Responsible People Can Work at Home
A Home Business Article Contributed by Wendy Ledbetter
Work at Home - to Explain or Not Explain
When family and friends first hear your plan to work at home, there are likely to be mixed reactions. Some will envy you immediately, but others will question your sense of responsibility. After all, responsible people will opt for the security of a weekly paycheck, complete with benefits and the chance to advance a career.
Or do they?
Sometimes, a work at home business can be more lucrative than an office or factory job, even considering the benefits of being a company employee. Especially for families with one spouse working outside the home, a work at home parent can make many small but significant contributions that save money, time and make the quality of life better for the entire family.
Tangible Savings of Work at Home
With small children, it might not be feasible to give up outside child care altogether, but subtracting the driving time to and from an office along with typically reduced work hours, it could result in much less time spent in daycare or with a sitter. That translates to money saved.
If the children are older, it could eliminate after-school care altogether.
How often have parents finished a tough day at work and faced with the necessity of feeding dinner to the family, simply opted for carry out? When one parent works at home, it's pretty easy to take a few minutes to start a crock pot dinner, drop a roast into the oven or put a pot of soup on to simmer. The resulting meal is typically more nutritious and less expensive than carry out, and might provide an incentive to change those bad eating habits the family has been talking about.
Other, more obvious savings include the cost of lunches at a job, transportation to and from an outside job and clothing requirements for an office situation.
Intangible Savings of Work at Home
If there are children, the work at home parent can now spend more time attending functions and participating in the children's lives. Taking off a few hours to attend a baseball game might not be an option from an office job, but now becomes an easy step. It means school age children don't have to enroll in after school day care or go home to an empty house. Also, a parent is more available and often much nearer the school in case of an emergency.
Children often get sick and making arrangements for care of an ill child can be next to impossible. When a parent works at home, it's often possible to rearrange work time so the parent can tend the child's needs. For the child, the comfort of having a parent near is reassuring. For the parent, the anxiety of leaving a sick child is eliminated.
Those who work at home can more often find time to help with sick parents, handle banking and other business that can only be done in the daytime and provide a more stable home life, simply because they are more often at home.
When those factors - and others that relate to a specific situation - are considered, it's easy to say, "I work at home because I want to be more responsible."
