6 ways for stay-at-home parents to make money

Stay-at-home mums and dads are some of the busiest people on the planet. Switching roles between tear-wiper and hug-dispenser to lunch-yielder and ponytail-architect doesn’t leave lots of room for making some extra cash.

Fret not! Our pal Kamal Khurana from Moneymagpie.com is here to give parents a helping hand…

1. Be a virtual assistant

A Virtual Assistant (or VA) is a self-employed person who carries out admin work for companies from their own home. Your role could involve making and taking phone calls, sending out emails, transcription and a wide range of office tasks.  

This kind of work would suit just about anyone with office or secretarial experience and a pleasant telephone manner. On average you should be able to make around £15-25 an hour. Getting work isn’t so easy to start with, so be patient and focus on building your workload slowly but surely.

It’s a good idea to belong to an agency and to join one of the Virtual Assistant associations like the Society of Virtual Assistants to get contacts and establish your client base.

2. Do their laundry!

Do you know your way around an ironing board? You can make good money with a home ironing service. Professional ironers tend to charge between £8 and £12 per hour so find out what the rate is in your area and undercut it.

Plenty of people set up ironing businesses on their own, or you can sign up with an agency. If you live in an area with a lot of business people, simply offering a shirt-ironing service can be enough.

If ironing isn’t your thing, how about doing other people’s laundry? Although it’s not the most exciting of jobs, it can be a nice little earner, particularly if you are able to pick-up and return laundry in your local area. It’s also something you can work around your schedule.

3. Be a doula

Mums can put their wisdom to good use by being a doula and helping new mothers before, during and after the birth. Doulas are ‘mother-supporters’ often filling in the gap where new mums don’t have family around, or don’t want them around, during and after the birth.

Doulas can make between £10-25 an hour for post-natal work and between £300-1,000 for a birth. There are a few courses you can do to learn how to be a doula including the 3-day one run by Britishdoulas.co.uk and some run by the NCT.

4. Get into online surveys

Online surveys are a nice way to make some extra cash from the comfort of your home. You’re never going to get rich doing them but they’re a simple, effective way to make a bit of pin money. Also, some offer extra cash prizes every now and then.

You do have to be careful which ones you go in for, though, as there are quite a few that are just there to take your details to spam you. Check out our list of reliable online surveys sites before you get started.

5. Get blogging

It’s not easy to make money with a blog but it can at least be a great way of getting freebies and building up your own profile. Bloggers like Englishmum and Skint Dad have found fame and a regular earner by writing about family life. You can also make money by choosing to promote advertisers who will pay you for sending customers their way.

Blogs are completely free and pretty easy to set up. Often the successful blogs are ones that find a niche to attract people and then go from there. There are also occasionally websites seeking bloggers to write daily posts and reviews for them. It won’t pay particularly well but it can be a useful little earner for little effort – particularly if you already enjoy writing your own blog.

Making money as a blogger is hard work and can take some time to get going. If you’ve got a passion for it however, then there’s every reason to give it a go. If all else fails you might be able to grab a few freebies for simply writing up reviews.

6. Refer a friend

You can take advantage of the multitude of cash rewards available by getting your friends to sign up for things you think are good. There are more and more companies offering to pay you to refer your friends such as Groupon and the AA to name but a few.

The website Refermehappy.com has a load of companies that do this, and you can join as either a ‘referrer’ or a ‘friend’ and you both get a referral bonus from the company. If your friend is willing to join anyway you might as well make some money from it.

Find out lots more ways for mums to make money in our free eBook.

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