If you are considering working at home, you probably already have your own very good reasons. I’ve heard many over the years.

One client started a business because her children had moved out and she discovered that cleaning the house got boring after awhile, especially since no one was around to mess it up.

Other clients had an idea for a product that they wanted to create, and it only made sense for them to go into business for themselves. Renting a brick and mortar store can be extremely expensive for a startup business with little capital, so it only made sense to stay at home.

Perhaps this list will help you add to yours, or validate your thoughts. If you’re new to the home business concept, perhaps this will give you some concrete ideas to go along with what you’re feeling.

These ideas apply whether you want to start your own product selling business, or work for someone else at home.

1. If you have young children, working at home allows you to continue being their primary caregiver. The first three years of your child’s life are especially important. Even better, you’ll no longer miss those major milestones like the first step and first words. If you are breastfeeding mom, you can nurse your baby while working at the computer. Your toddlers can play at your feet and your preschoolers can help you type. (OK, so mommies of preschoolers might want to do some outsourcing…LOL!)

This was my main reason for staying at home when my son was born in 2000. I couldn’t imagine leaving him for 8 hours a day. And it wouldn’t work since I was nursing him. Most of my ecommerce clients stay home for the same reason – they have nursing babies and toddlers running around.

2. Save a boatload of money on childcare. If spending extra time with your children isn’t enough to convince you or your significant other, perhaps saving piles of money is. Childcare for just one kid can cost upwards of $70 per week — even if you don’t use the childcare all day, every day. If you must have some time, then a Mommy’ Day Out program can give you a few hours a couple of days a week and still save you tons of money.

My virtual assistant, who works out of her home in Ohio, has four children. Working outside the home would be financial disastrous for her. Even if she were to find a job outside of the house, she wouldn’t make enough money to cover the childcare costs. At that point, she might as well stay at home and find a way to earn extra income.

3. You can set your own schedule. Notice, I did not say that you are free from a schedule. I’ve learned over the years that having a schedule is terribly important. But you can schedule around school plays, field trips, doctor’s appointments, etc. Not to mention, it’s just nice to be able to take a day off, here and there, to enjoy the weather.

With the help of my assistants and tech support people, I’ve been able to attend my children’s award ceremonies, most of their baseball games and practices and help out in the office at my church.

Even better, when both kids are in school, I’ll be able to attend Chamber of Commerce meetings, teach a web design class at the local technology center and spend more time developing projects. And when the school bell rings, I’ll be right there to pick up the kids and hear all about their day. Of all the reasons I’ve given, I’d say this one is the best.

Popularity: 47% [?]

Many people turn to a home business in an effort to be able to spend more time with their family while earning an income. While it is never easy to be a full-time working parent outside the home, it can be just as hard, if not harder, to be a full-time working parent from home.

When your family sees you at home, they may automatically feel that you are at their service. One child may need a ride somewhere, another child wants you to find something they are looking for, and your spouse wants you to run to the store and buy something for dinner. On top of all of that, you have clients expecting you to complete various projects for them, as well.

You may want to hold a family meeting and explain how important it is to your family that you have time set aside for your business. It doesn’t matter if you leave the house and work from an office, or if you work from the kitchen table, work is work. Your family wouldn’t come to an office outside the home and ask you to do all those miscellaneous tasks, working from home should be no different.

Of course, you will want to set aside time for your family, just as you would for your clients. Working from home will allow you to have a flexible schedule and that gives you the opportunity to attend school functions and other activities.

While it can be easy to procrastinate and not get your work done, it can be just as easy to over schedule yourself and spend too much time working. Your family needs to have some quality time with you; and you will need their support, too. Starting a new home business can be draining. It will be a lot easier with the support of your family.

You can also ask your family to help you with the household chores. Set up a schedule where everyone pitches in with various tasks. Depending on the age of your children, they may be able to help with things such as emptying the garbage, vacuuming, doing laundry, preparing their own lunches for school, or even preparing dinner for the family. If you have a spouse, make sure that they are involved, too.

Another option is to ask a young teenager in the neighborhood to come over and “entertain” your children while you work for a few hours. A younger teen without a lot of prior babysitting experience will charge less than an older teen. Since you will be in the house, you can take over in case of an emergency. Your young sitter can play with the kids, read stories to them, etc – and you can have three or four hours of uninterrupted work time.

Balancing work and family will never be easy, but with practice – and patience; it can be done.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Aren’t they adorable? Hershey, my four-year-old Border Collie mix (and you can see how she got her name…) is in the foreground. Molly is under the desk, hoping I don’t tell her it’s time to go outside. She’d much rather sleep the day away at my feet. Crazy Mutt.

Popularity: 22% [?]

A couple of weeks ago, one of my long-time clients closed her business. She’d been with me since since 2005.

Her reason for closing? She wasn’t selling enough to justify keeping the site open.

This is not an uncommon story. For many years, I resigned myself to the fact that often small businesses are just not meant to be. The statistics even supported this view: As many as 1/3 of business startups fail within the first 2 years.

My experience has been that there may be an even greater number in the Work At Home Mom world.

I really felt bad about this, though. Setting up a Shop Kit Plus website for a new WAHM and then turning her loose in the world was not my intention.

So, I’ve started offering coaching and web design services. I’ll help you build a site that sells using the Shop Kit Plus — and teach you how to reach your customers and encourage them to purchase from you. In return, I just ask for you to implement the marketing methods I recommend, and evaluate your progress on a regular basis.

Sounds like fun, right?

Those people who I have been able to work closely with have succeeded. It’s excited. I want to pass that success on to you.

For a short time, and for a handful of people, I am offering a very special deal. I’m limiting this offering so that I can devote my energy and creativity to you and just a handful of other people.

Head over to Michelle Waters Online and start growing your business today!

Popularity: 43% [?]

Yes, I know. There are a bazillion sites out there where you can find information about work at home business ideas. I am going to make my own anyway.

This list will be a little different from some though, in that I will not include any MLM business ideas or envelop stuffing gigs. This list will only contain business ideas for people who want to sell product online, either their own or someone elses.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

1. Cloth Diaper Sewing
2. Candy Making
3. Baby Slings
4. Jewelry Making
5. Candy Wrappers
6. Custom Stationery and Invitations
7. Custom Party Favors
8. Kids Craft Kits
9. Cross Stitch Patterns
10. Baby Supplies
11. Homemade Bath And Body Products
12. Craft making
13. Knitting Supplies
14. Baby Clothes
15. Pet Treat Business
16. Natural Products
17. Gift Baskets
18. Diaper Cakes
19. Candles
20. Bath Products
21. Ceramics
22. Custom Embroidery
23. Embroidery Patterns
24. Knitting Patterns
25. Personalized Books

Popularity: 15% [?]

I was just thinking tonight how my attitudes about children and their behavior has changed dramatically from before I had kids to after I had them.

So, I thought I’d share a few of my observations:

Before children:
My child will NEVER do that!

After children:
All kids do that and it is perfectly normal.

Before children:
If you were a good parent, your children would behave themselves, even when you are out of sight.

After children:
Children can write all over their bodies with the permanent marker you lost underneath your office desk — in the time it takes you to pour yourself a glass of water in the kitchen.

Before children:
Children should be seen, not heard.

After children:
Children who cannot be heard are most certainly doing something they shouldn’t, like pulling the tape out of your old cassette collection or shearing their hair with the manicure scissors kept in the cabinet over the bathroom sink. Noisy children can be easily located and you can tell exactly what they are doing from the other end of the house.

What are your Before And Afters?

Popularity: 38% [?]

New SSL Certificate requirements could harm sales for many small business owners who cannot obtain the proper certification. But will this affect Shop Kit Plus users, whose secure pages are certified by Mals Ecommerce?

I have sent an email to Mal Stewart, owner of Mals Ecommerce, requesting information as to whether or not he plans to comply with the Extended Validation SSL Certificate requirements, as set out by SSL certificate authority leaders and Internet browser providers, who formed the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

The introduction of EV SSL Certificates will tighten the security of Internet transactions as certificate requestors will be subject to a thorough, standardized vetting process which all issuing CAs must adhere to, according to the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

Sounds good? On it’s face yes. According to Kristie T., work at home mom and online branding expert, alerted the WAHM world of a new requirement, that has the potential to bar small business owners from online commerce.

[The certificate will display] a green address bar to indicate that it’s “safe” for people who visit a web site. Microsoft plans to activate this green light feature in a future update of IE 7 expected in late January, according to Kristie.

This is bad for the small business, because this certificate will only be available to large businesses, according to a Yahoo news story.

Businesses that are too small or too new to be verifiable will have their address bars appear in white, instead of green. According to the yahoo story, this could result in buyers opting to purchase from “safer” sites with the green address bar instead.

Mals Ecommerce though, has been in business since 1998, possibly making it verifiable under the new standards. I’ll update you when I know more…

Popularity: 28% [?]

Most of the resources that I recommend here and in my lists are geared towards Work At Home Moms (WAHMs) who are already in business.

So, I wanted to make sure that the newbies who haven’t started their businesses yet haven’t been forgotten. My friend Vickie is putting together a site called WAHM Zine, for moms who are still trying to decide what they want to do.

Check out her site for lots of great ideas!

Popularity: 12% [?]

My 3-year-old daughter, Aimee, is at that stage where she is amazed by everything — and talks about everything. It’s such a wonderful age, isn’t it?

So, over the past couple of days, she’s made a few comments that had us rolling — so I thought I’d share with you guys.

Yesterday, I told Aimee that my nose was running (allergy season, naturally).

Aimee: “My nose isn’t running. It’s walking!”

On the way to Grandma’s house for dinner, she noticed a crescent moon, high in the sky and said, “We’re going to the moon — to eat cheese!”

And then on the way home, my husband, Steve, said that he’d been running around all day at work like a chicken with his head cut off.

“CHICKEN!?” Aimee yelled. “OH NO! I’M GOING TO GET CHICKEN SPOTS!”

I guess if she comes down with chicken spots, there’s nothing like Happy Cakes and Hopcorn* to make her feel better.

*Otherwise known as her favorite foods, pancakes and popcorn.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Watersweb Shops is dedicated to helping small business owners start and run their own businesses. We provide affordable alternatives to high priced web designers and ecommerce services to work at home moms and work at home dads. How can we do this? By providing resources for you, the business owner, to handle much of the setup and day-to-day operations of your site. We provide the [tag]Shop Kit Plus, which provides editing tools that will allow you to easily setup and maintain your sites. The SKP also includes order processing tools that automate the selling process and enables you to process and track orders with ease.

For those of you who are new to the Shop Kit Plus, or new to ecommerce in general, we provide two downloadable manuals that cover just about everything. And for those questions that aren’t answered in the manuals, we have a support forum with several members and thousands of posts that can help. And as an added bonus, we have implemented a Priority Support Ticket system for when you need faster assistance or need to give us details such as usernames or passwords.

If you have an excellent understanding of the Internet and of design languages such as HTML and/or PHP, you will find that our product is highly customizable and our staff is informed and quick to answer support tickets and forum posts.

Unlike many other sites, if you need special customizations to our out-of-the-box product, we offer affordable modifications and services that can be purchased directly on our site. Premium support and services, which are not offered in our very affordable standard packages are also offered as low-cost alternatives to hiring a professional web designer full time or on a monthly contract basis.

If you do wish to hire a professional web designer to setup and maintain a custom site you are welcome to contact us for a quote. Our pricing will be determined on a case by case basis.

We understand that you, as our customers, have made our business what it is today. We are taking every step possible to ensure that each one of you receives the products, information and services that we offer, so you can run a successful online business.

Thank you!

Popularity: 26% [?]