An ultimate guide: How you can earn money as a parent

Being a parent is challenging, to say the least, and you always do your best for them. So much so, in fact, that your aspirations as a proud human being are often pushed aside. Parenthood is extremely time consuming – how can you have time to pursue your dreams? This can be even more difficult if your dream is to find a flexible way of making money that fits around your busy schedule as a parent.

In this day and age, technology is shaping our lives in more ways than one. Whenever ‘work flexibility’ is mentioned, remote work/work from home (WFH) comes immediately to mind. There’s been such a rapid increase of online and remote job opportunities lately that it seems really easy to do. Although it isn’t difficult, it requires some getting used to and a lot of planning. You’ll need to set a routine for yourself and your child so that you can dedicate some time to your money-making biz without (many) interruptions.

With this in mind, let’s look at some ideas to earn some cash while being a stay-at-home parent:

• Affiliate marketing. Long gone are the days when reps went from door to door to promote and sell their products. Nowadays, you can still make money from promotion and sale of products and services, but without the hassle of a bulky stock, product delivery, inventory, and customer after-sale care. Just promote the products on social media, your website or blog. When a sale is made, you get paid!
• Freelance writer. Can you engage an audience with your words? Then this is right up your street. There are many opportunities online to write articles and content for other people’s websites and blogs. 
• If words aren’t your forte, but you’re more of a visual design wiz, what about designing and selling custom T-Shirts? Once again, no bulky stock and other time-consuming chores – just design and promote your T-Shirts. When an order is placed, the company you design for will produce the product and send it to the customer. Completely hassle free for you!
• Online surveys. Most people love to share their opinions, so why not get paid for it? Market research requires data from consumers, so some companies are willing to pay up to $5 for a few minutes of your time while you fill out their questionnaire. Sounds easy? Yes, it is.
• If you miss the human (but distanced) connection, have you thought about private tutoring online? You can make good money with subject-specific tutoring, and it all happens from the comfort of your home. Let’s have a look at this in more detail.

Are you the right person for online private tutoring?

Are you patient and have good time management skills? (Of course you do – you’re a parent!) Do you have good communication skills? Do you have any specific subject knowledge? If you have answered ‘yes’ to all of the above, congrats! You could be a great private tutor making money from your own home in your own time.

If you are unsure about your subject knowledge, don’t worry. The solution is at hand. If you are reading this, chances are that you are pretty fluent at English. Many people abroad need to learn English to find a job or to improve their existing career. Others want to speak English to be more independent during their travels. Your language skills, combined with your personality traits seen earlier would make you an ideal teacher of English as a foreign language.

What are the advantages of teaching English online?

If you are looking for flexibility and a decent income, look no further! 

Flexibility. 

Teaching English online allows you to be your own boss on your own terms:

• You can decide if you want to work independently or with the support of an online teaching company. 
• If you are an independent freelance teacher, you can choose what, when, and who to teach – and you can set your own hourly rate. The downside is that you will have to work on promoting your services, finding your students, looking after your website, creating and delivering your lessons. You’ll have infinite freedom, but it comes at a price: time.
• If you work for an online company via a platform, you will still be a freelancer and will have some freedom, but the company will set your hourly fee for you. The major advantage of these platform-based companies is that they’ll find your students for you and some of them will even set you up with lesson materials. Just familiarise yourself with it and teach! A lot of time is saved in this way.

Income. 

As previously mentioned, if you work independently, you decide how much you want to charge. If you would like to save time with the help of teaching platforms, you might end up being paid less. However, there are many different online teaching companies that have different requirements and charge differently. Do your own research before committing. 

If you are trying to figure out how much you need to earn and wondering…’’what is teaching online salaries like? How much can you make?’’ Here are some examples to give you an idea:

Cambly – $10.20 per hour

Cambly Kids – $12 per hour

Lingoda – from $8 to $13 per hour

Learnlight – from $12 to $14 per hour

Are there other reasons to teach English online?

When teaching English as a foreign language – online or in-person – you will soon realise that it’s meaningful and fun. You will be helping adults improve their lives, while shaping the future of children and teenagers. What could be more rewarding? And it’s definitely fun! You design your lesson according to the needs of your students, as well as your personality –  and theirs!

To conclude

While parenthood is a wonderful experience, it is also demanding and exhausting. Lack of time can be overwhelming, and the need to contribute to the family income can get you frustrated. In this article you will have hopefully found some money-making ideas that can fit around your lifestyle as a parent.