# What are the best paying stay at home jobs?



## BarredBuff

What are the best paying stay at home jobs with minimal work hours? I'd like to make between 1500 and 2000 dollars a month. Maybe only doing this job 3 hours a day. What kind of possibilities are there?


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## Alice In TX/MO

NONE. Expectations that high are unreasonable. Sorry.


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## CesumPec

well let's see, you want someone to give you a job that you work 3 hours a day, 5 days week. That works out to about 65 hours/ month and to make $2000/month you need to earn well over $30/hr.

does that sound reasonable to you? I can't imagine you're going to get that stuffing envelopes at home, or answering phone calls that have been forwarded to you.

You can make lots more than that but you'll have to give yourself a job and market yourself to companies as a consultant and deliver expert advice or marketing or something in an area in which you have highly specialized experience and connections. 

What skills, experience, or strategic business connections do you have?


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## BarredBuff

I thought it was little over the top. I don't have any connections right now, I am just planning right now. What is the most I could make?


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## mpillow

LOL no honest work....


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## ErinP

BarredBuff said:


> I thought it was little over the top. I don't have any connections right now, I am just planning right now. What is the most I could make?


No one can tell you that... :shrug: 
(And if they try, they're selling you something lol)


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## Nomad

I've been looking for something for years. I was making a small amount from ChaCha, but it has tanked and I'm lucky to get 40 cents an hour. I usually just have it on and do other things at the same time like now when I'm on here and posting. I've had 3 questions in the last 10 minutes. I thought it was bad when I was doing 80 an hour. Oh well, I'll keep looking. My expectations are much lower then the OP. I'd just like to make an extra $500 or so a month to supplement my SS.

Nomad


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## fransean

Before anyone can tell you what is available you have to provide information on your skills. There are lots of possible jobs many of them most people would not be qualified for. 

What kind of work have you done in the past? What would you be willing to do? What are your skills and talents?

No one is going to hand you a high paying stay at home...........personally if I knew of one paying that much with that little effort I would already have it ...........LOL

Some of the best work at home jobs have waiting lists to work and huge competition to get into the companies. In fact many people working at home will not tell you who they work for.


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## YummyBunny

I've been a work-at-home medical transcriptionist (MT) for 10 years now. The field is incredibly hard to break into right now, but it is still possible with a little luck and a LOT of persistence. It's not an easy gig by any means, requires a lot of dedication and willingness to learn, and you absolutely have to be comfortable working alone without anyone to turn to if you run into a problem. 

A halfway decent site to do research on this field is: MTStars - Work At Home Medical Transcriptionists
Read through all the forums, especially the one titled "New MTs." 

I currently make anywhere between $25,000-30,000 working what I would consider full part time, but it is piecemeal work and not an hourly type of job. Good luck in your quest!


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## Terri

When I call my doctor after hours, I get a message to call the answering service if it is urgent (if it is an emergency I should call 911).

I do no know what it pays but I hear kids in the background, so it must be from the answering service's home.


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## happychick

We're doing pretty good between our eBay store & our Etsy one, right now we still consider it 'extra', but I see it becoming more then that in the near future (see my signature links) - we easily reach the $ amount goal you have a month - but it takes WAY more time, if you want to make that kind of money from home, you will have to work every day for a lot more then 3 hours!!! We work on it every single day, sometimes putting in full time hours. But it is way more flexible while living on a farm, if the animals need put in because of a storm or the garden needs watered because it is 100 degrees we can do it.

Ask yourself what your talents are, your skills? What would you enjoy doing?


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## katlupe

I don't know how you'd make that amount of money for 3 hours work either. I find working online a struggle every day. I write reviews that I am paid for. I write ebooks that sell on Amazon. I write my 4 blogs that have affiliate links and advertisements on them that I am paid for. I write articles on various sites, such as HubPages, Squidoo and InfoBarrel and the affiliate links on those sites pay me if someone buys. I have 2 websites selling guitar strings. I sell on eBay and Amazon. I am just starting to see money coming in on a regular basis. Takes time and a lot of writing new content. I can never get behind on it or I won't get any traffic to my various sites. I work every day, many days 10 hours or more. I almost forgot.......networking! Networking is essential.


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## happychick

katlupe - that is a much more realistic picture of what working from home on the computer is. It takes time, keeping up on it, and most importantly - doing more then one thing. That way when you have a slower week on one site, you still make money from another.


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## LoneMike

A possibility you could consider is day trading the financial markets . If you don't have any prior experience then I will warn you that for the majority of unexperienced people and even many that have experience , you probably will lose money at least short term . Most people that do end up making any significant consistent money - do it over time . There is a definite learning curve that takes time & patience so I would recommend demo trading for some reasonable amount of time to get a track record and develope some strategic method and to find out if you have the self discipline to stick to whatever trading plan you develope . Making money in the financial markets is no cake walk but it is possible to make a lot of money .


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## Tazymae

Is it very complicated selling on Ebay? I have a lot of "stuff" i'm sure somebody wants....:hysterical:


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## happychick

Tazymae said:


> Is it very complicated selling on Ebay? I have a lot of "stuff" i'm sure somebody wants....:hysterical:


Nope, not to hard! You need a ebay account & paypal account before starting. Also, if you have never sold on ebay before, they hold your money from sales for a week after each sale for like the first month just to make sure you are a honest seller. It's not as bad as it sounds, and if you have loads to sell you will quickly climb ranks!


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## texican

BarredBuff said:


> What are the best paying stay at home jobs with minimal work hours? I'd like to make between 1500 and 2000 dollars a month. Maybe only doing this job 3 hours a day. What kind of possibilities are there?


There are some illegal and/or immoral ones that'll pay that much...(that'd require you to, pardon the pun on your name, get bare in the buff... or grow illegal consumables)... but legitimate ones? not so many. IF anyone/everyone could make 2K/month, for 15 hours a week, don't you think everyone would be doing it.

Supply and demand kills the aspirations of stay at home workers.... there are millions of 'workers' and only a handful of real jobs, the main one being transcription, and a lot of that is going to India (from what I read here...)

Work at home? Long hours, low pay...

I've found a niche market, where I can work at home quite a bit, researching land, oil, gas, and mineral deeds. I do have to go to town on occasion, depending on where the work is situated. I can sometimes work for weeks at a time on a project, using my computer and the internet to download and digest ancient deeds, to ascertain ownership rights.


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## lathermaker

hahahaahahahaha good luck with that one! Unless you want to work at at brothel I'd say you are SOL


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## SashayXP

you know, YUMMY, transcription is always mentioned as a viable work at home opportunity and it always hacks me off that everyone and their dog think they can do what I do and make what I make! Never mind "breaking in"...does the poster know ANYTHING at all about medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, lab terms, surgical terms, equipment and drugs (not the illicit kind)? No? Then you are not qualified to be an MT and DEFINITELY not qualified to work at home. Working at home is great...but training and experience comes before working at home. So many folks think that they can just "get" a job working at home making great money but with no experience, no training and no WORK (3 hours a day? Are you kidding?). As for the suggestion of brothel...which was pretty funny since I understand the ladies in nevada work more than 3 hours per day...but I am also pretty sure you can't get past zoning laws and health laws to open a brothel at your house. If you DO find what you are looking for...3 hours a day $2000 a month...be sure and let us know. I will not hold my breath on that one. I make more money than that...but I can't do it in 3 hours a day.


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## goatlady

Starting as an MT many years ago, it took me 2 years of working, after 18 months of training and 3 months probation, to start making minimum wage! Takes a long while to develop the speed and confidence for MT work. After 11 years experience, yes, I'm doing nicely thank you, but it sure was tough getting that experience. Many of the MT companies are going/have gone to voice recognition systems so all the transcriptionist does is edit reports which pays 1/2 the standard transcription rate!


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## SashayXP

hey goat lady...MAN do I identify with that. I sent you a PM.....

Oh...half the money for speech recognition and LOTS harder than actually transcribing the report in the first place. I think you have to be a much much better and more experienced MT to do SR so of course the more experienced more qualified are the ones we want to pay less than half as much. Perfectly sensible.


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## lumialu

Get a computer science degree if you want that kind of money. You can easily make $50/hr freelancing from home after gaining a few years of experience. Or accounting--CPAs can make 25-30/hr or more from home.


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## foaly

SashayXP said:


> you know, YUMMY, transcription is always mentioned as a viable work at home opportunity and it always hacks me off that everyone and their dog think they can do what I do and make what I make! Never mind "breaking in"...does the poster know ANYTHING at all about medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, lab terms, surgical terms, equipment and drugs (not the illicit kind)? No? Then you are not qualified to be an MT and DEFINITELY not qualified to work at home.





goatlady said:


> Starting as an MT many years ago, it took me 2 years of working, after 18 months of training and 3 months probation, to start making minimum wage! Takes a long while to develop the speed and confidence for MT work. After 11 years experience, yes, I'm doing nicely thank you, but it sure was tough getting that experience.


Anyone who isn't an MT doesn't understand that it isn't just "typing." It's understanding the language of medicine. Experienced MTs (17 years for me) have to have the vocabulary of a physician and the experience to know when something in a medical record has been dictated incorrectly, i.e. lab values, diagnoses, etc.

It takes at least two years full time study/work to become minimally proficient in the translation of the language of medicine (add another year or two to learn to understand all the non-native-English speakers). It's not an instant work-at-home job. Sorry!


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## Cygnet

Selling on eBay is probably your best bet for a flexible job. You probably won't make that much with 3 hours per day of work, but you can if you can hack it full time. (I can't work anything close to full time for medical reasons, but I do make a small profit with a couple hours of work a day. Covers my medical copays and the meds and the like.) Things to consider with eBay ...

To get started, you need:

A paypal account 
An eBay account, preferably one that's not new -- if you're thinking about ever starting a store on eBay, start an account NOW and buy something occasionally to build your feedback up. 
A good camera -- doesn't have to be top of the line, but a five year old cell phone isn't going to cut it. You need to take clear pictures.
Packing materials -- boxes, envelopes, etc. I strongly recommend buying these new (they are not expensive) rather than scrounging them. The time spent scrounging used boxes can be better used listing items, and new packing materials look professional and WILL increase your star ratings. I use uline.com for boxes and various vendors on eBay itself for bubble mailers. 
A scale and a printer -- you REALLY don't want to have to trot everything down to the post office for each sale. You can print your postage at home and save a ton of time. 

Then you need a product ...

My criteria for a product are:

1) Can you get a large supply cheaply and consistently?
2) What's your profit margin going to be?
3) What percentage of that type of item sell when listed? (Check completed listings with a calculator in hand.)
4) How expensive will it be to ship, and can it be shipped overseas? (At least half my sales come from international buyers.) If something is going to be very expensive to ship, think again -- or plan on offering "free" shipping.
5) Will people buy multiples of it at one time? I like to sell things that buyers will buy multiples of. I also save stuff up then list a bunch of similar items at one time, which increases the chance of multi-item orders. (For each order you ship, you have to pay shipping, you have to pay for packaging, it's extra time to pack it it and correspond with the buyer, and Paypal takes $.30 cents off the top for each payment they process. I am MUCH happier if, say, I sell 300 items to 100 buyers versus 300 items to 300 buyers because it saves me a ton of money and time. I offer really good combined shipping discounts to encourage this, and still come out ahead.)

You also need:

To be patient and never lose your cool at a buyer. Particularly for newbies, just a handful of bad buyers who ding your stars can ruin you as a seller. eBay will ban you for life if your star rating gets too low or you get too many 1's or 2's on the stars. You need to be diplomatic and willing to take the occasional loss and cheerfully refund someone even though you think the buyer's full of cow chips and it's the dumbest reason ever. 

To have sufficient cash in the bank to pay for postage while your money's still tied up in Paypal. They will hold it a certain amount of time to make sure the buyer's happy. I can't tell you want the rules are currently because they keep changing them. Occasionally, you may have to refund a buyer for legitimate or fraudulent reasons ... fraud happens and you get to eat the cost. I think of it as the eBay equivalent of shoplifting. The usual scam is for someone to claim they got a box with nothing in it, or the wrong item, or whatever. eBay WILL make you pay them back, period. This doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen.

(And sometimes, no matter what you do, you still get negatives and bad stars -- check out mine. Nothing I could have done in to make either customer happy -- the most recent neg and neutral are from the same person. Fortunately, I have tons of good feedback from happy customers, so it's just an irritation, not a crisis. Had I been a brand new seller, it would have been a much bigger problem.)

And I strongly recommend diversifying ... eBay should not be your sole source of income. It's just not reliable enough.


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## Cygnet

Oh, and I personally stay away from three categories of stuff on eBay:

Clothing -- which is surprisingly bulky, heavy (costly to ship), has a low profit margin, and is perishable -- it may go out of style or out of season before you sell it. It's a pain in the butt to store. And the buyers can be horribly picky and just nasty.

Electronics -- high fraud potential, and some things can be easily broken in shipping. 

Glass and other breakables.

I'm also wary of selling books. The profit margin on reading copies can be pretty low, and collectible book buyers are picky, picky, picky. "Excellent condition" in book collecting doesn't mean the same thing as "excellent condition" in the real world.


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## partndn

SashayXP said:


> you know, YUMMY, transcription is always mentioned as a viable work at home opportunity and it always hacks me off that everyone and their dog think they can do what I do and make what I make! Never mind "breaking in"...does the poster know ANYTHING at all about medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, lab terms, surgical terms, equipment and drugs (not the illicit kind)? No? Then you are not qualified to be an MT and DEFINITELY not qualified to work at home. Working at home is great...but training and experience comes before working at home. So many folks think that they can just "get" a job working at home making great money but with no experience, no training and no WORK (3 hours a day? Are you kidding?). As for the suggestion of brothel...which was pretty funny since I understand the ladies in nevada work more than 3 hours per day...but I am also pretty sure you can't get past zoning laws and health laws to open a brothel at your house. If you DO find what you are looking for...3 hours a day $2000 a month...be sure and let us know. I will not hold my breath on that one. I make more money than that...but I can't do it in 3 hours a day.


Probably good you work at home. Sounds like you get bent out of shape too quickly to mingle with the public.
YummyBunny clearly stated it would be very hard and take a lot of dedication and willingness to learn. It was just an idea, and you don't have any way of knowing if BarredBuff might be a former lab tech, or pharma sales rep, or school nurse who got laid off and wants to stay home, or many other possibilities. Good grief.

I've been too afraid of all the internet hacking dangers, etc. to try to sell much. I was reading here to try to get some ideas too.


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## PaulNKS

partndn said:


> I've been too afraid of all the internet hacking dangers, etc. to try to sell much. I was reading here to try to get some ideas too.


I've been selling online over 5 years and never had a problem. The internet hacking dangers as you mention are more hype than anything. If you have you have your own website and the traffic, it can be very rewarding. I'll put this out there.... even though it is low compared to many, my website every year has grown by double digits. What recession? Even when broke, people find money to spend. Last year, I went over $30K. This year, it looks like I'll get closer to $35. It doesn't sound like much, but then when you combine that with the cow/calf operation and the meat goat herd, homesteading can be very rewarding, even if part of it is online. lol

What I sell online is just one product that is made, packaged and shipped from home. It fills a niche market in which I don't have hundreds of thousands of competitors.

So, don't be afraid to go online with your business. The average website does less than $5,000 per month. It is a nice way to increase your bottom line on the homestead and the dangers you fear are almost non-existent.


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## partndn

Thank you so much PaulNKS. Good to know.
Wow, yes that more than replaces a lot of people's "out" of home jobs. Good for you.
Can you give any summary tips on what you think about how much time it takes from you? Like in tax preparing, expense tracking, packaging and getting out to shipping location, etc.? 

Any top pointers, I think would be appreciated by anyone looking into this ebay thing or website selling.


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## K.B.

I've been able to work from home for the last couple of years. I mostly do medical writing (manuscripts, study protocol and regulatory documents) as a consultant to different university and pharma clients. 

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any way to break into medical writing of this type without many years of experience working as an employee to a big company/organization.


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## Marshloft

BarredBuff said:


> What are the best paying stay at home jobs with minimal work hours? I'd like to make between 1500 and 2000 dollars a month. Maybe only doing this job 3 hours a day. What kind of possibilities are there?


 Um,,, maam?? Mr??? I work 50 hrs a week for .00 a month.
If you can find a job as you describe,, please enlighten me.


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## PaulNKS

I apologize for not seeing this sooner and replying.



partndn said:


> Thank you so much PaulNKS. Good to know.
> Wow, yes that more than replaces a lot of people's "out" of home jobs. Good for you.
> Can you give any summary tips on what you think about how much time it takes from you? Like in tax preparing, expense tracking, packaging and getting out to shipping location, etc.?
> 
> Any top pointers, I think would be appreciated by anyone looking into this ebay thing or website selling.


How much time it takes from me? I assume you are asking how much time I spend on the online part of the business? I only spend about 2 to 4 hours per day. Usually closer to 2 but, I allow more just in case I need it. 

There are usually emails from customers. I always answer those before I do anything. Then I print my orders, turn them over, and print a small informational letter/brochure on the back. After that I use the PayPal Multi-Shipping tool to print all the shipping labels. This keeps me from having to do them with the Click-N-Ship, which I find too slow.

As far as tax prep, it takes no time. I have my categories set up to match up with the tax forms. Keep in mind that advertising is important for a website. Without it, your website can sit for a year with only one sale, if you're lucky. People don't just stumble across websites without a link they followed unlike a brick and mortar store that gets a lot of walk-in traffic. So, I use Google Adwords for my advertising which has worked well.

I used to use a workbook spreadsheet with macros to track my financials. However, I now have an app on my iPhone that is much easier and not so cumbersome. I track Personal, Farm, and Online revenues and expenses. Each week I email a CSV file to myself as a backup and can also open it up on the computer with a spreadsheet.

I make the product here and package it myself. I order from SKS bottling which is also good for lip balm tubes, tins, etc... I order my packaging supplies from packagingprice.com. I don't spend money on buying the USPS shipping labels that you stick to the package. Last I looked they were $9.99 for 25. Too costly. I print two shipping labels per page on regular printer paper at 90% of the normal size. I've also gone down as low as 80% when I was using smaller packaging. Then I cut them out with a paper cutter and tape them to the package with cheap clear boxing tape I bought.

When I print the shipping labels from home, it means I never have to go to the Post Office. They are required to pickup as many packages as I have with a weight limit of 70 pounds per package. 

So, the best way to find a stay-at-home business is to build your own with a niche product. Just keep in mind that not all niche products are high demand. I just happened to develop one that was. I sorta lucked into it. 

On my website, I have anywhere from 2 to 8 orders per day... Usually closer to about 3 or 4 for an average. I don't work on the website on weekends so Mondays are usually heavier days.


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## ClickBeetle

I went through a period when my kids were little where I was trying to find stay-at-home work. First of all, almost everything ends up being somewhat of a scam. Or, you have to prey on your friends and family all the time to make enough to even break a profit. As people have posted, you can sometimes find a niche.

What I eventually did was taught myself to dog groom from my home. It took many, many hours to learn and I had to volunteer at the Humane Society before I could ask for money. It is hard work.

I eventually did really well with it, about $18 an hour once I got fast enough to rotate 2-3 dogs at a time. However, in my area, it is a small area so I only had enough dogs for part-time work usually. Some weeks I could work more. Then, some weeks, such as holiday weeks, it would be almost dead. Also, if you have no call/no shows it really puts a ding in your income. Especially if you have to line up babysitters, etc. It was fun and I am glad I did it. When they were older, I went back to a regular job. Strange even though I liked dog grooming, I never miss it. Not sure why. 

Alas, every job has it's issues. 

(A note of caution on the home MT. In my area, they are moving away from this. I work with a girl that used to do this and the company totally closed. I would check your area before investing in the training.)


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