Last night I let the kids stay up late coloring at the coffee table while I sat on the couch proofing my latest web project. Most of my work I do after they go to bed, but on this Christmas vacation schedule, we’re not so pressed to get them to bed at a reasonable hour. When they’re occupied every now and then, I’ll pick up the computer and do a little work.
After a few minutes of my chatting, working, coloring, working, watching a video online, then working some more, Will was curious about my work. “Mom,” he asked, “do you have to do that?”
“Well…no, I don’t have to. But I make money when I do,” I answered.
“How do you make money when nobody sees you do it?” he asked.
I could just see his little wheels turning, trying to process how Daddy has to leave the house to go to work, but Mommy can just sit around and “play” on the computer and still earn a paycheck. I explained to him that people could see the work that I do on their own computers. He totally got that, because he likes to play games online himself.
It is really, really cool to be able to work from home on a freelance schedule. I would imagine that there are lots of folks out there that would love to be able to earn income whenever they want to just by sitting down to the computer. It does have it’s cons, though. Not all of the work I do produces income, and none of it is steady. I can’t budget from my job or rely on it, because I maintain it at an arm’s length. I do that on purpose, because managing my household is my main priority, and I choose to spend my daylight hours with my children and other household duties rather than working. That means that any down time I have in the late evenings takes away from my work hours. That’s okay, though. I could change the way I work at any time, but I really like treating it as a bonus. It’s something that fills in the gaps of my schedule and allows me to earn extra income when I really need it, without causing me undue stress and grief in order to get everything done.
The pros of my job? I LOVE it. (Except for the mundane tasks, of which there are plenty.) I only do it when I want to. When the kids are out of school, I get to sleep late and stay home with them, and it doesn’t interfere with my work schedule. In fact, it helps it, since I can stay up later. I can do my work from anywhere, and I usually do a little while on vacation. (That’s a con too.) And most of all, the sky is the limit on what I could do with it. Given enough time, creativity, and elbow grease, I could earn a small fortune. I probably never will, at least not while the kids are little, but the potential is there. And that dream in itself is reason enough to keep me going.
