What would you do if you made an extra $1,000 a month? Would you pay off debt or add more to your savings? Maybe it would be the extra money you need to get a new car that your family needs.
In 2008, I knew that I wanted to make extra money at home and have my own business. I read stories about mommy bloggers staying home and making six-figures a year.
How did they do that? What did it take to make extra money at home while taking care of your kids?
I started small, learning about SEO, writing blog posts, and building websites. It took time, and some months, I made no money, but I kept at it. I knew I had it inside of me to make a profit, and I was right.
My big break came in 2017 when I sold a blog that I put together for $143,000. That was my biggest profit at the time, and I became hooked. Now, I make money at home, take care of my son, and pay off debt.
If I can make an extra $1,000 a month, so can you. There are hundreds of ways to make money at home – that’s not an exaggeration. Women do it all of the time; you have to find the right money-making option for you.
I put together a list of stay at home mom jobs that you can explore. Don’t wait; start making money at home!
How To Make Extra Money From Home
Making money from home doesn’t have to be hard, and many options allow you to make money when your kids are awake or sleeping. All of these options can make $1000 on their own, but if you want to secure that money, consider working on several of these at one time.
Having multiple streams of income increases your money-making potential. If you are a crafty person, consider selling your crafts and having a blog showing how to make all of your crafts.
One of the keys to financial security is having different streams of income. We no longer live in an age where an average 9-5 job pays everything. Many people, even millionaires, bring money home in multiple ways.
Aim to be like them and consider all of the ways you can make money from home.
Creative Ways To Make Extra Money On The Side
It takes time to find creative ways to make money. Think about areas that you excel in or things you love. Turn your passions into a business; you’ll love what you do even more that way.
People love classes, and the best thing is that, nowadays, people happily take courses online. In-person classes often sell for less, which is strange, but people pay for the comfort of sitting in their home.
Consider teaching a class, either in person or online, on whatever you know the best. Someone out there wants to learn as well.
My favorite example I could think of is Andrea Bolder. She is an Olympic gold medalist turned online business coach, 6-figure course creator, real estate investor, and mother of two.
Her mission is to teach women how to turn their ideas into profitable digital products and online courses – without sacrificing their time or freedom in the process.
Andrea has served tens of thousands of women globally through her courses, membership sites and social platforms. She’s the visionary behind WomanpreneuHER University, an online community for women entrepreneurs who are ready for 6-figure success.
Read this post for 25+ Creative Ways To Make Money.
Make Extra Money Online Offering Your Skills
Working online gives you the most flexibility and options to make an extra $1000 a month. Many of these opportunities require no special education aside from taking a course or two to get your feet wet and learn the basics.
If you decide to try and learn how to make extra money online, you’ll need a good computer. Working on your phone is limited, even if you have a smartphone or an iPad. This is particularly true if you opt for a writing job; writing on your phone takes too much time.
Here are some of the most lucrative stay-at-home mom jobs online.
1. Start Freelance Writing
Becoming a freelance writer requires no professional experience and has the potential to be a lucrative, full-time online business. The possibilities are endless when it comes to freelance writing, but most write blogs for business, articles for websites, ebooks, landing pages, or sale pages for businesses.
First, freelance writing might start slow, but making $50-100 per hour is possible as you gain confidence and experience. You’ll have to learn how to work at home with kids and how to balance your schedule properly, but it’s all feasible. Moms do it all of the time!
Here’s an example!
Bethany Hayes, the blogger at Family Growing Pains and freelance writer, makes over $7,000 per month with her freelance writing business. She stays home with her four kids and homeschools them.
2. Become A Virtual Assistant
Are you good at keeping everyone around you organized? If so, becoming a virtual assistant might be for you.
Working as VA gives you huge flexibility in tasks; everyone offers different packages. Some help manage blogs by creating and writing content, creating pins for Pinterest, and answering emails. Others keep the books, make spreadsheets, and schedule phone conferences.
Most VAs are paid hourly, and you will need to have excellent organizational skills.
Meet Nakisha Blain. She is a savvy virtual assistant to business owners with various social media tasks to grow their businesses.
3. Become An Online Transcriptionist
Transcription is a lucrative job, but it often does require a course to get started. It depends on what type of online transcription you want to try. Medical transcription requires background knowledge and an understanding of the topic at hand.
Don’t let needing to take a course stop you. The courses come with a small fee, but some are free. Taking a course helps you start on the right foot.
4. Start A Virtual Bookkeeping Business
If you’re a number geek, starting a bookkeeping business is an excellent choice for you. While some jobs want you to have an accounting background, most bookkeepers gain their knowledge through on-the-job training, existing skills, and taking introductory courses to get started.
5. Become A Social Media Manager
Social media is everything right now, and social media managers take care of the posting for businesses. If you understand marketing along with all of the forms of social media, this gig could be for you.
Social media managers don’t require any degree, but there are tons of courses online to help you understand and increase your skills. Clients want to generate sales and new customers when branching out on social media. You’ll handle running their Facebook or Instagram ads, making Pinterest pins, and other tasks that bring them traffic.
How To Make Extra Money On The Side
6. Take Surveys Online
Taking surveys online won’t make you $1000 a month, but it’s a way to make $50 extra a week. If you’re short of your goal, taking a few surveys online earns you money without leaving your recliner.
Many survey companies offer cash or gift cards as compensation. If you want to make extra cash for Christmas, consider taking surveys and opting to collect gift cards instead. After several months, you could have hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards to buy presents.
7. Clean A Few Houses
People always want to find a reliable housekeeper; cleaning homes is a way to make a small business with kids. Opt to clean homes when your spouse is home or one of your family members will keep your kids for free or cheap.
Cleaning people charge between $20-50 per hour, and if you keep at it, word of mouth eventually spreads. You’ll have plenty of clients; only take as many as you can comfortably fit into your schedule.
If you want to make $1000 cleaning homes, you’ll need to average around 12 hours per week at $20 an hour. You can work less if you charge more!
8. Walk Dogs Locally
If you love dogs and live in a reasonably large area, dog walkers make a lot of money. Dog walkers charge, in general, $15-20 for a 20-minute walk and up to $30 for a 30-minute walk. Many clients are repeats who need someone to walk their dog when they’re at work, so building a dog walking business cashes in quickly.
Depending on your child’s age, it’s possible to take them along with you when you walk dogs. Otherwise, schedule this when your spouse is home.
Think that walking dogs isn’t a real business?
Think again! Kristin Morrison took her love for dogs and turned it into a six-figure business, and now, she coaches others on how to make their pet-related business profitable.
A woman who created a business helping others do the same thing? I love that, and you should too!
9. Deliver Groceries
People love working for Instacart. The idea behind it is that people like you order groceries, and you go pick up their groceries for them. Instacart pays you a wage, and the people tip you. While you might have some bad tippers, most people highly appreciate the time you save them and tip accordingly.
10. Delivery Food
If your area has UberEats or DoorDash, all you need is a car, and you can make money delivering food. The days of only having pizza delivered are long gone. With these companies, it’s possible to deliver McDonald’s or any local company that allows the service.
Just like Instacart, you’re paid an hourly amount plus a tip.
How Can I Make An Extra $1000 A Month?
If you want to make an extra $1000 a month, try capitalizing on your passions or skills. Sell homemade products or skills that you know. Learn a new skill, such as freelance writing.
It takes time to build one money-making gig up to $1000 per month, so try working on several things simultaneously. Start a small freelance writing business while babysitting your friends’ kids and walking a few local jobs. As you build a business in any of those three areas, you decrease the other areas.
Starting a business, no matter what it is, takes work and dedication. If you’re ready to hit the ground running, here are a few things you should know.
What You Need To Do To Make An Extra $1,000 A Month
Once you decide that you want to make money from home, you need to get into the right mindset. It takes work; money doesn’t fall from the sky, unfortunately. I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that it comes with frustration and tears at times, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
Here’s what you need to do if you want to make extra money each month from home.
Set Aside Work Time
Working at home with kids is challenging; I have to be honest. Kids have many needs, and you have to learn how to balance those needs with your business that you want to create.
Set aside time each day to work. Persistence pays off and working each day at your goals matters. If you talk to moms who are successful in making money at home, most will tell you that it takes hours and hours of dedication and hard work. It rarely comes easy or fast.
Part of that is putting time aside each week to work. Find times that work with your family’s schedule; that might mean you stay up a bit later than usual or use some of your weekends to work.
Work Hard
When I made my first $20k profit, it came from working hard. I spent weeks working on my project, and it was far from easy. I thought about giving up a few times and did for a short period, but I kept at it.
Success requires hard work, so if you want to make extra money at home, expect to work harder than you are right now. That’s okay! Working hard sets wonderful examples for our kids and helps us grow as individuals. I learned so much about myself throughout the process.
Accept Less Sleep Sometimes
I had no idea how much work it would take to build blogs and websites from the ground up, but I quickly realized that I would need to stay up later than usual to complete my tasks. My husband understood, and I slept in on the weekends.
Long hours don’t last forever; as you start making money, you write the schedule that works for you.
Know Failures Will Happen
Go into your journey of making money at home with the expectation that failures will happen. Sometimes, you miss deadlines. You might have a client upset, or your blog might not gain traffic for months at a time.
That’s okay; use your failures to grow. Take what you learned from that experience and grow with it. It will help you in the long run.
Set Goals And Crush Them
Make goals! Write out small, realistic goals that you can meet and build momentum, and set big goals. Don’t be afraid to make big goals that, at the time, seem light-years away. With hard work and dedication, you can make any goal that you set.
After you set your goals, write out the steps that are needed to meet those goals. What do you need to make that step happen? You can break down each goal into actionable steps to take. You will stumble on some of those steps, but eventually, you’ll hit that goal if you don’t give up.
FAQS
What Jobs Make $1000 A Month?
If you want to make a consistent $1000 a month, you need to find a skill you love and create a small business. Jobs such as freelance writing, editing, transcribing, or social media manager offer the opportunity to make $1000 a month as you build your skills.
How Can I Make $1000 Fast?
Many online jobs require the time to develop the skills and clientele to make $1000, but if you need to make money fast, here are some options.
- Sell things around your house on the Facebook marketplace.
- Search yard sales and sell your finds for more money.
- Clean a few houses for friends and family.
- Walk dogs in your neighborhood.
- Offer babysitting services on your local Moms group.
How Can I Make $1000 A Month Online?
Making $1000 online is possible, but it often takes time to build up your skills and clients. A few online jobs that easily make $1,000 per month include:
- Freelance Writing
- Editing
- Copywriting
- Blogging
- Social Media Managing
- Virtual Assisting
Final Thoughts
Figuring out how to make an extra $1000 a month feels intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be scary. Start with one or two options that make the most sense to you, and go for it. Eventually, you’ll find the perfect way to make extra money at home for you while still being a stay-at-home mom.