October 20th, 2016
Ever since I decided to leave my full-time position as a College Professor, I have been searching for ways to make money from home. I got to work building a work space in our barn and marketing my services through local networking groups. Working for myself means there are times when money comes flooding in followed by periods of idle waiting for my next client or opportunity. I know there are ways to make my money work for me.
When I heard the expression, multiple sources of income, I was imagining people who own buildings and businesses, those who own condos in gorgeous faraway places, rented most of the time, enjoyed during peak months. I keep remembering all the Monopoly games we played when I was younger where the name of the game was to gain assets and dump liabilities.
However, what I have come to understand is that multiple sources of income doesn't mean you necessarily need to buy real estate or storage facilities, own pinball machines or car washes, you can develop different streams of income based on how you make money right now. This was a revelation to me. As a matter of fact, I discovered that I was already moving in the right direction.
You might be a stay-at-home mom, reading this, thinking it doesn't apply to you but it does. Jot down the activities you do every day. Which ones do you enjoy? Are you really good at something that always impresses friends and family? You may be one of those people whose home is decorated for each season. I love having my house decorated for Christmas and Halloween, Easter and Valentine's Day but I never do it. I don't have it in me. Every year I am daunted by the idea of placing Christmas lights all around the house. I don't do it. What if you decorated other people's homes? People like me would pay you for it. Perhaps you make incredible Halloween costumes for your children or grandchildren. That is a skill. There is usually a handful of popular costumes each season. You take orders and prepare entire batches of them, selling them online or through a local school/day care. Do you spend a huge portion of your week buying groceries? There are plenty of people who are not able to get out of the house: the elderly, moms without cars, individuals recovering from an injury etc. Get other people's groceries and deliver it to their home. A lot of people hate shopping. Advertise your services in time for Christmas. Are you great at getting just the right gift for your loved ones? Apply that skill for others and get paid for it. If you are a mom, you talk to other moms and hear them complain. What are they complaining about? Is there a way to invent a product or service to make a profit by solving their problems?
If you are not a stay-at-home mom and are already employed outside the home, think about the skill set involved in your existing job. If you work as a chef, can you create individualized meals to sell to your neighbours? Is there a secret recipe that your family loves? You can sell it at a local shop. Are you a mechanic? What if you offered courses, Car Care for Dummies on the weekends? If you work as a real estate agent, write a guidebook to help regular people understand the pitfalls to avoid when buying a home. Educate people regarding what to look for during a house inspection. See your knowledge. Perhaps you organize group trips to foreign locations for people who want to invest but have no idea where to look. Regardless of what you do for a living, you can focus on the skills and figure out: 1) Who could benefit from this skill set? and, 2) How can I communicate with this target audience in a way that turns my knowledge into profit?
As I mentioned before, I am an art therapist. I offer workshops, one on one sessions, I speak about my work or its applications with various populations, I write books to use in my workshops and I am developing a digital version of my workshops. In this way, I am expanding the reach of my business by catering to different populations via a variety of mediums. You don't have to be rich to develop many streams of income, you just need to know your worth, find different ways of sharing it with others and get paid for it.
Anne Walsh
www.artsnoul.org
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Home Ownership Course
February 29th, 2016
Today, I was able to return the art that was created by grades 4,5 and 6 at Oxford-on-Rideau Public School. Their art was produced during my workshop on rural poverty and affordable housing in order to raise awareness about these issues in our community. Their flags were displayed at Geronimo Coffee House for the month of February, during the Share the Love campaign. I was very excited to bring the flags back to the school so the students can bring them home and share them with their parents.
During the Share the Love meeting at The Branch Restaurant on February 22nd, Mario Zambonin, the new manager of our ReStore in Kemptville talked about the importance of home ownership and the stability it provided for children. His feedback really made me think. As a child, we moved every 2-3 years and we always rented. I remember feeling that our living arrangements were temporary. I couldn't paint or decorate my walls in a way that might damage the paint. If something broke, we had to call the landlord. Sometimes, if a neighbour wasn't looking after his or her apartment, all of us had to get fumigated due to an infestation in their house. You could hear the neighbours argue. I recall a particular neighbour when I was seven years old. The man beat his girlfriend. She would hit the wall so hard that our apartment shook. It was upsetting to hear him yell at her and to hear her screams as she tried to get away or as she hit the wall. Hearing a grown woman cry was stressful and confusing to me. There is no privacy when you live in a cheaply built apartment.
The cleanliness of the lobby and hallways is up to the building owner. The landscaping and maintenance also reflect decisions made by the building's owner. The same goes for the maintenance of the building's elevators. You can never just take action and get a situation resolved because it's never your place, you're just passing through. As a child, you are aware that you are living among people. You can't jump too hard or too long because there are neighbours downstairs. You can't play your music too long because the neighbours might complain. Bouncing a ball off the wall? Also a bad idea.
When I moved into my first home, I had to learn to be a homeowner. It wasn't just a matter of paying the down payment, setting money aside for taxes or covering the cost of utilities. It didn't occur to me until winter approached that I would need to hire someone to plough our driveway and that, next Spring, I'd need to find someone to mow the lawn. I had no idea there was a filter that needed to be changed for the furnace in the basement. I learned to maintain our home and develop pride of ownership. If there was something I didn't like about our home, I could change it or hire someone to help me. If there was ice on my driveway, I was the one responsible for coating the ice with salt or sand. If something broke, I had to figure out how to fix it or hire someone to do it.
My husband and I now own our second home and I no longer feel trepidation when I decide to paint my walls or hang a shelf. I have learned to tile floors, paint walls and ceilings, use a lawn mower, shovel a driveway, change the furnace filter, replace the water softener and have taxes included in my mortgage so the tax bill doesn't come as one big chunk. People who grew up with home owning parents are used to this but all of it is new to people like me who lived in run down apartments.
As Mario talked about the importance of home ownership, I reflected on this learning and thought it would be worthwhile to teach a Home Ownership course. It's great to help a family become home owners but it's important to ease the transition to new habits and a different mindset to ensure their comfort and success as a home owning family. Just like you adults can benefit from learning about their cars when they earn their license, skills like changing a tire, checking fluids, boosting a battery etc, home owners can learn how to care for, maintain and perform simple fixes to their home. Food for thought!
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
Today, I was able to return the art that was created by grades 4,5 and 6 at Oxford-on-Rideau Public School. Their art was produced during my workshop on rural poverty and affordable housing in order to raise awareness about these issues in our community. Their flags were displayed at Geronimo Coffee House for the month of February, during the Share the Love campaign. I was very excited to bring the flags back to the school so the students can bring them home and share them with their parents.
During the Share the Love meeting at The Branch Restaurant on February 22nd, Mario Zambonin, the new manager of our ReStore in Kemptville talked about the importance of home ownership and the stability it provided for children. His feedback really made me think. As a child, we moved every 2-3 years and we always rented. I remember feeling that our living arrangements were temporary. I couldn't paint or decorate my walls in a way that might damage the paint. If something broke, we had to call the landlord. Sometimes, if a neighbour wasn't looking after his or her apartment, all of us had to get fumigated due to an infestation in their house. You could hear the neighbours argue. I recall a particular neighbour when I was seven years old. The man beat his girlfriend. She would hit the wall so hard that our apartment shook. It was upsetting to hear him yell at her and to hear her screams as she tried to get away or as she hit the wall. Hearing a grown woman cry was stressful and confusing to me. There is no privacy when you live in a cheaply built apartment.
The cleanliness of the lobby and hallways is up to the building owner. The landscaping and maintenance also reflect decisions made by the building's owner. The same goes for the maintenance of the building's elevators. You can never just take action and get a situation resolved because it's never your place, you're just passing through. As a child, you are aware that you are living among people. You can't jump too hard or too long because there are neighbours downstairs. You can't play your music too long because the neighbours might complain. Bouncing a ball off the wall? Also a bad idea.
When I moved into my first home, I had to learn to be a homeowner. It wasn't just a matter of paying the down payment, setting money aside for taxes or covering the cost of utilities. It didn't occur to me until winter approached that I would need to hire someone to plough our driveway and that, next Spring, I'd need to find someone to mow the lawn. I had no idea there was a filter that needed to be changed for the furnace in the basement. I learned to maintain our home and develop pride of ownership. If there was something I didn't like about our home, I could change it or hire someone to help me. If there was ice on my driveway, I was the one responsible for coating the ice with salt or sand. If something broke, I had to figure out how to fix it or hire someone to do it.
My husband and I now own our second home and I no longer feel trepidation when I decide to paint my walls or hang a shelf. I have learned to tile floors, paint walls and ceilings, use a lawn mower, shovel a driveway, change the furnace filter, replace the water softener and have taxes included in my mortgage so the tax bill doesn't come as one big chunk. People who grew up with home owning parents are used to this but all of it is new to people like me who lived in run down apartments.
As Mario talked about the importance of home ownership, I reflected on this learning and thought it would be worthwhile to teach a Home Ownership course. It's great to help a family become home owners but it's important to ease the transition to new habits and a different mindset to ensure their comfort and success as a home owning family. Just like you adults can benefit from learning about their cars when they earn their license, skills like changing a tire, checking fluids, boosting a battery etc, home owners can learn how to care for, maintain and perform simple fixes to their home. Food for thought!
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
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