Are you unhappy with your salary too? Maybe you have a job but can only work part-time because your childcare situation leaves you no other choice or you want to spend enough time with your child in the afternoons.

Others want to go back to their old full-time job, but their employer is reluctant.

Or you have already been thwarted and you don’t dare to go to the boss’s office every year with the same old story about a raise. Especially since the little one has been sick so often again and you hardly dare to ask for vacation!

Even if your employer took you back with open arms in a full-time position, do you feel a certain reluctance? You don’t really want to waste so much time on your day job, not to mention the fact that the pay rise would be rather meager.

You’d much rather spend the time with your child playing ball.

Nevertheless, the situation remains unsatisfactory. Because you need the money.

So what can you do?

Thankfully, there are more opportunities today than there were 10 years ago to start a side business or turn a hobby into a profession!

And no: cleaning in an apartment building or overburdening the DSL line with phone sex are not the only options for a single mother to reconcile child, job and money!

1. Find your strengths

This is the very first step you should take in the direction of more money.

• What are you particularly good at?
• What do you really enjoy doing, what makes time fly by in no time?
• What do your friends ask you for advice or active support with?

I am convinced that only the things that make you personally flow will also earn you enough money.

Who knows – maybe you’ll be able to quit your day job at some point?

2. Your options

Once you’ve determined what you’re really good at, you can think about what specific fields you’re interested in and start researching. I’ll give you a few ideas to get you started.

Do you like to write and are you good at it?

You know your way around baby bottle sterilizers or vacuum cleaners? Or you love to cook and bake? Then your own blog in your niche (sterilizers, vacuum cleaners, themed cakes – whatever) would be a great thing. It’s not for the short-term cash, but you can monetize it later. However, you need more staying power for this. On the other hand, you will later have various vacuum cleaner salesmen running after you with free review models. Not a bad idea either… 😉

With WordPress, a blog is quickly set up, and a website from a good provider is not expensive – the real costs only come later when you want to do professional email marketing and the number of your subscribers increases. But hopefully by then you will already have paying customers.

Copywriting, i.e. writing texts on behalf of other companies, is a good alternative to a blog if you are very good at thinking about other people’s products and are a virtuoso with language and style. Copywriters have to be able to adapt well to the client – it’s actually just like at work: your boss has to like your writing style too.

Copywriters are best off starting out through well-known portals such as Freelancer or Upwork.

Unless you are planning a really big thing: your own book! You can even publish your own book through Amazon Create Space without having to convince a publisher that you have written a bestseller (not to mention the fact that it would be fatal if the book were already finished and you were only then looking for a publisher). But of course, the petitioning can be quite annoying – there are some great opportunities out there today to try your hand.

Nevertheless, make sure you find a good editor – it diminishes the reader’s enjoyment enormously if there are too many mistakes.

Marketing

You know your way around marketing? Great! Your skills will be enthusiastically received by customers if you can create great Facebook ads or deliver perfect SEO keyword research.

Generally, anything related to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram etc. is often overwhelming for many solo entrepreneurs out there. If you are also familiar with the various automation tools (Edgar, Buffer, Hootsuite, SmarterQueue etc), then it can be a home run for you.

Set up your own website, do SEO and off you go! (Who am I telling anyway?)

Design

Personally, I’m a fan of Fiverrr or Upwork. Quickly place an order, and specialists will take care of a professional logo for me or help with the design of a presentation or a special graphic for my product portfolio. Without me having to go to an agency first.

Maybe this is something for you too? There are currently still too few German-speaking designers there…

Sewing and other handicrafts

Your friends are regularly impressed by your fine and detailed sewing work? You also sew dog accessories or small bags for the odds and ends in the hallway? Then Etsy is a good place for you to start.

Virtual Assistance

This is a great thing for all mothers who have already worked offline as secretaries or assistants or still do. There are a few portals that provide virtual assistants – so you don’t need your own marketing and you have a reputable partner at your side who would also take action against customers who don’t pay.

​Bookkeeping

Are you good at bookkeeping? It goes beyond what a virtual assistant normally does, but you too could offer your services online through the above-mentioned assistant portals, just like a VA.

Photography

Do you love taking pictures and do you take good pictures? You can set up your own shop through these portals or sell pictures directly through image agencies, e.g. pictrs.com, chromorange.de, fotograf.de, Fotolia, Photocase or twenty20.com.

Here you will find basic information if you are interested in this idea.

Tutoring or childcare

Does it matter if you look after one or five children in the afternoon? (laughs). No, seriously – if you notice that there is a need in your area because there is neither an after-school club nor professional tutoring, then why not do it? OK, you won’t get rich from it. But you can offer something that you have to do anyway, and get some extra money.

So: stick a note with phone numbers to tear off on the pinboard of the local supermarket or talk to the school’s parent council and see what happens.

Organizing a children’s party

While other mothers see their son’s approaching birthday as D-Day and start to sweat 30 days before, are you at your best? Are you mega creative, super patient and making great table and wall decorations with your children? Do other children still rave for years about the birthday parties you have thrown for your kids?

A website can be set up really quickly with WordPress and put on the internet.

Dog walking

Do you like dogs, know a lot about them and enjoy going out with your pooch and the kids? Then why not take on a part-time job as a dog walker. You decide which dogs in the neighborhood you take on. I know a neighbor who is booked up for months.

Basics

• You are more of a doer and don’t need someone to tell you what to do all the time? High five!
• You have a stable and very good internet connection for everything you need to work from home online?
• Clarify with your current employer whether the additional income is okay for them and get it in writing from the HR department (better safe than sorry). If you work in marketing, like baking themed cakes in your free time and want to sell them, your employer shouldn’t have a problem with it. However, if you also want to offer your marketing expertise on the open market in your free time, your employer would need to be sure that you won’t end up in a conflict of interest here. You may even already have a clause to this effect in your employment contract.
•  
• Don’t risk anything when you’re just starting out!
• Decide whether you want to register a business or fall under the small business regulation (= income of less than 17,500 euros in the previous year or 50,000 in the current year (as of 2017)). However, you should definitely get separate information about this from your government or from a trusted tax advisor.
• Even if you are already good at the things you want to offer: You should definitely continue to work on improving your skills and expertise so that you get better and better. Your education is your most important investment of all! So book a course in copywriting, buy a guide to Amazon’s CreateSpace or take a course with a well-known cake decorating queen. No one can take that away from you later, which is more than you can say for a new car or TV.

• Otherwise, just get started and do it!

Conclusion

Of course, cleaning is easier (and phone sex probably too ;-). But even if you want to work at MacDoof, you need at least a health certificate. And you get paid really modestly.

It really doesn’t have to be that way.

Even if you haven’t studied, you can still start your own business on the side. Don’t be put off by negative thinkers in your family or among your friends. (If that’s not the biggest hurdle!)

If you feel that you’ve wanted to try this for a long time, and now you’re itching to get started, you’re bubbling over with ideas – then do it.

Especially if you build your business on the side, you still have your day job as a safety net.

What kind of great, confident position do you think you will be in with your employer if you have already taken your first steps, for example, with your own shop and have made sales?

You can only win.

What are you waiting for?

*Disclaimer: Everything I mention in this article are non-binding ideas for you. I kindly ask you to take this into account if you have not yet achieved any significant sales after a year.

I don’t get any commissions from the addresses given and I have only researched everything on my own. So there is not even a recommendation included, because I haven’t tried everything myself (except for WordPress and the tip with the blog, of course). So you should take that into account as well.

But I am quite enthusiastic about the possibilities that we have today in Web 3.0. And that’s exactly how I would brainstorm the individual ideas with you if you came to me for coaching.

On the other hand, I won’t ask for a commission if you take off like a rocket after just a month or two! Quite the opposite – I’ll be happy for you.

May the dollars be with you!