10 Benefits of Freelancing for Stay-at-Home Moms

There are many benefits of freelancing for Stay-at-Home Moms and it is a great option for making the transition from SAHM to WAHM (Work-at-Home Mom).

I’ve spent the past 15 years as a WAHM and for almost the past decade, I’ve been a full-time freelancer. (I transitioned from being a blogger to being a freelancer.) Freelancing has been an incredible gift to our family. It’s honestly changed our lives.

Within 8 months of starting to freelance, I was able to retire my husband as I had leveled off my career to a solid, six-figure yearly income. He has been a stay-at-home dad since then and I have been the sole breadwinner for our family of 7. Because of freelancing, our family has had enormous freedoms to be able to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.

For example, last summer we took a 21-day road trip and I was able to work the whole time. It was fantastic! It was an incredible bonding experience for our family and it’s just not something we would have ever been able to do with a traditional job.

10 Benefits of Freelancing for Stay-at-Home Moms

I decided to start freelancing to help boost our family’s bottom line. At the time, my goal was to make just an extra $300 per month to keep a mother’s helper that we’d been gifted with for the first 6 weeks after our youngest was born. I didn’t realize just how much opportunity existed though.

Once I really dug in to the freelancing world, I was surprised to find out just how easy it was to earn a realistic, legitimate, full-time income from home.

On top of that, I discovered an incredible number of benefits associated with freelancing, especially as a stay-at-home, work-at-home mom.

Here’s my list of the Top 10 Benefits of Freelancing for Stay-at-Home Moms:

1. There is a lot of opportunity within the freelancing space.
2. Freelancing has a low barrier of entry. 
3. There are many ways to find clients. 
4. Virtually anyone can do it – you don’t need any previous experience.
5. There are no upfront expenses or special trainings that you need. 
6. You get to choose where and when you work. 
7. You can be picky about the projects that you work on – you don’t have to take on every client that comes your way.
8. You get to set your own rates.
9. You get to learn new skills. 
10. You have the ability to pivot without negatively affecting your overall career.

1. There is a lot of opportunity within the freelancing space

This statement has never been more true than it is today. Almost every company out there – from Fortune 100 companies to small startups – are now using freelancers to round out their staff. 

I’ve worked with some really large companies. I’ve also worked with lots of startups. It’s just incredible how many people out there are hiring freelancers. As we as a society transition to having more people in virtual work environments and more people working from home, that opportunity is just going to continue to expand. 

So there’s never been a better time then right now to start freelancing. Unless you started 5 or 6 years ago because that was pretty sweet too. 

If you’ve been considering making the jump and you’re not sure if freelancing is something that’s going to be around for a long time, let me assure you — it is. Now’s the time to jump in!

2. Freelancing has a low barrier of entry. 

Freelancing typically does not require you to have in-person interviews or to fly somewhere for on-the-job training. 

To kick off your freelance career, you set up a profile on one of the freelancing platforms, you set up your own website, and/or you leverage social media for networking to find new clients. Maybe you do some cold emailing. Whatever it is, you can start the day not being a freelancer and end the day being a freelancer. Honestly, in just a couple of hours you can start your career as a freelancer.

3. There are many ways to find clients. 

I began my freelancing a career by utilizing a platform called oDesk. Since I began finding clients through there, they merged with another freelancing platform (Elance) to form the platform currently known as Upwork.

Since January of 2010, I’ve earned nearly $400,000 on Upwork alone. And that platform is just about 1/3 of my client base and income.

I’ll admit that there are a few drawbacks associated with Upwork. There are people that don’t love it and I don’t blame them. It definitely isn’t my favorite client-finding method, but it’s absolutely a good way to get yourself out there, especially when you’re just getting started. 

There are also many other freelancing platforms which you can leverage for building your client base. Some of these are:

• Freelancer
• Fiverr
• HireMyMom
• PeoplePerHour
• Toptal (this one is great, but not for beginning freelancers)
• Guru
• 99designs (specifically for graphic design freelancers)
• Kolabtree (for Phd. scientists and researchers looking for freelance work)

Beyond the freelancing-specific platforms, there are also numerous places to look for freelancing or remote job opportunities.  

For example, I found one of my earliest freelancing jobs on Craigslist. It was for for a local pet store that was launching a new website. They were going to be selling online products and they needed somebody to write all of the copy for their sales pages. It was great work for a great client and it was all entirely remote even though the business was just 5 miles from my home.

Indeed.com is another great optional for finding freelance work. Although it is also a more traditional job-listing site, it has plenty of opportunities for moms that want to work at home. 

One of my favorite tips when searching on Indeed is to simply put “Remote” in the “Where” category and have the system filter just the remote job opps for you. Do this and you’ll likely get thousands of options. 

A few other options to explore include:

• Remote.com
• Remote.co
• Angel.co
• CrunchBoard
• LinkedIn Jobs

As with everything, you do need to be on alert for scams no matter which platform you use. A little common sense goes a long way here. If something in your gut tells you this could be a scam, stay away. But don’t let that concern keep you from getting out there and just looking to see what’s available. Look at all of the ones that look legit and check them out. You honestly have nothing to lose.

Additionally, you can create your own website and branded social media accounts where you list the services you offer. Use those social media accounts for networking and start sharing the link to your website everywhere. This is a longer-play option but it works fantastically well for building a successful, sustainable business. You just have to be willing to put in the time and effort to get it off the ground, just like any other business.

Utilizing the platforms will lead to securing clients more quickly than building your own freelance business, so keep that in mind as you get started. There’s no reason why you can’t do both at the same time!

#4 – Virtually anyone can become a freelancer

This is for real – anyone can be a freelancer! When my oldest daughter was 15, she helped with some client work and could have easily started a successful freelancing career at that point. The computer, writing and math skills she’d learned in school by that point were more than enough for her to do all kinds of virtual assistant type work.

If concern over your skillset (or lack thereof) is holding you back from branching out into freelancing, trust me when I say — You don’t need any special experience to be a freelancer. 

There are so many different types of freelancing jobs that something in your background will equip you to do that as a freelancer. You can be a freelance graphic designer, a freelance copywriter, a social media manager. For that, if you hang out on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest and you know what you’re doing, you can be a social media manager for a company. You can do data entry, customer service, internet research… the options just go on and on. If you know how to Google something, you can be a freelancer. Seriously!

Think about what you love to do and some of your passions. Then just start looking to see what kind of jobs are out there that could align with those things. 

If you really like to take photos, great! You don’t need to be a professional photographer. Create a profile on Upwork and look for people that are hiring for people to create posts on social media for them. You can take pictures that you turn into social media posts. 

Honestly, there just countless points of entry into the world of freelancing. Your level of experience, skillset, and knowledge is only limited by your imagination.

#5 – No upfront expenses or special training needed for freelancers

There are no upfront expenses required to become a freelancer. It can be as simple and putting a simple resume together and replying to job opportunities you find on some of the job boards. The only investment required there is time.

You also don’t need any special degrees or certifications to become a freelancer. There are some higher-paying jobs and/or clients that look for someone with an appropriate degree, but there are also just as many jobs (if not more) that don’t require one. 

For example, you could specialize yourself as a virtual assistant. VA jobs will require things such as responding to emails, doing some internet research, maybe managing somebody’s social media accounts or overseeing some other staff that they’ve hired as freelancers to do other things.But, you don’t need to be certified to become a virtual assistant. 

You also don’t need to be certified to be a freelance writer or copywriter. It helps if, say, you have an English degree — great! — but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be making more than somebody that doesn’t. It’s all in how you present yourself, the opportunities that you go after, and the way you interact with clients.

You can just as easily get a high-paying job with no experience and no college degree as somebody that has both of those things. It all comes back to you.

Hopefully this in-depth exploration of these first 5 benefits of freelancing has opened your eyes to all of the potential and possibilities. Becoming a freelancer is an incredible opportunity to positively impact your life, your family’s life, and your finances. It is a fantastic option to quickly and successfully transition from stay-at-home mom (SAHM) to work-at-home mom (WAHM).

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series on The 10 Benefits of Freelancing for Stay-at-Home Moms.

In the meantime, reserve your spot in my FREE masterclass that will explore 3 secrets of becoming a work-at-home mom and help you kickstart your career as a WAHM.  

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