*

As Ken was filing out some paperwork this morning he asked me the date and as I checked my cell phone and saw October 23^rd … I had a “moment.” Today’s the 4 year anniversary of our house fire … which was of course full of mixed emotions. Sad for what we went through … and thankful for all we have today … and for the decisions I made due to the fire.

It was this point in my life that I decided to figure out how to work from home … on my own schedule … and completely for myself. My kids were a mess and they needed their mom … when they needed her … not when I could work them in around my customers! They were going to after school daycare and we’d had some issues with that too.

At the time I was an independent contractor for a company (http://www.auction123.com) where I helped car dealerships put their used car inventory up for auction on eBay Motors. So even though I did work from home I had scheduled appointments to meet and sales calls to go on and it wasn’t as flexible as I’d hoped.

As with most people who go through a tragedy I can honestly say that a lot of good came from our fire. We are much closer as a family and I believe it changed my parenting – hopefully for the better. LOL.  And it was the true inspiration for me to find a way to work from home and for myself.

I decided to look for an online business. After I got some insurance money (our house and our belongings were deemed a total loss) I looked long and hard for an online business to purchase. I spent hours online looking for a “fit” and one day … Bingo! I found Freelance Daily (http://www.freelancedaily.net) for sale on eBay … and I bought it. It had a net profit of about $15,000 a year and I paid $5,000 for it. I also sunk about $3,000 – $4,000 into some programming and other expenses so I’d say it had a pretty good ROI. It was a great starting point for me in the online business world. It doesn’t meet all of the criteria I look for in a business now but it is the reason I worked so hard at learning keyword research, SEO (search engine optimization), and online marketing.

Once I got the hang of that site I got to plan out my WAHM (work at home mom) site (http://www.wahm-2-wahm.com) and that was really fun. I paid a designer to design it and a programmer to build the site. Unfortunately, the database software I chose for this site was completely over my head! So, once again, I had to open my wallet and pay for some help from a programmer. This site … about $2,000 – $3,000. *sigh*

Quite honestly for the past 4 years I’ve spent full time (and then some) hours online working at these businesses (and the other businesses I’ve started) and learning all I can about keyword research, SEO (search engine optimization) and online marketing … usually putting in anywhere between 10-14 hour days . I often joke that I’m certain by now I have the equivalent of a Master’s degree in online studies. LOL.

I truly love what I “do for a living” and if it weren’t for our fire I’m not sure I would’ve ended up this lucky!

I get a lot of email from readers who want to have an online business and they want to know how to make money NOW from it. I will tell you the same thing I tell them … there are no real short cuts to making a living online. It’s a lot of work but if you enjoy it … it’s worth the hard work to learn how to do so.

I also understand that not everyone has the money to go out and purchase an existing business. Now that I know what I know … I’m certain that both of the businesses I mentioned (and all of the other ventures I’ve started since) can be done on a very small budget so don’t let this discourage you.  

We have friends coming over and I’ll have some fun “celebrating” our 4 year anniversary – and all of the good that has come from the fire tragedy. LOL. I hope you all have a great weekend! *SmiLes* Suzanne

Do you have an online business? If so, how did you get started? If not, do you have a business idea you want to get going? Either way … do you need any help? Let us know!

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