Anyone Aware Of Legitimate Home Businesses?

[INTrPosr]

My SO and I are tired of working for other people. After working for someone else for sixty years combined, we realize that we are not getting ahead and we really want to spend more time with our children. Can someone recommend a reputable home business? I have considered working for ebay.

[kuranes]

I'm interested in hearing what the members think on this, too. Obviously there are lots of businesses that you can invest in. I'd be interested in hearing about some that do not require significant upfront investment. Not sure what INTrPOSr's parameters are.

There's supposed to be something involving writing copy that turns up on search engines in the margins, and gets you a percentage of clickthroughs who were attracted to your "copy" ( blurb ) that you wrote with key words in mind for one of your "clients." The idea is to do A LOT of them. Anybody heard if this is for real? ( Watch out for those people that tell you they just need you to use your account to transfer money for them, obviously. ) K

[CoHo]

prostitution

[int]

prostitution
Hah. :)

I had a non-serious reply to add too, but am interested in the thread.

Writing seems to be a major career choice for those of us that would prefer to work at home. I'm somewhat reading a book called "The Wealthy Writer: How to Earn a Six-Figure Income As a Freelance Writer (No Kidding!)" by Michael Meanwell. He's got some decent advice. I can't really say much because I haven't read the whole thing yet. :\

Another one I've thought of is PC setups for businesses. A lot of IT departments waste a lot of time setting up and configuring computers. One firm I worked for would setup a machine, then take a "snapshot" of the hardrive and burn that to a CD. Any other machines (same make and model) that came along got the image copied to the disk and was then configured properly - computer name was changed, network devices setup, enail configed, machine tested, etc... Then we'd ship the computer to the right place.

This ended up taking 1/3 of my time there. The job could be outsourced for half the price I get paid, but is pretty mundane. Although, problems do come along and you'd get to troubleshoot them.

So the company would purchase the machines and the PC manufacturer would ship them to you. You'd set them up and ship them/drop them off to/at the original company's site.

I'm sure there's a lot of out of work geeks trying to do this though, so I haven't pursued it at all.

[CoHo]

Well actually I did look into this last year.... rambling

I had a friend who wanted to work from home. She was looking for something that would simply pay the bills (between $10 and $12 an hour).

After researching this for about a month I couldn't find a single work from home job that would work.

For example, the scripting wfh job
I don't remember the specifics; basically you do something like take doctor's notes and enter them into some medical database. It is a pretty basic job, just data entry. I think it is a classic wfh job, and it is legitimate, many people actually do this as a career choice.

The downfalls:

1) You need to buy the software ($50 - $200 I don't remember)
2) You need to take some courses
and the worst
3) You need to get customers

You will find that #3 will pop up in EVERY wfh job on the market. You always need to go out and find customers, if you can't find customers you don't work.