New to this - looking for ways to earn money from home

droopsnoot

As you've identified a market where there is an increased need and a lack of local resources in your last paragraph, instead of looking for someone to look after your children while you do something else, could you look after other people's children at the same time as your own? I know it's not as simple as just putting an ad in the paper, there are all sorts of checks involved and so on, and you may not be able to handle a load more of them, it's just an idea. You may be able to tell that I've never looked after children when I glibly say "if you're already looking after a couple of small children, would a few more make a lot of difference?"

kimwp

Octopus money coaching is coaching people with their finances. But it requires being on the phone with people, so unlikely to be suitable given what you've said about the kids being noisy.

I'm surprised you can work and look after kids at the same time, I wouldn't be anywhere near as productive.

pjs493

droopsnoot said:

As you've identified a market where there is an increased need and a lack of local resources in your last paragraph, instead of looking for someone to look after your children while you do something else, could you look after other people's children at the same time as your own? I know it's not as simple as just putting an ad in the paper, there are all sorts of checks involved and so on, and you may not be able to handle a load more of them, it's just an idea. You may be able to tell that I've never looked after children when I glibly say "if you're already looking after a couple of small children, would a few more make a lot of difference?"

Yikes, it’s hard enough looking after my children (they’re still quite young) so I don’t think I could cope with additional children too. I also have dogs so it’s a mission doing something as simple as doing a dog walk with two little ones. Thanks for the suggestion though. 

pjs493

kimwp said:

Octopus money coaching is coaching people with their finances. But it requires being on the phone with people, so unlikely to be suitable given what you've said about the kids being noisy.

I'm surprised you can work and look after kids at the same time, I wouldn't be anywhere near as productive.

Productivity is a bit hit and miss. If they’re happy playing with their toys (and especially now the weather is nicer - happily playing in the garden with me sitting in the conservatory) I can get bits and pieces done. For example, right now one is happily playing with a stacking game and the other one is drawing. 

I’m more productive doing stuff in the evening when they’re in bed or in the morning before they wake up. 

Slinky

Sorry for your loss.

Have you looked at the survey sites - Prolific is a good one if you have a laptop, where researchers post up some quite interesting studies. If you have the Prolific Assistant widget loaded (works on a pc, not a mac), it tells you when there are new surveys to complete. I leave my laptop open anytime I'm around at home and have picked up about £1K in payments across the past year.

pjs493

Slinky said:

Sorry for your loss.

Have you looked at the survey sites - Prolific is a good one if you have a laptop, where researchers post up some quite interesting studies. If you have the Prolific Assistant widget loaded (works on a pc, not a mac), it tells you when there are new surveys to complete. I leave my laptop open anytime I'm around at home and have picked up about £1K in payments across the past year.

Thank you for this. I’ll look into it. This sounds like the sort of thing I could definitely do around looking after the children. 

MrsCautious

Hi, I’m so sorry for your loss. 

Have you seen the 60 ways to make money article on MSE. (I’m sorry I can’t pick up the link for some reason right now.)

I understand where you’re coming from after my husband died more than 10 years ago now.

I did the following and hope they may be helpful:

Not a job but I did ‘earn’ new money: I took time to find and review possibilities for current/ savings accounts and ISAs etc available and moved money around to get the most interest possible, I used to watch news about this really closely and possibly got a bit over obsessed with it but I’m trying to say this was a wise move and I thought basically I’ll take time to do this now — I appreciated the focus and considered it an achievement at such a traumatic time which is a blur now. I’ve done one bank switch that brought me £175.

I regularly posted stuff on eBay, (other sites may be better now as times have moved on.) I didn’t find this too laborious or in need of too much thought. An initial ‘clear out’ of second hand stuff from round my house and any unused items brought enough to be worthwhile and I booked a week in Portugal for me and my children. I’ll never forget the (very low cost) holiday eBay bought! I definitely considered this a regular income and this wasn’t a business. I also did car boot sales. I tried facebook marketplace but too many time wasters took up far too much energy and it made me properly anxious, so this didn’t last long.  With eBay, I got stuff from family and friends to sell as well and it really added up as I learned different tips to make the most of it. 

I signed up for mystery shopping — I hope it may be worth your while to look into this, lots of people have negative feedback about their experience but I loved it and it may be possible that you can do assignments when you’re out and about with your family. (Maybe not though! Just a thought…)

For surveys, I still do Prolific and I do Curious Cat on my phone. I also do YouGov. 

I did competitions with enough success to keep me going for a while! There’s loads on this forum about it.

You may want to look at Swagbucks - I’ve not done this but have seen how popular it can be.

I’m trying to think what else and will pop back if I remember. I took a lot of time out from running a business for exactly the reasons you describe.

I’d also hope the lovely people at Widowed and Young (WAY) may have some ideas. Can’t say for certain but maybe they could have suggestions based on what has worked for members. 

Edited to add: you mentioned saving so you may find it worthwhile to join some of the challenges in the ‘debt free’ part of this forum - there’s a very friendly ‘no spend day challenge’ for example. Or ‘save £2024 in 2024’ among others.

Wishing you all the very best.

dave2319

Prolific, which is more like studies and tasks, seem to have a waiting list at the moment, but if you're interested in surveys then ones like Y Live and Prime Opinion could be worth a look as well.

They're both very different; Y Live sends surveys by email and doesn't have large numbers of them but pays pretty well, whereas Prime Opinion has loads of them on their website but for smaller amounts.

And just to check, have you already claimed or checked to see if you're eligible for bereavement support payments?

serena9

Also check out the UX sites, intellizoom, userlystics and userbrain are ones I use regularly, I often get invited to live studies with these that pay between £50 and £150 per hour and I also recommend Prolific, prolific assistant does work on a MacBook, ebay have just removed fees for selling clothes so that could be useful, popular high street clothes sell really well especially zara, good luck.

mjm3346

With many online sites it depend how close to nothing your time is worth - ylive pay £1 for 5 mins while many surveys on Prime Opinion, Swagbucks etc might pay 10p or less for the same time