Your life is different today. It’s a stark contrast to what it once was. You’re at home caring for that bundle of joy. Worrying. Obsessing. Wondering what the future holds. And you would do anything for your child, right? To provide care and need. To be there in their darkest hour. Comfort them. Hold them. Soothe their worries and allay their fears.
You would move heaven and earth to ensure your child has a good life. Wouldn’t you? It doesn’t matter whether you’re a brand new mom or you’ve been here before, you’re in a season of giving care. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make progress. That doesn’t mean you can’t find meaningful ways to make money as a stay-at-home mom. It just means that you have to adapt to this new season of your life.
In this new season, making money has a different meaning. It can’t involve running around from meeting to meeting. You can’t drop everything for a client at a moment’s notice. Nope. You need to find different ways to make money. Ways that can sustain you even when you’re not always there. I’m not talking about an active income. This is mostly about passive income. Things you can do from your phone.
When you mention passive income most people think about making money in their sleep. They hear the cha-ching of the register. Cash rolling in 24-7. Well, it’s not as simple as that. Making passive income requires hard work and sleepless nights. But that’s your life right now. You’re used to working hard. You’re already used to tolerating those sleepless nights, right?
How to Make Money as a Stay-at-Home Mom
As a mom, you can’t just hop on a Zoom call at a moment’s notice. You can’t always jump in your car and head to a client’s house. It’s not as simple as that anymore. And you don’t miss that life for a moment. You don’t want to go back there because corporate life isn’t for you. You’re looking for freedom—a life free from the restraints of a 9-to-5 job.
So how do you make money as a stay-at-home mom without running around tending to a corporate overlord? What ways work the best? Which methods will sustain you for long enough and give you the freedom to work from wherever and whenever you please? Which methods produce the most amount of income?
I get it. You’ve been searching high and low. Unsure. Uneasy. After all, you don’t want to jump into something that doesn’t work out in the end. You don’t want to put all your hard work and attention toward something that doesn’t pan out. But that’s not the way to look at it. Most ways that you can earn an income from home require a lot of work upfront with little return.
Think about it this way. When you go out there and get a job, you’re paid a wage or a salary, right? You clock in and put in the effort to get paid for your work. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways you can make money from home by providing services for others. Sure you can do that if you’d like. But why work once and get paid once when you can work once and get paid repeatedly?
1. YouTube
YouTube is the world’s largest video platform. It’s a monster. A behemoth. It’s used in every corner and region of the earth. It’s consumed and devoured by people young and old. You probably use YouTube every day. Either for yourself or for your children. But did you know that you can make money from YouTube? And no you don’t have to appear on camera.
There are many faceless YouTube channels making millions of dollars per year in income. There are channels devoted to children. Inspirational channels devoted to adults. Channels about religion. Cars. Travel. You name it. There is every kind of channel you can desire. And you can create your very own channel and grow it over time.
To make money on YouTube you need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and at least 4,000 watch hours in the past year. Instead of 4,000 hours watched on standard videos you can have 10 million hours watched for YouTube Shorts. You could even do a channel devoted to YouTube shorts to make money. Shorts tend to go viral very quickly.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom or you’re a full-time working dad looking to earn extra income. YouTube can help you fulfill all of your money-making dreams. Is it easy? No. But it is a powerful source of passive income. The most important part about YouTube is to stay consistent. Pick an upload schedule and stick to it.
2. Sales Funnels
Sales funnels are like magic little money-making machines. You can use sales funnels to sell any product or service your heart desires. And even if you don’t have a product or service to sell, you can design sales funnels and sell them in our marketplace. This requires zero technical skills. You don’t need to be a web developer or a coder.
All you need to do is use the premade templates and the drag-and-drop editor to create beautiful sales funnels. If you have an eye for design, then this is for you. If you don’t know what a sales funnel is, let me introduce the concept to you. Sales funnels are like websites. Except they’re a little different. They have one path forward instead of many choices.
Sales funnels are always very singular in focus. They’re designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Some sales funnels are designed to generate leads. We call those lead generation funnels. Other funnels are designed for people to fill out applications. We call those application funnels. Still others are used to make sales, sell subscriptions, host events, and so on.
Websites aren’t singular. They have so many choices and options, which is why sales funnels convert 137% higher on average than websites. Sales funnels take people through multiple stages. They move from awareness to interest. Then from interest to desire. And finally from desire to action. You can learn more about sales funnels here.
3. Tutor Others
You can tutor others to make money. If you have a skill and enjoy helping others, become a virtual tutor. Many websites allow you to tutor others online. You can teach a language, a skill, a musical instrument, a subject in school, and so on. If you’re not already a member of the online tutoring sites, join them now. You can use a site like Tutor.com, Varsity Tutors, and many others.
When you tutor others you’re providing a service. So this is not passive income. But it is a way you can make money while your baby is sleeping or your kids are taking a nap. It gives you some time to yourself to provide value to others outside of your household and beyond just being a mom at home and helping your children.,
4. Narrate Audiobooks
If you have a good speaking voice, consider narrating audiobooks. You make money with audiobook narration in a couple of ways. First, understand that all audiobook narration happens on a website called ACX. It’s also the site that feeds into Audible, the world’s largest audiobook platform. Audible is owned by Amazon.
To start narrating audiobooks, set up an account on ACX. Then, you have two options. The first option is that you can narrate audiobooks for a fixed price. That price is based on a per-finished-hour rate. That’s not per hour. A finished hour means that it’s the final time length of the audiobook. Not the amount of time it takes you to finish it.
The other option is to work on a royalty basis. This is the best option. But not many authors who are established will agree to this. If you do find one to agree, you will not receive payment upfront for your work. You will only receive a royalty as each audiobook sells. The typical royalty agreement is a split between you and the author. But that rate varies on many factors.
5. Sell Handmade Items
Many stay-at-home moms sell handmade items on sites like Etsy and Handmade to make money online. This is ideal when you’re interested in crafting. The beauty is that you don’t have to pick up the phone or speak to anyone. All you need to do is come up with great products and list them on these sites. Then you optimize those listings and get people to show up and buy.
You can even sell digital items. If you’re into graphic design or are a pro on programs like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe PDF then consider creating vector-based art for things like journals, wall prints, activity calendars, and so on. You can even sell custom icons and other design templates. These digital items cost nothing to ship, giving you a huge profit margin.
6. Print-on-Demand (POD)
Print-on-demand (POD) is a popular niche for making money. It offers low costs and low overhead to get started. You don’t need any printing equipment, employees or a warehouse. You don’t need to ship any items whatsoever. All you need to do is provide the designs for the items and a method to sell them. This is much easier than launching a print business and buying all the equipment and doing the work yourself.
To succeed with POD you must pick a niche and stick to it. Whatever that niche might be you have to go all in on it. Create various designs and prints for that niche. And with everything you do, ensure you check things like copyright and trademark on USPTO’s website. Use sites like Printful and Printify to start selling your POD products.
7. Write Books
If you love writing, consider writing books. Today, it’s easier than ever to self-publish your book on Amazon. Plus, as a stay-at-home mom you have the flexibility to write when the time arises. When your child takes a nap or goes to sleep is your time to put in those hours. Fear holds most people back from doing this. Fear of what others will think.
If you can get beyond all the self-doubt and fear, you can make money doing this. It won’t be easy. Writing takes hard work and effort. It takes creativity and skill. And when you’re done, your work isn’t complete. Even after you have a finished, edited, and completed book, you need to market that book. You need reviews and sales. That’s the hard part. Writing the book is simple.
8. Do Affiliate Marketing
Many stay-at-home moms gravitate to affiliate marketing to make money because there’s a low barrier to entry. You’re not creating your own products or services. You’re not building a website or hiring employees. All you’re doing is promoting affiliate links. That’s it. It’s a great way to make money when you have an existing audience. Harder when you don’t.
For example, if you have a following on social media, affiliate marketing is easier. Why? Because you have an existing audience. If you have an email list or a YouTube audience that works too. Any existing audience helps. But you must use caution when promoting affiliate offers. Instead of spamming your network, use a bridge funnel.
Bridge funnels help connect a simple front-end sales funnel to the affiliate offer by giving away value. This helps you bring new people in the door without looking spammy. The bridge funnel offers a lead magnet in exchange for their contact details. Then, you forward them to the affiliate offer. But they’re now part of your email list and that’s important.
9. Create Online Courses
Online courses are a great way to make money online. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom, a stay-at-home dad, or you’re working a full-time job. Online courses allow you to share your wisdom with the world and get paid for it. But don’t mistake this for an easy income stream. It’s hard work. But the pathway forward is simple.
To create an online course you should build it inside of a sales funnel builder. This makes it easy to set up the entire online course. Everything from the landing pages, to the payment pages, the member content, and the emails can be built without any technical knowledge. All you need to do is use a drag-and-drop editor with premade templates.
Once you build your online course you must market and promote it. Your work doesn’t end with the creation of it. Will you promote it with paid ads? Will you use social media to promote it? Webinars? Affiliates? Email marketing? How will you approach it? Yes, you can make money with online courses as long as you know what you’re doing.
10. Copywriting
Copywriting is a skill that can make you a lot of money. But you must be very good at it. If you are, you can help businesses sell more products and services by writing great copy. You can help them write sales letters, create landing pages, craft headlines, draft emails, optimize ad copy, and so on. If you’re already a great copywriter, approach other businesses and offer to help them.
You can do this simply by using social media and sending direct messages. You can also use existing platforms like Upwork or Freelancer to find paying clients. And you can also build an entire sales funnel promoting your copywriting services. There are many ways you can find clients. You can even run paid ads to a lead magnet that agitates common copywriting problems companies are facing.
11. Podcasting
Podcasting is not a fast way to make money. It’s also not an easy way to make money. But when you build an audience, you can sell them just about anything. That’s not only the ad revenue that you’ll receive when you have a substantial following on your podcast. Podcasts can also be used to sell products and services, coaching and consulting.
Podcasting is a great way to make money without a job. Yes, especially as a stay-at-home mom. But you must find your niche and you must be consistent. Will you do a solo podcast? Or will you have guests on your podcast? Yes, you’ll need to juggle a few things while taking care of your family, but it’s well worth it once you have a podcast with a substantial audience.