Title really says it all.
My wife has been unable to find work here in Wyoming due to the downturn in the energy industry, which has dumped a lot of folks into the labor market. As a result, there is fairly high unemployment and very low work availability, even in very low-paying jobs.
Flipping is a very legitimate method: buying stuff at thrift shops, auctions, garage sales, Craiglist, etc and reselling on Amazon, eBay. Look at the flipping sub-reddit on Reddit.
Being a content producer (doing Youtube videos and sharing the advertising revenue for example) is another.
I know a few people that make money doing transcription work, others that have worked fir pizza places taking phone orders (using their land line).
Does she have any skills? A lot of the parenting blogs will pay for subbmissions
Since the OP is asking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Thanks, Colibri. I hesitated on my forum placement- should have gone with my first instinct!
That’s a good lead! She has expressed an interest in blogging in the past. I will have her look into this.
We’ve discussed this somewhat… I just have no idea how to make it work, especially with how saturated the market is!
I know quite a few people who work from home in the IT field, but most of them have experience. Some started by doing similar work at the office, and later transitioned to telecommuting.
A lot depends on skills.
For those who speak a second language there are legitimate opportunities for providing live translation support from the home. Such services are used by 9-1-1 centers and medical providers. Calls are patched in, usually via VOIP connection, and the translator is only translating the questions and answers back and forth.
There is always this, but I have heard it often pays very little. Mechanical Turk at Amazon.
I used to do this a little bit as part of my hobby interest in fixing up electronics.
But people often know what stuff is worth now. They look it up and price accordingly.
(Plus, as far as electronics go, most stuff made in the last 2 decades is disposable or close to it.)
There is work-at-home stuff out there. Both my kids do but I seriously doubt either of their type of work is going to be suitable for the OP. It’s quite advanced.
Transcription is a reasonable do-at-home thing if you can type reasonably fast and hear reasonably well. Two places that occasionally post ads on Craigslist and are legit: Averbach Transcription and Daily Transcription. I think they are both out of LA. There are other places but they don’t seem to be advertising as often.
Averbach pays a minimum of $1 per transcribed minute, which sounds great, but figure you will probably get about 14 minutes transcribed per hour at first, but you can get faster. DT pays 75 cents a minute, minimum. In both cases the pay goes up for specialized things, and you can get into captioning.
There is also Rev, which does the same thing, but pays less (40 cents a minute to start, 50 cents for captioning).
Naturally I assume everybody has a computer and internet connection. For transcription you will also need good headphones and a foot pedal is very helpful as well.
There are other places that have work-at-home options such as data entry. You need speed and accuracy for those, and unfortunately most of them seem to require some training on-site, so it’s not totally work-from-home and you have to get to the site.
It depends on what her skills are, to a large degree. For example, I’d love to work from home like my friend does, but I don’t know how to program the shopping cart section of websites, and he does. I’m not sure of all of the variety of jobs available to be done from home.
It would help us help you if you could give some idea of her skills and interests.
I know a few women, who make decent money ($50-$75k per year) doing online video chatting for money by the minute, if you get my drift. You may have to invest in some upfront software and video equipment and other devices, but the payback is relatively quick.
Skillset is limited. She has mainly done customer service work over the years- front-end manager at a grocery store, assistant GM at a hotel, bartender… not a whole lot that translates directly into online work, with the exception of possible telecommute call center work.
To cover some of the responses above:
We do have internet and computers, telephone, etc.
I’ve looked at (and dabbled with) Mechanical Turk, but the pay is definitely very low. However, {very low > 0}, so it is definitely a good fallback.
Transcription may be an option. I’ll bring that up tonight when I get home.
As ftg mentioned, I’ve noticed that most thrift shops/second hand stores now price goods according to what they could be expected to get on Ebay/Amazon, so flipping items isn’t as good as it used to be. Repurposing and selling on Etsy might work, as she does have some artistic tendencies.
I appreciate all of the replies.
Check out Upwork and Fiverr. Both are established online work platforms where she can set up a profile and bid on work or provide services. If she’s willing to start low on cost to establish presence, there are definite opportunities for customer service, clerical, research and assistant type assignments. Once you get established and have some reviews, you can get higher paying gigs.
I have used Upwork (and its predecessor Elance) as a contractor for several years, have worked full time from home for 5 years and built a business/career in that time. On Upwork, contractors bid for work.
Fiverr is the reverse. You post a profile on work you can do (generally small tasks), and people looking for that will contact you.
No need for dodgy online video chatting.
Feel free to PM me.
three cups of duck reported as possible hijacked account.
running coach Did I break a rule by accident? Post and experience are legit. I’ve been a lurker for years and saw an opportunity to help out.
If she has customer service/phone skills/sales experience, she could work from home for Marriott setting reservations. In fact, there are a lot of companies that hire for setting reservations at home, like Avis car rentals and other car rental companies.