Lisa Works From Home

Schedule your own hours, be your own boss, earn great money while still balancing your family…… all this sounds wonderful but is it really a dream come true to work at home?  Well in my case, absolutely!  I love the flexibility of scheduling my own hours each week and my job working around my family and farm schedule.  For my situation, there are really no drawbacks but I can understand where for others, there just might be.  Here are some things to remember about working from home.

• Most of the time, you’re not an employee.  As an Independent Contractor you are responsible for your own income taxes and your contract is not guaranteed, meaning either party can cancel it at any time for any reason.  As you search around the internet you’re going to see others warning new contractors to always have back up eggs in the basket - take that sentiment seriously!  As much as I enjoy working with LiveOps, I have two other projects as well (bound by confidentiality so I can’t share them with you here) so that should something happen with my contractor status at LiveOps, I can continue to earn money while I work it out.

• There’s rarely a “set schedule”.  This can be a huge benefit but it can also be a thorn since it’s entirely up to you to set and WORK your schedule.  If you’re not motivated enough to set and keep that schedule, you will find yourself falling short of income goals - which defeats the purpose of working at home.

• You need to make some investments.  As you’re not an employee, any equipment or software purchases will likely be your responsibility.  There are some companies that provide this for you but not all of them.  You’ll most likely need a high-speed internet connection, great memory space on your hard drive, latest versions of popular software, and a separate land-line business phone.  I also recommend a comfortable headset so you can type while on the phone. 

• You need organizational skills.  You are in charge of your at home business so you need to keep it organized - for yourself and for the tax man.  You’ll be eligible for a home office deduction so you need to keep track of all those business expenses like equipment and mileage.  This deduction can be a great benefit to you, but please take the advice of your tax preparer when you start working at home.

• “It’s not fair!”  Let’s face it, there are times in the workplace when supervisors make exceptions to the rule because of extenuating circumstances.  Well, most likely, you won’t find that in contracting to work at home and you need to know that right up front.  For example, my LiveOps contract states that I cannot have any background noise and that includes barking dogs, arguing children, neighing horses, moo-ing cows, and crowing roosters.  It’s not my fault  that these creatures sometimes get noisy but I have taken every precaution to soundproof my office because if it does happen, I could lose my contract - fair or not.  This is my responsibility  and I would have no recourse should LiveOps end my contract because of background noise.

• Friends and family may not understand.  When you’re a stay at home mom you seem to get called from the school to volunteer a lot, don’t you?  Well, what else do you have to do!  That does seem to be the mentality and you’ll find it when you tell others you work from home.  It’s very easy to volunteer to babysit a friend’s children or run those errands for a family member because you do have that flexibility most of the time.  It takes willpower and strength to know when you should use that flexibility and when to decline because you need to work.  Trust me, it can be a tough balance.

If it sounds like working from home could be an option for you, I encourage you to visit the links for credible companies from this site and apply.  Most of them will be part-time which would allow you to begin working with them while still keeping another job until you find out for sure if this is right for you.

Team Double-Click contracts Virtual Assistants and matches them with projects.  These projects could range from typing documents, answering phones, or any other office-type work.  VA’s are independent contractors and, although I’ve not contracted with them, I can tell you this is a legitimate work from home opportunity as I met the President, Gayle Buske, in NYC for the Fox Morning Show.  Gayle and I spent the afternoon sightseeing in the City together and she is a wonderful person.  I hope to get a contract with them soon but if anyone has worked with them, please do email me your story and I’ll include it here for others.

The first thing you need to know about WSol is that it will most likely take a LONG time to get a contract - the wait is 1.5-2 yrs (yes, YEARS) on average.  WSol tends to handle more customer service, especially travel industry, calls and I was offered a project last fall.  As for the company, I can tell you that it’s a credible work at home gig with great support.  As for my personal experience, well that leaves something to be desired.

The project I was offered was of a new type for WSol and, in my opinion, the client was basically an MLM and pyramid scam.  Unfortunately we were asked to do things that were in the grey area of the law and I resigned from the project earlier this year.  Don’t let this one experience sour you on this company as I know many agents that have worked with them for years and rave about how wonderful WSol is.  And I haven’t either, I’d gladly take another project with them.

West is a little different in that the agents are actual employees, rare in the work from home world.  I contracted with them before they made the switch to employees and was a customer service representative for a cell phone company.  My experience with the company and training was very positive but the cell phone client soon began routing all calls to their call centers in India so I lost my contract.  I have a friend who made the switch to employee status and enjoys working for the company very well. 

Updated!  In the winter of 2009 of I began working for West again, this time as an employee and I really enjoy it.  The training time was paid (because you’re an employee) and the staff was fantastic.  As far as the hiring process and training, this company is top-notch.  And the pay isn’t bad either.  It’s a little lower than other companies where you’re an independent contrator, but it’s an hourly wage rather then commission or talk time and they take taxes out so I don’t have to worry about that. 

West has lots of different clients and quite a few of them are separated into their own special line, including training and support staff.  For example, it’s possible to work with West and only take calls for a home shopping company or a particular cell phone provider.  I absolutely love the line I was selected for and other than falling short on hours (VERY difficult to get and sometimes they just POOF! disappear) it’s a great line.  I highly recommend West!

This company is hands down my favorite - LOVE it!  I’ve contracted with LiveOps for nearly two years and can’t say enough good things about the company.  Here’s a summary of how it works.

• Go to their website and click “become and agent”
• Submit a phone test
• Authorize and send a check in for your own background check
• Receive logins and begin taking some product quizzes
• Pass the tests and start taking calls by logging in to the system
• Schedule time in half hour increments, as little or as much as you’d like

That’s pretty much it!  LiveOps takes calls for a lot of the most popular infommercial products and the scream pops up with the product the customer is wanting to purchase.  It is really that simple! 

Agents are paid by the minute while on the phone and stats do matter with this company so make sure you follow the terms of your contract and keep those stats up.

If you’d told me two years ago that I would be able to quit Walmart and make not only enough to cover my part time job there but actually MORE than I was making as an assistant manager (minus daycare and fuel) well I would have put you in contact with my broker to buy my swampland in Arizona.  If you’re like me, you like real figures and since I’m all about real-ness, here’s mine.

I grossed $40,000 per year at Walmart and I paid for family coverage health insurance ($2,000 deductible and a bunch of other add on charges with a 20% co-pay on Rx — totally NOT great insurance) while claiming zero on income withholding.  Bi-weekly I brought home $1,007.69 so we’ll call that $2,000/month.  I realize there’s two extra checks per year in there but there’s also a proportionate amount of my two largest payments coming out of them, namely daycare and fuel, so they weren’t really extra.  Here’s what it looked like:

• $2,000 each month
• - 440.00 Vincent daycare
• - 250.00 After school program for Darren and Kenny
• - 300.00 My fuel
• $1010.00 Net after just daycare and fuel during school

The after school program for the boys would be significantly higher during holidays and school in-service days when they attended all day so that figure is conservative and more likely to be closer to $300.00 each month.  And that’s just during the school months.  During summer it gets even better:

• $2,000 each month
• - 440.00 Vincent daycare
• - 600.00 Summer program Darren and Kenny
• - 200.00 Activity fees, field trips, swimming lessons, etc
• - 300.00 My fuel
• $460.00 Net PER MONTH after daycare and fuel

Yeah that’s right, I was working 65-80 hours each week and suffering through a two hour commute each day for a whopping hundred something a week.  When I look at the cold hard truth of the matter, now that I’ve had a decent night’s sleep, well to be honest my head hurts.  Granted, there’s some other factors here - Vincent will be in half day kindy next year, Darren will be able to stay home in a few years, and my salary would have gone up each spring.  But bottom line….. aint that sad?  And that’s not even counting all the extra expenses of me working like my lunches out because of no time to make something at home.  Even at $3.00 or less those add up quickly and when I worked 18-20 hr days I’d have two or even three meals at the store.  Ed did all the cooking (if you could call it that) which consisted of primarily processed ready meals, frozen pizza, and chicken nuggets.  You can only imagine the state of our food budget, not to mention our health.  If I really had the time and several bottles of wine along with a good friend to hold the tissue I’ll bet I could go through the previous year’s checks and find that not only did I not make any money, I’m willing to place a $20 bet that in fact it COST me to work.  Hell in the stress level alone I paid dearly.

Now you can imagine why going to part-time evening cashiering wasn’t much of a step down for me.  I basically didn’t lose any money but got to have much less stress.   So I stepped down as a Manager and went to part-time cashiering which meant I was away from home five nights a week from 6:00-11:30pm.  When I heard of at home agents running their own business with a call center in a home office I figured it was a scam.  After researching and hanging out at several sites I learned that it had possibilities.  I signed up with LiveOpsand several weeks later began to take my certification quizzes.  LiveOps routes incoming calls for infommerials so this isn’t telemarketing or cold-calling. 

My first checks were small as I was only spending a few hours on the weekends taking calls - the busiest time for agents, even busier than the prime time of third shift.  After a weekend off from Walmart I wondered just what kind of potential there was for weekend income and bumped up my hours to about six that Saturday and Sunday.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that with bonuses I made $70 Saturday and $97 Sunday.  Not only that, I was sitting in my pj’s having lunch with my family on my breaks and kept up with the laundry those days as well.  I never had to leave the house and I nearly doubled my pay from Walmart.  This was a Good Thing.

After a few months I realized that there’s no limit to the potential of earning money with LiveOps or a number of other WAH companies so I quit Walmart (for a lot of other reasons as well).  Ed obtained insurance from his employer which actually provides a normal policy for less money than Walmart’s (our monthly Rx bill alone went from $360 to $20).  You can see why my goal of $800 each month is set because if I made that I would be averaging my salary from Walmart.  I’m pleased to say that I’ve more than doubled that goal in the past weeks.  I’ve tried several different strategies for my scheduling to maintain a high call volume while meeting the needs of my family, home, and farm.  I cannot believe how amazing this is and I thank my stars I found LiveOps every morning - as I’m making my 20 second commute in my manure covered boots or even pj’s with my cup of coffee preparing to work.

Now there are issues at ANY place you work, and LiveOps is not immune.  First and foremost I’m not an employee, I’m a contractor and will be provided with a 1099 which means I need to file self-employment taxes.  In addition, I had to accept these facts:

• We had to install and maintain a completely separate phone line for LiveOps work
• I am required to have DSL or cable internet, no dial-up or satellite
• I paid $30.00 for my own background check (I believe it’s $50 now)
• There are traditional benefits vacation or insurance
• If I don’t work, I don’t get paid - even if I lose electricity or something out of my control
• There can be absolutely no background noise at all - kids, dogs, doorbells, nothing
• My call volume is determined by my ranking which means attendance, sales, and a host of other factors.  If I don’t perform I won’t get call volume and will have few calls.

On the other hand:

• I am totally 100% in charge of my schedule - third shift this week, a week off, early morning hours next week, 20 this week, 50 next week, all that is up to ME
• No daycare whatsoever, I’m home for my family
• I work one hour before everyone wakes up then get them off to work and school.  Vincent watches a movie or cartoons while I work another two hours and bing, bang I’m done for the day.
• I work 4-5 hours each Saturday and 6-7 each Sunday because of bonuses and call volume.  I’ve doubled my Walmart net as an assistant doing this, even after self-employment taxes. 
• Increasing just a small amount each day and a couple hours on the weekends brought me nearly $900 this pay period.  That’s for TWO WEEKS, not four.  Christmas is paid for, with cash and some to spare.
• During low call volume I surf, play games, or figure bills so I’m not wasting my time
• The lowest I made was $9.00 once.  Once.  I average $13-$18/hr.