Work from home jobs can help with bills and pay off debt

For many years now, a so called "work from home" job that paid anywhere from $9 to $20 per hour has been little more than a wild dream. But that may no longer be true anymore.

Suddenly, even in this slowing economy, many corporations are actually "recruiting" work-at-home employees.

A big reason being that most of these employees are not getting benefits, (so no medical bills), they do not require expensive office space (so no high rent), and these employees will usually come with their own equipment like computers, phones, and printers.

Take Lori Lincoln as an example. The home is both where Lincoln's family is located and it is also where her office is. The commute for this mother of two is literally just up the stairway, and then go around the corner to get to her in home office.

 

 

 

Lori is in a work from job that comes with starting pay of $9 to $14 per hour, which goes a long way towards paying bills, and it involves her answering phones for about 20 hours a week for a company that offers seminars to business professionals. Her role is called a "call center professional."

I tell them the hours that I'm available to work from home during certain days of the week, and then from that, they will go ahead and provide my schedule, Lincoln said.

Pam Hill is another that also works from home. Her office colleagues are the family cat and the family bird. Pam is a coach for a large team of other at-home workers, and this is a position that pays her about $20 an hour and more. Her official job title is "customer care coach."

You get paid for your breaks, you are provided a lunch break and you are also allowed the personal time. And then you can walk away from it all as well and that too is really nice, said Hill.

Both of these women are part of an at-home work network that was sewn together by Alpine Access.

Alpine Access is what is called a virtual call center. These means that all of our customer service representatives work from their home and they receive inbound calls from our clients customers, said Remi Weber, who is the recruitment manager for Alpine Access.

This work from home company is currently looking to hire from 200 to 300 people. Applicants can apply on-line at www.alpineaccess.com.

However, Alpine Access is not the only work from home agency that is looking for employees.

There are many other good opportunities for work at home employment.

In addition, many people are having success with online survey companies, there are other opportunities, such as writing online articles as there is an ongoing need for unique website content.

Mary Susan Costa is a work-at-home agent for another company that is called Working Solutions. She provides other data entry agents and call center agents to companies looking to hire for work at home opportunities.

 

 

 

We have medical based projects, we have technical support projects. We also have some some data entry projects that involve either keying information into a personal computer or validating information over the Internet, Costa said. Costa said many need the extra income to help pay debts and bills.

What is the starting pay for someone new to this field?

Our work from home employees generally earn between nine and $12 an hour, she said. There is no commute, and there is not a requirement that employees need to dress up, have your clothes dry cleaned, or go out to lunch, so since employees do not have these expenses, they save on those bills. You can apply online at www.workingsolutions.com.

Finally, as the last example, there is Laura Hoffer, who also works at home to get help on bills. She schedules home repairs.

I set up repaid service and calls for people when their appliances break down, said Hoffer.

She is also a work-at-home expert who runs a blog called "The Work from Home Mother," which you can find at, momslikeme.com.

The blog and the jobs listed on the blog do not carry any fees. Hoffer says that the lack of fees is your first clue if any "work-at-home" offer is legit.  You should not have to pay for any job that you apply for, she said.

Usually if a job offer requires you to pay a fee up front, it is not a legitimate work from home job offer.

Hoffer says you can and need to check sites like careerbuilder.com, job.com and monster.com for “work-at-home”. But she also warns that they will often unwittingly post the jobs that aren't legitimate as well.