising your kids. Find the perfect job for stay-at-home moms and start making the money you deserve today.
Yes, many remote jobs earn the same as full-time jobs outside the home. Once you attain a certain skill level as a freelancer, you can also charge more for your rates and services, raising your overall income.
The biggest challenge of working as a stay-at-home mom is that you may be required to look after your children simultaneously. This can be stressful, especially if you have young children that require a lot of care and attention and a job that requires focus. You can also be deprived of adult company as a stay-at-home mom. Make sure you connect with friends, family, and professional colleagues outside the home as much as possible.
Having designated work and home spaces can help you feel focused when working. Giving yourself regular breaks, dressing for work and maintaining regular work hours can also help you stay motivated, refreshed and productive. 
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