Supplementing your farm income
There are many ways to supplement your farm income but the biggest issue is finding something which works with your farming lifestyle. Many folks take temporary part time or full time positions during winter months then leave when the growing season starts back up. Others work their land in the day then commute to a part time position in the evening (which sounds exhausting to me.) However, there is a third often overlooked option: supplementing farm income through legitimate online gigs or part-time “virtual” employment.
Working from home, whether part-time or just as gig work can help to supplement your income and keep you from spending part of that hard-earned money on gas to get to work.
But what do I mean by “gig” work? Gig work is typically something that you’re able to do whenever you want to. You select a project/gig to complete and only get paid once you complete it. This can include online video transcription, audio transcription, writing articles, or even reviewing websites. Gig work doesn’t tend to pay much and is not really something you can live off of (unless we’re talking professional freelance gig work and that’s a whole different animal.)
On the other hand, if you have chunks of time available during your day, you might consider part time, virtual employment. Most of these part time positions require a solid internet and/or phone connection and at least 4-8 hours of work. With most part time employment, it’s just like working part time at a physical location —except you’re working from home. You would have a set workload and a certain time frame (or shift) which you would work.
A lot of people picture work from home employees as lounging around in their PJ’s while they sneak in a load of laundry or some dishes. The reality is that if you work a full time or part time job from home, you’re expected to get dressed and focus on work during your whole shift. Another misconception is that you can watch your kids while working from home. Unless it’s gig work or you have the quietest kid on the planet, that’s also not really feasible. Most work from home positions are customer service related and require a quiet environment. Imagine if you called customer service only to have someone helping you who had a screaming child in the background? Not really conducive to keeping happy customers.
For a full or part time, work from home position, the smartest thing to do is to have a dedicated space for it. This could be a full home office or simply a desk set in a corner so that you can focus on work. Try not to work in rooms where there is a tv or other similar distractions. And lastly, expect to perform work just like you would if you were working at a physical company location.
Check out the opportunities below to see if any are a good fit for you!
Gig Type Work
Rev
Transcription, Captioning, and/or Translating
https://www.rev.com/freelancers
UserTesting
Website review
https://www.usertesting.com/be-a-user-tester
Part Time Work from Home
U-Haul (Customer Service/Sales)
(This is just one job listing. There are others under the Call Center job search tab that are listed as work from home.)
TeleTech (Customer Service)
https://www.ttecjobs.com/en-US/page/work-from-home
HSN (Customer Service – has specific location requirements)
https://jobs.hsn.com/category/work-at-home-jobs/565/30405/1
A free source for both of these types of jobs (and more) is www.ratracerebellion.com