When I found out I was pregnant with my son, I knew almost immediately that I didn’t want to go back to work full-time after I gave birth. I loved my job, but I knew how fleeting those new baby moments are, and I wanted to soak them all in. Additionally, I didn’t want to have to worry about finding a suitable daycare, waking my baby up early on cold winter mornings to get him ready and out the door, calling in sick if he was unwell, paying for daycare, etc.

Having said that, I also wasn’t a fan of the idea of going from being dual-income, no kids to a single income family. So a few months into my pregnancy, I started researching stay-at-home mom jobs.

When I was growing up, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. But even though she didn’t work outside of the home, she still made an income via her various “side hustles.” (I doubt they were called “side hustles” back then…) Seeing my own mom successfully balance being a stay-at-home mom while still earning money inspired me to find ways to do the same.

Times have changed since then, and while the various side hustles my mom had are still viable work-at-home jobs for moms (babysitting, ironing, etc.,) thanks to the internet, the job options for stay-at-home moms are vast.

Fast forward to today – my son is 2 years old and I work completely from home. I set my own hours and I make more money than I made at my full-time job. So I can personally attest to the fact that it is definitely possible to earn money from home as a stay-at-home mom.

I know plenty of moms who work non-traditional jobs, in various roles. Below, you’ll find some of the best stay-at-home mom jobs that earn a great income, while being flexible and interesting.

Stay-at-Home Mom Jobs That Don’t Suck

Blogging

Blogging makes up the bulk of my income. Believe it or not, this blog that you’re reading right now actually provides me with an income. Plus, if you prefer to work a night time job, this is perfect for you!

How Blogs Make Money

I say “believe it or not” because I’ve spoken to countless people who don’t seem to understand exactly how a blog can make you money. People think that someone pays me to write articles for their website (which would make me a freelance writer,) that I must sell physical products on my blog (that’s e-commerce) or that I am part of a network marketing company (nope.)

If you’re not sure exactly how a blog makes money, I’ll explain. There are actually various ways a blog can make money, but the most common are:

• Display ads
• Affiliate marketing
• Sponsored posts
• Digital products

For this blog, the top two ways I make money are through display ads and affiliate marketing, then the sale of digital products. I do very few sponsored posts – only if I am approached by a company who I genuinely feel my readers would benefit from knowing about.

Display ads are probably my favorite income stream, because they are completely passive and don’t require my readers to do anything besides read my posts. You’ll see that there are some ads scattered throughout this post with the name “Mediavine” underneath them. Mediavine is the premium ad network I was accepted into – once you reach over 30k sessions per month (similar to visitors to the blog) then you can apply to Mediavine. Companies like Mediavine then pay you a certain amount of money per 1000 views of an advertisement. This amount can vary wildly depending on the blog topic, time of year, where the readers are located, etc.

I started this blog in August of 2016 and it took me maybe 5 months to meet the requirement to join Mediavine. What I will say is this – I put in a TON of hours upfront. I literally worked on my blog every spare second I had, including staying up way too late every night. But the payoff was so worth it.

I truly believe that blogging is the ultimate stay-at-home mom job. I like to say that “I’m a writer who owns my own publishing platform.” It sounds a bit facetious, but it’s kind of true.

I set my own hours. Sometimes I won’t do a thing for days. Other times I’ll get in a writing frenzy and publish 3 posts in one day. If I want to go on vacation for a week, I don’t have to ask anyone for permission. If my son or I wake up feeling unwell, I don’t have to feel guilty about calling in sick.

And most importantly, I work around my son’s schedule. I usually wake up at around 5-5:30 each morning to work on my blog. Then I spend the entire day with my son – no daycare required. I then do some more work in the evening after he goes to bed.

In most cases, I believe that you will get out of blogging what you put into it. If you’re willing to put in the hard work, invest in quality learning resources (and implement what you learn,) and view your blog like a business and not like an online journal, then you can most definitely be making an income from your blog within a year. Like I said, I truly believe it’s the best job for stay-at-home moms!

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing was my first foray into making money online, even before I become a mom. I’ve always loved writing, so it was something I was naturally drawn to.

If you don’t like the idea of having your own blog but you love writing, then freelance writing might be the perfect stay-at-home mom job for you. In fact, I know a lot of people who actually start a blog and then freelance write while building up their own blog.

This is a great option because it’s possible to make money a lot faster through freelance writing (blogging income takes some more time, but once you’ve got it, it’s a lot more passive.) I did both at the beginning. I no longer do any freelance writing, but it’s not something I’m averse to – I just haven’t had the time.

I took an excellent freelance writing course that really helped me get started. It’s by a mom named Gina Horkey who quit her job and completely replaced her full-time income within a few months through freelance writing. She created her course, “30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success” to help other people do the same. Check out Gina’s freelance writing course here.

Doing Laundry

I’d never even heard of this job before until I heard about a company called Laundry Care. Who knew that you could make a good income completely from home just by doing laundry for people who are too busy to do it themselves?

I thought this sounded like a perfect job for stay-at-home moms, and something that you could easily fit around your kids schedule. Click here to learn more about how to make money from home doing laundry.

Facebook Ads Manager

If you’re like most people, you probably spend quite a bit of time on Facebook. I’m not a fan of Facebook, but I still have an account to keep up with friends and family who live overseas/interstate (ok, and because I’m slightly obsessed with funny gifs…)

Anyway, if you already spend quite a bit of time on Facebook, a work-at-home job that might interest you is a Facebook Ads Manager. Essentially, what you’d be doing is running lead generation campaigns for businesses through the Facebook Ads Manager platform.

Mike Yanda is a dad and former lawyer who makes a lot of money doing this. He teamed up with Bobby from Millennial Money Man to create a course called “Facebook Side Hustle” that teaches people how to start their own business doing the same. I actually enrolled in the course purely to see if it was something I could recommend to my readers. I had no plans to become a Facebook Ads Manager, but I learned SO MUCH from the course, so who knows in the future! Click here to find out more about Facebook Side Hustle.

Pet Sitting

If I didn’t have an elderly 5lb chihuahua who wouldn’t like other dogs in his house, I would absolutely petsit to make extra money. I know someone who does this every weekend and makes a nice side income doing so.

A lot of people just advertise on places like Craiglist but I probably wouldn’t do that… I’m not a big fan of Craigslist – I’ve watched too many true crime shows…

Instead, if you want to become a petsitter, I recommend creating a free profile on Rover. If you’ve never heard of Rover before, they’re basically the pet equivalent of Care.com. Rover is the largest petsitting network in the United States, with a pet owner booking a service on Rover every 4 seconds.

It’s completely free to create a profile on Rover, and it only takes a few minutes. You set your own prices and Rover lets you keep 80% of that (the rest goes towards promoting Rover (and thus, you!,) administration, safety training, etc. Create your free profile on Rover here.

Virtual Assistant

This is actually a job that I’ve considered doing myself – I think it would be interesting and a great way to make money from skills I already possess (I worked in many office environments prior to having my son.)

As a virtual assistant, your tasks can vary widely depending on your clients needs. You may be doing anything from email management to creating Pinterest graphics, managing an affiliate program or scheduling social media – the list goes on.

Virtual assisting can be done from anywhere, as long as you have a wifi connnection and a computer, and depending on your clients, it’s normally pretty flexible. (For example, you may be required to answer all emails within 24 hours.)

Click here for more information on what a virtual assistant does and how to become one.

Teach English Online

This is a job that I think would be a lot of fun if you love kids – teaching English online to Chinese students. I know of a number of moms who do this, and they all say how much they love it.

Q-Kids is a company that hires native English speakers to teach English online. You can make $16-$20/hr teaching English online, all materials are provided, teacher/tech support is always available and you get to benefit from a flexible schedule and a rewarding, fun job. If you have a Bachelors degree and experience working with kids, you can submit your application to Q-Kids here.

If you don’t hold a Bachelors degree, then don’t worry – I got you 😉 MagicEars is another company that works exactly the same as Q-Kids, but they do not require their teachers to hold a Bachelors degree. Submit your application to MagicEars here.

Bookkeeping

If you love working with money, then bookkeeping can be a lucrative job that you can do from home. Virtual bookkeepers make up to $60/hr and can work from anywhere, with minimal setup costs. This free course will provide you with more information on how to start your own bookkeeping business.

Scopist

True crime show fans – listen up – working as a scopist might be the perfect stay-at-home mom job for you. I had never even heard of a scopist until a couple years ago, but basically a scopist proofreads documents for court reporters.

That means you get to read over everything that happened inside the courtroom, which sounds like an interesting job to me (anyone else upset that HLN stopped doing live courtroom feeds?!)

If you think that sounds interested, click here to learn more about how to become a scopist.

Web Designer

If you have an eye for design, then why not look into becoming a web designer or developer? These days, it’s basically a requirement that every business has a website, but you might be surprised to learn that there are still lots of small businesses that have no web presence.

Additionally, businesses are being launched every single day, and people need someone to design and develop a beautiful website for them.

This can be an incredibly lucrative career, and you can work remotely from anywhere. When I was learning about web design and development, I enrolled in Team Treehouse.  It’s hands-down one of the best ways to learn web design and coding in a fun, easy-to-follow, interactive way. Click here to get a free trial of Team Treehouse.

What do you think about these stay-at-home jobs for moms?

My favorite is definitely blogging – I think it’s the perfect stay-at-home mom job and it fits perfectly into a busy schedule. However, you do need to enjoy writing, so if writing isn’t your thing, what job do you think you might be the most interested in?