Plan B: What to Do When You Get Canned

Lost My Job – Can I Find Work at Home?

“Perspective from a recently unemployed dad…..”

A Career from Home Can Be a Plan B

Finding work you love. My company just underwent downsizing and I lost my job.  Sucks. Being one of the most highly paid employees, guess who was the first to go?  Nothing was said about my age, though I strongly suspect that was also a factor.  At any rate, the severance pay was pretty slim, and there I sat at my home computer, looking at a pile of bills, not the least of which was a house payment based on my former (now long gone) salary.  I told myself it was not the time for a panic attack, I lost my job – it happens.  Surely some other company was going to want someone like me with all my education and experience.  After updating my resume, I wasted many long hours being interviewed and, always regretfully, was turned down because I was supposed to be happy to hear I was overqualified.

Lost My Job – Could Work at Home Be My New Career?

After six months of fruitless job searching, I decided it must be time for Plan B.  So I logged onto the internet and starting looking for work in my pajamas.  Since I’d lost my job I hadn’t really considered this – but why not? At first the possibilities looked endless, and I felt hope for the first time in months.  But little by little, I began to realize that work-at-home scams were a dime a dozen out there.  How was I supposed to invest hundreds of dollars in a special kind of software and a six month unpaid training period before I got anything back – I’d lost my job – not won the lotto!!  Even worse were the schemes where they encouraged the sucker who fell for them until they got his money and then kindly suggested how to

spend hours attempting to contact clients on his own.  After following up on a few of these, I realized without question that these schemers would be making the money and I would end up with nothing but blood, sweat and tears.  So where do I go from here?

Work at Home Searches Big and Small

Big search engine type job sites will start off by asking you to indicate where you live so you don’t waste time getting a position in a big city when you live in Podunk, Idaho.  Then specific positions will be listed, giving the name and location of the company and details about the job.  There are no blind leads, and the positions described really exist.  So this is a good place to start. Beyond.com allows you to post your resume for free – so that’s an awesome one to begin with if you want to look and post your resume.

What are some “work at homers” doing to make ends meet? Was it enough for someone like me? I lost my job after all and need to be bringing in some income. Here are a few programs and ideas that I found helpful and maybe you can too. MoneyMakingMommy.com was a great resource.  Wealthy Affiliates,  Swagbucks, 195+ Money Making Ideas for Women, and One Week Marketing.  Armed with this information,  I was able to make the right connection for me and found those recommendations sound.

Work at Home is *NOT* Fabulous

Working from home has its advantages, but I’m finding it’s not all gravy.  First of all, I found that it takes eight hours a day at least to make enough to support my family.  I’ve also found it is kind of lonely.  I miss the camaraderie of my fellow employees and the give and take of working with others.  But I don’t miss sitting in line at the gas station on Monday morning and shelling out all that money to get to work to make some more.  Sometimes acquaintances will belittle my job at home and say it’s not real work, but I just laugh and sarcastically remind them of how much fun that line up for gas is and how much we all love driving 25 miles to and from home to work at “real jobs”.

The Real Perk of Work at Home – Life

While not all online jobs are like mine, I’m considered an independent contractor, which means paying self employment taxes and having to file quarterly with the IRS. (Yep – even though I lost my job, I still gotta pay taxes!! Darnit!) I have to plan ahead to have money saved for those periodic payments.  Sometimes my family responsibilities get in the way of my growing business, my computer desk is almost always covered in paperwork, and the “honey do” list is usually what loses out.    But, being able to work at home gives me the freedom to schedule my job around my life instead of the other way around.

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