Up Another $40 a Month

Since my last update, I've now increased my monthly earnings by a whopping $40 a month (before taxes) by helping with updating a website.

At this rate, I'll be very dead before I make my goal of $3000 a month after taxes.

I have, however, learned a lot on this journey:

1) Don't use your regular email or send your résumé for job postings you find on kijiji or craigslist. Fortunately, I was smart enough to call State Farm after I "got the job" to do data entry at home (They never used the company name until AFTER I had gotten the job). It was very suspicious that they needed to send a technician to my home to set up a printer. Funnily enough, I have no longer gotten any more offers ever since I started emailing first to ask them to email me if they'd like to see my résumé.

2) It's time to start figuring out whether I can contribute to E.I. being "self-employed." BUT, the problem is that you can't get through to E.I. at all. They are too busy to pick up the phone. As for leaving a message? Forget about it.

3) I've now expanded and am considering jobs that require me to leave my house. The criteria:

• Within 5-8km from my house
• Must allow me to be home by 11pm
• 20 hours a week/max (if it's an evening/weekend job) - but I'm a bit flexible with this one!
• If it's a daytime job, it can only be three days a week
• And if it's a daytime job, it has to not only cover babysitting for my littlest one, but it has to make me enough money for it to be worthwhile to leave my baby. Aside from the fact that there are few three-days-a-week jobs, I calculated that I would have to earn between $40/hour AT LEAST to cover childcare costs (for both kids). And guess what? Nobody seems to want to pay $40/hour for a part-time job...

4) I really have no time now that my kids are older, plus I feel like I should be a mom if I'm going to stay home to be a mom (meaning little to no computer use when they're awake). So with about 2-3 hours a day to do online work, that means I'm not getting close to the monetary goal...

5) I thought I could start to build websites. Good work-from-home gig, right? Turns out learning to build a website may take a little longer than I had planned. I've now enrolled in an introductory HTML course. It's good knowledge, but golly gee, I'm definitely not going to be getting paid to build websites any time soon!

6) Becoming an accountant is another big plan of mine. BUT, it seems to be backfiring before I even start. A) I need money to take courses. B) Before you can get an accounting designation, you actually have to get a job doing accounting... for at least TWO YEARS. I don't have two years and I don't want to/can't go back to work full time yet.

7) I was offered an opportunity through a friend on FB, but I really haven't had time to consider it or learn something new like that. I'll have to find some time to look at that to see if it can work!

So the total now? About $265 a month (before taxes). Not even 10% to the goal. HELP! :)