*
As Ken was filing out some paperwork this morning he asked me the date and as I checked my cell phone and saw October 23rd … 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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Hi … My name is Suzanne Franco (Land) and I’m a wife (newlywed actually) and mother to 5 amazing kids (my 3 and his 2 – ages 9 to 16) and we live in the Texas Hill Country where we try to spend a lot of time in the water (river, boating, wakeboarding, the beach, etc.) and running from one kid’s sporting event to the other (mainly football, cheerleading, and soccer).
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That is unreal!
WOW!
Totally speechless!
.-= Diana´s last blog ..Leviton QuickPort =-.
Me and my girlfriend are into this Work At Home programs by selling affiliate products online, we also maintain an online store ‘
Twitter: Dannfresnourban
April 21, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I started an online business because I wanted to share the excitement of living in a vibrant, fun community, and encourage others to support revitalization.so far it has been a great experience
Suzanne,
This is inspirational regarding working at home. Horrible about the fire. It’s unfortunate but I believe everything happens for a reason. The fire happened so you could spend more time with your kids and still do what you love. Thank you for sharing
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Seems like a blessing in disguise for me. What matters is how we deal with things and how positive our perspectives are. Well people tend to have a difficult time finding a positive thing about this. I’m sure you were saddened about the incident but the fact that you were able to pull out some great decisions out of the experience is just amazing.
George