4 Flexible Home Business Ideas

One reason many people start a home business is to have flexibility in the hours they work. For example, many moms want to have a home business that allows them to stay home to raise the kids.

Unfortunately, not all home businesses allow owners to work whenever they want. For example, many service-based businesses, such as virtual support, need to operate during regular business hours. Many tutoring businesses need to be available in the afternoon. Fortunately, there are many options for people who want complete control over their work hours. Here are four home business ideas that offer total flexibility to work when you want for how long you want,

Start a Blogging Business

Blogging is one of the most fun and flexible ways to earn a living from home. You can work on your blog any time of day or night. You can work for several hours at a time or in little time spurts throughout the day. You can choose any topic that tickles your fancy, as long as there is a market for it. Do you love chocolate? Start a chocolate blog. Do you know about growing a garden on a small terrace in a big city? Start a container gardening blog. Do you save thousands of dollars by doing your own car upkeep? Start a do-it-yourself car maintenance blog.

The key to success in blogging is choosing a topic that readers want to know about, posting new and interesting content regularly, and getting the word out so others can find and visit your blog. There are many ways to monetize your blog including contextual ads such as Adsense, affiliate promotions, selling ad space, and creating your own digital products such as ebooks.

Start an eBay Business

At any given time, there are millions of products for sale on eBay. You can list yours early in the morning, late at night or anytime in-between. Once your item sells, you pack it and stamp it using online postage, and put it in the mail.

Success in selling on eBay is having products that people want, a good picture, and enticing headline and description. To start with nearly nothing, sell items you don’t want or need around your home. If you find items that sell well, look for a ready inventory of that item at yard sales, thrift stores or wholesalers online. As an example, used golf clubs is a profitable but niche market, as are children's games and are often offered during garage or yard sales.

Work at Home as a Writer

Writing is a fast, easy and low-cost way to build a home-based or freelance business. Writing encompasses many jobs including freelance article writing, content marketing, authorship, blogging and more. Writing and selling your work yourself is fast through a blog, website or in the case of ebooks, through Amazon Kindle, Nookpress, and other ebook distributors. Or you can set up a freelance writing business to write for others.

While breaking into this field can be time-consuming—and you may run across many scams on your way—freelance writing is a growing field. You can find clients through your own website and networking on social media such as LinkedIn.

Start a Transcription Business

If you can type fast and accurately, transcription is an ideal virtual support job. Most clients will have a due date by which they want the work, but the time you do the work doesn’t matter as long as you deliver it on time. Many businesses need transcribers, including speakers, online entrepreneurs who do webinars/teleseminars, and associations.

Freelance sites are a great place to find your first clients. Having your own website and networking through social media, such as LinkedIn, can help you expand your business and perhaps charge more than companies on freelance sites pay.