What do you do With Kids? How do you Make Money? What Options are There?

We’ve worked from home for over a decade and love it.

All members of The Thrifty Issue team work around their kids, get to travel and a flexible life.

We are all mothers of various ages and stages of life so we understand the difficulties of juggling it all.

Some of us have children with autism, ADHD and similar plus we have it ourselves.

We prefer working from home at our own pace so here are the answers to my most common questions about it all.

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How do We Work From Home or When Travelling With Kids?

IEach of us started working from home when our kids were little.

Childcare was too expensive, or we couldn’t get it so the only option was working around them.

Most of us started in the evenings after they went to bed and during nap time.

The housework was paused because income was prioritised, especially for those of us who were or are single mothers.

As stages of life change, so do the hours and capacity to work.

Newborns and toddlers are harder to work around other than when they are sleeping compared to older kids.

When kids get older, there is more you can do to negotiate time.

Have Quality Time

We cannot stress this enough. Having quality one on one time and quality family time ensures kids feel loved and are happier to do their own thing when we need them to.

We have Friday Family Fun Night every Friday where they pick a movie or activity and treats.

In the car we talk, if we can walk instead of a drive, we do and we listen to them so we have a close relationship.

When we are with them, our phones are away and they have our full attention. 

Doing this means they feel secure, loved and confident so when we need time to work, they are generally content to play for a while.

When they haven’t had enough quality time together, that is when they get clingy or interrupt a lot when we try to work. 

Choose Your Hours

We do not work 24/7.

Most of our work is done when they are at school or in bed so when they are awake, we can spend time together.

Learn to switch off. Put your phone on do not disturb or aeroplane mode in the evening or when you are with them so you are less tempted and don’t get notifications.

Depending on the work you do, you might have more control over your hours.

Set your hours and stick to them.

What Work do We do From Home or Remotely?

We live at a time when working from home or remotely is easier than ever.

Many organisations are accommodating and have positions available to work from home or offer part-time arrangements.

Some jobs are ideal for working from home such as being a freelance writer, virtual assistant, social media management, voice-over work, blogging etc.

What We Specifically Do

Our team do a variety of things. Blogging, freelance writing, reselling, online surveys, market research, virtual assistant and more.

What Other Work From Home Options are There?

Online surveys make most of us $2000+ a year. Renting out a room on Airbnb, buy things to resell, start a shop or online business, editing, at home childcare etc.

Transcribing, voiceover work, sell your art, there are numerous things.

Check out 43 ways for single mums to make money and these 80+ side hustles.

How do We Manage Housework and Other Tasks Working From Home

We ignore it.

Work hours are exactly that, work hours.

You wouldn’t go into a job and start doing your laundry and dishes and things so don’t do it to yourself at home.

Working from home is still work time.

We teach our kids how to do things and set times to do it together.

Sometimes, working outside or in a cafe helps so you don’t see it.

Encouraging the kids to play outside reduces the mess made inside too so that can help.

Set your hours, your workspace and do what works for you.

As you progress, outsource whatever you can to reduce the load on you.

Teach your kids essential life skills such as cooking, cleaning, maintenance etc then outsource what you can to save time and energy.

A few things we outsource are meal planning by having meal kits (use the discounts here to get them drastically reduced).

Cleaning, lawns, sometimes other gardening and odd jobs.

How do We Find the Time?

Firstly, we don’t watch TV or Netflix. We cut it out years ago and love not having it,

The rare times we have access such as when travelling and in an Airbnb, there isn’t much of interest worth paying for a subscription.

Streaming and scrolling are two massive time sucks.

Turn off notifications on your phone, switch it to greyscale, delete apps and you will see how much less you use your phone.

Learning how to use our time more effectively and deciding what the best use of our time is helps. Check out these 18 tips to help you save time.

How do We Work and Travel

This is harder. Some of our trips are without kids, some with them.

When we have them, we have to be on top of their schoolwork with them and obviously lose the time they would normally be at school as our work time.

Typically, when we travel we are doing other activities so we squeeze work into small pieces of time we get here and there.

This results in the need to block out a few days at some point to clear the backlog of work.

Do you work from home? How do you manage it?

Resources:

The Ultimate Guide to Make and Save Money at Home eBook
18 tips to save time (article)

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