free home business advice

7 GREAT REASONS TO START A HOME BUSINESS

Here's some free home business advice: Leave that lousy job and determine your own destiny! Here are 7 pretty darn good reasons to leave corporate life and do your own thing, from home, any time.

1. Real autonomy.

Being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it is one of the great freedoms home business owners enjoy. When you consider this definition of freedom, it’s one of the few rights most Americans truly exercise – slaves as we’ve become to our jobs.

So imagine what it would be like to wake up when you want and spend your day exactly how you want to. Taste freedom!

2. No predetermined income potential.

Consider your most recent job. Did you get to decide how much money you were worth, or did someone tell you the salary range? Even if you negotiated your salary, was there an infinite number you could reach, or was it capped arbitrarily? As a home business owner you get to determine your own worth and truly get paid for how much value you bring to a relationship.

Service providers get paid per job or hourly, product sales people earn on commissions or off leveraged income such as through an MLM system. There is no cap on one’s income and no one else determining what you will make in a year.

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3. Tax benefits.

Here’s more free home business advice from my CPA, a few things you can deduct from your income taxes, offset with income of course.

• Travel (car, bus, taxi, train, plane)

• Coffee, lunch, dinner appointments

• “Research” – visiting places, venues, events related to what you’re trying to do

• Home office space and other areas of the home where you conduct business

• Office equipment

• Books related to your business or research for business

• Membership dues for all organizations you belong to

• Phone/Internet and possibly TV expenses

• Camera (if applicable)

You can probably identify some other areas of expense that somehow relate to your business so start asking yourself at every transaction: Can this be a justifiable business expense? If so, make note of what/why on the receipt or using whatever bookkeeping method you choose.

4. Flexibility.

Okay, so this ranks right up there with autonomy but remember all those jobs you had where you had to go crawling and groveling for a couple hours off or an extra day of vacation or even a doctor’s appointment? Those days are over! No one owns you and your schedule is now yours. You make it up every day as you go along.

5. Time off.

In corporate America you’re lucky to get two weeks of paid vacation per year – and even then they’re rarely “guilt free.” Have you ever asked your boss for vacation time and they made you feel like the place would fall apart without you, yet when you’re there they hardly give you the time of day?

So when you have your own home business, it’s not paid time off (unless you wisely set up a business that provides you with residual income coming in whether you’re working or not). Generally when you work for yourself, if you don’t work you don’t get paid. Again, it’s wise to create multiple streams of revenue so this becomes a moot point.

Since I launched my first business in 2001 I’ve taken extended time off including a 5-week trip to southeast Asia and a month in Japan – because I can! And you know what? My business did fine without me every time.

6. Set an entrepreneurial example.

For as long as we’ve had children my husband and I have both been working from home. Our sons see us coming and going from the home office while also making time to hang out with them at intervals throughout the day.

We’re busy. We have meetings. Things are hectic, as they are for everyone else. But our children don’t know us as 9-to-5ers and in fact have no idea what a “normal” work day looks and feels like for a double-income family.

We like that. We like showing them that our work is important because it’s work we do for ourselves. When they get older and start asking more questions, they will really understand that our situation is unique. And hopefully, when they look back on their childhoods, they’ll reflect on all the time we were able to make for them because we had the freedom and flexibility.

Entrepreneurs often breed entrepreneurs so chances are your kids will follow in your freedom-seeking footsteps.

7. Work in your pajamas and take naps!

Well I wouldn’t have called myself a pajamapreneur if I weren’t prone to wearing comfy jammies while tapping away at the keys – sometimes finding myself still in them at the end of the day. What a way to save on dry cleaning!

So while you’re still in your jammies, why not curl up and take yourself a nap? I swear, through two pregnancies I was able to nap any time I wanted and still have money coming in. When I hear about workaday women struggling with fatigue, nausea and every other thing related to pregnancy, I am forever grateful for the luxury of my pajamapreneur lifestyle.