From Educator To Working At Home - and Making Money!
My name
is Ron
and Im 52 years old.
I taught high
school math
and coached basketball
for 27 years and enjoyed many successes and personal satisfying
moments. I left that
part of education 3 years ago and am
now the athletic director at our school.
Coaching allowed me to meet many of
the most successful coaches
in college basketball history and attend their clinics and even work at their summer camps.
The educator in me has always wanted to know
what makes successful
people - successful.
Ive accumulated ideas
from hundreds of biographies and autobiographies of successful people in
all areas of life.
Ive tried to incorporate
those into my teaching and coaching to help prepare young people for life. It didnt make me a lot of money, but it
was very rewarding. Someday Id like to develop a website for success ideas/stories/inspirations of all the material Ive collected over the years. But thats for another time right now.
I spent many years in that career I loved, but unfortunately didnt profit from huge salaries. Ive
really learned to love exploring on the computer and as I near retirement I was searching for
something that was enjoyable and yet something that could be profitable.
Searching the web for these kind of ideas is almost incomprehensible! I have sifted through
literally hundreds and thousands of ideas and sometimes it makes my head
spin. However, recently Ive come across an opportunity called The Ultimate Wealth Package. It is a program developed by Mark Warren and is definitely different from all those other head
spinners. Mark is very thorough in his explanation and completely lays out
exactly what you need to do in order to be successful. He explains that this is not a get rich quickly program, but if you follow his plan you can make some
money and
enjoy what youre doing at the same time. Im not the most computer
savvy person in the
world - but this is very easy to follow. I am also not the most liberal person - most of my ex-students and athletes would probably say Im very conservative! However Marks program is one that I felt completely comfortable with am looking forward to making part of my life from here on out. If things could work as well as I may hope - it may even allow me to move my retirement up a few years and allow me to enjoy things Ive only dreamt about.
I dont know if youre situation is anything like
mine or not, but it really doesnt
matter. I
think this is an opportunity that could be good for
anyone. I would say proceed carefully (like I did) and compare this to other programs youve researched. I really dont think youll be disappointed.
Ill end with a quick motivational story from a book that is probably my favorite of the hundreds/and even thousands from those Ive
read. If you havent read Gary Barnetts book HIGH HOPES - you should do so immediately. He took over an absolute dismal college football program at Northwestern and a few years later had them in the Rose Bowl. He simply said:
What they (the players) didnt understand was that at 211 degrees, water is just hot. At 212, one more degree of temperature, water turns to steam, which can create enough energy to move a train through a mountain pass. We were simmering at 211.
Ive always tried to inspire my students and athletes to work hard for that one little extra degree. Then they can
watch the fruits of their labor pay off. This is exactly how Im
going to approach this program. It has inspired me in much the same way.
I
wish you well and hope that you will reach for that one
last little degree in whatever it is that you want to be good at!
Ron Probst was a high school math
teacher and basketball coach for 22 years. Since retiring from the coaching side of education he has gone back to school to earn his administrators license and is currently a high school athletic director. To find out more
about Mike Warrens program,
log onto
http://www.yaswebsites.com/M305663W
Frugal Living: Money Making Ideas for Stay at Home Moms
Just because youve made
the decision to stay
at home as
a full-time mom, does not mean that
you cant earn a
little spending money on the side.
With todays proliferation
of work at home, freelance
and telecommuting job opportunities, stay at home moms have several options. Along with a wide variety of money-making opportunities, the Internet brings more than its fair share of scams
and rip-offs. However, if
you use a little practical common
sense and are not afraid of a little research, no ones going to
take advantage of you.
There is one very basic rule that you should keep
in mind at all times. If you remember this, youll be immune from most of the scams and questionable offers, If
it sounds too good to be
true, it probably is. No one is going to pay you $1,500 a week to stuff envelopes so forget it. You are not going to become rich off of 99.9% of what you read, and the
other 0.1% takes money, effort and time. Now that weve got some basic ground rules, lets look at some options.
Surveys
There are probably hundreds of sites promoting making good money with
paid surveys. The question is,
can you really make money with paid online surveys. The answer is yes, you can make money on surveys, and you can
get free goods and merchandise. However, I dont know anyone that makes a
living out of surveys (although I am sure someone is). Many survey companies offer entries into prize drawings
for merchandise or cash. Some of the
offers are pretty appealing. However, like any lottery, there are lots and lots of losers
for each
winner. If you
want to take a shot, who knows, you might get lucky. However, for the most part you will be working for
free, hoping to hit a jackpot.
There are reputable companies that do pay cash for surveys. Its doubtful that you will make a full
time wage, however, its a nice way to get a little extra spending money. Before you pay money and invest in a list of survey companies, test the water with any
number of free survey companies. One tip: Create a separate email account and use it only for survey offers. You may find after applying to a number of companies that you will get a lot of email offers. If you are not careful what company you sign up with, you may find a lot of spamish email and offers that you are not expecting. Its nice to have an email account that you can dispose of, if
necessary, or at least use to separate your personal and professional email.
Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping can be a lot of fun. Ive enjoyed everything from free meals to free days at Disney as a mystery shopper and gotten paid too! There are a number of mystery shopping services that you can apply to and get a constant list of
jobs that need to be filled in your area. The only real skill this takes is to be able to
follow directions, and to accurately remember or document (on the sly) specific points of interest and then be able to
complete an online form. Attention to detail and timely completion of
work are skills that will do you well in this fun job. You can take your spouse out to a free lunch or dinner and get paid for your time to complete the paperwork. Once again, you wont get rich, but its a fun way to earn a little money while getting free stuff.
Freelance Work
Freelancing is the ideal job for the stay at home mom because it offers flexibility, the ability to work from home (or where ever you choose) and still earn a decent living to help support your family. In addition stay at home
moms can get additional tax benefits for their families through their freelance employment and so help further reduce the
financial strain on their families.
As a stay at home mom, you may have some very marketable skills that companies would like to pay you for on a freelance basis. There are any number of positions for writing, editing, proofreading, web design, graphics art work, research, programming and hundreds of other jobs for which people are willing to contract. You dont necessarily have to be a Pulitzer Prize winning writer to
proofread and correct text, or to retype material from an
imaged file into a word processor.
Freelance work is an
opportunity for work at home moms to use their time and talents when and where they want: to bid on work that theyd like to do when its convenient for them to work. With a variety of jobs ranging from the data entry to programming, freelance work can consist of either short-term assignments or longer-term engagements. Best of all, you get to pick by
bidding on the work youd like to pursue.
The stay at home mom has so many options available to help add to the
family income. If you are not trying to find the EZ path to riches, there are many
legitimate, and free, or nearly free, work from home ideas. Here are just a few.
Be a
fundraising agent, helping groups and non-profits with proven fundraising solutions.
Get a piece of the $2.5 Billion pet market. Start a pet sitting business, a doggy
day care or gourmet doggy bakery.
Make and sell wire jewelry.
Sell products on eBay or your own website without having to stock inventory!
For more information on the job ideas in this article or for a list of work from ideas from A to Z,
visit http://www.FrugalMom.net.
Candace Anderson is a work from home mom who also homeschools her 5 boys while contributing significantly to the family income through multiple works from home channels of income. Mrs. Anderson has several websites including FrugalMom.net, which is dedicated to frugal living tips and resources for the stay at home and work at home mom. For more information on frugal living or legitimate work from home opportunities, visit
http://www.FrugalMom.net.