Becoming a WAHM - Part 3 - Identifying your goals

So you are a stay-at-home-parent and have decided that in your spare time you would like to make a little bit of money. Where do you start?

This is the third in a series of posts giving advice on how to get started making an income from home.

Previously we have identified our skills and interests and explored ways how to turn those into something profitable.

The next two posts will look at the practical side of things. It’s all very well to have plans to start running a big business from home, making thousands a month, but is it really a practical option for you? And are you actually willing and able to make the sacrifices needed to to it?

Let’s start with the second point.

Identifying your goals
We all become a WAHM for our own reasons. Think about why you want to start working from home. Do you:

• Want to supplement your household income with some much needed cash. If this is the case you are probably looking for a reliable source of income.
• Turn something you enjoy doing anyway into a source of income.
• Find something to do aside from looking after kids, house and home and is the potential income a nice bonus but not the primary goal.

These are typical examples of goals for a WAHM. Your own personal goal might be something different again. It is, however, very important that you know why you are doing it and what you are hoping to accomplish.

For me personally, it was really the third point, at least initially. I spent years in education, eventually getting a PhD, and while I enjoy being a SAHM, I also felt like I wanted to do something more with my education and skills. Plus, it is indeed very nice to have a small bit of money that I made. With my WAHM activities, I was hoping to make a bit of cash that was truly mine. Not that I can’t spend from my husband’s income at my digression (he never questions and frankly, barely notices charges on our accounts). It is still nice to have this bit of independence, tiny as it might seem. Eventually, when we were preparing to buy our first house, I was even able to contribute a small bit to our savings here and there. It felt good.

Overall, for me, therefore, being a WAHM is not so much about the actual money, but about the feeling of accomplishing something other aside from childcare and domestic chores. For other people, the balance might go far more towards the financial side of things.

So ask yourself this question, and answer it honestly:
why do I want to be a WAHM (or WAHD)?