A Wahm Trying to Homeschool Also!

Can you really do it all? Yes, You Can!

Make Money Helping other Moms

Filed under: Being A WAHM, Ebook Writing, Starting a Business, What Business to Start? — workathomemom at 7:54 pm on Sunday, February 28, 2010

bookencyclopedia010_smallHow Moms can Make Money Helping other Moms

If it’s one thing moms can do it is stick together. Making life run smoothly with kids, home and career can be a tall order. Communicating with other moms helps to ease the stress. If you are looking for a business venture, why not make money helping moms just like yourself?

What will you offer to these moms? Well, your product is as close as your memory. Your expertise is the product you can market to moms everywhere. There are situations that you have encountered and overcome as a mom that other mothers are facing too. They could benefit from what you know to make their life a bit easier.

Packaging your Product – EBooks

Put your advice down on paper. You probably have a lot of good advice to offer but it won’t sound like much unless you can get it out of your brain and into a legible format. If you have a talent for writing this will be less of a challenge for you. Take a writing course to bone up on the finer points of writing outlines and organizing your thoughts on paper.

Your format for these organized thoughts is an eBook. Everyone has heard of them but might not know exactly what they are. An eBook is essentially a book in digital form. You can create and publish them yourself. For the work that you put into the project, you are greatly rewarded with pure profit.

The first consideration is the length of your eBook. A typical eBook can have as few as 70 pages or as many as 150. People will pay more for longer eBooks.

EBooks are popular media because they can be downloaded or printed in an instant. As soon as the payment is processed, the customer gains access to the eBook. No storage space other than what is on your computer or flash drive is needed to house the eBooks you buy.

Selling your EBooks

Consider your market – other moms. Let’s say that the subject of your eBook is getting a toddler through the terrible twos and threes. Fill your eBooks with information that moms want to know:

•        Tips for bedtime

•        Disciplinary tips

•        Going out in public

•        Dealing with mom stress

•        Testimonials

•        True life examples

All of these ideas can be used to flesh out your eBook. These same bullet points can be selling points for your eBook. When creating the eBook website page, use snippets from stories in the book, testimonials from others who have read the book and a partial list of chapters in the eBook as advertising on the page.

Condense chapters into enticing articles that you submit to article directories. Don’t give away too much because you want moms to buy your eBooks. Supply a link to your website in the resource box.

As a mom you can join online forums to share your helpful advice with other moms. Use a link to your eBook page in your signature line for easy access. As you develop a following on these forums, other members will visit your site and see your eBooks.

EBooks can be used to share information that you have learned as a mom with other moms. They are easy to create and with a marketing strategy, can bring large profit to your business.

If you need more information on creating EBooks or if you need PLR material for your EBooks please visit MomPLREBooks.com

Fat Loss Strategies for the Busy Moms

Filed under: Balancing it All, Being A WAHM, Health and Fitness, Taking Care Of You — workathomemom at 4:33 pm on Wednesday, January 13, 2010

bigstockphoto_Work_Out_Time_515085_smaller7 Fat Loss Strategies For Busy Moms

By Holly Rigsby, CPT
www.FitYummyMummy.com

Would you like to "jump start" your metabolism and lose your ‘mommy belly' once and for all?

If so, the following seven tips are exactly what you need to improve your workouts and ignite your metabolism. Try some or all of these tips, but beware, the result may be a number of admiring second glances and the need to pull your ‘skinny jeans' out of the closet.

1. The majority of your workouts should be composed of free-weight, bodyweight or cable exercises.

Compared to machines, free-weight, bodyweight and cable movements often require more skill, create muscular balance, and have a greater metabolic cost. For example, it is more difficult to balance the weights, and to coordinate muscles when performing free-weight exercises. Although this may sound like a disadvantage, it is actually a benefit. By balancing and stabilizing free-weights or cables you are working more muscles through a greater range of motion resulting in more muscles developed and more calories burned.

2. Use exercises that work more than one muscle at a time.

When focusing on fat loss, you can't worry about "shaping" exercises, instead you should use exercises that'll get you the biggest bang for your buck and work as many muscles as possible. Isolation exercises can be used at the end of a workout to work on a specific target area, but they just serve to supplement your core movements.

Virtually every savvy fitness professional is privy to the fact that compound exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body part.

If you seek lean, toned muscles and the increase in metabolism that comes with them, you must choose exercises that work as many different muscles as possible. One of the main reasons why squats are superior to leg extensions for improving your body is that they also work your butt, hamstrings and inner thighs in addition to toning your quadriceps while leg extensions focus on just the front of your thigh and don't really offer any other benefit. That same rationale hold true for arm exercises too. That's why dumbell presses and dips will are more valuable for your arms than triceps kickbacks and pushdowns.

A good rule of thumb is to use movements that will allow you to use the most weight. These will have a systemic effect on your body that'll help maintain or increase your lean muscle, and in turn ignite your metabolism.

3. Pair exercises.

Pair your exercises together so that you alternate between upper-body exercises and lower-body exercises or between exercises that target opposing muscle groups (e.g. chest and back).

This type of approach will keep your workouts short and efficient by eliminating much of the downtime that comes between sets of a single exercise since you are working on one movement while resting from another. This approach can also yield huge benefits in your mission to burn fat. Since you'll constantly be moving and keeping your heart rate elevated, you'll be burning far more calories than you would during a typical workout.

4. Keep your reps between 8 and 12.

Through research, it has been determined that the best range for building lean muscle is roughly between 8-12 reps. Since the main focus of your resistance training efforts is to gain lean body mass and stimulate your metabolism, this rep range fills the bill perfectly. "High reps for tone and fat loss" is one of the biggest (and most unproductive) training myths! Somehow the aerobics, yoga and Pilates' community have convinced us that when we perform body weight exercises or light resistance training for high reps, our muscles magically take on a beautiful shape without growing or bulging. On the other hand, if you challenge yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on a bulky, unflattering appearance. If you believe this, you probably still believe in the Tooth Fairy!

5. Rest only 30 to 60 seconds between sets.

When you keep the rest periods under one minute, it's easier to stay focused on the task at hand and keeps your heart rate elevated. In addition, it forces your muscles to recover more quickly between sets, along with keeping your nervous system revved up.

If your first movement in an upper/lower body pair is squats, you might want to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement. However, if your first exercise is a fairly "easy" exercise, like lat pull downs, you might only wish to wait 30 seconds before doing the second part of the pair.

6. Perform total body workouts.

You must drop the notion that muscle groups work independently of one another. Muscles work together and should be trained that way. Besides, not only does this approach mean less time in the gym, but by working the whole body three times per week, you'll be maximizing the fat burning effect of your program.

7. Cardio is not the cure-all for fat loss.

Cardiovascular exercise aids in the creation of a caloric deficit, but the caloric expenditure during cardio is temporary. Strength training addresses the core of the problem by permanently increasing the rate at which the body burns calories by adding muscle. The best programs will include both strength training and cardiovascular training, but the core or the programs effectiveness is resistance training.

Take these strategies and incorporate them into your workout routine. Not only will you save a lot of time, but you'll also soon see a leaner and more toned body. Not to mention a few more turned heads and the re-emergence of your skinny jeans.

About the Author

Holly Rigsby is a nationally recognized women’s fitness coach, certified personal trainer (CPT) and the author of the internationally popular e-book – Fit Yummy Mummy - Burn Your Baby Fat & Get Your Body Back. Go to http://www.fityummymummy.com to get your FREE copy of her special report: "The Five Ways To Boost Your Metabolism."

Easy Christmas Dinner Ideas

Filed under: Balancing it All, Being A WAHM, Everything to do with Holidays, Family, Meals For The Busy WAHM, Musings, Time Management — workathomemom at 12:51 pm on Tuesday, December 22, 2009

bigstockphoto_Drowning_In_Papers_5075831Christmas is in 3 days (two if you celebrate on Christmas Eve!), so dinner’s gotta get get done. As a WAHM you might be thinking you are over your head in things to get done.

Everyone thinks of the traditional ham or turkey with all the trimmings as the must-have meal, but it’s a lot of work.  You can still have a delicious meal without slaving away all day.  Really!

Here's Some Ideas:

* Don’t have a lot of guests? Try oven-roasting a whole chicken or even chicken pieces.

* Take a walk on the wild side with a crockpot recipe the family loves. Even a pot roast can be cooked with a Christmas flair by topping the roast with cranberry sauce. Yes, cook the roast with the cranberry sauce on top and sprinkle a little onion soup mix for extra flavor.

* What about a Christmas pizza? A simple idea that can get the family involved. Choose a Christmas-themed pan shape (Christmas tree, bell, etc.) and go for it.

If You’re Still Making The Big Turkey or Even a Ham:

* Choose ready-made stuffing.

* Packaged turkey gravy can help in a time crunch. Just replace some of the water with pan drippings and YUM!

* Packaged mashed potatoes have come a long way. If you haven’t tried them in a while, do a test in your kitchen. You might be surprised.

Of course, if you aren’t into processed foods, things may not be so simple. You’ve just got to get creative with the time you spend in the kitchen:

* Appetizers can be simple. A veggie or meat plate. You can even purchase these fresh items, pre-cut and arranged.

* Don’t go overboard with side dishes. If you’re making them yourself, you don’t have to have EVERYTHING. Just make bigger batches of a few vegetables and other items. They WILL satisfy a hungry crowd.

* But better than making less is getting OTHER people to make it. Enlist all your guest to bring a side dish. Unless they have a specific dish they really want to make, be bold and tell them what to bring. It’s easier for everyone involved.

* Chop vegetables, get the bird ready and do other kitchen prep the night before. Enlist the help of family members and enjoy a glass of wine or a hot buttered rum…or two.

* Don’t be shy about asking for help on the big day. Your guests are perfectly capable of basting, slicing, setting and more.

The important thing is to enjoy the day. Entertaining can be fun, but if you’re running around the kitchen all day, sweating up a storm…it can lose a bit of its lustre.

Why Publish an Ezine

Filed under: Being A WAHM, Newsletter/Ezine, private label rights — workathomemom at 6:33 pm on Monday, November 16, 2009

booksWhy you should publish an ezine on the internet is simple. It is very possible for you to make money on the internet without selling any product. One way of doing so is through starting your own eZine.

Basically, you send out your eZine issues on a periodical basis to your subscribers. The best way for you to send out a regular ezine is with an autoresponder. 

An autoresponder, simply sends out your eamils, ezines, reports when ever you schedule them to go out.  You can manually send them on a periodical basis but this requires a whole lot more work.

As an eZine publisher, not only can you easily achieve the benefits a conventional newsletter publisher enjoys without having to chop down several trees in the process.  Sending an ezine over the Internet is convenient and can be delivered exactly when you want it to show up in your customers email box.

Ezines are rather inexpensive to run as you don't have to purchase any expensive printing equipment, brick and mortar business, and no staff to hire just to run your newsletter publication, resulting in a lot of time, money and effort saved.

Basically, all you need to start your own eZine are an auto responder and a computer. Enabling you to reach out to your subscribers whom you can regard as your prospects, too.

All in all, if you do not have the desire or knowledge how to create your own product for sale, then publishing your own online newsletter can be one of the wisest decisions you will ever make, given the benefits of impressive marketing power and influence it can offer to you.


If you don't have materials to publish an ezine you can always buy it. This is a common practice for the big time marketers.  A coupld of places that I can recommend to buy your articles from and won't cost you an arm and a leg are EasyPLR.com, and Allprivatelabelcontent.com.  Both have great stuff, you don't have buy a membership (big savings) and they have well written material.  Check them out when you need new materials for you website or blog.

Remember, keeping your name in front of your customer and prospects is huge. Publishing an ezine will help you to do that.

If you do not already have an autoresponder, I would suggest that you check out the company I use, Aweber.  They have great customer service and they are so very easy to use and set up.  Check them out at Aweber.com

Creative Child Care for WAHMs

Filed under: Balancing it All, Being A WAHM, Child Care, Direct Sales, Home Party plans, Selling and Sales — workathomemom at 6:31 am on Wednesday, October 28, 2009

bigstockphoto_Doing_Homework_Together__159512smaller

If you are a work at home mom (WAHM), you probably became one so you could spend more time with your children.

However, there will most likely be times in your business when you will need to arrange for childcare. The following are some creative solutions to your childcare dilemmas.

WAHMs in direct sales are very often faced with childcare predicaments.

A main portion of their business is conducting sales presentations, usually held at someone else’s home. If you are a party plan WAHM, the most obvious choice would be to schedule these presentations when your partner can watch the children, but what if your partner has an odd work schedule or you are a single parent?

You can hire a local high school student to come to the party and be the “party nanny”. Check with the hostess first, but she will probably love the idea (and so will the other guests – since they won’t have to worry about getting a sitter for their children, they will be more likely to come to the party and the more guests you have, the bigger your profits!).

If you just need an occasional sitter, try setting up a “child care group” with your friends and neighbors. Each woman can designate a time frame on a certain day of the week or month to be “the sitter”.

Any of the Moms in your “child care group” who need a sitter that day can drop their kids of at the “designated sitter’s” house. The children will get to play and interact with one another and each Mom can get free childcare on an “as needed basis”.

Check with your place of worship as they may offer a “Mom’s Day Out” type of program where you can drop your children off for a few hours per day, a couple times per week. This may be a free or low-cost service. Also, check with local library as they may have “story hours” where you can drop your children off and the librarians will read the children a book and after the book is read, the children can participate in a craft, game or activity.

If you just need some “quiet time” to do some work, you can hire a neighborhood teenager to come over and play with the kids while you are tucked away in your office. You will have some uninterrupted “work time”, but will still be there in case ‘something comes up’.

If you have regular meetings that take you away from the house, check with friends and family to see if they can help out by watching the kids. Offer your product or service in exchange for their time. They may jump on the offer!

And don’t feel guilty if you need to put your children in daycare part-time. Yes, you may have had every intention of working at home in order to spend time with your children, but, there may be times when your business will need your total focus.

By taking that time and completing your business tasks, you will be able to focus 100% on your children during family time.

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