How to Make Money as a Stay at Home Mom (without leaving the house!)

Whether you’re a stay at home mom who truly needs to make money in order to help your family out financially, or you just want something of your own to do and earn money with – this post is for you! If there’s anything I’m a pro at, it’s how to make money as a stay at home mom. You could say I’ve been training for this my whole life because even before I had kids, I was constantly finding ways to make money from home.

But as a mom, you have plenty of stuff to do so it can be hard to figure out what will work best for you. There are plenty of lists of ides for stay at home mom businesses, but are they written by actual moms? I’ve outlined some of the best ways to make money for stay at home moms below written by a REAL mom. So if you want a realistic look at business ideas for moms staying at home keep reading, I promise to keep it real.

Disclaimer: This post does have some affiliate links to products or services I genuinely recommend.

Start a blog

Have you heard of those bloggers who make tons of money while traveling the world and barely working? As nice as that picture is, blogging is work and takes some time to get started so it’s not something to do if you need money now. However, a blog can be an amazing source of income if you want to make money as a stay at home mom and it’s so flexible. Because you can schedule any work around your life since no one is waiting on you it’s a great business idea for moms staying at home.

But how do you actually make money from your blog? There are several ways. The most popular ways to make money blogging are:

• Affiliate marketing which is when you link to products or services and get a commission
• Sponsored posts which is when companies pay you to write about them or their products
• Placing ads on your blog
• Selling your own products or services to your blog audience. 

If you want to start a blog, you’ll need to figure out what to blog about that can bring you an income. I always recommend doing a lot of research before you decide on a topic to make sure it’s profitable, unless it’s something you’re ok doing just for fun. If the goal is to make money blogging as a stay at home mom, then you want to make sure you’re picking a topic that you can monetize using one of the methods above.

I highly recommend using Siteground as your host and installing WordPress. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it gets easier with time. If you need help, I recommend hiring someone from Fiverr to help you get it set up.

How much can you make blogging? There are people who literally make millions, but that’s not the norm. Depending on your niche and how you monetize it’s not unrealistic to expect to make $1,000 to $4,000 per month blogging once you get going.

Freelance writing

If you like writing, or even if you don’t love it but know how to do it, then you can try your hand at freelance writing. There are all kinds of freelance writing jobs you can take on from writing blog posts to research papers or even grants and sales copy. 

Not so sure about your writing skills, but want to try your hand at freelance writing? You can take some classes via Skilshare or Udemy.

When looking for clients, you can check job boards like Remote.co or Indeed. However, I prefer working for myself through freelance websites like Fiverr. If you want to learn more about selling your services on Fiverr, I have an quick, easy to follow course that will go over the strategies I used to start getting orders quickly (I made $1000 in my first 30 days)

How much can you make freelance writing? I currently make $40 per 500 words on Fiverr and that’s considered cheap. If you go out and find your own clients, you could possibly double that.

Social media management

Social media isn’t going anywhere and most of us are a bit addicted to it, so why not get paid to post on social media? If you already have social media platforms you consider yourself pretty good at, you can start to offer services to businesses that need a social media presence and prefer to outsource it. 

Want to learn more about social media management and the different social media platforms so you can confidently manage accounts for clients? There are classes on Udemy, Hootsuite Academy or Social Media Marketing Foundations (free).

How much can you make as a social media manager? You can expect anywhere from $15 to $50 per hour. Most social media manager charge a flat monthly fee rather than hourly. I currently manage Pinterest accounts for $300-$400/month and spend around 10 hours per month on each account.

Be a virtual assistant

Most of us have heard about virtual assistants, but what do they do and how much money do they make? There are many types of virtual assistants out there and they can do anything from managing peoples emails and other admin type tasks to more specialized virtual assistant services like design work or social media engagement. 

According to Payscale, virtual assistants make anywhere between $21,000 to $60,000 each year. If you look at their pay hourly, they average $15/hr up to almost $28/hr. But it’s been my experience, that most virtual assistants are able to charge on the higher end of that scale. 

If you’re wondering how to become a virtual assistant, there are a lot of great resources out there. One resource I love is The Virtual Savvy! She has a free checklist available and a course for those who are serious about making money as a virtual assistant or starting a virtual assistant business. 

How much can you make as a virtual assistant? It varies depending on your specialties. Most virtual assistants charge around the $20/hour mark. 

Resell items online

Of course I had to include this on the list because I think it’s one of the most accessible ways to make money from home. A lot of people don’t feel like entrepreneurs or that they have the skills to offer others, so why not sell items that people are already looking for? When you start a reselling business you’re basically just reselling items that have some value and demand online for a profit. You can get these items from your own home when decluttering, thrift stores, yard sales, or even from friends and family who are cleaning out their homes.

When I started reselling, I was also looking for ways to make money as a stay at home mom I had a 1 year old at home and by my 3rd month I had already hit $3,300 in sales! This was working on weekends, during naps, and at night when my son was asleep. If I can do it, you can too!

I have many helpful posts about starting a reselling business like:

• How to start a reselling business
• What I learned from 3 years selling on ebay
• How to find free stuff to sell online

I also have a free ebay training for beginners that will walk you through everything you need to do to get started on ebay. You can check out the free training here. 

How much can you make reselling online? For a stay at home mom working part time, you should be able to make $500 to $2,000, but it all depends on the products you’re selling, your buy cost, etc. Luckily my training above as well as all of the resources on this blog about reselling can help lead you in the right direction.

Sell handmade products

Etsy is a great place to sell handmade products. If you love working with your hands and want to make products for people, you can sell your products on Etsy. You can sell pretty much anything handmade (and many items that aren’t handmade) on Etsy. 

What can you sell on Etsy? So much! You can make jewelry, clothing, accessories, art, screen printed items, stickers, pretty much anything.

How much can you make selling on Etsy? This one isn’t really easy to estimate because it will depend on the types of items you’re selling.

Tutor kids or adults

Are you knowledgeable about certain subjects that others may be having trouble with? Maybe you know a second language and can help teach others or you are pretty good at physics. Either way, there are many different places that you can sign up to tutor others.

A few websites that hire online tutors are Tutor.com, Preply, Cambly, and VIPkid. However, if you want to offer services on your own you can create listings on places like Fiverr or Upwork. I offer some freelance services on Fiverr and highly recommend the platform. You can check out my Fiverr course here if you want a little guidance getting started.

How much can you make tutoring? Many online tutors make $15-$20/hr

Proofreading

If you’re one of those people constantly noticing people’s grammatical errors when reading online, then you can make money proofreading! I don’t have personal experience doing this, but I have heard great things about this proofreading course.

How much can you make proofreading? Proofreaders can make around $20/hr or more

Provide graphic design services

While there are a lot of people who think you need to have a degree in this to get any work, it’s not true! There are plenty of people looking to hire all different skill levels and educational backgrounds. Sometimes people just need someone to do some simple graphics and doesn’t have the budget to hire a professional graphic designer. You can work on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, or even find clients yourself.

How much do graphic designers make? It depends on your skill level, but even as more of a beginner you can expect to make around $15-$20/hr and it’ll go up from there if you’re good.

Teach online

Since technology is so advanced these days, many kids are taking classes online. One newer platform is Outschool which allows students to pick out what types of classes they’d like to take. As a teacher on Outschool you’ll be able to decide what types of classes you want to offer, what age group you want to teach, and how much you want to chare for those classes. Of course, you’ll also be able to decide the schedule for your classes so you can make sure to fit it around your current schedule.

How much can you make teaching online? If you teach with outschool, you get 70% of the services fees for classes. If you’re selling classes for $10 and have 5 students per class, that would be $50 and you’d get $35 for that one hour class.

Sell digital products

There are many types of digital products you can create and sell. For example, one of my best selling products is a spreadsheet for resellers that I’ve sold for up to $24. The great thing about digital products is that you create them once and can sell them over and over. I wrote an entire post about selling digital products here.

How much can you earn selling digital products? The sky is the limit! I’ve made as little as around $100/month selling cheap printables on Etsy for $2-$5 each. And now I make over $1,000/month from selling digital products. 

Find a gig on Fiverr

I’m a huge advocate for Fiverr! I’ve been offering my freelance writing and Pinterset management services on Fiverr for several months now. I wrote a post about how I made over $1,000 my first 30 days on Fiverr and now about 6 months in I’ve earned over $10,000. You can see that post here. I also have a course called Fiverr Kickstart for anyone ready to jump in and start getting orders quickly. I go over my strategy to stand out against the competition and start getting orders quickly.

How much can you make on Fiverr? It will greatly depend on what service you’re offering and the demand for that service. I currently make $40/500 word article which take me around 30 minutes to write on average. I also make $300-$400/month for each Pinterest account I manage via clients on Fiverr.

Pet Sitter

I’m sure you’re thinking, I have plenty of kids to take care of – you want me to take care of someones dog? This would likely work best for someone who has kids in school, but can work for any mom. Apps like Rover allow you to post your services which can include anything from dog walking to having pets come stay at your house while their owners are out of town. I use it all the time when we go on trips and I love it. 

How much can you earn? Depending on your area you could earn around $25 per walk or visit, or even $50 or more for letting a dog have a sleepover at your house.

Video Editor

If you know how to edit videos, you could be a video editor. There are plenty of people and companies looking for people to do simple edits on videos for their small business or even their youtube channels. When looking for a video editor myself, I was usually quoted over $100 per video so if you could do a couple a week, you could earn a decent income.

Like with many others, you can start offering your services on Fiverr and Upwork.

How much can you earn as a video editor? You can expect to make around $25-$50/hour depending on the type of editing you’re doing

Babysit

If you’re already home with your kids all day, why not take on a few more? I know that might be the last thing on your mind, but think of the friendships and the built-in playmates you can have in your home on a daily basis. You can take this on as casually just babysitting for friends on occasion, or go as far as becoming a licensed daycare provider. Make sure that if you do this, you check with your local regulations to make sure you’re not breaking any codes and have any licenses you need to offer child care out of your home. 

How much can you earn as a babysitter? Depending on your area you should be able to charge $10/hr per kid or more. Some babysitters offer a discount for multiple children.

Making money as a stay at home mom isn’t hard! It’s work, but there are plenty of different stay at home mom jobs that you can take on to make a little extra money for your family, or for yourself! If starting a side hustle as a stay at home mom is a dream of yours, I say go for it.