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By Jasmine Birtles, financial expert from Moneymagpie.com
Do you want to make money and stay at home to look after the family? There are lots of ways. After all, mothering is a skill and all skills are saleable! Here are just a few of the ways that you can make money and look after your children too.
Be a Doula
Doulas are birth-partners and post-birth partners - like surrogate mothers to new mothers - and any woman who has had a baby could become one.
You will need to take a doula course with British Doulas (contact below) who run four-day courses for women who want to become birth partners and post-birth partners. You don't need academic qualifications to go on the course but you do need to be willing to do what it takes to help new mums.
You can work part-time or full-time as a post-birth doula, helping around the house after a local woman has had a baby, making sure her fridge is full, making food for her and helping her care for the baby.
You can also work as a birth doula where you will be with a mother when she goes into labour and throughout the birth. Doulas in Britain make, on average, about £10-12 per hour for post-birth work and between £250-500 for a birth. Contact: British Doulas - www.britishdoulas.co.uk.
Virtual assistant/secretary
Virtual Assistants (VA's) are like PA's but they work from home. They do all the usual things that PA's do including typing, answering calls (if a client has their calls redirected to them), bookkeeping, filing and setting up meetings. They exist to help small businesses that can't afford full-time secretarial support or need to delegate occasional typing or admin work.
You will need a spare room (or at least a clear desk, away from the kids, TV or any distraction), a phone, modem and PC - packed with all the usual software applications. It also helps if you're able to correct unintelligible emails while talking to suppliers you've never heard of about products you don't understand! If you can do all that, typically you would charge between £10-£25 per hour for secretarial work done by phone or email.
Contacts:
www.ebs-digital.co.uk - a VA agency; www.assistyourbiz.com - a good resource for people who want to become a VA; www.allianceofvirtualassistants.com - hints and tips on how to do it.
Childminding
The great thing about being a childminder is that you can look after other people's children while you're caring for your own. There is a limit to the amount you can earn, though. You're only allowed to look after up to six children in total: that's up to three under fives and up to three more between five and eight years old. And that includes your own.
In order to become a childminder you will need to go through some training first. Also you, your family and your home will need to be approved by your local council before you can even be put on their list.
"There's no fixed fee per hour, per child," says Kay Lyons from the National Childminding Association, "and it varies all over the country, but the average pay per child is about £3.54 per hour."
Contact: Children's Information Service; www.childcarelink.gov.uk National Childminding Association; www.ncma.org.uk
Market research
Are you opinionated? Would you like to be paid for airing them? You can by taking part in focus groups. There are a few companies - not many - in Britain that have a pool of people they call on regularly to join a focus group. Sometimes they specifically need mothers or fathers to test out child or baby-related products.
Saros Research is one company that conducts focus groups like these. Just log onto their website (below), put in your details and wait for those invitations. You will only be allowed to do two sessions with them per year but you could also apply to other companies and get extra work. You can make between £30-£100 for a session depending on what you are talking about, plus free food and drink while you're there! You can also make money by recruiting other people for the focus groups. You earn money each time one of your recruits takes part in some research.
Contact:
Saros Research: www.sarosresearch.com
Fostering
There is a huge need for foster parents in this country and if you have enough love, patience and experience in caring for children this can be a very worthwhile way of making some extra money. In fact, the money you get is often tax-free.
The amount you are paid depends on the local authority. Between about £125-£250 per child per week is the Government's recommended minimum, though some councils pay less. How much you're paid depends on the age of the children and where you are in the country. However, it's really important that you do this 'job' for the love of children rather than the need for money.
Contact:
Foster-net - www.foster-net.co.uk
British association for Adoption and Fostering - www.baaf.co.uk
The Fostering Network - www.fostering.net
Become a lactation consultant
If you have breastfed your baby you may be interested in helping other women do the same. Mothers need more help than ever to learn how to get their baby to latch-on and breastfeed successfully.
Train first to be a breastfeeding counsellor - a voluntary role - with the La Leche League or The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers (contacts below).
Then, after gaining many hours of experience you could move on to train as a lactation consultant and charge for work in hospitals or private practice.
Depending on where you live and what your experience is you could charge between £15-50 an hour for consultancy.
Contact:
NHS Breastfeeding resources - www.breastfeeding.nhs.uk
The La Leche League - www.lalecheleague.org
Association of Breastfeeding Mothers - www.abm.me.uk
Jasmine Birtles is from Moneymagpie.com - the website that gives you a richer life.
