How I got here, the story of how this blog came to be.

Once upon a time, I had no kids and no problem getting up for work in the morning and heading into the office to work 8-10 hours. I had wads of disposable income and could afford to buy the things I wanted not just the things I needed. This of course changes after children enter the picture. After the birth of my first child things weren't too bad. I found a wonderful daycare facility and continued to work at a job I loved. Things were a little more hectic and I couldn't afford all things as I wanted; but I was fine with that since it seems priorities change after becoming a mom. When my son turned two we found out we were expecting our second child. At first I was a little nervous at the prospect of adding another child to the mix, but quickly became excited at the thought of our new little one. Then the unthinkable happened. When I was six month pregnant I was informed that the company I was working for had purchased another company and was relocating my department to a corporate office half way across the country. As if that wasn't bad enough, they were keeping the majority of the staff from this acquired company and there would only be a limited number of positions available for the people in my department who were interested in relocating to apply for. I nearly went into labor right then and there. I loved my job and was well on my way up the corporate ladder; however moving was not an option for my family. I am close to my parents and in-laws and I couldn't bear the thought of my children growing up without really knowing their grandparents because, lets face it...they won't be around forever.

Luckily I had time to prepare...I was told that I would be able to continue my employment for nearly a year before I would be officially laid off and given a generous severance and retention package. So I continued through my pregnancy, went on maternity leave and by the time all that was over I had five months to land a new job. I went on interview after interview and quickly realized that I would in no way be able to replace my existing income. With now having two children in daycare there was no way I could afford a pay cut and still keep food on the table. By the time I paid for all the expenses related to going to work (gas, lunch, daycare) I would have nothing left over. So I started looking into the world of work at home jobs figuring if I had to take a pay cut I could at least save $13-15K/year by not having all those expenses I just mentioned.

I explored the typical mom things...selling make-up, selling kitchen supplies, but I am not so good at those types of things since I don't wear much make-up and I don't particularly enjoy being in the kitchen (until I had kids I was never in the kitchen). Also, I didn't want to be harassing my friends and family to host "parties" and buy overpriced items when suitable substitutes are available from pretty much all the local department stores and usually cost much less. Then next thing I looked into was some of the work from home ads that I was constantly bombarded with while surfing the internet.

Wouldn't that be great? I could make a bundle of money with minimal effort and a couple of hours a day while staying home with the kids. Well let me just tell you that after wasting a lot of time and money I was disgusted, 99% of these so called jobs are actually scams and I fell for it. I tried again and again, always believing the good in people, while my pending unemployment loomed closer and closer. Finally I got FED UP! I decided to get to the bottom of these scams and find out if there were actually any legitimate program offerings out there.

First I did a simple web searches, for "work at home" and other related search tearms and holy crap! The list was endless (lucky for me those last five months of work were spent mostly sitting at my desk waiting for the phone to ring). I started contacting these companies one by one. I told them that I was going to be coming into some serious money (not a lie) and was looking to buy my way into a business partnership. A couple of these guys shot me down completely, but mostly they were happy to have someone interested in investing in their “organization.” I managed to talk my way into getting access to their member’s areas so that I could see what I would be “investing” in. I was disgusted with 99% of what I found. Many of these jerks actually boasted about how many suckers bought their useless programs. Having already been a victim of these types of scams, I was appalled that these guys were laughing all the way to the bank. I repeatedly found:

· Outdated information
· Non-working links
· Links leading to other sites asking for more money
· Help sections that were useless or no help section at all
· No email support (one guy said he hadn’t checked the email account listed in over 6 MONTHS!)

Obviously I didn’t invest into a partnership with these scammers (in fact I am still dodging calls and emails from a few). I did however find a small number of companies that are worth the small membership fees they charge to get someone started making money at home either through surveys, data entry etc. etc. I am continuing to do my research and will post these opportunities as I find them.

Also, if anyone out there would like help finding out information about a particular company let me know. I will let you know if I have checked them out and what I know about them.