As a “web master” of a site aimed to help parents stay home with their children (living frugally and on one income), I receive several requests each week (sometimes a day!) to place links to various “work-at-home” based business sites online. Many of these sites are valuable resources and some of these sites are not – but most are individuals who are members of organizations that are home-based-businesses online.

Some parents, whether they’re at-home or working part-time, aren’t quite up to undertaking an at-home work opportunity online. It wasn’t for me, to be honest, despite that my web site does manage to bring in a minimal amount of income (it about breaks even on the cost for maintaining the site).

If online home-based business isn’t for you, either, there are a lot of ways you can make money from home, or “near” home, in any case. I admit that many of these ideas aren’t going to bring in “big bucks,” but they bring in something, and if your family is anything like ours, every little bit helps.

Here’s what at home moms and dads I know in our city are doing to help earn a living for their family, while staying home to be with their children:

- One dad is a construction site contractor, and manages to stay home with his children when they’re out of school. If he must go somewhere during the day and the “littlest one” is with him, she goes to grandma’s or to a play-date; an occasional baby-sitter is also available to them if needed.

- Several moms are sales affiliates for various retail outlets: Avon , Pampered Chef, Highlights for Children, PartyLite, Melaluca and Usborne Books, Discovery Toys, to name a few. These are legitimate companies that offer you at-home work – mostly. Yes, there’s selling involved (in a fun atmosphere, usually!) – and it does take you out of your home in the evenings (but if your spouse works days, an evening or two here or there isn’t too bad a deal).

- I personally have been doing freelance editing for a newsletter publisher and freelance web site design for about 5 years now. These allow me to be home when my children need me there – before school, after school, evenings – but I’m able to do computer work while they are at school or in bed.

- There are textbook and publishing companies (McGraw/Hill is one near us) that offer occasional at-home editing work. If you’re good with words, have an education, English or journalism background, or a science or math background, this might be an option for you. If you have a college nearby, you could post on the kiosks for editing as well – some college students will pay to have well-written papers! (Just don’t do the papers for them!)

- Along similar lines to the above, you could consider becoming a freelance writer, or “stringer” for your local newspaper or any local magazines. Our area has two “local weekly” newspaper publishers and several city magazine publishers, all of which accept freelance materials. The local newspapers offer “stringers” a consistent “beat” that is too small to be a full-time position; it usually requires the “stringer” (part-time reporter) to cover one or two meetings a month, plus a couple more stories for “color”. This, however, probably doesn’t pay much (back when I was in the business, 10 years ago, stringers made $1 an inch and there was a 20-inch cap on story length at the company I was with).

- If your area has a parks and recreation department with an extensive programs area, you could consider proposing a class and teaching it. I proposed a drawing class for younger children and now teach it once a quarter. I set the amount I receive for each child taking the class and the parks and recreation department adds a small amount to it as their “cut”. It’s fun, I enjoy it and our classes have been a great way to introduce 5 year olds to drawing and drawing concepts. And I make a bit of an income while we have a good time! I teach the one-hour class during the day, when my children are in school (they’re in lower-elementary years now), and in the summer, arrange for them to play at a friend’s or at grandma or grandpa’s house while I teach the once-a-week for 4-weeks class.

- If the area laws or requirements permit, you could consider substitute teaching, if your children are school age and are "gone part of the day" at school. This is not a reliable source of income, since substitute teachers are needed on a fluctuating time schedule. Our local district pays about $100 a day for subbing; our children's Catholic school pays $85 a day.

- Local companies near you may need paperwork or computer work done and some may allow you to do it at home on your computer. Small businesses often are good candidates for such work.

- If you have any skills that could be put to use, you can make money with them. Do you enjoy painting? A neighbor is now a celebrated muralist in our area, all because she recognized her painting ability and put it to good use – and she’s a single mom of three. Another neighbor started painting as a hobby and now not only teaches adult painting classes, but makes the local art-show circuit as well (she’s “retired”, mind you, and her children are grown). And still another neighbor sews well, has a huge sewing machine and sews logos and lettering onto jackets for an area sporting goods store; another woman in our neighborhood is also a good seamstress and she does alterations for a home-based business. If you’re good with math, science, reading, and writing and/or have an education degree, you could consider tutoring. Or if you’re musical and can teach the skills, you could offer music lessons.

These are not just a few ideas to get the wheels turning in your mind regarding ways to make money. There are a lot of book titles available regarding home-based business and freelance work – just plug the topic into any book store or library search engine and you should find a good list to get you further into researching your options.

Good luck and God Bless your efforts to stay home with your children!

Wendy Lomano maintains the website www.athomeparent.com and several others. She is a freelance writer, editor and web designer as well as volunteer at her children's school.