5 tried and tested ways to make money as a UK stay at home mum

Posted on 4:00pm Wednesday 23rd May 2018

As soon as I had my first daughter I knew I didn’t really want to return to my manager role after maternity. I’d been with the company for nine years and had assumed I’d be there forever. Having my first child totally changed my opinion though. After one year’s maternity I didn’t want to return to full time work in a demanding role that often required last minute overtime. I wouldn’t be able to commit to the role as I had pre-children. I also wasn’t ready to put my daughter in full time childcare from 8am to 6pm, only seeing her for one hour or so per evening before it was her bedtime. The thought really upset me. It was time to find a new job or way of working from home where I could be there for my daughter in the day times and see her do new things and reach milestones for myself. In this article I will share five tried and tested ways to make money as a stay at home mum in the UK. Who knows, it could even become a full time occupation for you!

Originally I trained to be a childminder which seemed the perfect job whilst my daughter was little. I completed the training, but our current home didn’t have enough space. We were in the process of selling our existing home, but it took a lot longer than anticipated – around eight months! We ended up buying a home that needed totally redoing so this took all our time and four years on we’re still not finished! We then fell pregnant with our second child so I decided not to pursue the childminding. We just had too much to do in our new home and a new baby on the way. I also wasn’t as passionate about it anymore as I’d already started my Lylia Rose business. I do always wonder what would have happened if we had managed to sell quicker and moved into a house that needed no or little work. Perhaps I’d be a full time childminder today!

After my first maternity leave I did get a part time evening job. I’ve worked three part time jobs in total, up until last May when I made the decision to go full time with my blogging and home earnings. I’d earned more than my part time wage for six months straight by this point, so I knew it was the right decision. Luckily I have managed to make a consistent full time wage being self-employed from home for an entire year now and will share the ways below.

Here are my tried and tested ways of making money from home as a UK stay at home mum:

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Blogging

If you love to write then blogging is the perfect stay at home career. It can fit in around parent duties and is also location independent. You just need a laptop and internet connection. Don’t expect to start a blog and earn money instantly though. I started mine in spring 2013 and didn’t start to make any money from it until spring 2016. To be fair, it wasn’t my original intention to make money from it, but if I’d realised the potential sooner I am sure I could have made money after a year or two instead. It takes time to build up content, stats, readership and an authoritative website. Don’t let that put you off though. If you are serious about blogging and perhaps one day making an income from it, then you simply need to get started.

Helpful articles if you want to monetise your blog:
Make money from your blog with Awin affiliate marketing
Make money from your blog without Google ads
4 ways to find paid blog opportunities
How I save hours every week scheduling tweets with Social Oomph
How to improve your domain authority (DA)

Matched Betting

Matched betting is quite a controversial way to make money from home, but personally I love it. Many people who aren’t matched bettors simply assume it’s gambling, but those of us who do it know it’s not gambling and the aim is to make a profit! I wouldn’t do it at all if I was gambling with my money. There is obviously risk involved as you can make a mistake, but if you follow the instructions you will make a profit. I’ve made a couple of silly mistakes and lost £10 here and there, perhaps only three or so times, but I’ve learned from those mistakes. In the one year and three months I’ve been a matched bettor I’ve made almost £4300 in profit. I now only spend 30 minutes to 1.5 hours per week matched betting, so it’s very part time for me. I make £100-£300 per month with a £100 target. This is tax free cash too as the tax office do class it as gambling winnings!

The company I use who have enabled me to learn the process and make so much money is Profit Accumulator who I still use and highly recommend. It’s possible to make more and it’s possible to make less. It depends how much time you can devote and which methods you continue to use after the sign up offers.

Here are some great posts if you’re thinking of starting:
I made over £3000 matched betting in 2017
£753.62 Matched Betting Profit Month One (and silly mistakes)
Not sure about matched betting? Make £40ish now to see if it’s for you!
Is matched betting a gateway to gambling and is it dirty money?

Website testing

I’m so pleased I discovered website testing as it’s a quick and easy way to top up my other home earnings. Tests can take as little as 5 minutes to complete and the longest has taken me approximately 20 minutes. Each test is for a different website or app. Just make sure you read the instructions carefully as the tests can be rejected. I’ve only had one test rejected as I accidently used my iPhone instead of an Android. Oops!

Find out how you can test websites here: Easily make money from home by testing websites

Selling online

Selling items online is a great side hustle or could even be a full time job. You can sell your old unwanted belongings on eBay or Facebook Marketplace to declutter and make cash in the process. You can also become an ecommerce retailer by buying stock and selling it on your own website or eBay or Amazon. If you’re crafty then try Etsy to sell your unique wares. If you’ve a keen eye for a bargain in stores then reselling on eBay for a profit could be for you. I’ve tried all of these methods and today I still sell all our outgrown and unwanted items on Ebay and Facebook as well as selling some new fashion scarves on this very website in my own Scarf Boutique.

Mystery tasks

There are lots of ‘mystery shopping’ type apps out there. Some aren’t really shopping at all, but simply short surveys or photos you can take at home. Many are secret short audits you carry out in store. My favourite apps are Streetbees, Roamler, BeMyEye and Task360. You could make a few pounds each time you visit the supermarket to do your shopping if there’s a task whilst you’re there.

There are so many ways to make money from home nowadays. It really does give us mums the flexibility to make a part time or full time wage around parenting duties. There’s no need to return to a full time job and have to use full time childcare if that’s not right for you. Simply start exploring some at home options and get the ball rolling to a happier career today!

Is Your Website Truly Monetizable?

Posted on 8:00am Tuesday 1st May 2018

If you have a website that you are keen to make some money out of, you first need to make sure that it is actually going to be possible to do that in the first place. Monetizing a website is harder than people tend to think, or at least harder to actually make a decent amount of money with it. But if you are keen to make it happen, then you will find that it is perfectly possible to do, so long as you know what it is that you actually need to do. In this article, I am going to look at some of the things that you might want to consider in order to see whether your website is truly monetizable, or whether it might need some help.

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Clear Navigation

First of all, you want to make the experience of visiting your website as easy as possible for all those who visit it. This means above all that you need to make it clear and easy to navigate, which is something you should be able to achieve by simply using the right software. However, if it is proving difficult to get this right, then you could benefit from hiring the help of a professional wordpress developer, as they will be able to make sure that your website really is as easy as possible to get around. The clearer the navigation, the longer people will stay there, and the more money you will be able to get out of it - so this is more important than you might initially think.

Frequent Updates

You can’t expect to make money from a stagnant website, which is why it is always going to be necessary to make sure you are frequently updating your site as best as possible. As long as you are updating it as a routine thing, you should find that it is easier to monetize, simply because you actually have an active site which people are more likely to visit more often. If you are a little lost as to what to update it with that often, this might be a sign that you need to change tracks and focus on something more in line with what you know about - or that you should widen out and go for more variety. Either way, give it some kind of focus so that you can really start to make some money out of it.

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Marketing

You need to start thinking of your website as a business, and in particular to make sure that you are marketing it far and wide. The more you do this, the more people will come to it, and that will mean that you can more easily make money out of it. This might seem obvious, but a lot of people completely overlook the marketing side of things,and it can lead to some pretty unfortunate circumstances. Make sure you are marketing your website as best as you can if you want to really make money from it.

The 5 ways I made £30000 from home in 2017/2018

Posted on 1:50pm Tuesday 24th Apr 2018

This is a blog post from one of those really annoying people who completed their tax return as soon as possible and files it nine months before the deadline. Hello! Honestly though, a genuine query, why do people leave it so late or until the last minute? Every January I see people on social media and in networking groups panicking about getting their tax returns in on time. Why not turn it around and file it as soon as the year end is up? This way there’s no panicking and plenty of time to pay it. My advice is to save up for your tax return through the year so you have the money ready to pay it at the end of the tax year.

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I had a really good self-employed tax year and as my tax was over £1000 I now have to ‘pay on account’ for 2018/2019. This means I have to pay half of my predicted tax (they give me the figures) by January 2019 and the other half by June 2019. So by the time the January 2020 deadline rolls around I will have already paid my tax or most of it. I’ll pay it in April 2019 anyway so I only need to worry about paying the first payment on account which I’ll save up for each month anyway.

I was thinking of leaving my tax money in savings until it had to be paid in January as it makes sense to earn interest on it, but I just panic too much that I’ll forget to pay it altogether, so for my own peace of mind I have to pay it right away.

My total bill was just under £4000. Luckily I had been saving this every month. This bill is for income tax, class 2 national insurance, class 4 national insurance and student loan repayments. I check the government and student loan websites each year to find out the personal allowance thresholds and the percentages they take above these. I then add formulas to my spreadsheet so it works out the exact amount I owe from my profits. That way I can save enough every month by popping the money into a savings account and forgetting about it.

Not all of my methods of earning money from home are taxed. For example, matched betting and selling used personal belongings on eBay are tax-free. Blogging, side hustles and selling online for a profit is all taxed.

To give you an idea of outgoings, I spent around £4000 on business expenses. Take this and my tax bill off and I earned approximately £22,000 after tax and expenses. Not too bad for my first tax year of working from home full time. In fact I’m very impressed with myself!

I’m not sure if next year will be as successful as I know matched betting will be a lot lower as the sign up offers were most lucrative when I began in January 2017. But on the other hand I have found a couple of new side hustles such as testing websites which I hope to do more of. I’ve also increased my blogging fees and have more contacts than this time last year. So we’ll see.

Here are the five ways I made money from home in the tax year 2017/2018 and my approximate total turnover:

Approx Total Turnover 2017/2018
Everything blogging: reviews, sponsored, giveaways, blogging for others, blog comp winnings, social media, ads, affiliate, referrals	£22,930
Online selling: personal eBay, LR shop & reselling	£3,209
Matched betting	£2,649
Side hustles: Mystery shopping, shop audits, surveys, website testing, receipt hog, etc	£557
Top Cashback	£293
TOTAL	£29,638

Blogging

This has been my most successful way to make money from home. I had a head start when I decided to monetize my blog as I’d already been blogging for five years by that point. I then just accepted some paid posts that landed in my inbox until January 2017 when I decided to really go for it, apply for blog opportunities and get myself out there.

The best thing about blogging is you can blog about whatever you like. If you love writing, then I’m sure you’ll love blogging. It’s so brilliant to build a website and have something that’s mine. Blogging has given me the freedom to seriously work from home and to have more flexibility whilst we have a young family.

Online selling

I do love online selling. This was probably sparked from being an e-commerce fulfilment manager for a few years before I had kids. It’s a thrill every time I sell something online. I sell our used personal belongings on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. There’s a constant stream of things I can sell as the kids are quickly growing out of clothes and toys. I also have a small online boutique on this website. I have dabbled in a little reselling but I don’t find it very profitable and it’s quite time consuming. It’s probably better for someone who can devote a lot of time to it and spend time sourcing good stock.

Matched betting

I started matched betting in January 2017 and made the majority of my profit then. In total I’ve made over £4000 since I started. This is even more amazing as it’s tax free! The only outgoings are my monthly Profit Accumulator membership fees which were £17.99 per month but after 12 months they reduced to £14.99 per month. You can also sign up for a yearly fee and save money on membership, but for flexibility I use the monthly option. I just take the fee out of my profits.

The company I use who have enabled me to learn the process and make so much money is Profit Accumulator who I still use and highly recommend. It’s possible to make more and it’s possible to make less. It depends how much time you can devote and which methods you continue to use after the sign up offers.

Here are some great posts if you’re thinking of starting:
I made over £3000 matched betting in 2017
I’ve made £300 tax free cash from home in 2 weeks and you can too!
£753.62 Matched Betting Profit Month One (and silly mistakes)
Not sure about matched betting? Make £40ish now to see if it’s for you!
Is matched betting a gateway to gambling and is it dirty money?

Side hustles

I love finding and testing other ways of making extra cash from home and have tried so many ways over the past year from surveys to mystery shopping. My favourite ways are using Roamler and Streetbees for random tasks and mystery audits. I have also started website testing with What Users Do for £5 per test and they’re very easy to do: Easily make money from home by testing websites

Top cashback

I joined Top Cashback in April 2016 so I’ve been a member for two years this month. It was one of the best financial decisions I ever made and I should have joined so much sooner. I get cashback on almost a weekly basis on all sorts of normal things. I’d never buy anything just because there is cashback, but if I am already going to buy something then I’ll check to see if I can get cashback on it. I’ve earned almost £300 cashback on things I’d buy anyway in the past year. As a household we’ve earned even more cashback as my husband has an account too, but I don’t track his cashback withdrawals on my blog.

Learn how to earn cashback on things you already buy and be amazed with amount of extra cash you have back in your pocket!

Three Killer Ways To Bring Customers To Your Business Without Promoting The Product

Posted on 6:25pm Friday 13th Apr 2018

Increase, Creative, Idea, Icon, Light, Business, Design

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No matter what type of digital business you manage, getting customers to your website is integral to your ongoing success. While promoting the products in an effective way is vital, consumers will form opinions based on the brand image too. Therefore, getting them to love the company is crucial, and getting them to take note without trying to sell the products is a great way to do it.

Here are three fantastic ways to do just that.

Give Them Related Content That Shows Your Passion

When a potential customer can see that you are genuinely passionate and knowledgeable about your work, they will trust you. Therefore, providing content such as blogs about the latest and greatest updates in the industry can work wonders. Apart from anything else, it gets them thinking about this aspect of their lives, and your products by association.

Do this in a fun and entertaining way, and you should find that clients naturally spread the word to their loved ones and social media followers. Factory Direct Flooring produced a quiz on fictional furnishings. It is a great way of linking to their business without pushing customers into looking at their products. As a soft sales approach, you should take inspiration from this.

Showing clients that you aren’t only interested in their money can also make them look favourably on your business. The impact that his can have on their consumer decisions is huge.

Actively Help Your Clients

Aside from showing an interest in the business sector, you must also try to give support where possible. This extra customer care is another fantastic way to gain more trust. Furthermore, it’s an ideal opportunity to pay extra attention to existing clients as well as the new ones. Best of all, providing this type of content can save you the time and hassle of handling individual issues.

One of the best options is to launch a YouTube channel with tutorials and video guides. This concept can take many forms, and the Petco support for setting up fish tanks is a great example. It gives them a perfect chance to get people thinking about their products without promoting them in an explicit fashion. Crucially, the lessons taught encourage a better experience for fish owners too.

Use those sentiments when helping your clients. If they are able to enjoy your products, whatever they may be, to the full potential, they’ll be more likely to buy.

Support A Cause

Charity plays a crucial role in modern society, and your business will be eager to support worthy causes for many reasons. Apart from satisfying those personal needs, though, it can be the perfect way to gain a better connection with clients. After all, we all want to know the people behind the company, and a shared passion can strengthen that bond greatly.

There are many facets to running a successful business, but getting clients on board with the brand on a personal level is key. Organising events and fundraisers can provide a fun and memorable experience that also does good for those in need. Building that community vibe that encourages participation can only be good news. Going green in your operation is another useful suggestion.

While those personal gains should never be the main reason for getting involved, you shouldn’t ignore them. Get this aspect right, and everyone’s a winner.

More great business, blog and marketing posts:
Basic SEO boosting tips for your lifestyle blog
Why digital marketing skills are essential today
How small businesses can use the internet effectively
7 tips for a successful small business
Why your small business needs an online presence
The Ultimate Marketing Strategy to Give Your Business a Boost

Collaboration

The Missing Piece To Your Business Success

Posted on 5:55pm Wednesday 4th Apr 2018

Being a freelancer is a leap of faith, that sometimes rapidly transforms into an incredible success. However, more often than not, being a freelancer is filled with stress and everyday struggle as you try to make it work. Would you be surprised to know that more than half of all freelancers choose to give up their independent career and go back to a normal day-to-day office job because they can’t handle the pressure of running a small business?

It would be unfair to mock them. The freelancing life demands, indeed, a lot of work. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert in your sector. When you run your own business, you need to have a strong understanding of marketing, branding, and business management. Freelancers are not just very talented and motivated individuals. They are experts at multitasking to maintain their business! From finishing a project for a client to monitoring your brand online, you need to uncover the secret to freelancing success.

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Business acumen to convince buyers and investors

Freelancers are in a difficult position, as they need to be good enough to compete against professional companies about specific skills, but they also have to maintain a professional presence despite running a one-person business. Ultimately, you need to know how to manage a company, which implies either previous experience, or relevant studies – such as masters in business management – or even both. Your customers, and your potential investors will be expecting you to provide the same level of information and managed processes as any other company.

A strong marketing strategy to grow

If you’ve never worked with online marketing before, you can’t maintain a freelancing career without understanding how to make digital marketing work for you. Thankfully, there is a variety of free or low-cost online tools that can provide you with the necessary customer data to create a targeted strategy. For instance, using Google Analytics can help to identify behavioural patterns, such as which social media platform performs work best for you or whether your web visitors are local, national or international users. Knowing who you are trying to sell to makes it easier to design the best messaging to engage with your audience. Additionally, using digital data collecting tools can also give you precious indications about budget management. For instance, if nobody comes through paid advertisement, you know you are wasting money on this strategy.

A brand experience your customers won’t forget

Do you know what successful businesses have in common?. They have created a brand experience. You can learn from the big companies, such as Disney, that a great experience is priceless. Indeed, the decor plays a significant part in setting the mood, however as not all businesses have a physical site, it not always a valid element. However, the interactions with the various members of the staff need to convey the same excitement that the visitor feels. In other words, your behaviour, the way you interact with customers and the way you deal with queries and issues are just as much part of your brand image as your logo or your web design.

The bottom line is that to succeed as a freelancer; you need to think like a big company. You need the business knowledge, the strategic approach and the engaging experience of giants, with the personal touch that only small companies and independent entrepreneurs can create.

More great business, blog and marketing posts:
Basic SEO boosting tips for your lifestyle blog
Why digital marketing skills are essential today
How small businesses can use the internet effectively
7 tips for a successful small business
Why your small business needs an online presence
The Ultimate Marketing Strategy to Give Your Business a Boost