Earning from home

Pervin Malhotra
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Q. I am a mother of two college going boys. I want to utilise my spare time through some home based activity. Can you suggest some suitable options? — Rama Adya

A.The rapid pace of modernisation and economic liberalisation has opened up a variety of interesting and fulfilling self-employment avenues for women for beyond the usual achar-papad routine. Basing your main activity at home, you can choose to specialise in any of the following depending on your academic qualifications, aptitude and skills, training and experience etc.

Giving tuitions, including online teaching, running a catering service or a boutique, offering an infant care facility, salon, counselling, cookery classes, dance/music classes, fitness/aerobics, starting your own home boutique or tailoring outfit, selling insurance or mutual funds, financial planning, network marketing  and digital marketing (Amway, Oriflame, Avon, Tupperware, Modicare, etc).  Another variation is to take up direct calling, pre-sales or tele-marketing.

If you’re enterprising and business minded, you can take up a franchise for running a playschool or beauty parlour or coaching institute, if you have the space and money to invest. A lot of women I know, run successful online businesses.

If you’re computer savvy, you may try your hand at digital marketing, data processing, web page designing, social media promotion, backroom documentation for large firms, creating databases, graphic designing, medical transcription, etc.

You could also take up translation, teaching foreign languages, conversational English, editing or proof reading for publishing houses. E-tutoring is a lucrative option for those with some teaching experience.  If you have good contacts in the corporate sector, you could even run a successful placement service from home.

 With increasing stress levels, and the growing interest in alternative and New Age therapies, you could also learn Reiki, nature cure, yoga or even aerobics, vastu or feng shui, tarot card reading etc from a recognised institution or practitioner.  However, if you intend to teach, you need to go beyond the basics and study or take advanced instructor-level courses. For instance, you must go beyond level 1 and 2 to levels 3 and 4 if you wish to teach or practice Reiki.  The options are endless, but you’ll need to weigh your resources and explore the requirement for your products or services before you begin.