I had a poll live on my site a little while back to find out who works from home strictly and who does both a job outside of the home & work at home. It seems the poll has brought my attention to the fact that out of all the people who took the poll (22 people) that 16 of them or 73% work strictly from home only.

It appears that as there are more layoffs and employers stop giving pay increases to their employees that family’s are left to be creative and find a new form of income. If you think like I do, you want to make a living so that you can support your family but you don’t want to be in a position where you are working your butt off only to be laid off or removed from the position as soon as you get to the high pay rate. It sounds horrible but it happens all the time, employer’s find a way to remove the high paying, long time, loyal employees to find young, cheap help that will work for lower rates than any long term employee would work for.

You could sit back and think about how messed up that situation is or you could be proactive and think “what can I do to support my family?”. That is the question I asked myself a few years back and really pushed that question in 2008, I knew I needed to be financially independent so that I could support my children in a way that would show them Mama works hard to take care of us. Sure enough I founded HappilyBlended.com, AskBrandyEllen.Blogspot.com and Brandy Ellen’s Business Solutions all at the end of 2008 through mid 2009!

It appears I am not the only one who saw a real chance behind working from home with the technological advances. I mean we can have a phone conversation with another person from another country simply using Skype on our computer. Technology has allowed me to be a personal assistant to someone in California, where there is a will there is a way! If there is a need, there is a way to be paid! I mean seriously, take a moment and think about what you have for skills, are they skills you can apply from a home based business?

I was talking to someone the other day, he is an artist and can do portraits. He thought it was cool that I work strictly from home, and said something like “Wow I wish I could work from home” and me being the positive minded person I am replied “you can! So tell me what do you have for skills?”. He mentioned a few things but artist is what stuck out at me .. why? Well because guess what?! He can do self portraits and yes he can do them from a picture. See where I am going with this? He sets up a website, he gets people to talk to him about what they are looking for via email or Skype, then he has them send an image and he does a portrait for them! This can all be done virtually and it could be a great income for someone with such talent!

That is all it takes to work from home, as you can see based on my poll a lot of people are now working from home, it seems to be the norm these days! So all it takes is some brainstorming on what your passions are, talents are and what service or product you wish to offer people virtually and from there get with a designer and try to get your website up, after that work with a social media consultant to ensure you are marketing yourself properly! I am a firm believer that you can do anything you set your mind to!