5 Home Business Ideas To Look Into & Why

I am asked pretty often for ideas to generate money from home, or rather “I wish I had ad additional stream of income, how the heck do you do it”, followed by “I am not a sales person though”. In the meantime, they do nothing and choose to complain about it. Sigh. If someone does come up with the magic formula of making money without doing anything or spending any money YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO CALL ME and tell me about it. Must be legal (LOL).

For now, I am going to share with you 5 Home Business ideas you can look into, but first, here is why: if you need extra cash – why not look into one of these, if your 401k ain't looking bright – why not look into one of these, if you haven't been on a REAL vacation for years – why not look into one of these, if you are complaining constantly about needing a way to make money from home – why not look into one of these, if your kids want to go to college – why not look into one of these, if you are bored and on Facebook all day – why not look into one of these, if tax time turns you into an alcoholic or an angry beast – why not look into one of these? (MOST expenses generated to support your business, including start up kits, costs, supplies, etc… are deductible which means it reduces the taxable income, which means you pay taxes on less money, which means you pay less taxes). Just sayin'

Ok, right off the top of my head here: 5 Home Business Ideas To Look Into

1- NETWORK MARKETING: Yes, I list this first because I happen to have been very successful with this (believe it or not) and I do this all online and well, if you are reading this post, maybe you can do this online too. Just call me or email me and I will send you info for you to read. I promise I won't call ya, unless you call me, then I would be rude if I didn't return your call LOL.

Why network marketing? It offers you a business model already set up for you with product line, marketing pieces, e-commerce tools and step by step instructions. The overhead is usually whatever either YOU or your products consume in a month (usually about $100) and ALL OF THIS can be tax deductible. Yes, even your monthly if this is a requirement for you to earn your paycheck that month. (Do check with an accountant for your specific scenario as I can only point this out for you but can't legally confirm it).

2- UBER: Yes, the car company? Haven't heard of it? Google it. Uber pays people with cars to drive other people around in their area. If you own a car, a cell phone and you are not drunk during the day, this might work for you! Specially if you have a decent car, know your area and are a people person (although I personally prefer not to talk to the driver, relax and hope I don't get killed. But that's just me.)

3- PHOTOGRAPHY: Yes, it requires you to have or buy a decent camera and editing software. I didn't say these ideas were all going to be freebies. There is always an investment to be made. Sometimes it is money, sometimes it is time and sometimes it is both. Now photography is MOST profitable at first if you want to take pictures of PEOPLE. In fact I'd say weddings are probably the most profitable, although eeeek how scary right? You can work up to that though. Start with family pics, or kids portraits or have a couple teenagers come over and take pics for their Facebook or Instagram profiles. Just make sure this doesn't look creepy. If you have a teenage daughter yourself, that's best LOL. Then after a little practice, work up to maybe Senior Packages.

There is a lot to photography but thankfully you can learn all the basis with a simple YouTube search or even joining Facebook groups. You can join a local Meetup and meet other fellow beginners and learn from each other.

4- EBAY: One of my neighbor's used to buy and sell on eBay for a LIVING! How crazy is that? They always had all kinds of items laying around. He'd buy sale items and then sell them for a profit on ebay when the sale was over. Remember Tickle Me Elmo? He made a killing with that uber creepy toy. You'd have to have a good eye for trends. You can also sell things for other people for a nominal fee or a cut of the sale price. There are lots of books on Amazon on how to run a business on eBay. Start selling your own extra stuff to get a feel for it, then go from there.

5- VA (Virtual Assistant) or SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: The internet is BOOMING with entrepreneurs running a business online.  And obviously, social media is a hot marketing forum. People are always looking for help with their fanpages, blogs, responding to customer email, etc! If you are savvy with this stuff, you can make a LOT OF MONEY as a social media manager! Check into it for free by Googling ideas. You will come across lots of courses, but I don't think you need to invest in that, just keep looking. Dig out people who ARE already in this role and scope out their websites and pages to see how they market themselves and what they offer. There are a ton of tools (like Pagemodo) that make fanpage posting in advance a BREEZE.

This last home business idea is my FAVORITE to suggest to those who are on Facebook all the time! You already know the ropes!

These are just 5 that seem the most feasible and legit to me. If you'd like to share what YOU do if you work from home, feel free to share that in the comments!

**Don't forget to check out my new book “The Awesome Factor: An Inspiring Guide for Embracing Your Passion and Pursuing Your Dream Business” now available on Amazon!