# What could a VARRY busy mum do at home



## Firethorn (Nov 1, 2004)

Ive been reading down the list but seems many are older folk that dont have a brood to tend to and drive around.
I would LOVE to do anything at home. But it would need to be a bit flexible. The goal would be to make enough money to pay for our extras. Like animal feed, gas (mine) internet, phone and maybe save to work on the house.
Is there anything that could do this for me? 
Remember I have teens that I drive to work nearly every day. And LOs under foot ALL day every day. 
And I am vary leery of the "pay us" then we will get you going scams.
Any suggestions would be great.


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## Elsbet (Apr 2, 2009)

Where do your talents lie? do you have any degrees? How much can you gear back on the busy-ness in order to get something working?
I have friends who make courtesy calls for local businesses- follow up calls to see how the service customers used worked out for them. You need a quiet block of time for something like that. I don't know how to get into that, either, but you could ask around at mechanic shops, etc.

I do art from home, and make things, like baskets, candles, Pisanky and such to sell. But I also count my canning and other food preservation/gardening/animals as income, even if we don't see actual dollars from it. I find ways to make my time do double duty- lately I've been grazing my goats on tethers. I don't leave them unattended when they are out there like that. So I spend that time that I am watching them making things. (baskets.)

Working within the constraints you have mentioned, you are going to have to find every spare second and wring all the juice out of it if you want to make as much from home as you have indicated.
So, work with your talents, and find something you LOVE to do, so that you don't begrudge the time, and maybe see if you can get your kids involved, too.


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## TurnerHill (Jun 8, 2009)

Amazon.com used book sales.

This is reliable, simple income. You can often get books for free, or very little. Look at the dump, at yardsales, and especially "buck a bag" offers at church sales or library sales.

List the books. I recomend not listing more than 100 at a time, or keeping up becomes overwhelming.

Pre-package the books, leaving the padded mailers open and standing them up in totes.

Check your account each morning, find out what has sold, grab it out of the tote, drop invoice in, seal, address and walk to the mailbox.

List however many more books are required to bring your total back to 100.

This is not hard, just minutes a day. And basically no risk, since just the s/h Amazon charges for you more than pays your costs, even if you sell the book for a penny.

As you get into it, you will get more organized. But it ain't rocket science, just something you need to keep up on. We have been doing it for years.


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

Several years ago, I sold books on Amazon. Unless it has changed, if you list a book and it sells, then you owe Amazon .99 , so listing for a penny won't work. And if you want to list for pennies, then you need to take advantage of their monthly plan which costs you 39.99 and then you don't pay the .99 for each book that sells. And that monthly service fee, comes out right away as soon as you sign up. It's not list for a month, and then it comes out. 

I sold there for like 4 months, and kept about 400 books up all the time. 
You want to have a method of storing the books so when one sells, you can find it right away and get it ready for mailing. 

If you are new to selling books, it does take awhile to fiqure things out. You won't learn it all in a month or two. It is a constant learning process. You will buy a lot of books that are very common, and find that people will list for a penny just to get them to sell. It can be very frustrating.


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## willow_girl (Dec 7, 2002)

It's cheaper to sell on Half.com than Amazon. You will get more traffic on Amazon, but the selling price will likely be about the same and the commission's higher. 

I list on Half first, and if something doesn't move, only then will I put it on Amazon. I pay the 99-cents-per-book fee. I have about 1,000 books on hand at any given time, but I don't think I'd have enough sales in a month to justify the $39.99 fee, even if I listed them all!

Selling books was a good gig 4-5 years ago, but business seems to have dried up since then. I think more people are listing now, which drives down prices. 

Oddball books, especially nonfiction, and newer textbooks still sell well. (I found 2 of the latter in someone's trash a few months ago and sold them for a total of more than $100.) Pulp fiction, romances, NYT bestsellers -- fergeddaboutit!


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

"You want to have a method of storing the books so when one sells, you can find it right away and get it ready for mailing."

Suggestion: If you have a listing number, on the spine of the book put a piece of sticky paper with the last four numbers of the listing. Then put them on a shelf in numerical order.


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## Firethorn (Nov 1, 2004)

Books are something I can do once we move. There would be NO room in this house. And its actually something I could get into. I love books. 

As for the post asking my "talents". I think it is rather hard to find a market for and craft we would do. Iv looked into it and its not readily available. I dont have the time away from home to go to booths and hunt down markets. 
We do some nice bead work, make soap, jerky, Just to name a few. They are great winners at the fair but cant find a market that is reliable enough. 

I was wondering about stuffing envelopes, answering phones, assembling, emailing...other such stuff. I dont believe in paying someone so give me a job and those are the only ones Ive seen. And I can never find someone who actually does it and has profited.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

I have a niece (by marriage) who has two small kids. She works for some telemarketing company. When she is available she logs in and calls for several TV promotions are referred to her for processing. Unfortunately that is all I know about it.


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## Firethorn (Nov 1, 2004)

It sounds rather promising. Could you get contact info from her?


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## Caren (Aug 4, 2005)

My ex husbands girlfriend is a medical coder and works from home. Must be she does alright because she drives nice cars and stuff


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