Road to Becoming A Work-At-Home Mom

For the past 6 months, I have been working my way on a career as a home-based working mom. This has been one of my sidelines since I’m still working in my husband’s family business. But as all things change, Kelsea will soon be studying (that’s next school year) so we are already preparing what our set-up will be. It is our choice from the start not to get a nanny for Kelsea as long as we can still handle taking care of her. This has been very challenging since we are also maintaining our home. And that includes cleaning, cooking and more chores. Hubby and I finally decided that on October, I will officially be a work-at-home mom. I will be concentrating on my work as a Virtual Assistant. It will be a practice phase for us in order to adapt smoothly for next year. That will also mean I have to work more on night shift (which is currently happening also so imagine the no. of hours of sleep I still have) when Kelsea’s already asleep. I still need to think about how I’ll be able to sleep for a few hours on day time since I’ll be attending to Kelsea and our house. 

Now let’s talk about this home-based work. Late 2010, I decided to attend Jomar Hilario’s Virtual Assistant Seminar. I learned a lot from this seminar and at the same time there is an exclusive Facebook group for all the attendees to help each other out. From there, I realized that it is feasible to work at home. Just as long as you’re hard-working enough to look for gigs (means jobs/projects online) and improve your skills and eventually build a career. 

Where do virtual assistants look for work? The most popular platform is oDesk. Others are Freelancer, Elance and Onlinejobs. Since March 2011, I was already using oDesk to look for jobs. It takes a lot of patience to finally get a gig since the competition is very tight. That’s why you have to build your profile and portfolio. Fortunately, my first gig arrived after a month. It was a short-term project so I looked and looked for additional gigs. The following have been the types of work I was able to get:

There are lots of work available online. I wish I could get an IT job online for a greater pay but unfortunately I can’t since my experience was only as a mainframe programmer. Online IT jobs include Networking, Web Development and Software Development (PC-Based). In order to level up with my previous salary as a Programmer or my current salary as an Admin Assistant, I need to get a number of short-term gigs or a full-time one. And raise my per hour rate!

Last July, I was able to find a long-term gig as a Virtual Assistant making newsletters/landing pages and as a Social Media Marketer. I think this is the work I have been waiting for. My employer is an American but the Training Manager is a Filipina and also from Cavite 🙂 I’m positive that this is it! What’s good about it from the start is the paid training. Newbies like me are trained for 3 months and will be under probationary. It requires a maximum of 30hrs/wk which can increase into 40hrs/wk when already in the permanent position. I love the type of job I’m doing and enjoying learning new things online. According to our Training Manager, I’m doing quite well. I just hope I can keep that up and make a career on this. The pay is somewhat a little low for now so I’m hoping to reach the permanent position for the increase. But still, a little more income from short-term projects will be much helpful for added income.

That’s one of the positive side of online work. You can have as many work as you can as long us you can commit to the number of hours required and can deliver on time. You just have to prioritize. On the other hand, downside is there are no fringe benefits. No health insurance, no SSS/Pag-ibig/Philhealth contributions (although you can always pay voluntary), etc. Anybody thinking about this will just to weigh the pros and cons.

I didn’t expect that I won’t be practicing my profession as an Engineer/Programmer. I should have taken Business Management or an Entrepreneurial course ‘coz that’s where I’m leading to now. But I have no regrets since I met my lifetime partner in college. Those formulas and derivations will now be put into a different application. I guess, as  long as we live, we are leading towards the path where we will be much happier and concentrate on our priorities in life, which for me is FAMILY.

Wish me luck!