subject: The Advantages & Disadvantages Of Working From Home & Some Ways You Can Start A Home Based Business [print this page] Being an entrepreneur from a young age I have been able to experience life on both sides of the employment world ie both employed by a company and self-employed with my own business.
For me the highlight has always been the times when I have been completely independent and working for myself, but this may not be suitable for everyone.
The advantages are many. For example no commute to and from work. How much time and money (through car usage or otherwise) is wasted by everyone as they go to and from work? What if that time and money could be used for other things? This is one of the most obvious advantages. Some companies have even begun hiring people to work from home as call center operatives. This is great for the company as they save huge money by not needing offices and telephones etc as these are all provided by the employee instead. In reality though the money saved is not really passed onto the employees and the wage works out about the same as if you worked for the company at their office. Perhaps that will change in the future.
Another great benefit to working from is that you can spend "break" times with your family. So for example you could have lunch with your kids or spouse if they happen to be at home. But at the same time what can be an advantage can also be a distraction. Some find it hard to concentrate on work if they are at home and they get easily distracted and find they don't actually do a full 8 or 9 hour day.
Having your own business and working from home (as apposed to working from home for another company) offers a lot of tax advantages (depending on where you live of course). Many countries allow you to write off a portion of your rent if you use 1 room as an office. You can also write off a portion of all your utilities. However if you mortgage your house things get a bit tricky if you choose to write off a portion of your mortgage. For example when you go to sell your house, theoretically your business now owns a portion of your house because it paid a portion of your mortgage, so a portion of the sale price would need to be declared as income for the business. These complications don't exist when you are only renting.
Due to these write off and tax benefits you can find yourself earning very decent money by paying lower taxes than if you were employed. However, if you live in Canada and America one main disadvantage would be the lack of health coverage. That alone can be worth a lot of money, so for some an employed job is necessary for the health insurance alone.
In my life I always tried to start my business on the side while I was employed by another company. This way of starting a home business offers the least risk as there is no guarantee you will make any money in your business venture. So for me, life was very busy and hectic doing both things at once, but eventually the home business grows and you can take the plunge and do it full time.
If you are considering starting a business buying and selling a product, it is highly beneficial to test the market first. One of my early successful business was with buying and selling computers from my house. I first located what I thought was a cheap source for the PCs. But I didn't buy any until I was confident I could sell them at a profit. I did this research simply by calling people who were advertising their used computer and seeing if it had sold or not. I found that people were indeed selling their use computers for a price that would allow me to make a profit. But in order to be totally sure I also put an ad in the news paper advertising the computers I planned to sell (without buying them). If I received a lot of phone calls I had the confidence to take the plunge and buy (just 1) computer as a test. If I sold it successfully for a profit and continued to get phone calls I would then buy more each time and repeat the process. You too could use a similar way to test the market for whatever product you think you can sell for a profit.
Another easy home business idea is offering some sort of a service. Service based business are some of the best home based businesses because there is no risk in buying a product and having it sit and lose money when you are unable to sell it. My last business was a computer repair business and it was wonderful. However, if computers aren't your thing then cleaning is always doable. My wife started her own cleaning business easily by placing a few ads in some windows (eg post offices etc) where elderly people might frequent. She quickly had a base of customers who quickly recommended her to their friends (because of her good work and friendliness of course) and her business exploded. She ended up turning people away.
One thing to be careful of when starting a service based business is make sure you charge a good rate from the beginning. Find out the average rate and charge at least that or more. Because it's always easy to drop your price but next to impossible to ever raise it.
Hopefully you can see the benefits of working from home and have a few ideas as to how to go about realizing that dream.
by: Stanley Nickelson
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